I sit at my window, gazing out at the silvery dome of the gravity room where my father spends so much of his time.

I hate my father.  If I can even call him that.  Biologically I cannot dispute it.  Every time I look in the mirror I see his face in mine, softened by the colours of my mother's hair and eyes.

I hate the way I look.  So does he.  For I am flawed, a living reminder of his own weaknesses.  I am no more than half Saiyajin, no more than half the warrior my father is.  My blood is contaminated with that of a human's.  That my father allowed me to live was a mistake, a failing on his part - and he knows it.  I can see it in his eyes every time he looks at me: disgust and bitter hatred mingle as he decides whether or not to kill me this time.  Each time he walks away; each time so far.

I keep wondering when he will finally snap, and what exactly it is that holds him back.  Perhaps he hopes that I will begin to show the qualities that redeemed my mother from being just one more pitifully weak human.  Her intelligence was a wonder on this tiny backwater planet.  I can remember her showing me wonders when I was a child, the inventions that she designed delighting me as nothing else could.  I would show them to Goten, bursting with pride that my mother could work such miracles of metal with her own hands and mind.  He would be even more awe-stricken than I, and I would explain carefully how each device worked.  I don't think that Goten ever really understood most of the explanations, but he was always willing to listen.  But my explanations were never as good as Kaasan's.  They never could be: she was brilliant, I'm not.  It's as simple as that.

I could never match her talent with machines, just as I could never match Otousan as a warrior.  I am all their weaknesses and none of their strengths.  I am now, and always will be, a failure, a disappointment to them both.  Kaasan didn't seem to mind all that much.  Whenever disaster befell my doomed experiments, she would always smile, hug me, and promise to help me next time.  But there will be no more 'next times' now, for Kaasan is gone.  Only Otousan remains - and he has made his feelings on the subject quite clear.

Most of the time he acts as though I do not exist - which is fine with me.  For when he does notice me, it is with disdain and contempt.  He spars with me sometimes, but each time simply drives home the fact the I can never live up to his expectations of me.

I sometimes wonder what Mirai Trunks was like: how he was different from me, and what my father thought of him.  I know he liked him more than he likes me.  Not that that's saying much.  But he was angry when Mirai Trunks died: angry enough to attack Cell without thought or care for the consequences.  If I died he'd be relieved.

What makes me so different from him?  The same genes make up our bodies - but we have had very different childhoods.  I had both my parents, he only had one.  I have Goten as my best friend, he only ever had Gohan.  I grew up in a peaceful world, he in one driven to the brink of destruction.  His life was so much harsher than mine.  Perhaps it made him colder, harder - more like Otousan, more like a true Saiyajin warrior.

I wonder what his childhood was like.  I doubt that I will ever know.  Like the silvery dome where he spends so much time, his outward appearance shows nothing of the pressures within.  It makes a dangerous trap for the unwary.
 

I wave goodbye to Goten as he flies off to school.  I refuse to attend on the basic principle that it is a waste of both my time and the teachers'.  I am not a scholar like Gohan, nor will I ever be.  Neither will Goten, but his mother insists he makes the effort.  He only goes to please her.  I suppose I try to please my own mother, too, by studying her engineering books and journals.  Fortunately, she is not around to see the mess I have made of her workshop.  She does not have to see my failures, as Chichi must see Goten's.  But we both try, we really do.

I head towards my workshop - yes, mine, for now after five years I have gradually replaced almost all of Kaasan's touches.  It hurt to remove some of her inventions, but most I did not have the skill to complete, or repair.  Instead, I have filled the room with my little projects, 'tinkering' away as Obaasan once called it.  Before she died.

Everyone dies.  It's a fact of life: if you're born, you must die.  Eventually, anyway.  Mostly.  I wonder if Juunanagou and his sister will die, someday.  They were engineered by Dr Gero, rather than being born; but they were human, and parts of them may still be ticking away like a biological time bomb.  If that is so, they face a living death in the years to come.  It is far better to die young and get it over with, I think.

I enter the workshop.  My father is there waiting for me.

Perhaps I will meet my death today.  It certainly seems that way, from the look in his eyes.

He has seen me with Goten.  That must be it.  He really detests me spending time with him.  I get 'lectured' fairly frequently on the low breeding of my best friend, and why I should not associate with him.  Those 'lectures' are basically the only time my father talks to me these days.  I do not care.  In this one matter I will win, no matter what my father says or does.

He hits me.  I am not surprised by the blow, able to take it with a minimum of bruising.  I have had plenty of practice, after all.  Several years worth.  At first I tried to dodge, or to hit back - but he was always faster, and stronger than me by far.  I trained hard to try to match him, sometimes with Goten, mostly on my own.  It was never enough.  Goten wanted to help me fight him - but I would not let him.  I could not let him.  My father would most likely kill him, so he would not have to bother about the ill-bred brat who was contaminating his son.  I could not let that happen.  I will never let him hurt Goten.

He hits me again, this time backhanding me across the face, driving me against the wall beside the door.  I cling to it, waiting for my head to clear.  I am still dizzy when he lands his third blow.  I slide to the floor, and the darkness takes me.

I open my eyes to see his, just inches from my own, blazing with fury.  He has lifted me by my shirt, holding me against the wall.

"You will fight, kisama!"

I will not.  I close my eyes, waiting for his next strike.  It does not come.

He releases my shirt, catching me by my hair before I have a chance to fall.  My hair has not been cut since Obaasan died.  Its length makes it perfect for him to grip.  He yanks, hard, and I clench my teeth against the sharpness of the pain.  It dulls after a bare instant, to return again as he flies out the window, dragging me behind him.

It would be easy for me to exert my own ki, supporting my weight and relieving the strain on my scalp.  But I do not.  I prefer the pain to the thought of obeying my father's wishes.  Perhaps he will simply rip my hair out and leave my body to drop to the ground below.  I wonder if half-Saiyajin may be killed by a drop from three thousand metres.

He does not tear my hair out.  Nor does he drop me.  He drags me towards a certain place.  Kami-sama's Palace.  What does he want with me there?

We flash past Piccolo and Dende, and through large double doors.  I am flung to the ground.  Behind me I hear him close the doors.  I look up to see a vast expanse of emptiness.  It is the Room of Spirit and Time.  The same place where he trained with Mirai Trunks for two years.  I wonder if that is what he plans for me...

Whatever his plans, he will suffer disappointment.  I will not fight with him.  At least, not physically.  I know the futility of attempting that all too well.  Yet for some reason, that is what he wishes to see: me struggling to face him, being knocked down countless times and getting back up again.  Being knocked down is easy.  But I do not have the strength to keep on getting up.  He despises me for that.

He stalks towards me, and I prepare myself.  I am right.  I am also in pain.  He uses me for target practice.  What else am I good for?

"You worthless piece of shit!"

That's right.  Absolutely worthless.  So why do you bother?

"Fight me, brat!"

Or what?  You'll beat me up?  You'll do that anyway.  At least at this rate I am unconscious that much sooner.

The days pass swiftly for me.  Of course, I'm awake barely a quarter of the time.  He is about to give up on me.  I can tell.  At last, he will kill me, and both our sufferings will end.  I wonder if my mother will be waiting for me?  I doubt it.  If she's there at all she'll probably be waiting to see him. He is the warrior, after all.  I'm just a walking piece of meat.

It is not too long before he finally snaps.  His frustration with me has reached its climax.  This time he doesn't stop hitting, until I am certain that the next blow will be my death.  But this one blow he holds back.  I look up in dazed confusion to see him frozen, one fisted hand ready to deliver my death sentence.  But he holds it back.

Slowly his fist unclenches, he lowers his arm.

"I won't kill you yet, brat.  I'll kill your little friend first.  I'll even bring him back here so that you can see him die."  He sneers at me.  "Too pitiful to even attempt to save your precious friend.  I guess you know what a waste of time that would be."

He smiles cruelly.

Goten.  He wants to hurt Goten.  And I cannot stop him.  He is right.  I try to force my damaged limbs to move, to attack - something which they had not done in some time.  They are unable to respond, and I am wrapped in a shroud of fear.  He is going to kill Goten.  He is going to kill him!  And there is nothing at all that I can do about it.

Despair grips my heart, and I close my eyes against the sight of his twisted smile.  I cannot block from my ears the sound of his cruel laughter.  Despair turns to anger, and anger to cold fury so intense that my hair flickers golden.  For the first time in over a year, I have become a Super Saiyajin.  I barely notice as he turns back from the door to stare at me.

My ki is still rising in response to my emotions.  Without conscious effort I am once more upright, facing the doorway where he stands.  My eyes lock unseeing onto his, and I surrender control to the power building within me.

It bursts out in a massive tide, and I am carried along, helpless to resist.

After what seems an eternity, I return to awareness of my surroundings.  I am floating just above the Son house, drifting downwards rapidly.  What little strength I have left is draining from me.  I sink to the ground, just in front of the door.  I feel so tired.  I will wait here... for Goten...

Four months have passed since I last saw my father.  Nobody mentions him.  At least, not in front of me.  They wait until I am gone to wonder where he is, what he's doing, why he killed God...

I doubt he'll ever tell us.  He never did like to talk.  But I wish he would come back from wherever he is.  He is, after all, the only family I have left.  And I don't even have a picture of him.

I was angry that he did not come to see me.  He left me alive on purpose, so why did he not come?  Why does he still stay away?  Have I been such a disappointment to him that he will not even deign to take my life?  Was the amount of ki I summoned that day such an insult to his Saiyajin pride that he has disowned me?

It has taken me months to recover from that day.  Chichi made Gohan take me to the hospital.  I hated it there, everybody asking questions, poking and prodding at me.  It took me three days to convince Goten to help me escape from that prison.  Chichi was furious when she realized that Goten was cutting class to stay with me at Capsule Corp.  She yelled a lot at me, telling me that the people in the hospital would help me and that I should stay there and let Goten get on with his studying.

Goten suggested that I stay at their house, but I refused.  I know Chichi thinks I am a bad influence on him.  And she is right.  He also suggested that they all move in with me.  She refused.  In the end Goten moved in for a couple of months to keep me company, and Gohan with him to keep an eye on both of us.  Goten still cut class, but not as much.  It was nice having him here with me.

Now I am alone once more; at least, for the moment.  Goten is never too far from me, and that is a comforting thought.  But right now I stand in front of the mirror, and my father's face stares back at me.  Whatever happens, whether he comes back or whether he stays away forever, I know that he will always be with me, his presence directing my thoughts and actions.  I can never be rid of someone who is so much a part of what I have become.

I lift my hand to the mirror, sliding my fingers down my father's cheek.

My father will always be with me.