Future Goten

Ebony locks swayed with a nice golden color, eyes flickering to the sharp color of teal. His hands were balled into fists, jaw clenched tightly, brows furrowed, and rage filled his belly. He wanted to scream. He wanted to let all this rage out, have relief, but it never came. Why couldn’t something just work out? Why couldn’t he just have a break? The world was going down hill so fast and he had no idea how to stop it.

The sun hadn’t woken up just yet, making this the best time to do this. Both his mother and younger brother were asleep. Normally Gohan wouldn’t visit them. It was too much pain and sadness for all three of them. His mother didn’t want to see him like this. Acting like his father, and Gohan didn’t want to hurt his mother in any shape or form. His mother wanted Gohan to be a good role model for Goten, and Gohan wanted too. But who else was strong enough to defeat the androids?

Gohan felt a presence, and he quickly turned around. He felt his small hand grip on to him, and instantly he powered down. There was a sweet smile that graced his visage. His head was tilted to the side as a hand went to ruffle up his already messy locks. Not long after, he bent to his little brother’s level. Both hands rested upon his smaller shoulders.

“What are you doing up so early, kiddo?”

Goten tilted his head to the side, looking up at his brother with a small smile. Part of him knew that he had been caught snooping (or something close to that, in a sense) and that he should’ve felt ashamed for that, but he couldn’t really bring himself to. He had just wanted to spend time with his brother. He didn’t get to spend a lot of time with him.

“I heard you.” Not... entirely false, but not entirely true. Goten’s ability to read ki was still wavery at best, and he didn’t quite understand what he felt. Heard him, felt him-- either way, the result was the same.

“Oh, Goten!”

“Nothing much, besides Towa doing her yearly run on Age 753. Every time, the same day… seriously irritating.”

Ah. Goten nodded in response to that, unable to really come up with anything better to say. Maybe he could sigh...? No, it’d seem far too much like he was sighing at her words.

He wasn’t... good at the conversation thing, if that wasn’t obvious.

“Congratulations, child. I’m sure Trunks would reward you for telling him.”

“Except we both know he’ll never give you what you so rightfully deserve.”

Her words had him pausing, though only for a moment. Just long enough for Goten to scoff incredulously at Towa before narrowing his eyes at the woman.

“What I so rightly deserve.” He repeated her words back to her, tone clearly mocking the Demon Queen. “Why don’t you expound on that one for me, because I’m not quite sure what it is that I deserve.”

“Well of course it will get better, because I know you have the strength to make the world a better place so that there will be no more suffering like you had gone through.”

She let out a small sigh, understanding that so far he had only seen her talking, and not walking - as the saying somewhat went. Her hands began to roll her loose sleeves up, exposing an almost countless numbers of scars on her arms alone - stab wounds that seemed to only be recently healed.

“You doubt my belief to it,don’t you? Come, look at these wounds.”

“These are the wounds given to me as I take the burdens from others. I take their pain and suffering away from them so that they no longer must. I could stop at any moment, but I refuse to, for I don’t want those I love to suffer.

Like me, you will act, because you have the conviction to. You will make this world better, because you feel that you must.”

She let her sleeves fall, covering her wounds once more.

“Because you’ve had someone near and dear to you taken from you, haven’t you? You know this pain just as much as anyone else here, and so you don’t want those who have no experienced this pain to ever experience it.”

He had to admit that her scars were enough to cause him to pause for a moment. Her figure didn’t hint towards her being any sort of fighter, and yet the wounds were something he would have associated with one. Vicious and countless stab wounds lined her forearms, and Goten found himself hissing in sympathy. The urge to reach out and take her hand as she drew her sleeves back down was something he had to fight against as well. Injuries like that, one someone of her stature... he didn’t want to jump to conclusions but...

Abuse was really the first and most logical explanation.

Something heavy slammed down over his heart at her words, and he found himself drawing away from her. “Yes. I lost someone.” Goten’s tone was flat as he spoke. His words were agreeing with her, but everything else about how he said them made it clear that he was far from being agreeable.

“Everyone lost someone. Fuck, you’re like-- one of those sick-ass psychics who go around giving everyone false hope before ruining their lives with the realization that nothing good will ever happen again.”

                    I'm living dead, dead, dead, dead!                                              Only alive-live-live-live!                                                                 When I pretend-tend-tend-tend                                                                                    That I have died, died, died, died, died 

                                                          DIED

“I know who you are.” Words that were followed with narrowed eyes and grit teeth.

“Oona.” Goten gave the woman a curt nod, acknowledging her presence. Despite having been a part of the Time Patrol since it had been started with Trunks and Chronoa (technically, Goten might have been the first person to truly join), he had never spoken with the Future Warrior.

Well. That wasn’t true either. They had spoken. Just not... really. Just passing comments and pleasantries while they both went about their separate jobs.

And it was likely this conversation was going to go the same way. 

The small child was looking up at his older brother, gaze akin to that of a lost puppy’s. He wasn’t trying to get in the way, wasn’t trying to cause Gohan any problems, but it felt like he saw his older brother less and less as time went on. 

It was so early that the sun was still asleep, and as Goten crept outside after his brother he could see him doing the thing. The thing that always made their mother so angry, the thing that made it looked like he was wrapped in shimmering flames. 

     Trunks laughed, brushing off the shove. He liked seeing the other’s feathers ruffled. It was cute. “It’s a good thing I’m not old, isn’t it? It didn’t seem like you wanted to be out long, so I made the ride as quick as I could.” He removed the tie from his hair, shaking his head to aid in settling it. He preferred it down, even if it did get in his eyes often. He had been thinking about cutting it, but hadn’t decided whether to or not. 

     “Come on. I need your help figuring out what to make for dinner.” He tucked his hands in his pockets and headed into the store. He grabbed a carrying basket. He doubted they would be buying enough items to need a cart.

     “What are you feeling tonight?” he asked, glancing over the aisles.

He hadn’t wanted to go out, but Goten never really wanted to do anything anymore. His depression definitely played a large part in that (and for two people as smart as Bulma and Trunks were, you would have thought at least one of them would have suggested anti-depressants at some point), but there was something much worse at play. A heaviness that sat in his chest and wore him down slowly, so slowly, but surely.

A hand covered her mouth as she let out a small bit of laughter at his sarcasm. Well, it was something that didn’t seem believable to most people now did it? It was fine, she could easily understand that.

“I can tell that you must have suffered great deals of loss, young man. It’s that loss that’s still clinging to you, isn’t it?”

She paused, kneeling towards the ground and placing her hands on some of the exposed dirt, before pulling it away to reveal some small specks of natural life that had begun to grow.

“You and other mortals are much like the tale of the phoenix. No matter what struggles put you down, you always find a way to rebuild yourselves and become stronger. It is your natural love of life, even if it just your own, that allows you the determination to keep moving.

You’ve suffered so much, but you must look towards the future and what you can do to improve with this harsh new start, rather than look back on could have been done.

The past cannot truly be changed, but the future is always there for you.”

Her words were true, but were easy enough for him to shrug off. He had suffered a great deal of loss? Yeah, who hadn’t anymore. Loss was par for the course for everyone anymore. The fact that he was even still alive meant that he had to’ve suffered; no one had made it through the android’s wave of destruction unharmed. No one.

This lady, though. With the way she was talking... it was almost as if she hadn’t suffered. Which would have been insane, frankly. Though she certainly had the airheaded demeanor of someone who would just happen to make it through a tragedy unscathed. 

“The tale of the phoenix.” He repeated her words as he stared down at the patch of previous-barren earth. She had made the plant there grow... so... ki manipulation? Theoretically it was possible for it to be used to help plants and to heal (Gohan had once claimed to have witnessed the latter, even), but the method of doing so had been lost. Or, so they thought.

     Genza was the type of person to throw himself into work to the point of exhaustion. Ever since Mirai had gone to the past the first time, it was the only way he had managed to make himself useful anymore. If he could just figure out something to help him breathe better…

      Even with his head caught in the machine, he knew Goten was there. It wasn’t hard to notice the sudden presence in the garage, simply leaning there and watching. Genza couldn’t pull himself out of his work to acknowledge him, nor could he call out. So he kept working for a bit, until he could finally reach a place to stop. 

Then he raised a hand to wave, at least showing he was aware of the other’s place here. 

Goten nodded in return before letting out a soft sigh. The silence coming from Genza was appreciated, especially knowing that he wasn’t about to be grilled over how he felt right now... but it also meant that there was nothing to fill the empty space in his thoughts or to distract him from his own anxiety. If he could, he would have offered to help, but Goten was hopeless when it came to any sort of machinery.

Frankly, he was hopeless when it came to near anything.

“Former god,” she laughs a little, a finger flicking one of  her broken potara earrings - the only remnant of her former position. Still, she was willing to comply with him on moving away from the area - if only to help him calm down.

“But, if it will help you feel better, I will move from this area. However, I would appreciate if you accompanied me.”

She took notice now, of his lingering pains, and her smile grew gentle. It was, for lack of a better phrase, filled with a type of love meant for everyone that looked upon it.

“Then, maybe you could tell me what’s truly bothering you, besides how I’m here in a place that might hurt me?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Former god. That’s far more believable.” And as if it wouldn’t be clear, the sarcasm that dripped from his tone made it clear that he thought she was-- well. She wasn’t full of anything good.

Goten paced alongside her, managing to keep himself from just yanking her along. Despite his rather coarse behavior, he was fairly good at dealing with the crazies. At the very last, they were the ones that never really seemed to mind his poor attitude, choosing instead to be wrapped up in their own world of mental trauma. It was almost refreshing to be able to be as rude was he wanted without being judged for it, which (ironically?) allowed him to be far more patient than he would have been under ordinary circumstances.

“Are-- Are you serious right now?” Really? He blinked before all-but gaping at her. “Really? Have you bothered to look around yourself?” Goten paused to gesture around them, at the broken-down building that was hardly out of place in this broken-down world.