Second Life

Chapter 19

Life Goes On: Understanding

Chi-Chi expected Raditz to go and fume in his room until Bardock got back and made him apologize for falling back on his old ways. However, when Bardock got back from fishing, why was it always fishing, Raditz was nowhere to be found.

Chi-Chi snatched up the gigantic fish and began skinning it as she explained the argument. Bardock for his part listened calmly then he sighed.

“Chi-Chi, you must understand, you Earthlings are not the first to think of cutting of a saiyan’s tail,” he began, “There was an epidemic on this planet called Slictzer, the trees were sharp enough to cut of the errant swinging tail as was everything else. The people who inhabited the planet were vicious. It was humiliating; they had to call in some of Freeza’s other soldiers. The ones who had their tail’s cut off were ridiculed, no one would work with them, no one would associate with them, they were sent out on solo missions they couldn’t handle without transforming and they were killed,”

“Well, that was on Planet Vegeta this is Earth,” said Chi-Chi. She could sympathize but the fact remain a saiyan’s tail on Earth would only grow to be an unnecessary danger. The couldn’t keep blowing up the moon.

“But that is the mind frame Raditz was taught. I mean, I’m certainly not going to cut off my tail, Raditz isn’t going to cut off his, why cut Parzni’s tail?”

“Well, she-,” started Chi-Chi

“I’m not saying you don’t have a point,” interrupted Bardock, “Both Goten and Parzni were born with tails, they are a part of them as much as any other limb is. However, you and Kakarot have made your choice for your sons; Raditz must be able to do the same for his daughter,”

“Bardock, Goku accidentally killed his adoptive grandfather as a kid. He thought it was some giant moon monster that did it, he never knew it was him until Raditz got here and told him,” said Chi-Chi as she cut the skinned fish in to more manageable pieces. Bardock had never heard that story before, it was saddening to hear how his son’s heritage had hurt him growing up but it did not change Bardock’s mind.

“She can be taught to control the transformation later on. Planet Vegeta had three moons but we never had children tear down our own planet, between me and Raditz we can manage one child,” said Bardock.

Chi-Chi looked skeptical, but she knew a lost battle when she saw one. She battered the fish cuts and began putting them in the pan. Bardock stayed long enough to eat half the fish before he set off looking for Raditz.

He looked for Raditz’s energy signature and followed it. He found him sitting in a large hole in an otherwise flat plain. The place looked familiar but Bardock ignored that to focus on his son. Raditz had Parzni curled to his chest underneath his shirt. As he slid into the crater and settled beside Raditz he could hear the child gulping down her meal.

Raditz acknowledged him with a nod, he wasn’t brooding he was just deep in thought.

“So, Chi-Chi and I talked, she’s come around,” said Bardock. Raditz rolled his eyes before responding, “I don’t care whether she did or didn’t, my decision isn’t effected either way,”

“I figured that,” laughed Bardock, “You’re coming back to your old self, stubborn, hot headed, more like my sister than I liked to admit.”

“I was kid then, you don’t know anything about the adult I used to be,” shot Raditz accusingly. Bardock made a sound of agreement; his visions had only showed him the life of one of his sons.

“But, I suppose it doesn’t matter, that person died here,” said Raditz. Bardock’s eyes widened at that, he had watched the battle that had gone on here the cruel fight between his sons that had ended them both. He hadn’t really recognized it but now it was obvious this was where Raditz had landed all those years ago. This was where he died, and more than likely where his old body, or what little was left of it, was buried.

“Why come out here?” asked Bardock slightly unnerved. The place seemed to take on the qualities of a graveyard, the crater a tomb.

“It’s quiet, and I needed to think,” replied Raditz as he shifted Parzni from beneaght his shirt to lay on his chest.

“About?” asked Bardock.

“How much I hate being on this planet, how much Chi-Chi’s self-important attitude annoys me, that sort of thing,” said Raditz, then he sighed “I miss it,” he said looking up at the darkening sky.

“What, conquering worlds, committing genocide?” joked Bardock

“The stars, the excitement, the struggle to survive,” said Raditz seriously. Bardock could understand that. They had both lived lives of constant moving, constant struggle, constant battle; it was hard to settle into this peace that seemed to surround them, this peace where their biggest conflict was Chi-Chi’s current level of annoyance with them. Vegeta dealt by training, but Bardock had tried that it didn’t ease his restlessness, he thought that with Parzni, Raditz would have himself well occupied but it seemed he had not escaped the feeling either.

Parzni’s tail stretched out and wrapped itself around her grandfather’s wrist. She didn’t need to know that kind of life. She could live here at peace, just as her uncle had done for most of his life.

As for Bardock and Raditz, they would eventually find some sort of compromise. The father and son eventually made their way back home. Nothing more was said on the tail subject. Chi-Chi asked, actually asked not demanded, that Rditz at least join her for the baby shower and introduce Parzni to the rest of the group. It would be a reunion of sorts, except there would be an obvious Goku/Kakarot-sized hole.

But life had to eventually go on.