DB Multiverse

At first, the gesture surprised the small man, but then, he found it incredibly soothing. He tried to hold back the sobs that were shaking him. His brain wasn't in a fit state to think... to analyse... to recognize... It was so saturated by the storm of a ocean of sorrow and guilt. He didn't know whose those soft hand belonged to, who was behind the silky curtain of those blond hair, these sparkling blue eyes. He only understood the reassuring warmth of their presence.

Krilin's mind had snapped under the too violent impact of Yamcha's death. So, he was docile and unresponsive and let the cyborg girl cuddling him. He was in no fit state to understand what were saying the voices he could perceive through his cotton-woollen mind.

17 went near his sister who was knelt at the fighter's side who was lost in his despair. He couldn't understand her strange behavior.

“What are you doing?”

The young woman looked up and at her brother with her pure blue eyes.

“I'm not sure... I think I'm feeling sorry for him...” she answered with her soft voice, almost hesitantly.

This answer annoyed 17. He pointed a threatening finger in the direction of the fallen warrior.

“Now that's new! I'll get rid of him and it'll be settled.” he growled.

His sister got up abruptly to stand between her brother and the bald man

“Come off it! He doesn't even know where he is anymore!”

Two pairs of electric blue eyes starred one another. She knew that he was able to kill her protégé on impulse. He felt that she was suddenly ready to do anything to save the life of this sobbing wreck.

This situation was new for them: it was the first time that a disagreement opposed them so strongly.

Even the roar of the enormous explosion that came next wasn't enough to make Krilin snap out of his catatonic state. He didn't make the mere move when the terrific shock wave blew him away, just as if he was a stringless puppet. He ended up sitting, a little farther, his eyes looking into space and his arms dangling... Feelingless.

Through a wet and blurred veil, he made out a golden exocet beating down on two fuzzy figures. The missile made of yellow light seemed to be a child, but a child that had come out of the sun.

After a choreography that the small man's troubled brain didn't understand, the small figure remained alone. It came near him and it seemed to him that he was hearing a strange sound. Would it be one of the mysterious guardians of the other world?

Son Gohan was worriedly shaking Krilin who was, apparently, looking at him, but wasn't seeing him.

“Krilin? Are you ok? …. Answer me!... It's me, Gohan!”

Disconcerted by the lack of reaction from his friend, the young fighter went back to his normal state and spoke to him, his voice sweet and soft.

“And now? Is it better? Do you recognize me now?”

A surge of dread rose in Goku's son's throat.

“Krilin... Please... Say something.”

But his friend was in another world, a world that was way too far from reality for him to understand. The young Saiyan's eyes blurred as he got up. He was too late. Silent tears criss-crossed his cheeks whereas his look went back to Yamcha's bloody body.

Way too late!

And over there...

Shaking, he walked, mechanically, toward the huge cadaver. The tip of a burning spear was tearing his heart apart each time a bit more painfully as he was moving forwards, almost despite himself. It was just as the day of his father's death. He would like the time to stop, to move back... Or that that time had never existed... That it was just a bad dream, something that can't be.

Alas.

Head down, he sniffed, standing up at the side of what was left of this so joyous grand-father who cosseted him with bonhomie. And then, he broke down, shaken by a wave of sob, burying his face in the still warm body, his little fists contracted under the pressure of an unmeasured sadness and powerlessness. Then, he looked up, his face smeared by big tears, and scanned his surroundings: there were no trace of his mother!

He sniffed and wiped his tears, swallowing his sorrow, and slowly got up. Because if he had finally noticed that Chi-Chi wasn't here, it had been impossible not to see the two cyborgs, silently watching him, just a few feet away.

But he had hit them with all his new strength of Super Saiyan and yet, it appeared they had suffered no damage! His child's voice growled.

“Where is she?”

“Well... Isn't it Master Son, the Super Saiyan's son. What a surprise! Our dear friend, the Dr Gero hadn't considered this possibility.” said 17, ironic, haughtily ignoring the question.

“Are you kidding? He didn't even know that such a word existed.” his sister said, bursting out laughing.

“It doesn't matter away... Super or not, it doesn't change anything.” he gloated by way of conclusion.

Gohan's child eyes looked at these two beings that make absolutely no sense for him. He didn't understand them at all. He pointed at the corpse of his poor grand-father.

“Why? Why have you done such a thing to him? He was completely harmless!”

17 stood up straight.

“That is right! Utterly harmless. But he was so arrogant!”

His anger was as sudden as his sorrow went deep. An intense energy wave electrified the body of the child, which, without warning, was blazing with a bright golden light.

“My grand-father isn't like that!! I forbid you to speak of him that way!” he roared.