Post by Sitka on Jun 23, 2019 13:19:21 GMT -5
Pulse06/10/2019
"Your sins won't just disappear."
The Saiyan God stared at the emerald around his neck. The one heirloom he had from the Eternal Super Saiyan to his name. Part of him wondered where the legendary man had roamed, whether he still drew breath. However, this gem had guided him far and wide to both friends and enemies of great strength. Even Tarble wasn't prepared for where he was going to end up this time though. He closed his eyes, his consciousness sent directly to the Astral Realm. When he opened them, the chilled winds nipped at his flesh. Goosebumps formed along the exposed flesh of his wrist.
His eyes darted around. A graveyard. The ebony soil beneath him shifted slightly as his boots pivoted, taking a good look around. Some names he didn't know, but some, he could take them in and remember as if they were yesterday. A fatality list of West City. The lives that his ship had taken. Mutiny at its finest. He believed himself to have taken down the traitor that dared to fire down upon the city without his direct orders. It was a brand upon his back for as long as he could remember.
These graves wouldn't be the only reminder of that grim encounter.
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Bulma spent a bit of time searching the Astral Realm these days. She could slip through it unnoticed and peer into the subconsciouses of valuable targets. It gave her access to a large web of information, and it kept her entertained on rainy days. The realm always pulled you to who you needed to see, for one reason or another, so while she remained a ghost it was easy to tap into the minds of certain Capsule Corp Scientists, her son Boxer, the Saiyan who took her arm, and others who naturally drew her notice.
She was surprised however when a very specific man was caught by her radar. The astral realm worked both ways. If someone didn’t want or need to see her she would never get a peak into their mind. She wasn’t all seeing. The fact that this man had opened up the door at this time was...fascinating.
She could see it, the graves of West City. She debated moving on, her memories from hell replaying in her mind far too accurate to the man she had witnessed those two times. If he had no depth past that, it would be a waste of a visit, but she realized that knowing about his current situation and plans could be beneficial somewhere else...
So she formed, sitting on the gravestone behind him. She didn’t know what she looked like after he killed her but she mimicked the wounds she could remember, wearing the same torn clothes, and the broken cybernetic arm. She even made crude stitch marks around her neck, based on rumors.
”I didn’t imagine ‘God’ would care much about graveyards,” she said her tone soft but with no emotion. ”But perhaps they are akin to trophy cases.” Bulma wasn’t looking at him either. Instead her gaze fixed quietly on the tombstone to his right: Natalie Barrowman.
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Tarble could feel it. Another essence materializing within the realm with him, behind him though not at all hostile. Yet it had a sickening gentleness to it. Part of the Saiyan didn't want to turn around. He didn't want to face the past. He wanted to keep it there. However, if he never addressed the sins upon his back, how could he stride forward into a beautiful future? Slowly, his head turned to face that fear that always lingered on his shoulder. The sight of the bluenette in those tattered garbs, the shattered cybernetic prosthetic, even stitches along her throat.
The head.. he had said those things, hadn't he?
Each comment was cutting. Every word had meaning to it, laced with bitter vitriol. Could he blame her? No, he was the one who took her life all that time ago. Anyone would want the chance to call their murderer a dickhead, after all. Tarble's gaze went over to her, but her eyes were focused elsewhere. Not on him, but a name. His gaze followed hers, only to focus in on a tombstone.
'Natalie Barrowman'.
Tarble couldn't recognize the name by any means. He hadn't studied the fatality list in great detail, but it was here, forged by both of their minds. It didn't take a lot of effort to realize she was among those lost in the explosion. Yet his lips willed themselves to part, his vocal cords to speak. "I see no trophies in this yard.. only people that fell for all the wrong reasons." Tarble's eyes never left the marker that Bulma was so focused on. "... Who was she to you?" A simple question on the surface, but it came with complexities. History. Words that didn't deserve any rightful answer in truth. Yet Tarble couldn't stop burning that name into his memory.
Natalie. Natalie. Natalie.
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Bulma could see the sickness in his very posture and realized she had read him wrong the first time. Well, not completely wrong. She was sure many of her views were correct, along with what hell had made her murderer, but he didn’t blow up West City. She knew that instantly by this place and how he appreciated it. The Tarble that killed her would give reason to his every action, excuse to his every mistake, but if it wasn’t him? If it wasn’t his fault? The man she imagined would finally lay blame on his own shoulders simply because he was not god after all.
This made things more interesting however, and she was pleased with the development but none of it showed on her face or demeanor. She stayed cold and still, calm and unreadable. She wanted him to create his own image of her, paint anger on her to feed his guilt or whatever else he might want her to be. It would tell her more about him.
”You knew her,” Bulma countered, her gaze finally lifting from the stone to look at him, though her expression was still a mask that mimicked the woman she was referring to. ”She was in the room with you.”
Director Natalie Barrowman was the Capsule Corp representative in the meeting where he declared himself god. She never said a single word, doing her best to remain neutral and impartial while dealing with the facts presented. You could see her body go flying from the same footage they’d taken from him, as it stayed recording all the way until the bomb went off.
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Tarble knew this woman.. one that was in the room with him during that meeting. The last time he had ever addressed the people of West City. The last time he had ever seen Earth as a bastion of glory rather than a reminder of pain and suffering he had endured. But no pain or suffering could compare to the loss of life he witnessed, done by the hands of others yet all weighed upon him for so very long. Natalie Barrowman was the representative of Capsule Corporation.
She represented Bulma, and like her, she had perished.
"I see." The Saiyan brought his gaze over to Bulma. His crimson-ringed ebony eyes looked into her own sapphire pair for a moment. They digested his each and every word, analyzed them down to the letter and found the meaning. He tried to understand what she felt. Tried to empathize, but there was nothing in this ironclad mask to find. A void of emotion that merely spoke of the dead.
"I... see," Tarble repeated slowly. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly, his eyes softening at the sight of Bulma. For so long, he wanted to say things to her. He had context to her anger now. Had he understood before how overbearing he was, the god complex that had gripped his psyche, perhaps things could be different. But there was no time like the present for change. "I'm sorry." Those words hung in the air for a moment.
"No one deserved this."
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He was careful this time. He didn’t want to make her a demon again, even if it was so much closer to the truth now. She wouldn’t show him that however, nor would she give him the energy she wasted back then.
She never had time to be angry about being murdered. In fact, none of her hell loops even included Tarble murdering her. That wasn’t the torture. It was listening to him, watching him shape and destroy the world around him while she remained helpless and unheard. Like all the other tortures, she had gotten over that. Now it didn’t matter it she was heard or not, and if she had any irritation with Tarble it was that she had sincerely tried to get through to him, albeit while trying to kill him, and had wasted her time.
No, until he showed her something worth while, all he would get was the ghost he created.
“ ‘You think an apology or some righteous gesture can fix things,’ ” she said, quoting herself but there wasn’t passion in it this time. During their battle she had shouted at him many things. She had told him he was fundamentally wrong, that he believed he was above anything but his own conscience, which was terribly warped. She wasn’t completely sure that had changed, but she knew she hadn’t read him wrong back then, not completely. She also told him he couldn’t keep going on like that. He would burn himself eventually. Had she missed it? Was he finally scarred enough to see it? Had the universe changed, even so slightly?
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The words she spoke to him struck him deep. His mind went back to the battle they had back on Vegeta. He had believed that he was fighting a clone of Bulma--
NO!
No. That was a lie he told himself. In his heart of hearts, he knew that was the true Bulma he fought back then. He knew that he was striking at the woman his brother cared for. Fighting against the last representative that served as a beacon of sin for a past he desperately wanted to disappear. In the haze of haste, he destroyed that past.. alongside her physical form. The sight of her on the ground, struggling in the throes of the Kaioken, still haunted him.
All at once, his sickness gave way to slight rage. But it was not rage at Bulma, no, it was at himself. His hands curled into fists. "I know that.. I knew that. I knew that a long time ago. I just kept denying it," Tarble confessed. He had ignored the signs. The Saiyan God had deemed himself ignorant by his own hand, trying to ignore the warning signs on the path he was going down. Then he paid for it with his life fighting for his Emperor-- and for what? To die at the hands of Bulma's spawn. It was almost ironic.
"I've said sorry so many times to myself, but never to you. But apologies only get someone so far. Action is what speaks for us." He knew that too. It meant nothing. Anyone could throw out an apology, hell even some could throw it out and mean it, but very few could mean it and act on it. Dripping of toxins always seemed to lace themselves into well-meaning acts in the end. But Tarble.. he had an Empire to lead. Followers to guide. He couldn't keep clinging to these sins of the past.
And so he stood before Bulma, baring all for the sake of stripping himself of that hidden cloak of sin. "None of you deserved that fate.. and that includes you, Bulma Briefs." His eyes softened yet again at the sight of it, features slightly morphing on her, but not enough to be any sort of noticeable. It was his cognition.
"Gestures mean nothing, but.. this is my step toward you. To begin something new." He meant that with all his heart. He wanted to try, and perhaps that internal struggle showed in his ever-changing facial features.
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His face twisted up as new emotion gripped at him. This was why the door had opened to her. He needed this, to face her head on so he could move forward. She wasn’t sure she liked being the catalyst to it. A part of her wanted him to keep suffering and struggling with himself. She did not want to give him peace. It was different from back then. This wasn’t a version of Tarble she did not want to see. He wasn’t the same man who reached for dominance and closed his eyes to everything else. These ears were not ones she could not reach. Thus, the door opened.
He had apologized to her, but they both understood that that hadn’t really counted. ‘If she was really Bulma’ or because she was important to Vegeta, or if it made him feel justified; it wasn’t a real apology and it wouldn’t have been even if she approached him with Vegeta at her side. If she hadn’t tried to kill him, letting her anger fester and Vegeta’s Saiyan way sit on her mind, the result would have been the same. He might not have killed her, but she could imagine him pointing the gun as he had at West City, storming out when he did not have his way and letting whatever happen after because he had ‘tried his best,’ and it was out of his hands. It was never his responsibility to convince anyone he was right. All that mattered was that he knew it and he could use his power to shove it down the throats of anyone who objected.
Until now at least.
”Why did I keep fighting?” she asked, and for the first time there was the smallest flicker of life to her eyes, an expectation or a hope behind them, however dim.
He had asked her that during their battle. He had called her an idiot for fighting. There was too great a discrepancy in their powers for her to ever expect to win. She had to be an idiot to strike at him. So why did she?
Because no one else would. No one would stand up to him or try and tear apart his visions of godhood. He had been all alone on the pedastool he created for himself where everyone either bowed and agreed with him or simply ignored him because he was still too small to make a dent in the universe. No one defied him or stood up to him. He was the perfect warlord and everything he did was necessary to his ends, the path be damned. So she fought with him. She defied him, even to her dying breath. He had said she forced his hand, made him need to use the lethal force that ended her, but the reality was that her words had triggered a childish tantrum. He had the upper hand the entire battle and he still chose to come at her from behind and punish her. Those were her last words, save a profanity, denying him.
If he could answer that, maybe he had really started to move forward.
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"Why did I keep fighting?"
For a few choice moments, that question hung in the air. Tarble's eyes slightly widened at the sight of that glimmer in those azure gems-- there was an expectation of him. Part of the Saiyan God wanted to decipher it, to try and understand what she wanted. He quickly dashed those thoughts away. If he wasn't going to be genuine about his desires for this meeting and the answers he would give, there would be no point to this conversation. He would just be spouting weak apologies again. No more.
So a beat passed.. and he really thought on it.
"You fought because you were the one who bothered to." Tarble stared into her eyes in that moment, bearing all. "When I was a Warlord, I dealt in absolutes. Those against me in one way were against me in all, and even if positivity could come from those sources, I snuffed it because I didn't want those elements in my life. It was so easy to put it in those terms: for and against. But in that haste, I confused a difference in opinion for an attack on everything I represented. So when I was presented with the idea of people hating Saiyans.." He trailed off for a moment, letting out a deep sigh. It was obvious this took a toll on him, if only due to how much effort it took to go through with this.
"I mistaked it for people hating me. And I lashed out violently due to it. That was what resulted in West City's destruction-- because the person that worked to destroy all of our reputations saw a weakness that I put on display."
Those were words that he avoided for so long. He may not have been the destroyer of West City, and for so long he sought to free himself of that negative blight upon his guise, but he paved the path for it. Had he not been so volatile, perhaps things could have been different back then. But he was going to shape it now. Shape that future for them all. "My death taught me things, humbled me to an extent. But if there was any sort of lesson that it taught me, it was that putting myself on such a high pedestal was toxic. Sure, it was nice to tout myself as a supposed god, but.. it was so lonely."
It was a clear picture. Who stood beside him aside from his wife and his pilot? In the end, he was on the run from the point of West City's destruction to his untimely death. Tarble realized that just wasn't the existence he wanted to lead. "My true power comes from the hope people have for me. The kinship I share with those I approach. I've learned.. how to trust other people again." Tarble's fists loosened slightly, his gaze never tearing away from Bulma's.
"And I want to trust you, Bulma."
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Bulma’s gaze softened however slightly at his answer, but the mask did not shift further than that. She let him speak. She was still that kind, though it wasn’t done for its kindness. She wanted to listen, and she wanted to watch the strain it put on him to speak. It reminded her of her time in hell. How many times was she forced to face herself, her true self? To embrace all her weakness and her mistakes? Again, and again, and again, and it never mattered.
She was temped to offer Tarble the same. There would be a certain type of karma to it, but that wasn’t who she was, then or now. She enjoyed watching suffering. She had no problems being the catalyst of such suffering either. It was the most intimate of emotions, and she felt it here, and she had the power to make it worse, so much worse, but it wouldn’t be lasting. She only had so much power over him, and the long game suggested that alternate routes would be more beneficial, would display something even more intimate.
There were so many to choose from, but the one she chose was perhaps the simplest. It wasn’t even truly dishonest, even if its choice had come from the goal to manipulate.
”By killing me, you destroyed the person who wanted to help you,” she said, keeping her even tone, but this time she let the smallest bit of sadness into it. She did not want him to misunderstand. His violence had not turned her against him. Killing her was not some unforgivable act that she could not forgive. His specific actions were not unforgivable, but ironically, it was just like West City. He laid the foundation. He cleared the path. He set things in motion, and ultimately, it had led to unforeseen consequences. He couldn’t have wished her back to life, though she had no idea if he actually tried. He killed her, and her soul ended up somewhere it did not belong, and it had destroyed the person who shouted at him with hope he would hear her and change.
”I’ve been alive for awhile now, but I haven’t returned home,” she explained, her tone softening. ”My son accused me of being possessed. Vegeta could not imagine the version of me that would go to hell...” There it was. The answer to what he had done to her, and the mask cracked enough for her lips to lift into the slightest of smiles at the irony of it all.
”I still don’t know if that’s where my soul was intended to go, but that is what I embraced.”
It might have sounded weird to him, but he never really knew her. She was someone Vegeta cared about, someone who softened his otherwise cold heart. She was a hero to the people, someone known for their kindness and generosity. She was the type of person to go the Namek when everyone else was looking the other way, and broker deals with the devil if that meant lives would be spared. She was the one who lashed out at him but did not have it in her to actually kill him.
On the surface, there was no reason to even imagine she would go to hell, but she did not blame him for where her soul ended up. It was always a possibility to her. Maybe it was the burden of a good person believing they were never good enough, or maybe there were deeper crimes in Bulma’s past. He couldn’t know, and now it didn’t matter, because hell was what she had accepted, what she no longer cared about deserving. She could no longer go anywhere else.
“You can’t trust me anymore.”
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The next statement to leave past her lips almost felt symbolic. As if it was an attack on him, to say that there was no possibility of trust being stoked between them. The Tarble of the past would have believed that wholeheartedly, thrown in the towel, believed that he had done all he could to make amends with the past mistakes. But Tarble couldn't just do that anymore. He wasn't going to sit idly by anymore. The best things in life are worth fighting for.. so he was fighting for this.
Bulma explained the issues with her son. With Vegeta. How.. her soul had gone to a place it didn't belong. It wasn't the Saiyan's place to say whether she deserved Heaven or Hell, he didn't know her nearly that well back then. Yet even the slightest cracks in that mask-- the gentle smiles, the slight sadness --the Saiyan God did not waste time deciphering them. The bluenette in front of him suffered because of her death. It wasn't that she couldn't forgive him for the death, it was the death of Bulma and the birth of the new woman that stood in front of him.
But no more.
"No, I can no longer trust Bulma. Because she isn't here anymore, right?" Tarble was cautious, but he began to walk forward. To close that distance between them. Someone needed to take the first step between them, and while the former Tarble might have waited for the longest time to be begged for mercy from those he deemed an enemy, this Tarble did no such thing. He wanted to be accepting. He wanted to work for these relationships. He wanted to make things right and strive for that bright future. "But I can trust you." He stopped, a mere two feet away from the tombstone that Bulma sat upon. Yet his eyes never left her own.
"Maybe you were forsaken by those who couldn't accept what you have become.. but I'm not going to turn away this time. I want to learn about this new you. I want to know this you. The true you that stands in front of me now."
361 / 2,000+
--- END SPAR! --
Bulma (Human, Combat, VR Octagon): 2,000
Tarble (Champ III, Combat Rune, VR Octagon): 2k+
"Your sins won't just disappear."
The Saiyan God stared at the emerald around his neck. The one heirloom he had from the Eternal Super Saiyan to his name. Part of him wondered where the legendary man had roamed, whether he still drew breath. However, this gem had guided him far and wide to both friends and enemies of great strength. Even Tarble wasn't prepared for where he was going to end up this time though. He closed his eyes, his consciousness sent directly to the Astral Realm. When he opened them, the chilled winds nipped at his flesh. Goosebumps formed along the exposed flesh of his wrist.
His eyes darted around. A graveyard. The ebony soil beneath him shifted slightly as his boots pivoted, taking a good look around. Some names he didn't know, but some, he could take them in and remember as if they were yesterday. A fatality list of West City. The lives that his ship had taken. Mutiny at its finest. He believed himself to have taken down the traitor that dared to fire down upon the city without his direct orders. It was a brand upon his back for as long as he could remember.
These graves wouldn't be the only reminder of that grim encounter.
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Bulma spent a bit of time searching the Astral Realm these days. She could slip through it unnoticed and peer into the subconsciouses of valuable targets. It gave her access to a large web of information, and it kept her entertained on rainy days. The realm always pulled you to who you needed to see, for one reason or another, so while she remained a ghost it was easy to tap into the minds of certain Capsule Corp Scientists, her son Boxer, the Saiyan who took her arm, and others who naturally drew her notice.
She was surprised however when a very specific man was caught by her radar. The astral realm worked both ways. If someone didn’t want or need to see her she would never get a peak into their mind. She wasn’t all seeing. The fact that this man had opened up the door at this time was...fascinating.
She could see it, the graves of West City. She debated moving on, her memories from hell replaying in her mind far too accurate to the man she had witnessed those two times. If he had no depth past that, it would be a waste of a visit, but she realized that knowing about his current situation and plans could be beneficial somewhere else...
So she formed, sitting on the gravestone behind him. She didn’t know what she looked like after he killed her but she mimicked the wounds she could remember, wearing the same torn clothes, and the broken cybernetic arm. She even made crude stitch marks around her neck, based on rumors.
”I didn’t imagine ‘God’ would care much about graveyards,” she said her tone soft but with no emotion. ”But perhaps they are akin to trophy cases.” Bulma wasn’t looking at him either. Instead her gaze fixed quietly on the tombstone to his right: Natalie Barrowman.
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Tarble could feel it. Another essence materializing within the realm with him, behind him though not at all hostile. Yet it had a sickening gentleness to it. Part of the Saiyan didn't want to turn around. He didn't want to face the past. He wanted to keep it there. However, if he never addressed the sins upon his back, how could he stride forward into a beautiful future? Slowly, his head turned to face that fear that always lingered on his shoulder. The sight of the bluenette in those tattered garbs, the shattered cybernetic prosthetic, even stitches along her throat.
The head.. he had said those things, hadn't he?
Each comment was cutting. Every word had meaning to it, laced with bitter vitriol. Could he blame her? No, he was the one who took her life all that time ago. Anyone would want the chance to call their murderer a dickhead, after all. Tarble's gaze went over to her, but her eyes were focused elsewhere. Not on him, but a name. His gaze followed hers, only to focus in on a tombstone.
'Natalie Barrowman'.
Tarble couldn't recognize the name by any means. He hadn't studied the fatality list in great detail, but it was here, forged by both of their minds. It didn't take a lot of effort to realize she was among those lost in the explosion. Yet his lips willed themselves to part, his vocal cords to speak. "I see no trophies in this yard.. only people that fell for all the wrong reasons." Tarble's eyes never left the marker that Bulma was so focused on. "... Who was she to you?" A simple question on the surface, but it came with complexities. History. Words that didn't deserve any rightful answer in truth. Yet Tarble couldn't stop burning that name into his memory.
Natalie. Natalie. Natalie.
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Bulma could see the sickness in his very posture and realized she had read him wrong the first time. Well, not completely wrong. She was sure many of her views were correct, along with what hell had made her murderer, but he didn’t blow up West City. She knew that instantly by this place and how he appreciated it. The Tarble that killed her would give reason to his every action, excuse to his every mistake, but if it wasn’t him? If it wasn’t his fault? The man she imagined would finally lay blame on his own shoulders simply because he was not god after all.
This made things more interesting however, and she was pleased with the development but none of it showed on her face or demeanor. She stayed cold and still, calm and unreadable. She wanted him to create his own image of her, paint anger on her to feed his guilt or whatever else he might want her to be. It would tell her more about him.
”You knew her,” Bulma countered, her gaze finally lifting from the stone to look at him, though her expression was still a mask that mimicked the woman she was referring to. ”She was in the room with you.”
Director Natalie Barrowman was the Capsule Corp representative in the meeting where he declared himself god. She never said a single word, doing her best to remain neutral and impartial while dealing with the facts presented. You could see her body go flying from the same footage they’d taken from him, as it stayed recording all the way until the bomb went off.
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Tarble knew this woman.. one that was in the room with him during that meeting. The last time he had ever addressed the people of West City. The last time he had ever seen Earth as a bastion of glory rather than a reminder of pain and suffering he had endured. But no pain or suffering could compare to the loss of life he witnessed, done by the hands of others yet all weighed upon him for so very long. Natalie Barrowman was the representative of Capsule Corporation.
She represented Bulma, and like her, she had perished.
"I see." The Saiyan brought his gaze over to Bulma. His crimson-ringed ebony eyes looked into her own sapphire pair for a moment. They digested his each and every word, analyzed them down to the letter and found the meaning. He tried to understand what she felt. Tried to empathize, but there was nothing in this ironclad mask to find. A void of emotion that merely spoke of the dead.
"I... see," Tarble repeated slowly. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly, his eyes softening at the sight of Bulma. For so long, he wanted to say things to her. He had context to her anger now. Had he understood before how overbearing he was, the god complex that had gripped his psyche, perhaps things could be different. But there was no time like the present for change. "I'm sorry." Those words hung in the air for a moment.
"No one deserved this."
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He was careful this time. He didn’t want to make her a demon again, even if it was so much closer to the truth now. She wouldn’t show him that however, nor would she give him the energy she wasted back then.
She never had time to be angry about being murdered. In fact, none of her hell loops even included Tarble murdering her. That wasn’t the torture. It was listening to him, watching him shape and destroy the world around him while she remained helpless and unheard. Like all the other tortures, she had gotten over that. Now it didn’t matter it she was heard or not, and if she had any irritation with Tarble it was that she had sincerely tried to get through to him, albeit while trying to kill him, and had wasted her time.
No, until he showed her something worth while, all he would get was the ghost he created.
“ ‘You think an apology or some righteous gesture can fix things,’ ” she said, quoting herself but there wasn’t passion in it this time. During their battle she had shouted at him many things. She had told him he was fundamentally wrong, that he believed he was above anything but his own conscience, which was terribly warped. She wasn’t completely sure that had changed, but she knew she hadn’t read him wrong back then, not completely. She also told him he couldn’t keep going on like that. He would burn himself eventually. Had she missed it? Was he finally scarred enough to see it? Had the universe changed, even so slightly?
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The words she spoke to him struck him deep. His mind went back to the battle they had back on Vegeta. He had believed that he was fighting a clone of Bulma--
NO!
No. That was a lie he told himself. In his heart of hearts, he knew that was the true Bulma he fought back then. He knew that he was striking at the woman his brother cared for. Fighting against the last representative that served as a beacon of sin for a past he desperately wanted to disappear. In the haze of haste, he destroyed that past.. alongside her physical form. The sight of her on the ground, struggling in the throes of the Kaioken, still haunted him.
All at once, his sickness gave way to slight rage. But it was not rage at Bulma, no, it was at himself. His hands curled into fists. "I know that.. I knew that. I knew that a long time ago. I just kept denying it," Tarble confessed. He had ignored the signs. The Saiyan God had deemed himself ignorant by his own hand, trying to ignore the warning signs on the path he was going down. Then he paid for it with his life fighting for his Emperor-- and for what? To die at the hands of Bulma's spawn. It was almost ironic.
"I've said sorry so many times to myself, but never to you. But apologies only get someone so far. Action is what speaks for us." He knew that too. It meant nothing. Anyone could throw out an apology, hell even some could throw it out and mean it, but very few could mean it and act on it. Dripping of toxins always seemed to lace themselves into well-meaning acts in the end. But Tarble.. he had an Empire to lead. Followers to guide. He couldn't keep clinging to these sins of the past.
And so he stood before Bulma, baring all for the sake of stripping himself of that hidden cloak of sin. "None of you deserved that fate.. and that includes you, Bulma Briefs." His eyes softened yet again at the sight of it, features slightly morphing on her, but not enough to be any sort of noticeable. It was his cognition.
"Gestures mean nothing, but.. this is my step toward you. To begin something new." He meant that with all his heart. He wanted to try, and perhaps that internal struggle showed in his ever-changing facial features.
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yarru06/11/2019
His face twisted up as new emotion gripped at him. This was why the door had opened to her. He needed this, to face her head on so he could move forward. She wasn’t sure she liked being the catalyst to it. A part of her wanted him to keep suffering and struggling with himself. She did not want to give him peace. It was different from back then. This wasn’t a version of Tarble she did not want to see. He wasn’t the same man who reached for dominance and closed his eyes to everything else. These ears were not ones she could not reach. Thus, the door opened.
He had apologized to her, but they both understood that that hadn’t really counted. ‘If she was really Bulma’ or because she was important to Vegeta, or if it made him feel justified; it wasn’t a real apology and it wouldn’t have been even if she approached him with Vegeta at her side. If she hadn’t tried to kill him, letting her anger fester and Vegeta’s Saiyan way sit on her mind, the result would have been the same. He might not have killed her, but she could imagine him pointing the gun as he had at West City, storming out when he did not have his way and letting whatever happen after because he had ‘tried his best,’ and it was out of his hands. It was never his responsibility to convince anyone he was right. All that mattered was that he knew it and he could use his power to shove it down the throats of anyone who objected.
Until now at least.
”Why did I keep fighting?” she asked, and for the first time there was the smallest flicker of life to her eyes, an expectation or a hope behind them, however dim.
He had asked her that during their battle. He had called her an idiot for fighting. There was too great a discrepancy in their powers for her to ever expect to win. She had to be an idiot to strike at him. So why did she?
Because no one else would. No one would stand up to him or try and tear apart his visions of godhood. He had been all alone on the pedastool he created for himself where everyone either bowed and agreed with him or simply ignored him because he was still too small to make a dent in the universe. No one defied him or stood up to him. He was the perfect warlord and everything he did was necessary to his ends, the path be damned. So she fought with him. She defied him, even to her dying breath. He had said she forced his hand, made him need to use the lethal force that ended her, but the reality was that her words had triggered a childish tantrum. He had the upper hand the entire battle and he still chose to come at her from behind and punish her. Those were her last words, save a profanity, denying him.
If he could answer that, maybe he had really started to move forward.
524/1373
Pulse06/11/2019
"Why did I keep fighting?"
For a few choice moments, that question hung in the air. Tarble's eyes slightly widened at the sight of that glimmer in those azure gems-- there was an expectation of him. Part of the Saiyan God wanted to decipher it, to try and understand what she wanted. He quickly dashed those thoughts away. If he wasn't going to be genuine about his desires for this meeting and the answers he would give, there would be no point to this conversation. He would just be spouting weak apologies again. No more.
So a beat passed.. and he really thought on it.
"You fought because you were the one who bothered to." Tarble stared into her eyes in that moment, bearing all. "When I was a Warlord, I dealt in absolutes. Those against me in one way were against me in all, and even if positivity could come from those sources, I snuffed it because I didn't want those elements in my life. It was so easy to put it in those terms: for and against. But in that haste, I confused a difference in opinion for an attack on everything I represented. So when I was presented with the idea of people hating Saiyans.." He trailed off for a moment, letting out a deep sigh. It was obvious this took a toll on him, if only due to how much effort it took to go through with this.
"I mistaked it for people hating me. And I lashed out violently due to it. That was what resulted in West City's destruction-- because the person that worked to destroy all of our reputations saw a weakness that I put on display."
Those were words that he avoided for so long. He may not have been the destroyer of West City, and for so long he sought to free himself of that negative blight upon his guise, but he paved the path for it. Had he not been so volatile, perhaps things could have been different back then. But he was going to shape it now. Shape that future for them all. "My death taught me things, humbled me to an extent. But if there was any sort of lesson that it taught me, it was that putting myself on such a high pedestal was toxic. Sure, it was nice to tout myself as a supposed god, but.. it was so lonely."
It was a clear picture. Who stood beside him aside from his wife and his pilot? In the end, he was on the run from the point of West City's destruction to his untimely death. Tarble realized that just wasn't the existence he wanted to lead. "My true power comes from the hope people have for me. The kinship I share with those I approach. I've learned.. how to trust other people again." Tarble's fists loosened slightly, his gaze never tearing away from Bulma's.
"And I want to trust you, Bulma."
495 / 1,675
yarru06/11/2019
Bulma’s gaze softened however slightly at his answer, but the mask did not shift further than that. She let him speak. She was still that kind, though it wasn’t done for its kindness. She wanted to listen, and she wanted to watch the strain it put on him to speak. It reminded her of her time in hell. How many times was she forced to face herself, her true self? To embrace all her weakness and her mistakes? Again, and again, and again, and it never mattered.
She was temped to offer Tarble the same. There would be a certain type of karma to it, but that wasn’t who she was, then or now. She enjoyed watching suffering. She had no problems being the catalyst of such suffering either. It was the most intimate of emotions, and she felt it here, and she had the power to make it worse, so much worse, but it wouldn’t be lasting. She only had so much power over him, and the long game suggested that alternate routes would be more beneficial, would display something even more intimate.
There were so many to choose from, but the one she chose was perhaps the simplest. It wasn’t even truly dishonest, even if its choice had come from the goal to manipulate.
”By killing me, you destroyed the person who wanted to help you,” she said, keeping her even tone, but this time she let the smallest bit of sadness into it. She did not want him to misunderstand. His violence had not turned her against him. Killing her was not some unforgivable act that she could not forgive. His specific actions were not unforgivable, but ironically, it was just like West City. He laid the foundation. He cleared the path. He set things in motion, and ultimately, it had led to unforeseen consequences. He couldn’t have wished her back to life, though she had no idea if he actually tried. He killed her, and her soul ended up somewhere it did not belong, and it had destroyed the person who shouted at him with hope he would hear her and change.
”I’ve been alive for awhile now, but I haven’t returned home,” she explained, her tone softening. ”My son accused me of being possessed. Vegeta could not imagine the version of me that would go to hell...” There it was. The answer to what he had done to her, and the mask cracked enough for her lips to lift into the slightest of smiles at the irony of it all.
”I still don’t know if that’s where my soul was intended to go, but that is what I embraced.”
It might have sounded weird to him, but he never really knew her. She was someone Vegeta cared about, someone who softened his otherwise cold heart. She was a hero to the people, someone known for their kindness and generosity. She was the type of person to go the Namek when everyone else was looking the other way, and broker deals with the devil if that meant lives would be spared. She was the one who lashed out at him but did not have it in her to actually kill him.
On the surface, there was no reason to even imagine she would go to hell, but she did not blame him for where her soul ended up. It was always a possibility to her. Maybe it was the burden of a good person believing they were never good enough, or maybe there were deeper crimes in Bulma’s past. He couldn’t know, and now it didn’t matter, because hell was what she had accepted, what she no longer cared about deserving. She could no longer go anywhere else.
“You can’t trust me anymore.”
620/2000
Pulse06/11/2019
The next statement to leave past her lips almost felt symbolic. As if it was an attack on him, to say that there was no possibility of trust being stoked between them. The Tarble of the past would have believed that wholeheartedly, thrown in the towel, believed that he had done all he could to make amends with the past mistakes. But Tarble couldn't just do that anymore. He wasn't going to sit idly by anymore. The best things in life are worth fighting for.. so he was fighting for this.
Bulma explained the issues with her son. With Vegeta. How.. her soul had gone to a place it didn't belong. It wasn't the Saiyan's place to say whether she deserved Heaven or Hell, he didn't know her nearly that well back then. Yet even the slightest cracks in that mask-- the gentle smiles, the slight sadness --the Saiyan God did not waste time deciphering them. The bluenette in front of him suffered because of her death. It wasn't that she couldn't forgive him for the death, it was the death of Bulma and the birth of the new woman that stood in front of him.
But no more.
"No, I can no longer trust Bulma. Because she isn't here anymore, right?" Tarble was cautious, but he began to walk forward. To close that distance between them. Someone needed to take the first step between them, and while the former Tarble might have waited for the longest time to be begged for mercy from those he deemed an enemy, this Tarble did no such thing. He wanted to be accepting. He wanted to work for these relationships. He wanted to make things right and strive for that bright future. "But I can trust you." He stopped, a mere two feet away from the tombstone that Bulma sat upon. Yet his eyes never left her own.
"Maybe you were forsaken by those who couldn't accept what you have become.. but I'm not going to turn away this time. I want to learn about this new you. I want to know this you. The true you that stands in front of me now."
361 / 2,000+
--- END SPAR! --
Bulma (Human, Combat, VR Octagon): 2,000
Tarble (Champ III, Combat Rune, VR Octagon): 2k+
