Seboll closed his eyes. “I
want you to really remember me,” he said and laid his hand on Vegeta’s
forearm.
Vegeta gasped at the sudden
wealth of images he received. Memories, impressions, feelings, pain.
Seboll’s whole life was now in his mind.
Then Seboll gasped.
His eyes went blank. “Vegeta, it was always, always worth it,” he whispered,
then died.
Vegeta knew he was dead.
He felt a great, wrenching sob rise in his throat. He deliberately
pushed it down and picked up Seboll’s body. He carried it to the
royal crypts. The locked door did not prove a great barrier and Vegeta
managed to keep the tears
down until he actually placed Seboll in the in sepulcher meant for
himself someday. “You deserve this more than I,” he whispered, savagely
wiping his tears away. “Why did you be my friend? You died!
You’re dead, damn you! And it’s my fault. Why did you
befriend me and leave me? Why did you leave?” Vegeta sealed the
tomb and flew away. He could recite all his titles by heart, but
at that moment, he wasn’t any of them. At that moment, all he was
was an eight-year-old child who had just lost his best
friend. He unashamedly cried until the tears wouldn’t come.
The night passed, as it has a habit of doing.
Sitting on a ledge of a canyon,
somewhere, for he had no idea how long or how far he had flown during the
night, Vegeta watched the sunrise, numb to the spectacular beauty of it.
He rubbed his eyes and flew
down. There was a lake there and Vegeta kneeled and drank thirstily.
He looked down and started when he saw his reflection. He touched
his face in wonder. No bruises, in fact, there was nothing to indicate
that he had been in a
fight recently. The only indications that he might have had any
sort of stress were his bloodshot, puffy, black eyes. And surely
they had always been black. All the tension last night during the
battle must have really gotten to him, that was all. That had to
be
it. Blond hair, green eyes. Impossible. He wondered
what the people of Vejittasei would think of having an insane ruler who
imagined such things.
Still, that burst of power
he had shot…Vegeta shook his head. The past was the past. And
that was where it would remain, forever. He clinically examined all
he was feeling at the moment and found only three he cared to keep: anger,
hate, and pride. He stood up and implacably pushed away his other
screaming emotions and firmly locked them away. He brushed the dust
off his armor and flew back to the castle.
***
Everyone saw the change
in the Prince. Where he had been harsh before, he was ruthless.
He had always been attentive while training, but now he was absorbed, gathering
any new technique, learning and improving it until he dropped from exhaustion.
The King realized the death
of his “friend” had caused the change in his son. He still didn’t
quite understand why. The Prince hadn’t even killed the brat.
How could a simple death influence the Prince so much? But King Vegeta
wouldn’t complain. This—hardness in his son, that’s what he had set
out to accomplish. The goal was reached, the Prince was a now a true
Saiyajin.