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Without noticing it, Kakarot stood up and clumsily tried to mimic the fighting moves Grandpa Gohan and his mother were doing.
Gine and Gohan took a break, letting him catch his breath. They looked over to Kakarot, seeing him trying to emulate their moves.
"I guess he would want to try martial arts too someday." Gohan said as he and Gine watched. She looked at her son with a swell of pride in her. He had some of Bardock's spirit in him, she could tell. Even if he had such a low power level, maybe it didn't mean anything. If he could be better than what destiny provided Bardock, then maybe Kakarot could too.
She hoped he would.
Over the course of the weeks and months that followed, their lives blended seamlessly together. Gine lived and trained with Gohan as his student while she cooked, helped with the upkeep and expansion of the hut to accommodate them all living together, and raised Kakarot. All the while she managed to learn how to fight like Gohan, refining her style and acquiring some of his techniques.
In no time she managed to be a formidable challenge to Gohan and not him being a challenge to her. He could not even knock her down anymore, like he used to at the beginning. But he still sparred with her as she was quite fun, and he in turn expanded her horizons further with getting her into meditation exercises and managing her ki better. Through fighting for fun rather than survival, Gine found a release for her grief over her eldest son and Bardock. She still cried in the night or at random times when thoughts of them overtook her, but martial arts training has really provided an anchor in her life to ground herself back into reality and focus on the family she had now.
Kakarot grew fast. Before Gine knew how much time had passed he was walking, talking, and learning how to fight by watching them and practicing on his own during their early morning routines. Just barely older than one year and he was already wanting to join his mother and adoptive grandfather in their sparring sessions. They agreed to go easy on him at first and teach him the basics, but he learned fast. Before they knew it, they were having three-way battle royals and one-on-one fights with him. Kakarot was still weaker than them, but his strength grew fast enough that they could throw actual punches at him. Gohan even gave him his magic red pole he had to provide a better challenge for the fights, and as a gift to him as it once was to Gohan from his old master.
Gohan never mentioned the possibility of them leaving, and neither did Gine, even though she had managed to get mostly oriented to life on Earth. Having spent enough time living and training together, they didn't want to break the arrangement that grew from Gine and Kakarot's integration into Gohan's life. He enjoyed teaching Gine the arts of fighting, for it was like teaching the old ways to someone who only knew modern things from another world. He also enjoyed their company even if he did miss the isolation of the hermit life. Gine paid back the teachings he gave her with stories of the world she came from and had seen, being the best sparring partner he ever had, and the excellent food she made. Neither of them wanted to break that unspoken deal. So, they both silently agreed to themselves and each other that they would never bring that up as long as the other didn't.
Winter arrived and Gine had never been so in love with a planet's seasons before. Seeing the landscape of Paozu blanketed in white powdery snow, feeling the icy cold temperatures, she found it to be soul-cleansing in contrast to the scorching heat of planet Vegeta, and hearing the silence that snowfall brought made the home she lived in seem magical. She really did feel blessed to have found this place.
By then, Gohan had taught her how to knit and sew, so she made her own clothes to wear when it got too cold to wear just her armor. After enough practice and pricking her fingers, Gine had made a fighting dress that was dark green with an ankle-length skirt, purple long sleeves, and blue boots that Gohan bought her to go with it. Fitting it on, she felt like she was now one of the Earthlings. Indiscernible from other human women except for her tail, which she wrapped around the sash at her waist. And with that, she put away her armor, feeling at long last she can put her old life behind her.
On this particular day, Gine was busy teaching Kakarot how to read. He was making slow progress, even though Gohan said that human children are much older by the time they get to this stage in development, so Kakarot had that head start going for him.
"T-Th-The boy..." Kakarot struggled to make out the words in the children's book his mother was making him read. "t-thwew...th..."
"Go on, you got it." Gine encouraged him, sitting by his side. He was still trying to pronounce his 'r's but she let it slide this time. Although he was slow to learn by Saiyan standards, at least he was not having as much trouble as he was with arithmetic.
"th...threw...the...red..." He paused as he tried to figure out the last word. "...ball...to h-his...pa...papa."
"Good job sweetie!" Gine clapped for him.
Kakarot closed the little book in a hurry. "Can I go play now, Mama?"
"Yes, you may." Gine answered, glad he asked this time instead of just taking off. He clumsily got up and ran to the door, Gine followed him. "Don't forget your coat!" She yelled out to him.
They played out in the snow for the rest of the day, with Gohan showing Kakarot and Gine the wonders of snowball fighting and snow sculptures. They laughed hard at the silly things they drew in the snow, and they laughed even harder at how competitive the snowball fight got before it devolved into an all-out brawl between the three of them. It was the most relaxing fun Gine ever had, made more so that Kakarot was involved too.
With his insane amount of energy, Kakarot single-handedly fought and beat his mother in the snowball fight and proceeded to chase critters in the snow, trying to catch them. He still had the random urges to hurt them, but Gine was always there to reprimand him. His programming ran deep but he did indeed have his mother's gentle nature, so she made sure to drill into him that causing unnecessary harm was wrong. She hoped after a while of enough times reminding him of these lessons, the mental imprinting done to him could be undone. He'll still crave for battle, but she hoped it will be for sport or self-preservation.
By nightfall they feasted on mountain lion that Gine killed and smoked herself, making a nice warm meal to ward off the cold and replenish their strength after such a brutal play-battle in the cold. Later, Gine tucked her stuffed and sleepy son into bed while she stayed up, looking at the snow and stars by the fireside while her mind wandered. A crescent moon was out tonight so she didn't have to wear her shades, and it lit up the landscape by making the snow sparkle, rendering it indistinguishable from the twinkling starlight up above. Gine didn't think she'll ever get used to the unparalleled beauty of this world.
"Mama?" She heard Kakarot say, still drowsy.
"Yes, sweetie?" Gine looked at her son, who was yawning but looking at her intently.
"Do I have a papa?" He asked.
Gine's breath caught in her throat. She knew that this question would come eventually, but didn't think it would be so soon. Then she remembered the children's book Kakarot tried to read today. It did contain a story about a mother and father, and figured that's where he got the idea from.
"You did have a papa, sweetie."
Kakarot looked at nothing, thinking over what she said. "Where is he?" He asked in his gentle voice.
Gine didn't know how to explain the concept of death to her son. He was almost two years old, and by what Gohan said he already had the cognitive capabilities of seven-year-old human children. But Gohan said that explaining something that meant was gone permanently was something people should learn later on in life, as humans were a little more adverse to talking about death among other taboo things. Gine considered this, but Kakarot was a Saiyan and was meant to know death by now as any other would. At least he may have gotten the grasp of the danger of it through him figh
ting with them. And he deserved to know his history.
He's dead." Said Gine. It's about as plain and simple as she could put it.
Kakarot digested what she said, thinking about what that word meant. Then, "What does dead mean?"
Probably should've used the word "gone", she thought. Too late to undo what she said, so Gine tried to explain it as easily as she could.
"It means...gone. As in like, you fall asleep and never wake up." She said carefully.
Kakarot looked at himself in bed then looked back at her, and back at himself in bed. "Am I going to be dead if I fall asleep?"
"No! No, you will absolutely not!" Gine said adamantly, she really should have worded that better.
"What I meant was...dead means..." She tried to think of another way of putting it, but it was too tiring on her mind, and it brought up the uncomfortable memory of Bardock and Raditz.
"Let's talk about that later." She said finally, hoping to bring that subject to an end.
Kakarot looked confused, but he appeared to have let go of pursuing the topic, not wanting to upset his mother when he could sense when she wasn't unhappy. He lay back down, and started to doze off again, but then let out another question.
"What was he like?"
Gine looked at Kakarot and back out to the night sky, almost as if looking for planet Vegeta again.
Words like brave, harsh, competitive, and determined entered her mind. He was the kind of Saiyan that charged into a fight no matter how difficult and fought with his teammates like they were family. He considered them more family than even her and Raditz sometimes as they were far weaker than him, but he still cared about them to a small degree, but leagues beyond what most Saiyans ever would. But aside from all that, he had something in him that drove him to be better than himself and others, that gave him the strength to rise above his caste. The thing that really drove her to him.
"He was strong." Gine said. She then turned toward Kakarot in bed and brushed her hands through his hair.
"And he looked exactly like you." She added quietly as she thought of how eerily similar the two looked alike.
Kakarot stirred as his mother petted his scalp.
"Was he stronger than you and Gw-Grandpa?" He asked.
Gine chuckled. "Yes. Even stronger than me and Grandpa."
Kakarot momentarily looked up at her in awe, "Wow." Then sleep began to take over him again, and he was rapidly drifting away.
"Will I be...as strong as..." Kakarot tried to murmur in his dozing off, but he was snoring soundly before he could finish his sentence.
Gine looked at her son, knowing how he was going to finish that sentence.
"Sweetie, you'll be even stronger." She whispered, never more certain of anything she ever knew. Somehow Bardock saw something in Kakarot, and she saw it too now.
He will be something special someday...
And so, the winters went by as the three of them lived together in perfect harmony. Through training and living the simple homestead life, Gine had found a place of belonging beyond what she ever imagined. They were far enough away that Frieza would never look for them, and Kakarot would grow up to know a peace that she never did. For that, she was eternally grateful to Gohan, and she even adopted his surname, Son, to signify that they had become their own little family. That and in case anyone asked who they were on her rare visits to the village Gohan went to every now and then. Her grief never left her, but the pain grew duller and more manageable over the years. The past receded further as she focused her energies on the family she had here and now.
Gine's dream of living a life of peace with her son had come true, and she was finally happy.
But as she would come to learn, peace and quiet never last forever...
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🚨 Want to read more?
The next 10+ chapters are already available on my Patreon!
By joining, you'll get:
📖 Early access to future chapters
🗳️ Polls to shape the story
🎁 Exclusive content for Patrons
🔥 Bonus adult-themed pictures & scenes you won't find anywhere else(adult only 😉)
Don't fall behind—others are already ahead! 👀
👉 Patreon.com/c/FanfictionTakashi
( please search this link on Google Chrome)