Day Three: Morning

[Bardock]

Time was up. The inner alarm clock rang, and Bardock was woken from the dredges of sleep. He opened his eyes slowly, but quickly shut them, an unpleasant pulsing tearing through his brain. Groggily, he tried to release the hand that was clutched around his torso, only to find that his fingers grasped empty material. Her hand was no longer there. Squirming a little, the fighter could still feel her body next to his, except that she wasn’t pressed as close as he remembered she’d been. Bar pushed the blanket off and slid into a seating position, groaning and palming his forehead, lacing his fingers through his black spiky hair. His head was killing him, and he couldn’t figure out why. Shrugging the sleep from his stiff frame, the fighter looked over his shoulder. Violet was lying there, wide-awake. His brow twitched momentarily—she was looking at him…sort of funny. Was there something he was missing?

Regardless, he stood up and walked outside. He had to take a major leak. Priorities needed to be followed. By the time he went back inside, Violet was moving around, packing up their gear.

“Thought you were going to sleep forever,” she teased, breaking the silence.

Bardock slowly shook his head, not exactly a good idea right now. “I’m fine. We gotta get moving here pretty quick. Are you good to go?”

She nodded in affirmation. The human certainly looked revitalized, but no amount of sleep was going to make those nasty burns go away. He moved to his duffel, pulling out the kit, taking one last glance at his busted hand. Making up his mind, the brawler took it over to his partner.

“You need to take care of those first,” he pointed out, moving to begin cleaning the wounds. As his fingers touched her skin, she leaned back and away, looking somewhat uncomfortable.

“I can do it,” she insisted.

Bardock stopped for a moment, his features expressionless. “Okay,” he shrugged. He really didn’t have time to debate over it; he was antsy to get out of there already. Besides, the fighter figured that it probably had something to do with how he’d last handled her injuries. Violet took the medical supplies and stuffed them in her bag.

“Later,” the woman said. “We can go.”

The duo exited the hunting lodge just as the announcement for the previous day’s kills was going off. When the android’s name was called, Bardock stiffened. Usually when he killed someone’s friend there was serious backlash involved, often resulting in much physical retaliation. To say he was surprised there had been none so far was a bit of an understatement. It was nothing personal to him, but everyone else always seemed to take it that way. Instead of an attempt to beat him to a bloody pulp, they had shared a couch together. Not exactly the way things had ever panned out before. The bronze bruiser wondered if maybe it was just going to be a delayed reaction.

Nevertheless, the two took off into a sprint, Bardock noticeably unable to maintain the breakneck speeds he was usually capable of. Sleep had brought back a portion of his former power, just not enough of it, and he didn’t want to push himself if he didn’t have to. Whatever was left had to be saved in case a fight broke out. And man what a fight that last one had been. The next one was going to have to be incredible to top it.

Suddenly, Bardock’s stomach audibly rumbled. Violet laughed.

“That has to be murder for you,” she chuckled.

Bardock snorted.

“We’ll stop to eat,” Violet conceded.

As soon as she spoke the words, the saiya-jin broke off and headed off in another direction. Startled, Violet did a double take and followed. He disappeared in a large area of brush, and her feet skidded to a halt as she heard loud war cries that were silenced and followed by a sickly snapping sound. Somewhat panicked, Violet cleared the distance and peered over to where her saiya-jin companion had vanished. Her eyes widened and a grin cracked across her face as she saw him hoist a deer with one arm over his shoulder, looking rather pleased with himself.

Not long after, the two were picking their teeth. It had been a little gamy, but it was better than nothing. Although their conversation proceeded as normal, the male couldn’t help but feel like something was…off…

He couldn’t quite place his finger on it. Something was amiss, and he didn’t want anything amiss. There were plenty of distractions enough already; this was just another straw to the heap. Confrontation was the last thing either of them needed, so the fighter was going to let this one slide. The competition was coming down to the wire, and Bardock didn’t want to miss the ending. As fun as his previous encounters had been, the ending was the all-time high he was working for. There was no greater battle than the all-out royale.

Bardock cleaned his axe and knives, swiftly carving out another notch in the handle. He whisked out his map, and traced a path along the coordinates with his finger.

“This is where we’re going,” the roughneck demonstrated. His useless hand shook as it held up the paper. He was fine with losing an eye, or an ear, and he was even fine with getting his head bashed in. The worst thing was having his fists taken away from him. But there was no point lamenting. The bat had crushed it, and it wasn’t going to be the same again in this tournament. “Watch your six.”

Violet nodded. Bar replaced his items, and stood. He was tempted to say something, but thought the better of it as they sped off into the morning light.