Day Four: Early Morning

[Belle Hibiki]

After having sunk his teeth into Super Buu's leg, after having acquainted himself with the beings Twenty and Krillin, and after having wolfed down the last of his meager rations in a careless last minute indulgence, Kid Buu was beginning to feel a little better about being called 'retarded'.

His anger, however, was secondly slow to cool, and firstly easy to rouse. He did not forgive.

Buu glared at his large brother over the pseudo-cover of his duffel bag, attempting to burn a hole right through Supes' back with the intensity of his gaze. It didn't work, but it was fun to try and to imagine what might happen to the usurper of his father's affections. His lips twitched up in a rare smile at the image of the impure puttalin fighter writhing on the ground, melting, all the while screaming 'I'm melting, I'm melting!'

Meanwhile rain ran in miniature rivers down his naked torso, dashing over his smooth, streamlined curves before splashing down into the dirt. He picked his way carefully through the foliage, wary of another sudden mudpot. One of his walking hands had fallen victim to a combination of loose soil and pooled water after the beginning of the storm, and his body still had the marks to prove it. With the aforementioned limb drenched halfway up to its stretched elbow in viscuous dirt, his accident was unmistakable. He gritted his teeth and forged through the gathering storm, towards the mountain that loomed not too far in the distance.

The night sung with the sounds of endless waves breaking upon far, remote shores. Buu again halted and tilted his face up, squinting against the pounding rain as he stared into the heavenly vaults above him, trying to discern the night sky that lay beyond. There was something portentous in this weather, an ominous ness - or so a human might think. To Buu, the "omen" was nothing more than an unfortunate coincidence of battlefield conditions, something that could be an annoyance or a blessing; if he played it right.

Violet didn't worry him. If it became necessary to fight her, previous evidence suggested that only a small word of kindness would be necessary to get the once proud "grrl power" demoness to drop her guard as she went for a kiss. He could kill her then with ease. The human Dunhan would no doubt have recoiled at the thought of taking advantage of such feminine frailty, but Buu didn't give one flying fuck anymore what the director of fantasies thought about honor.

As far as he was concerned, he had been right: human emotions had no place in the heart of a monster.

The new arrivals, Twenty and Krillin, were more likely to make his sphincter tighten than his battle aura flare. He had seen plenty of daytime television in his brief stay at the Civil Unrest mansion, and if there was one thing he knew for certain, it was this: two human males who smiled at each other this often and exchanged such subtle, knowing looks were obviously homosexual, and therefore deserving of his contempt.

Buu didn't consider himself homophobic in particular, just anti-life. It didn't matter if they were straight or gay, displays of affection sickened him on a level that he couldn't explain.

His pondering was cut short by the abrupt rapping of familiar knuckles across the back of his head. "Yoyo, what's up with you?" Super Buu asked irritably. He had apparently realized that his "little brother" had stopped again and doubled back. "Keep up, or we're going to leave you behind! You wouldn't want to miss this, right?"

Kibbles grumbled darkly. No, it wasn't the humans that worried him at all, he thought as he made sure to walk through the other puttalin warrior, shoving him aside with an elbow.

Super Buu. Out of any of them, it was he that would be the biggest headache in the battle ahead. Supes knew him, to an extent - what he could do, what he was. But the problem ran deeper than that.

He had been trying not to think about it, trying to deny it, but the truth kept glaring at him right in the face every time he looked into those duplicate crimson eyes: the other majin was stronger than he was. Despite all the harsh situations he had put himself through and the strength he had gained, Super's power level still exceeded his.

Although he had battled the wizard creation Vici what felt like an eternity ago, and though he had forsaken the possibility of Bibidi coming back for him in that struggle, his hatred for "Super" Buu had not abated. Puttalin or not, brother or not, Kid Buu had still had to suffer to make the other's birth possible.

And how was he repaid? By being called a retard.

Well, he thought, he would just have to show Super Buu the consequences of that in the battle ahead. He grinned grimly.

His hand sunk into a mud pot. "AGH!"

~+~+~+~+~

"How much?"

The blue skinned, seven-foot tall demon squinted down before grunting. "Ten zeni says that he drops in the first minute." Tazz nodded, reaching up a hand the dize of a trashcan lid to scratch at his white tank top. The garment was plain save for the four red letters printed across the front: HELL. He also wore shorts, sans lettering, and a pair of sneakers. Aside from having blue skin, a horn growing out of his chin, and a spiked wooden club the size of a man in his unoccupied hand, he was altogether unremarkable.

His companion was notably shorter, probably not breaking the three-foot barrier of his species, but he made up for it in the nasal, high-pitched quality of his voice. "Twenty says in thirty seconds," Veni snapped. He looked up at the giant crystal ball that served as HELL's divination center, television set, and occasional disco ball. He blinked his large, featureless blue eyes. He was Gray-like, dressed in copious amounts of loose robes that fell across his twig-like limbs. In life he had been one of the most powerful wizards of WANG.

And now he was deadl; Kid Buu had killed him.

Tazz smirked at Veni before returning his attention to the crystal ball, which was so large that it could have easily served as an orca's fishbowl. He reached up and tapped the surface with his club, causing the image to short for a second before panning to the other groups. Veni didn't comment.

So, that was Super Buu, Veni thought, his mind reeling in disgust at the sight of seeing both majins together in one place. One had been bad enough, he wasn't sure if he could stomach the sight of two.

Two of Bibidi's creations still wandering about the living world while he was stuck here, apart from anyone else, forced to keep company with a demon ogre who regularly philosophized on the existence of boogers. He got the occasional letter from Vidi, who was in Purgatory and awaiting reincarnation, but it just wasn't the same as having him there.

Little Buu, Veni thought viciously. I hope you die, you wretch!

Off to the side, Tazz lifted his club and began to pick his nose with one of the spikes.

Veni winced. "Ugh."

~+~+~+~+~

"I do hope you understand that the delay was not my intent," King Yemma said with just a hint of defensiveness. Easily over three stories tall, the red skinned, thick bearded Overseer of Souls peered over his equally titanic desk, a plain four legged table that nonetheless stretched from one side of the great hall to the other. "The longer someone is alive, the easier it is to judge them. In this case..." He trailed off.

The minute creature in front of him nodded her head once respectfully. Her blue hair rippled in the light that bounced off her living metal skin. "I understand, sir. I've enjoyed my time here, so I assure you, it wasn't a bother."

Yemma hid a smile by shuffling some papers in front of his face; it was rare that anyone outside of an official called him 'sir'. "Yes, well." He straightened up in his chair. "I believe that now we're ready to pass judgment. Vici, daughter of Veni and Vidi, are you prepared?" He paused. "Vici?"

"It's him," the girl whispered. Her three foot long tail, just one foot shorter than her height, coiled in sudden tension. Her eyes were fixed not on Yemma but to the side, towards the television. On it, muted, the broadcast of Dante's Abyss rattled off statistics, betting numbers, backgrounds where applicable, and a myriad of other things as it panned over each contestant.

Kid Buu glared out from the glass fronting. The quality of it was so intense that suddenly Yemma wished he was in another room. "I decided that it would be best to keep a running tab on what happens there," he said. "For a little forewarning and all. Is something wrong?"

Vici glanced at Yemma and tilted her head towards the screen. "He's the one who saved me," she said softly. "Sir." She added.

Yemma frowned. "I thought he killed you. That's what the paperwork says anyway."

"No," Vici said adamantly, voice soft but clear as she stared up at the screen. "He saved me."

Yemma looked at Vici, at the image of Buu plastered larger than life on the him-sized television, and shrugged. "Well, with that injury, it doesn't look like he's going to be saving anyone else."

"Don't be so sure," the girl said fiercely, catching the King off guard. In all her time spent here, Vici had rarely spoken like this, least of all to him. "If it were anyone else, I might agree, but you see, it's him." Her eyes narrowed as she looked up. "He has a quality about him that only someone who fights against him can understand. I thought that he would be easy to defeat as well, but he stopped me... He overturned everyone who ever tried to stop him from getting what he wanted." Her lip twitched as Buu's memories, dredged from the brief time she had spent in his mind, floated to the surface in her thoughts. "No matter what, he always finds a way. That's just... How he is."

"You believe in him that deeply?"

Silence.

"I do."

~+~+~+~+~

They stood at the foot of the mountain, bedraggled, wet, and ready. The monolithic cathedral of stone rose up into the lightening sky of morning, its tip just gouging a small line through the low-hanging fog. The rain had not abated as their hike continued. If anything, Kid Buu thought to himself, it had gotten worse.

Hardly a word had been exchanged in the last hour, and Buu suspected that they were feeling what he was, that the coming clash was inevitable, inexorable, and not worth talking about. He read the faint expression of nervousness on some faces, eagerness on others, but those things had ceased to matter to him. Now, it was down to pure will to live.

It had always been so with him.

The battle that lay ahead would be taxing, he knew. It would push him to the edge of his limits and beyond, but he was not unaccustomed to the task. Any challenges that stood in his way would be tackled head on, without fear. Life was not something one was gifted with at birth, but something to be carved out of steel by the force of sheer will alone. No matter who tried to bring him down, no matter who tried to control him, he would never allow himself to be caged again. The battle, and victory, was waiting up at the top of the mountain, waiting for someone to step forward and take it, if they had the will.

Buu stepped forward.