The Super Saiyan Goddess

EP. 23 - Future Trunks Returns

When Touka settled into him like a small child, Trunks met with Negi and Bulma. "Is this really it after a year...?" he questioned at the tube of fuel.

The rest of the conversation sounded muddied as Touka began falling asleep.

Her eyes shot open when the lab began to crumble after an explosion.

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Everything happened so quickly, when Touka opened her eyes, she was in her grandfather's arms.

"Bulma!" Negi called out in horror.

Atop the rubble, stood Trunks with his other two children, clutching them—now awake and startled—to his chest. His eyes soon widened. "Mom!!"

Their new villain gripped Bulma by the throat. She could only manage to gasp. "Trunks...! You have to... go! It's up to you now...!"

Before anyone could move, the villain disappeared with her.

"MOM!!" Trunks yelled after her.

They were only left staring as the dust and debris settled around them.

Negi looked around. "Bulma... Her work...," he agonized as he realized they wouldn't be able to make anymore fuel. Bulma, the brilliant and brave scientist, taken in an instant. Gone without a goodbye...

Touka trembled as she turned around. She already felt Bulma was gone, she just needed to come to terms that someone else had died. Someone she had loved so dearly. Tears rolled down her cheeks. "Can we go home now...?"

"Home," Negi murmured.

While Trunks held his other two children tightly, mainly to comfort himself that he still had his family, something to keep him going, Negi knew what to do next. "Home," he said again. "Trunks, you have to make it back to Metro West. Use the Time Machine—don't worry about the fuel for now. Go—you and your family. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if Black hurt one of the kids on my watch..."

"But, what about you?" Trunks asked.

Negi calmed his own shakes. "I'll be fine. I'll figure out a way to be useful, just like Bulma."

The half-saiyan curtly nodded. He looked down at the two children in his arms. A girl with curly black hair and blue eyes. A younger boy with spiked black hair and onyx eyes. Both were bright with fear.

He swallowed down a sob. "Let's go see Mom, okay?"

And so, they began a cautious trek through their dystopian world. Trunks couldn't help but agonize that things had returned to the fearful times of the Androids. Destruction, fire, smoke, corpses. Hell on Earth. Everything he had promised he would never let his children endure, and yet there they were. The same fear he had carried when he was a child. All because of him—Black.

At a hidden apartment, Trunks knocked cautiously.

When she opened the door, Trunks practically fell into her arms. "Niya...!"

She gasped and caught her balance for the both of them. "Trunks? What happened?" She looked to see three children, Negi, and Trunks. Negi held the fuel. She knew they meant it was time. "Bulma...?"