Crono's Story

Chapter 31

	History was not something a simple warrior like myself often wrote or even witnessed, it was more like something that we studied in order to not repeat the mistakes hidden within it.  But even as I stood there, looking out onto the battlefield that lay in front of me, I knew deep in my heart that I’d just seen a piece of history the likes of which the Earth could not forget.
	I was instantly caught in a whirlwind tornado of mixed emotions and thoughts almost the second Crono had beaten Yush in their violent clash of ki beams.  My natural fighters instinct told me to fly down to Yush, and finish the Caprian once and for all, while my more predominant pacifistic thought-engines nearly commanded me to swoop down to the fallen warrior who had just saved my life, and quite possibly the lives of trillions of other’s.  It seemed that everyone else was also torn between the two choices, as no one even moved for almost a minute, we all stood there in a sort of stunned and confused silence.  My mind turned to mush as I tried to rationalize which of the options was the correct one, when, of all people, Nikita took a step forward from her place on the top of the boulder just a few feet beneath me.  All of our eyes instantly whipped straight towards the blonde-haired human, our vision seemingly cemented onto her form.  I watched with profound interest as Nikita slowly took a few more hesitant steps towards the scarred and worn battleground.   With one small hop and an explosion of ki, Nikita shot across the ground and was soon kneeling next to Crono’s unconscious and shirtless body.
	Almost as soon as she began to aid the injured hybrant warrior, Arsenia snapped out of his trance-like state, and he too quickly flew down next to Nikita.  I shook my head vigorously to draw myself into awareness, took in a quick breath of air, squatted for a split second, and then with a strong push from my legs, propelled myself into the air, directly at the small gathering around Crono.
	I landed a few feet away from the fallen red-haired fighter, and to the sight of Nikita gently rolling him onto his back.  When she’d finally wrestled his limp carcass into a straight position on the ground, both Arsenia and Nikita began looking over his body for any telltale signs of serious injury.  As I bent down near his head to perform a small check to see if he had a concussion, I picked up the sounds of the others flying over from behind the destroyed boulder.  One by one the remaining four fighters touched down behind Nikita and I.  I brought my hands up to Crono’s temples, and slowly drained a portion of the man’s ki from his head.  It was extremely dangerous to take another person’s ki and intermingle it with your own, it was almost like taking an infusion of type A blood if you’re a type O.  However, since Crono was using hardly any of his full power at the moment, I deemed it a required risk to take.  The small piece of ki energy rushed through my system, and as soon as I knew it had spread its course throughout my body, I performed a test on my own ki to see if the small extract I’d taken from Crono had any of the signs of a concussion, or any other serious injury.  Luckily, my test came up negative, and I made a mental note to myself to purge all of my energy from my body as soon as I could; having someone else’s ki running around in your body for an extended period of time could be very hazardous.
	“You find anything?”  Gideon asked me suddenly.  I hadn’t been expecting the question, so it took me a moment or two to figure out just exactly he was talking about.
	“Uh, no, not really.”  I stammered in reply.
	“Good.”  Gideon half-whispered in answer.
	I stood up from the ground, and studied as Nikita tore a few strips of loose clothing off of her gi and wrap them around Crono’s open cuts, which were still bleeding at that point.  I sensed a feeling of worry and apprehension from Nikita, like she was tormenting over a loved-one.  It seemed kind of odd to me that she would be so concerned about Crono, but as it turned out, it was just the start of their relationship.
	All of us that were standing soon formed a small ring around Crono, Nikita, and Arsenia.  The two humans worked feverishly on the floored fighter, while the remainder of us watched intently.  Their medical aid was makeshift, barely helpful, but it was an effort none the less.  As I regarded the action beneath me, a thought suddenly sprang in my head.  I realized I could call on Kami to fly down to our position and heal Crono at light speed.  I nudged Yukia, who was to my left, and said, “I’m going to call Kami down here to help heal Crono.”
	He turned his head to face me and smiled broadly, “Good idea.”
	I nodded back towards the black-haired human, slowly shut my eyes, and then tentatively opened a mental communication link between the guardian of the Earth and myself.  When our minds attached a few moments later, I felt the fear and dread Dende was experiencing as he watched Crono’s battle from high above at Sky Palace.  “Kami.”  I began, murmuring quietly.
	His reply came instantly, almost as if he was expecting my call, “Yes Karnai?”
	“It looks like we’ve won, but Crono may need some serious medical attention, and there isn’t a regeneration chamber site, or even a hospital, for several miles into the city.”  I paused a second to make sure he completely understood our situation, then continued, “And since Yush isn’t finished yet, we may need Crono at full power quickly.  So if you could fly down here and heal him, it would be greatly appreciated.”
	There was a slight pause as my fellow Namek thought about it, “Alright, I’ll be right down.”
	“Thank you Kami.  Once again, the world owes a great deal to you.”
	“Oh, you flatter this old he----“ Kami stopped in mid-sentence, and when he spoke again, his voice was high pitched and alarmed, “Karnai, look out!!”  He half-screamed through our mental link.  The rational part of my brain demanded an explanation for such a rude and boorish cry, but luckily, the rational part of my brain went into a dormant state whenever there was even the slightest chance of a battle.  I dropped down to the ground, flat on my stomach as quickly as I could, and just as I did so, there was a huge upsurge of ki from directly behind me, and then a thick purple beam rushed above me, right where my torso had been just a moment before.
	The beam lasted for only a second, and then it struck the ground about a hundred metres ahead of me.  Luckily it didn’t make contact with any of the other Z Warriors, but it did graze Yukia slightly, sending him sprawling to the ground.  There was a fairly large explosion as the brunt of the beam detonated on the hard, now grassless land.  I paid no attention to the explosion however, and instead shoved myself up from the ground and whipped around to face the source of the purple blast.
	I expected to find Yush, but instead, standing not twenty feet away was a bulky, bloody and armor-less Blanka.  His right arm and palm were outstretched, smoking and still aimed directly at me.  One of his eyes was swollen to the point where I could no longer see his pupil; his left arm was slightly mangled at his side, obviously broken, and his massive chest was almost overflowing with open cuts and blood.  He was breathing heavily, and his face was trying hard to mask the obvious pain that was running through his body.  How I hadn’t noticed such a large and powerful individual escaped me, but I figured it didn’t really matter how he’d eluded me, just that he had.
	“Lucky bastard Namek.”  He mumbled under his deep and grave breath.
	A series of cries went up from behind me, mainly consisting of “Karnai!” and “Are you alright?”  I paid the howls no mind, and instead dropped into my fighting stance as quickly as possible.  I couldn’t let Blanka attack me un-hindered like that again, even if he was badly injured.
	The Caprian smiled slightly as Gideon and Arsenia rushed to each side of me and fell into their fighting poses.  I could feel the tension within my allies’ bones, and I whispered to them, “Be calm.  Just don’t let him take you by surprise.”
	“Right.” Arsenia replied.
	“That’s a good idea,” Blanka chuckled out of the blue, “you wouldn’t want me to get a sudden advantage, would you?”  Arsenia began to fidget in fear and impatientcy at my side, and I knew that was just the kind of uneasiness Blanka would take advantage of.  I was about to warn my human companions of such an attack, but before I could do anything, Blanka struck.
	Zanzokening quicker than I thought possible for such a large man, he was soon out of view; and just as quickly as he disappeared, he faded into reality once again, right in front of Arsenia, who was to my right.  Before he even had a chance to raise his hands in defence, Blanka had brought his good hand up and nailed Arsenia in the human’s jaw with his fist.  I swivelled to face Blanka just as the Caprian was following through and Arsenia was being hurled backwards.  No sooner had I turned to face my enemy than he was attacking once again.  He brought up his right leg and attempted to deliver a sidekick into my stomach.  I narrowly avoided the deadly blow by hopping backwards, but Gideon, who still stood dumbfounded to my left, remained in the path of the kick.  The dark-skinned human caught the full impact of the Caprian fighter’s kick right above his hip.
	I felt Gideon’s ki signature get hurled into the air, and then collide with the ground a few seconds later, but I didn’t bother to watch the descent of my friend with my eyes.  Instead, I pounced on Blanka’s awkward position, hoping to do some major damage.  Since his right arm was still extended outwards, he had nothing with which to protect his head, so I decided to hit that first.  I slung my left claw around in a hook and caught Blanka in the jaw with the swipe.  His head was twisted away by the blow, and for a split second, he lost all sight of me.  I guess I probably should’ve zanzokened to a place where I could mount a more thought-out offensive, but my mind wasn’t working quite right, and instead of planning my next attack, I just went all out.  I took my right leg up from the ground and snap-kicked the Caprian in the stomach.  He was thrown ferociously backwards and at a slightly upward angle from the kick, and as soon as I’d gathered the tiniest amount of my ki energy, I shot after him at my maximum speed.
	Before he’d recovered from my kick, I reached him in mid-air and using a double axe-handle smash, knocked him straight back into the ground.  I hung in the air for less than a second, trying to decide whether I should continue after him or use a ki attack to try and finish Blanka off.  I quickly decided to continue a physical assault, but that split second of hesitation I had gave the Caprian enough time to gather himself on the ground.  I rocketed towards him in a huge ball of white ki, and by the time I reached him, he was lying flat on his back and I thought I’d be able to land another attack.  To my surprise though, as soon as I came within a two feet of him, his legs swung upwards at an astounding speed, and he caught me on the jaw with his two massive, booted feet.
	My momentum instantly reversed, and I was thrown at full speed into the air.  The pain started in my jaw, but soon travelled its way throughout my head, until I felt like my entire skull was going to shatter.  Consumed in pain, I paid no mind to my foe, even as he shot up from the ground straight towards me.  By the time I’d forced myself out of my world of agony, Blanka was upon me.  He smiled gruesomely at me as he wound up a huge uppercut fist and delivered it full-force into my jaw.
	By then my head was so overtaken in hurting that I didn’t even see his next attack coming.  All I felt was a huge blow on my spine, and then I was flung to the ground faster than I’d ever experienced before.  As soon I collided with the floor, I forced myself to rise to my feet, so that Blanka wouldn’t hit me unguarded like that again.  Though my eyes were covered in a sort of blackness, I used my ki tracking ability to map out where Blanka was.  To my surprise, he wasn’t soaring after me at his max speed; instead he was slowly gliding down to my position, his ki power lowering slightly with each passing second.
	My vision began to return to me after a few seconds of waiting, and before long I was able to see once again.  My eyes confirmed what my mind had just inferred.  Blanka was indeed slowly climbing down the air, and before long, he had planted himself in the ground about twenty metres ahead of me.  I slowly curled my claws into fists, and began to stare straight into Blanka’s face.  He was still smiling, a smug and confident look on his face.  I slowly lowered into my fighting stance, but I was extremely uncertain if I could take the Caprian or not.  I didn’t want to look into his ugly, beaten face any more, I just wanted to walk away right then, before the fight could continue.  Of course such a wish could not be granted, and as much as I willed for him to just walk away with his moral victory intact, I knew he wouldn’t stop until he was crushing the life out of me with his bare hands.  I knew I couldn’t let him do that, I couldn’t lose to him now, not after all Crono had just accomplished for us.  I opened my jaw gradually, spit out a bit of blood from my mouth, and bore my fangs straight at Blanka.  The humanoid fighter didn’t even seem to notice at all, and that just pissed me off even more.  I was overwhelmed by a sudden urge to just pounce on him and show him who truly was the best between us, but before I could begin any kind of an assault, a huge upsurge of ki grabbed my attention.
	It came from my left, where the rest of the Z Warriors were still supposedly standing.  I followed one of the most basic fighting principles and diverted my attention to the most powerful source of energy on the field, and at the same time I also defied another basic rule by rerouting my concentration away from my current foe.  I expected to find Yush standing over the dead bodies of all my friends, and for a split second I regretted my choice to go to Crono’s aid instead of killing Yush once and for all.  Ironically it was Crono whom I found standing, but he wasn’t over the dead bodies of my companions, he was standing with them, all alive and well.  In actuality though, he wasn’t standing under his own power.  Crono’s arm was slung over Nikita’s shoulders, his legs looked weak and wobbly, he was breathing heavily under the strain of standing up, and I doubted he had enough strength in his body to help in any form of the word.  His body was swallowed whole in a red flame, and I realized he was using Kaioken to reach a level where Blanka and I would both notice him.  Nikita was also consumed by his ruby aura, and if anything, she looked more alive within it than I’d seen her in a long time.  As soon as I confirmed that it was a friendly power that I’d sensed, I mentally punished myself for allowing my eyes to divert themselves from my opponent when I could’ve just as easily found out who it was by their ki signature.  Luckily, Blanka had also been distracted by the sudden expansion of Crono’s ki and was giving the fused warrior his entire attention.  He wasn’t even facing me anymore, and even a small child would’ve been tempted by the sudden opening my Caprian enemy had given me.  I bent my legs slightly as fast as I could, and right as I was about to pounce on Blanka’s mistake, a voice propped up from apparently all around me.  “No Karnai.”  It said.  I didn’t recognize the voice, but I was startled enough to halt me from attacking Blanka full force.  I glanced nervously at Nikita and Crono, but found that they hadn’t noticed the voice.  I suddenly understood that the short quip had not come from all around my head, but from within it.  Someone had sent me a mental message without even touching the mental defences I’d set up to prevent someone from accessing my mind.  The only person on the planet who could possibly do that was Kami, and that voice was definitely not Kami’s.  I stood frozen in confusion, unsure of whether to obey this voice when suddenly it spoke again, “Don’t bother Karnai, I’ve got it covered.”  The voice said again.
	I thought about it again and after a second of thought found that I did recognize the voice.  I turned slowly to its source on the balls of my feet, and when I looked straight at it, I gave it as questioning a look as I could.  Crono didn’t even look at me, he just continued to stare at Blanka, but as soon as I looked at him, he spoke into my head once again, “Yes, its me.  Don’t worry with him, he won’t be bothering us for to much longer.”  I nodded absent-mindedly, completely lost in the trunk of wonder that was Crono.  I dropped my fighting stance slowly, and then when I made sure Blanka was no longer watching me, I shot up from the ground and flew over to Kennard, Yukia and Gideon, who were almost ten feet to the right and ahead of Crono.  They all nodded at me as I touched down on the ground beside the trio, and I nodded back.  All our attention then turned to Crono, Nikita, and the Caprian second in command.
	Crono, with Nikita in his wing, just stood on his spot, his flaming aura illuminating the ground around him with a dull red colour, his red hair and blue-green eyes bouncing lightly with each passing second of silence.  Blanka had his right hand clenched in a fist, a small grin painted onto his broken and bloody face, his jaw dripping blood down the side of his chin.  The two stared into each other’s eyes with a level of ferocity and intensity I had never seen before.  You couldn’t tell by Blanka’s facial expression, but I sensed that deep down within himself, he was unsure, and somehow, I knew Crono sensed it too.  Neither warrior was willing to make the first move however, and the stillness between the two stretched on for what seemed like forever, until I almost felt like screaming out in anticipation and anxiety.  Finally, Blanka abruptly broke the silence and half-shouted out, “You look pretty bruised up over there.”
	Crono just nodded slightly and retorted, “You don’t look so great yourself.”
	“Looks aren’t always everything.”
	“Exactly.”
	Blanka fell silent for only a split second, but the smile on his face gently faded away.  He continued to stare at Crono, but when he spoke again, his voice was spiteful and unconvinced, “You know you got lucky with Yush.  It was just an off day for him; I saw the whole thing.”
	“And you think you could do better?”
	“The way you are now… absolutely.”
	Crono stared back at the gimp-armed Caprian for perhaps a second at the most, then lowered his vision to Nikita for a moment, and then quickly looked back towards Blanka.  The blonde-haired human nodded towards Crono, and then tenderly slipped her body out from under Crono’s arm, letting the limb fall loosely to his side.  He clenched his good hand into a fist, brought it up to beside his waist, and almost whispered to Blanka, “Go ahead and try it then.”  As soon as he did so, his flaming aura exploded to a more intense level as he raised Kaioken to a higher factor.  Blanka actually took a step back in fear in the face of the powerful hybrant fighter.  I almost laughed at his cowardness, but luckily I caught my tongue before I let slip.  Crono looked quite formidable as he menacingly gazed straight through the Caprian warrior, who looked almost petrified in fear.  I could tell that Crono had once again turned the tide of the battle in our favour, although I didn’t know how long he would be able to maintain Kaioken before his already injured body was overwhelmed.  Blanka’s breathing became noticeably heavy, like he was struggling for each breath, almost as if they were going to be his last.
	Nikita ran away from the crimson-covered fighter that was Crono and joined the rest of us in relative safety. The stare down between the two powers lasted only a few seconds before Blanka realized his awkward position and said, “You’re just fortunate this time.  When General Yoorabit arrives, you pathetic humans won’t have a chance.”
	“We’ll deal with him, and the rest of his ‘Army’ when the time comes.”  Crono glared deeply at his opponent for a split second and then continued, “Until then, I suggest you leave now, and rejoin your pathetic little militia.”  Blanka regarded Crono irregularly for a little while, and then stole a worried glance at Yush, who was still unconscious and laying on his back over a hundred yards away.  “Don’t worry about him,” Crono said, continuing to look straight at Blanka though obviously speaking of Yush, “he’s ours to deal with now.”
	There was complete silence, except for the sound of Crono’s aura, for several seconds as Blanka decided if he should make a stand there or follow Crono’s advice and leave while he still could.  I waited tensely as each apprehensive second stretched on, each instant raising the level of pressure to a newfound level.  Without any indication, Blanka suddenly exploded into a flaming ball of white ki, and then almost instantly shot off into the sky.  We all watched as he flew away from the site of Yush and Crono’s battle towards the Caprian’s ship, which rested in the crater it had created just a few kilometres away.  After a while, a huge roar emanated from the spherical ship, followed by a huge blast of flame, clear but super-hot gas, and the sultry stench of pure hydrogen and rocket fuel being ignited to near a million degrees of heat.  The ship was slowly pushed upwards, climbing the sky inch by inch as hundreds of pounds of fuel were burned with each second.
	After the metallic vessel had risen several metres from the ground there was another huge blast as the booster rocket within it went off and the ship soared high through the air and into the Earth’s atmosphere.  With each passing moment, the glare of the sun’s beams reflecting off the glossy surface of the ship grew dimmer and dimmer as the former assault vehicle for over ten now served as an escape pod for one.
	“Finally.”  Gideon muttered almost incoherently off to my left.
	“Yeah.”  Yukia replied from behind me.  I too, found myself suddenly overcome with a feeling of finality and happiness, like the sensation one gets after witnessing the birth of a child.  I knew such a feeling was hard to come across in life, and should be treasured while it lasts, so I made sure to try and do so.  Silence consumed our ragtag group of Z Warriors, and for the first time in a long, long while, I felt nothing but hope and expectation of the war to come.  We had defeated the Caprians twice now, and there was no reason we could not do it again.  I slowly turned to face the friends I’d grown so close to in recent times, looked over their faces one by one, and saw just what I’d hoped to.  Every single one of them was smiling, or at least grinning, and their eyes glowed with pure confidence and anticipation.  In that single, fleeting moment of pure bliss, I knew then that these Caprians could not beat us, the only people who could defeat us were ourselves.
	I smiled back at my fellow warriors, basking in the glory of the moment.  I sensed Crono walking towards us, and I gradually turned to face him, to see if he too had realized what I had just fathomed.  He was already near, and as he stepped closer and closer, his face came into crystal-clear view.  I didn’t find what I’d hoped to within his face; instead I found something totally different.  His visage tried to hide it, to hide what he had fought so hard to win with, but his face failed.  I stared into his almost teal-coloured eyes, and he stared back.  We stood there, not five feet apart, our eyes uniting our souls in a way no fusion could match, and for a brief moment, I saw the true Crono.  I saw the emptiness within him, the barrenness that was his memory, like that of a child.  I could sense Cris’ memories laying embedded within the man in front of me, and I could even feel some of Triono’s past as well, but for Crono there was nothing; a hollow man masked by a pair of blue-green eyes and a body more powerful and willing than any I had ever seen before.  It scared me really, to see such a vibrant, living, sage-like person truly be a newborn on the inside, a toddler taking in its first impressions with each passing second.  I wanted to close my eyes, so that I wouldn’t have to gaze into this false vision of hope, but I couldn’t, like his eyes held me in a trance with their vacant stare.
	I was scared, terrified of what I saw within Crono’s mind, but luckily before I was forced to look even further into his core, a flash of white ki illuminated the sky as Kami made his descent towards the battlefield.  Crono turned away from me, towards the direction of Kami, and I was left with a sort of emptiness Crono’s soul had imprinted upon my own.
	“Hello all!”  Kami yelled out as he touched down on the ground a metre or two to my left, right beside Gideon.  “It looks like my services aren’t needed here after all, I’m glad to see you’re all standing.”  I swallowed deeply, pushing my saliva down my cracked and dry throat, and turned to face Kami.  Almost immediately after I did so, he faced me directly and said, “Especially you Karnai.  After Blanka fired that beam at you, I wasn’t sure if I warned you in time.  I set off from Sky Palace before I could confirm you were ok.”
	“I’ll be fine.”  I weakly answered back, unsure of the validity of my own statement.
	“Good.”  Kami nodded in my direction and then turned to Crono, “And I’m glad you are ok as well, there were a lot of tense moments out there for you.”  Crono just nodded, his eyes now almost glued to the floor.  “Well, I guess we need to take care of Yush now, don’t we?”
	“Yeah,” Arsenia responded quickly, “if we don’t get him hooked up soon, he’ll wake up and we’ll be in trouble.”
	“Right.  Let’s go then.”  Nikita almost chirped from the back of our group.  Yukia and Kennard sprinted forward, towards Yush, while Nikita floated above the ground for a second before flying over to the fallen Caprian, and Arsenia, Phoenix and Gideon all encompassed Kami in a collective ki-field prior to rushing over to the downed fighter.
	Crono too powered up slightly, covering himself with a very light shade of red energy, but before he shot into the sky, he gave me one last glance, one last foray into his unfilled heart, and then he was gone, and with him a mystery that I knew I had no business solving.