Goku stood motionless. Though many people may disagree, he was not a stupid man. While the solitude of his early life had left him somewhat naive to both the ways of the world and the people in it, someone with such prodigious talent in martial arts would naturally have a decent mental capacity. While traditional book smarts would never be his strong suit, his intelligence in all things fighting made it clear that he was no dunce.
Indeed, given all the information he was rapidly putting pieces together. The nights he would wake up with his tail missing, the way Kami was insistent on getting rid of his tail, even grandpa Gohan's warnings about not going out at night. It all pointed to one life changing fact.
It had been him. It had always been him. The creature that broke his friends out of Pilaf's castle, the monster that attacked the world tournament when he fought Jackie Chun, and even the mountain monster Grandpa Gohan warned him about.
Which could only mean…
"It was me… Grandpa Gohan, I…"
Before he could finish what he was saying a strong hand landed on his shoulder, and a softer one on his arm. Bulma and Yamcha were both by his side in an instant.
"Easy Goku," Yamcha started, "remember, you've already seen your Grampa again at fortune teller BaBa's. He didn't blame you, and he still loved you!"
"That's right!" Bulma chimed in, "None of that was your fault! There wasn't a single person on the planet who knew you could transform before it happened. It even took Yamcha merging with a whole new soul to figure out why."
They were right. He remembered fighting with his grandpa at the old fortune teller's tournament. Even after being the reason for his death Gohan was proud of him. There was no hatred or blame, only the same paternal care that he remembered from his childhood. He wiped his eyes, it would take some time to find peace in the truth, but he wouldn't let himself be overcome with guilt.
"Thanks, you two. I'm glad I had friends with me when I found out." He laughed lightly, "This does make a lot of other stuff make sense though."
"Yeah," Bulma followed up, "Like how we never saw anyone like you. I mean we met all kinds of different people back then, but none of them were quite a match."
"Yes, and this actually brings me to the second reason I asked Goku to tag along today." Yamcha interjected. For the next minute he told Bulma about his eyes and what he noticed with Goku's heart.
"WHAT!" Bulma shouted, "You're telling me that the reason you got so strong was drinking actual poison, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!"
Goku could only laugh awkwardly, somewhat grateful for the change in subject. Mercifully, Yamcha cut off the impending tirade.
"Well we can't really blame him, the whole world was at stake, I'd have done the same thing."
"I'll keep the fact that I am planning on seeking master Korrin out for that very same reason to myself for now " Yamcha added internally.
"Also," he continued, "could you run some tests on my body too? I want a better picture on what all changed."
With an exasperated sigh Bulma let her ire cool, "Fine, I guess you have a point," she said, lightly rubbing her temples. "Well, come over here, let's get a full body work up for both of you. Hopefully it will show us how exactly you are different from humans, and how to fix your heart." She pointed at Yamcha now, "And any physical side effects your weird fusion thing had.
An hour later, after various scans and blood tests (Yamcha had to help pin Goku down to actually draw some blood) Bulma finally had some results for the two of them.
"Well lets start with the elephant in the room," she said to the newly revealed alien. "There are definitely some key differences from human biology that I can pick up on right off the bat."
Everyone else leaned in close, all curious about the results.
"For one, due to the density and durability of your muscle tissue, organs, and skeletal structure; it looks like your body was built to handle a higher level of gravity than what we have on earth."
Yamcha nodded, but Goku was lost. Noticing the lack of understanding she elaborated, "It means whatever planet the saiyans are native to has much higher gravity than earth."
Goku nodded now at the simplified answer.
"Compared to a normal human's cells, your body seems to carry trace amounts of a strange, new cell that I don't think anyone on earth has seen before. The biggest difference in those is that they seem to be significantly more efficient at producing energy. Like around 50 times more efficient. The weird thing is that despite your body producing them in small amounts now they don't seem to actually be active."
"S-cells maybe?" Yamcha pondered, from what he remembered it took a large number of them for a saiyan to transform into a super saiyan. It supposedly took a calm mind and peaceful heart to produce and a threshold of power to activate. He decided to share some of his thoughts.
"Another result of powerful physical energy influencing the body I think. In some of my memories I see warriors with blonde hair and a blazing golden aura. I can't recall too much, but I get the feeling that it was rare, so the rarity of the transformation could be due to a yin yang imbalance then? The saiyan body can produce overwhelming yang energy, but without the corresponding yin there is no production of these 'super' cells, and without enough yang they can't be activated."
The roles were reversed now, Bulma had no idea about yin yang energies, but Goku actually looked like he was following along.
"I'll explain later, Bulma, for now let's address his heart issues."
Understanding, if not slightly irritated at not knowing something, she relented and moved on to the scans she had taken of Goku's heart.
"It looks like Yamcha's fancy eyes were spot on. There is an unknown and extremely potent toxin in the walls of your right ventricle. If left untreated it will very likely cause heart failure within the next 20 years. However, with enough physical strain that time frame will shrink."
Goku frowned, he didn't fully understand the explanation but he did pick up on the important parts. "So I have twenty years to live, and training and fighting speeds that up?"
Bulma nodded, looking resolute. Both her and Yamcha catching the briefest flash of worryin his eyes. "Without treatment? Yes, but there is no way we're going to sit around and wait. I'll start making a treatment a.s.a.p, could you get me a sample of whatever this stuff is? It would make this much faster.
At this, both Goku and Yamcha smiled.
"We know exactly where to get more!" Goku laughed,
"Yeah," Yamcha cut in. "I was planning on going to Korrin's tower for training. I'll bring you a sample back. Push comes to shove, I have a shortcut we could use, though it's more theoretical than having Bulma synthesize an antidote."
Bulma blinked, "a shortcut?
"Well yeah, but it's a bit reckless." He looked to Goku, "You remember the Senzu beams Korrin grows?"
"Oh yeah! But I've taken those before, shouldn't that have cured me?"
"It might have healed the damage, but it didn't purge the actual poison. But, with my eyes and technique I could send a small burst of ki through your heart, destroying both the tissue and poison." Yamcha laid out his plan, as if he wasn't talking about blowing a hole through one of his oldest friend's hearts.
Goku blanched, protectively putting his hands over his chest. Even for him this was a crazy plan.
Bulma, however, was not as quiet about how she felt "Are you stupid?" She shouted "Nobody is killing anybody here! Just bring me a sample and I'll use capsule corps resources to have an antidote synthesized."
Yamcha again threw his hands up in surrender, "Hey I said it was reckless! But it's good to have a back up plan just in case! If it makes you feel any better using the dragon balls to get rid of the poison is higher up on the list"
This caused Goku and Bulma to relax a bit, knowing his potentially deadly idea was the last resort.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After a bit more banter and planning between the three Goku decided to head back to Mt. Paozu. It had already been a few hours and he didn't want Chi-Chi to stress. Bulma gave him a capsule case full of stuff she thought he and Chi-Chi might need. A state of the art flying car for Chi-Chi to get around in, satellite phones to keep in touch, and a pretty generous sum of zenny were all included as a "Late engagement gift"
"I'll let you know as soon as I have the cure made alright? Tell Chi-Chi not to worry, I'll have you perfectly healthy in no time!" Bulma said to her departing friend.
Raising into the air and starting to fly away Goku responded "Thanks Bulma! Chi-Chi says stress is bad for the baby so she'll be happy to know!"
Bulma could only look stunned at his rapidly departing figure "Wait, baby?"
Goku could only laugh as he heard a faint shout of "YOU'RE HAVING A BABY?!?!" Echo after him as he flew away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I swear that guy never changes." Bulma grumbled as she watched her friend fade into distance. Turning to face Yamcha now, a slightly awkward silence settled between the two. Before she could think of anything to say to break the ice, Yamcha fell into a dogeza, head pressed firmly to the ground.
"Bulma, I'm sorry."
Her hand froze halfway to her hip, her planned ice breaker dying on her lips. This was very unlike what she had come to expect from him. Before she could voice her confusion Yamcha continued, "after the King Piccolo incident I felt useless, and even after all my training I still couldn't touch Piccolo Jr. or Goku. I was helpless, I couldn't protect anybody, not even you. I was too embarrassed to face you, or anybody after being such a failure. So please, forgive me for being such a proud idiot."
Bulma was shocked. For these past few years her interest in the man before her had begun to wane, the teenage infatuation giving way to the reality that he didn't seem to be as interested as she was. After Goku defeated King Piccolo he had mostly disappeared, and then did so again after the 23rd tournament. She'd thought she understood, and in truth she kind of did. It was, in fact, his pride that kept him away, just not in the way she had assumed. As one of the strongest people in the world she assumed he would surround himself with women who openly fawned over him. Little did she know had Neji's spirit not arrived and tempered Yamcha's natural arrogance into a more personal pride, a pride that didn't need affirmation from others as long as he pushed himself as far as he could, then her exact prediction would have come true.
But the man knelt before her now, ironically, seemed much more proud than the Yamcha she had known. The old Yamcha, she had come to realize, put on a facade of pride and bravado to hide his own weakness. But this Yamcha had something new. He had confidence, and if the faint blush she was fighting meant anything, she was a fan.
She sighed, successfully suppressing her blush before responding.
"Get up Yamcha," she started, waiting until he was upright and looking at her with his new white, faintly lavender, eyes. "Look, I'm not going to say it felt great but I can kind of get it. Piccolo and Piccolo Jr were monsters, and everyone had to deal with feeling helpless. Let's just move on and see what happens okay?"
Yamcha gave her a contented smile and nodded. "Sounds good," he said, politely not calling attention to the faintest dusting of red on her cheeks. "Besides, you still have some test results to tell me about right?"
She gave a small smile as she pushed past him, "Right, and you still have to tell me about all this yin yang stuff."
With a weight off of his shoulders he followed behind, ready to figure out everything new about his body.
"I can't believe I actually get to teach the genius something."
He was met with a frown and a sharp chop to the head.
"Shut up and get in here!"
He laughed to himself, rubbing his head, as he followed behind, content that his past mistakes hadn't completely shut this door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~