Gogeta chose to walk.
He could have flown...heck, he could just use instant transmission and would have brought him to Capsule Corp in a heartbeat...but his feet carried him through the ruined streets of West City at a deliberately measured pace.
Each step gave him another second to prepare, another moment to figure out what he was going to say to the families waiting for him.
How do you explain to a wife that her husband is gone but also standing right in front of her? How do you tell children that their father's love for them is real, but the man who felt that love no longer exists as they knew him?
Behind him, the Z-fighters followed in silence. None of them had spoken since the battle ended.
Piccolo, Gohan, Goten, and Trunks. All felt compelled to follow, though none could have explained exactly why. Perhaps it was concern, or curiosity, or simply not knowing what else to do in the face of something so unprecedented.
Goten and Trunks kept stealing glances at Gogeta's back, questions clearly burning in their young minds but unable to find voice. Their fathers had taught them the fusion dance, while piccolo was the one that gave the explanation of the technique...from their understanding of the technique its meant to be thirty minutes and then separation.
But this man walking ahead of them had been fused for far longer than thirty minutes. Days, maybe. Weeks in the otherworld. And he showed no signs of splitting apart.
Gohan walked beside Piccolo, his expression was a one troubled.
As the oldest of the children, he remembered his father most clearly—every smile, every lesson, every sacrifice.
The weight of knowing that those memories now belonged to someone else, someone new, pressed down on him like a physical burden.
"Piccolo," Gohan said quietly, "how do we... how do we deal with this?"
The Namekian was silent for a long moment, his cape billowing slightly in the wind created by distant fires still burning in the city. "I don't know, Gohan. I've never encountered a situation like this. Namekian fusion is permanent too, but it's different...one consciousness absorbs another. This..." He gestured toward Gogeta. "This is two becoming one entirely new being. There's no precedent for it."
"He has Dad's memories though," Gohan said, almost pleading. "That counts for something, doesn't it?"
"Memories don't make a person," Piccolo replied gently. "Your father was more than just his experiences. He was his choices, his personality, his soul. And now that soul is merged with Vegeta's into something... else."
Ahead of them, Gogeta's shoulders tensed slightly. He could hear every word with his enhanced hearing, and each one drove home how impossible this situation truly was.
The walk took nearly twenty minutes...it felt like an eternity and at the same time...no time at all.
When Capsule Corp's pristine white dome came into view, Gogeta felt his steps slow even further. Through the windows, he could sense two familiar ki signatures waiting.
Chi-Chi and Bulma.
All of Goku's love for his wife flooded through him...the fierce protectiveness, the gratitude for her patience with his constant absences, the simple joy of coming home to her smile.
And simultaneously, all of Vegeta's complicated feelings for Bulma washed over him...the respect for her brilliance, the wonder that someone so loving would choose him, the family they'd built against all odds.
They were waiting outside, having clearly watched the battle from a distance. Chi-Chi stood with her arms wrapped around herself, her face showing the tracks of tears.
Bulma stood beside her, one hand on Chi-Chi's shoulder...try to show composure except for the slight tremor in her fingers.
"Mom!" Goten broke into a run, Trunks right beside him. The two boys crashed into their mothers' arms, both women immediately checking them over for injuries despite knowing they'd stayed relatively safe during the fight.
"We're okay, Mom," Trunks assured Bulma. "He beat the monster. It's gone."
"He saved everyone," Goten added, looking back at Gogeta with an expression caught somewhere between gratitude and confusion.
Chi-Chi's eyes followed her son's gaze, landing on Gogeta as he approached more slowly. Her expression twisted...between relief that her sons were safe while warring with grief over the man who wasn't there.
"Inside," Bulma said, her voice steady despite everything. "We should talk inside."
The group moved through Capsule Corp's familiar halls, passing laboratories and storage rooms until they reached one of the larger sitting rooms Bulma typically used for business meetings.
It was spacious, comfortable, with enough seating for everyone...but somehow that just made the awkwardness more pronounced.
Chi-Chi and Bulma sat together on one of the couches, their hands clasped between them in mutual support.
Goten and Trunks sat on the floor near Gogeta, close enough to feel connected but not quite comfortable enough to sit right beside him.
Gohan took a chair slightly apart from everyone, his analytical mind clearly trying to process everything.
Piccolo remained standing by the wall, arms crossed, observing.
And Gogeta... Gogeta stood in the center of the room, feeling like he was on trial. In a way, he supposed he was.
The silence stretched for several long, painful seconds. Everyone seemed to be waiting for someone else to speak first, to somehow make sense of the impossible.
Finally, Gogeta took a breath and began.
"I know this is..." He paused, searching for the right word. There wasn't one. "I know this is impossible to understand. Believe me, I'm still trying to understand it myself."
"Start from the beginning," Bulma said, her mind seeking structure even in chaos. "What happened in the otherworld? How did this..." she gestured at him, "happen?"
Gogeta nodded, grateful for the direction. "In the otherworld, there was a demon...Janemba. He was tearing apart the dimensional barriers, destroying the natural order between life and death. Goku and Vegeta couldn't beat him separately, so they used the fusion dance."
"The fusion dance only lasts thirty minutes though," Trunks interjected, his young voice puzzled. "Me and Goten learned it. It always separates."
"Always," Gogeta confirmed. "Under normal circumstances. But the otherworld isn't normal circumstances. It's a place where souls are processed, transformed, moved between states of existence. When the fusion dance was performed there, in that spiritual environment, and then when we—when Goku and Vegeta—used that much power fighting Janemba..." He trailed off, struggling to explain something even he didn't fully understand. "The otherworld's energy didn't just facilitate the fusion. It made it permanent."
"Permanent," Chi-Chi repeated, her voice hollow. "You mean..."
"Goku and Vegeta's souls merged completely," Gogeta said quietly. "There's no seam where they join, no boundary between them. They became one soul entirely. My soul."
"But souls can't just merge like that!" Chi-Chi protested, her voice rising. "People don't just... just stop being themselves and become someone else!"
"They can in the otherworld," Piccolo said quietly. "Namekian fusion works similarly—two become one permanently. I've seen it happen. My own people have done it for generations."
"But Namekian fusion is different!" Chi-Chi argued desperately. "One personality absorbs another! There's still one person left! Not this... this..."
"I know what you want to say," Gogeta said gently. " Not this thing that's neither of them."
Chi-Chi flinched at the words, but didn't deny them.
"I have all their memories," Gogeta continued, pressing his hand to his chest. "Everything Goku experienced, I experienced it. Everything Vegeta felt, I felt. Chi-Chi, I remember our wedding day—how excited I was, how beautiful you looked, I remember when Gohan was born, holding him for the first time. I remember watching Goten flying for the first time, watching his face light up the first up when we first flew together."
Tears were streaming down Chi-Chi's face now, but she remained silent.
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Aight, word from the author...B4 u guys sue my ahh...pls do note that I felt cringed out writing this part, but TBH I wrote this chapter cause I felt it will be weird if they accepted it way too easily... especially Chi-Chi...so y'all in for a bumpy ride ahead...but I hope you enjoy it tho.
Kami.