fashionably_strong | 4th shopping trip [Voice] Backdated to August 13th

4th shopping trip [Voice] Backdated to August 13th

[Though she typically prefers video communication, Bulla deliberately selects voice. It's difficult to tell whether she sounds a little off because she's tired, depressed, or sick, but she's definitely not her usual upbeat and sociable self.]

Hi, everyone. I could use some suggestions for a distraction or three. Preferably something where you don't have to move around much.

[Truthfully, she's tired, depressed, and not feeling well, though it's due to an injury rather than illness. Her mother has vanished from Luceti, and she's recovering from the worst injury she's ever had in her life courtesy of a cultist.]

...and if you're suggesting reading, please suggest a specific book, because I've already read everything I have here in the house.

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[Honestly, that surprises Saori a bit too...]

Well, it's alright. It happened after that, I know. I ran into your father during the fighting. And I'll tell you what I told him, it wouldn't have been a fair fight.

I suppose you're right. Messing with everyone's heads isn't exactly what I'd call fair either, though.

[In fact, everyone else had to live with more lasting effects, while the one responsible for all of this wasn't amongst the living, period.]

No, it wasn't. But then, if we act like him then are we truly better?

[Frankly, Saori was happy to have it be a duel. In a warped sense, it was more satisfying that way. Moralizing is just a means to justify it.]

[Although Bulla can respect fighting honorably, she's really just glad that he's dead.]

To be fair, fighting him directly in a two or three on one fight after he messed with the heads of just about everyone here for no good reason is still pretty far from acting like him. We'd be no better than him if we pretended to be on his side and then sneak attacked him from behind.

[Saori laughs and rolls her shoulder.]

And if I told you that was just the justification I used to make your father feel better, would you believe me? I was happy for a duel. That's the way of my people.

[Bulla smiles a little at that.]

I think he'd be just as satisfied with the explanation that you were happy for a duel, even if it meant that he didn't get the chance to ki blast that creep into oblivion.

I thought it best to take the moral high ground too, though. It makes me look better, now doesn't it? [She grins]

[Bulla smiles. Sometimes the most moral choice isn't always the most practical, but she supports the moral approach as long as it doesn't get the people she cares about killed.]

It does. I don't think anyone would have judged you if you did fight as part of a team, though.

But the quandary there is that then I wouldn't get to duel. See, this way? [She laughs] I get to look more moral, have a duel, and next time I can just leave it to your father. [Because losing never even crosses her mind]

Fair enough. As long as he gets his turn to fight, I think he'll be okay with it. We beat up some cultists together before I got hurt, so it's not like he didn't get to fight at all.

[He'd done far more of the work, but she didn't stay back and leave it all to him the way she might have six months ago. A few of the cultists learned the hard way that her being the weaker of the two targets they were trying to apprehend didn't mean that she was anything resembling weak.]

We fought a few ourselves, actually. But that's not really important, not now. It's over and there's no point focusing on that which we cannot change.

[she leans back in her seat with a tired smile.]

I'm sorry you got hurt, though. The fighting must have been intense.

It was...but I'm actually a little proud of myself, even if I got hurt in the end. I didn't just hide behind Dad and let him deal with it all himself. I was scared and I wanted to just grab Dad and fly away...and I didn't. I stayed and I stood up to those creeps.

[Which is an accomplishment for a girl who never considered herself a fighter.]

Did you now? [Saori's eyes sparkle] I'm glad the training paid off. You'll keep it up, now, right?

I already have been, to be honest. I've been doing at least an hour every other day since I recovered from Father's Day.

[Which took a few days before she stopped hurting completely, but she'd actually managed to keep up for nearly eight hours with only a couple of short breaks in between. At the end of it, her body had just given out and decided it couldn't take any more punishment for the day.]

I only promised an hour every other day so Dad wouldn't decide to train me the way he used to train Trunks. I still wanted to have plenty of time for friends and my hobbies.

[Although at least half of her friends like meeting up for sparring types of things anyway.]

Well that's good! I'm sure he's proud of you either way. I know it's important to him, and frankly...I agree. Luceti is a dangerous place and you have a lot of potential. That's something that so many of these mortals lack. Nice as they may be, they're limited by their body and their circumstances.

It might be mostly peaceful, but...yeah, I do worry about the safety of some of my friends. That's part of the reason why I decided to keep training.

[There's also some sense of achievement that she can't really deny she enjoys feeling at seeing herself get stronger, but the number one reason is being able to protect her friends, and any little kids who might get drafted.]

Right, that's good. I think it's the responsibility of anyone here with power to protect the people who don't. After all, unlike home we don't have nearly as much free choice.

We might as well do what we can. There's enough things that happen here that can't really be protected against effectively, too.

[Like when the Malnosso bring people here and take them away, but she's trying not to let herself be more depressed about the latter part than she has to.]

At least Mom will be safer at home. Sort of. A lot of dangerous things happened before the world got to enjoy peace for a while...

A good, responsible attitude.

[Saori looks up at a passing cloud, thinking about Bulma and all of that for a moment before responding.]

Bulla, your mother is from before your time, yes? But she makes it to your time, in your own right?

She does...and I know she's a resilient person. I just know there's a bunch of bad stuff she's going to have to endure before the world gets to enjoy fifteen years of peace...

[Such as Vegeta sacrificing himself for his wife and son. Even if he's alive now.]

Well, the bad stuff forges our minds and bodies. And time tempers it. And that's how people are made into who they are. Overcoming adversity...

So basically we take life's fertilizer and grow from it.

[There's a slight smile on Bulla's face. It's a far less poetic way of phrasing it than Saori did, but about the same message.]

What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger?

[Well, that's certainly been the case with Saiyans and half-Saiyans in the past...]

Yes...but I think I like my blacksmithing analogy better. It makes us all out to be swords or useful things. Not plants.

[She sticks out her tongue teasingly.]

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4th shopping trip [Voice] Backdated to August 13th

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