Diverging Future (A DBZ fanfic)

Ch. 1 - First Day of School

Gonan played with the strap of her bag as she and Gohan sat side by side on the flying Nimbus. It was a little strange still to feel the wind whip her braided hair around behind her as opposed to having her hair loose like she almost always had it.

"Nervous?" Gohan's voice pulls her out of her thoughts and she looks up slightly to see he's looking right back at her with a hint of concern on his face. Out of all the things for her future self to be wrong about, it couldn't have been that she wouldn't catch up to his height?

"A little. Aren't you?"

"Well, yeah. And also excited. I'm feeling a lot of things, I guess," he chuckles and brings a hand to rub at the back of his head.

Did Mirai's Gohan have a similar hairstyle?

She blinks and looks forward, seeing the city coming in from the distance. "Yeah. A whole lot of things."

"But hey, maybe we can make a few friends! That'd be nice."

Gonan gives an agreeing hum before looking over the edge of the flying Nimbus. "We're at the edge of town now. We should probably get off here."

"Oh, right!" The twins both hop off of the flying cloud and call after it to tell it farewell and remind it to come pick them up for the ride home. As they touched down onto the walkway near the edge of town, Gohan looked at the watch on his wrist while they jogged down the sidewalk. "Oh, shoot. We might've dawdled too long..."

Gonan ducked her head slightly and muttered, "sorry." She might've taken up too much of their time trying to braid her hair the way Bulma had yesterday.

"Nah, don't worry about it. We'll just run." Gohan looked around them before looking back at her and nodding his head forward, taking off into a run not a second later. Gonan followed suit and ran alongside him, only stopping when they heard the loud bangs of gunfire. "Really? Again? Why is there so much crime here?"

"I dunno," Gonan frowns before sighing and looking at her brother. "You wanna take this one?"

"Yeah, I'll handle it. I'd better transform so no one will know it's me later, can you hold my bag for me?"

"Yeah," she agrees easily and takes Gohan's school bag in her arms. She watches as Gohan transforms and jumps into the fray, keeping close to the edge of a building and facing away from the crime scene. There's a cacophony of gunshots and shouting, followed by crashing for a few minutes, but Gonan knows she's got no reason to worry for her brother's safety. She simply keeps to herself and waits for her brother's return as the noise starts to die down.

Until an unfamiliar voice calls from beside her.

"Hey!!"

Gonan squeaks in surprise and whips her head to look at the girl who's trying to get her attention, evidently. She looks to be around her and Gohan's age, with her dark hair done in low pigtails that frame fierce blue eyes. The girl is staring at her intently, like she's trying to stare into Gonan's soul for whatever answers she seeks.

"Did you see who did that," she asks loudly, gesturing to the mess that Gohan's left. "Don't tell me it was the cops!"

"Um, I, uhh..." Gonan stammers until she shakes her head as if that'll reset her. "I-I don't know, sorry. I didn't see it, I was too scared to look, but I didn't want to leave. My- My brother, uh..."

The fierce blue eyes soften a little, but they still stare at her sternly. There's an odd sense of authority with this girl. "Your brother? He didn't get caught up in all that, did he?"

"Uh, no. No, I don't think so. He needed to, um, use the bathroom, so I was waiting for him, but then I heard the gunshots..."

Kami, she hoped she was halfway convincing with these lies she was spinning. Her family never was all that good at acting. Hopefully, that's changed, if only for this moment.