Black and Trunks had just passed between two large, jagged mountains after seven hard hours of unsuccessful scouting. They had checked every beach and forest they had come near, yet there was still no sign of you or traces of Zamasu's magic. And since they couldn't rely on your chi which had weakened significantly since your escape, the best they could do was look by hand, which didn't provide a very fast recovery.
"Black! Look!" Trunks' frantic call snapped Black out of his thoughts as they continued to zoom through the air. "Is that a fire?"
She said red lights.........He wondered. Could she have meant......
You had fainted before he could think up a reply, and no matter how hard he tried he was still unable to communicate telepathically with you. His eyes widened when he finally figured out your cryptic plea for help.
Black could see it. Billowing clouds of smoke and flashes of bright white lightning just up ahead, in a thick-wooded forest.
"She's there!" Black shouted frenziedly, shooting past the confused teenager.
"What?! How would you know?!"
"Just shut up and follow me fool! There's no time to explain!" Black hollered back, not keeping his eyes away from the wildfire.
"Y/n? Y/n!" There was no response that could be heard from the chaos below.
Two pairs of keen eyes scanned the hellish forest floor, searching for any sign of you as they flew in circles barely above reach of the scorching heat.
"Look!" Trunks shouted, pointing triumphantly at a dot in the crumbling undergrowth. "It's Y/n!"
They both dove to you at the same time, Black overtaking Trunks as his heart beat furiously against his ribcage. The smoke didn't affect his keen senses in the slightest, but it was still hard for the once heartless God to breathe.
From their position, all the two warriors could see was only half your body, splayed out underneath a heavy blackened trunk. Bright red tongues lapped at your skin, but you didn't appear to be moving.
"Shit!"
Black reached you first, tossing the gigantic tree of you like it weighed nothing, which it probably did to him at least. He grabbed you and cradled you in his arms, Trunks beginning to protest until he saw the state of your legs.
"That's going to hurt, even if she is immortal," Trunks winced in sympathy. "It's a good thing she's knocked out cold, and even better that we have a Senzu Bean."
"Let's get her out of here first," Black murmured, relief flooding through him once he saw the slight rising and falling of your chest. He rubbed a bit of soot of your face and adjusted you a bit in his arms, forgetting Trunks who was watching in disbelief. Something flitted in his eye when he looked at you, but it was gone so fast that Trunks wasn't able to completely discern what it was.
Can Black really be....Is that why he wanted Y/n back so badly? No, it can't be, can it? He a psychopathic murderer!
Thoughts swirled like a hurricane in his brain making him slightly light-headed, and Black must have noticed as Trunks began to sway on his feet. Even Saiyans weren't completely immune to fire.
"We should get the Hell out of here before you pass out too, and if you do, I'm leaving you here," Black snapped, roughly shaking him from his astonishment. There were a time and a place, but here was neither of those.
"Come on!" Black sprung off into the sky, the confused teenager following shakily behind, mind still reeling.
"We'll stop here," The older Saiyan commanded with a tone that called for no objections as he descended into one of the most habitable caves in the twin peaks they had just passed. Throughout the entire flight Trunks hadn't dared to utter a single word, not even looking at him. They placed you on the floor, cushioning your head with Trunks' sword and Black's sash, using the boy's jacket as a blanket. It wasn't the best, but it was still much better than absolutely nothing. If Trunks wasn't here, then Black would have preferred to keep you in his lap, where you could be warmer and safer, but there was no way he was going to do that with Earth's mightiest hero glaring at him like a hawk. Even slightly burnt by the fire, he was still dangerous. Some of the skin on Trunks' hand had been seared off when they had touched down, but that wouldn't stop him from grabbing his sword.
"What, cat got your tongue?" Black jeered once you were settled in, and suddenly Trunks' hatred returned. Or more specifically, sprung back to the surface. It had never left. Even now his mother's death still hurt.
"Yeah what-" His voice began to grow louder until the oncoming argument was halted by your frail moan of discomfort.
"Just get the damn Senzu," Black growled lowly, his onyx eyes mere stormy slits.
Trunks closed his jaw with an audible snap, and clenching his fists, he forced himself to calm down, at least until you had healed a little. Digging around his dirty Capsule Corp jacket, his fingers closed around the last Senzu.
Gently, he pried open your dry lips with one hand while the other held your head, and managed to slip the bean inside your mouth without choking you. Your face relaxed and you appeared to go limp in his hands, a small smile twitching at the corner of Trunks' mouth as he stared at you in solace. Black had to physically restrain himself from attacking the boy when he saw that Trunks was touching what was rightfully his, though he knew you would disapprove if you were awake.
I just have to deal with him a little longer, Black told himself, struggling to contain his composure. They were one word away from continuing their fight, and your presence was the only thing stopping them.
For now, all they could do was to wait for you to rest up enough to fly back to Zamasu. There were too many things that needed to be sorted out, and frankly, Trunks wondered if they would ever be able to untangle the spider's web of murder and secrets. After returning you to your former position, Trunks slid as far away from Black as possible while still being close enough to keep an eye on you, sitting against the wall with one tired eye open. Like Black, he had to suppress the impulse to spring to action when he saw the spiky-haired God scoot closer to you, though not yet touching.
Though his feelings for you weren't the same as Black's, his survival this far was partly owing to you, saving his life multiple times. Over time, he had come to think of you as one of his closest friends, on par with Mai. There was nothing he wouldn't do to keep you safe much like Black, though the idea that that serial killer had his sights set on you made his insides riot.
As hard as Trunks fought to stay awake, he finally lost to the alleviating lull of sleep's velvety wings, whisking him off into another dimension. Black waited until the hero's head hit his chest before moving over to you, losing all interest in Trunks when he glanced over at your moonlit figure.
Even after everything you had been through you still looked to him the same as the day he had first met you, more alluring than any being in the universe. Sliding his fingers into your h/c locks, he began untangling all the knots and picking out the bits of leaves from your hair. The silver moonshine framed your face beautifully, and even with all the soot and wounds on you it made you no less appealing to him.
After all this time he was still unsure what caused him to obsess over you, and at this point he didn't really care anymore. Love was still a foreign emotion to the lonely God, and even in his youth he had never experienced anything remotely like it. At this moment he wasn't really sure what he felt for you, Hell, it might not even be love. Whatever it was, it inexplicably drew him to you. Black used to try to convince himself that it was because you were technically immortal and one of the only females left who genuinely didn't make him vomit when he touched them, but now he knew that it was a complete lie to justify his attraction. Your immortality had nothing to do with it, though it definitely made things a whole lot less complicated. Or maybe it was the feeling of not wanting to be alone for the rest of eternity, once the Zero Mortal Plan had been completed, though he would never admit it to anyone.
However, none of those seemed to play as big as a factor as the fact that you were simply different, unusually kind and capable of just enjoying life as it is, and not constantly seeking for more as he'd seen many other beings do, wasting their life away to obtain something they could never reach.
He hated vanity, something the earth was sweltering with, and something that you seemed to be nearly or even completely devoid of. And best of all, you didn't seem to despise him, even after everything he had put you through, and Black had certainly given you numerous reasons to. Despite these feelings, there was still occasionally the irrational, terrible urge to kill every human being in the vicinity, which usually meant you. But he managed to restrain himself every time, avoiding your presence and venting on something else. The old Zamasu had not completely dominated and the lingering presence of Son Goku was not quite gone. They molded together to form someone entirely knew, Goku Black. He knew he wasn't either men, but still it felt like his soul and body were at war sometimes. It frightened him, that maybe one day the good Saiyan's presence would win and turn him soft, but worst of all was the thought that perhaps Zamasu's hateful habits would overbear all reason and he wouldn't be able to stop himself from wounding you. Though you couldn't die, he was sure the Zamasu he had once been could find a way to make it living Hell for you.
Even now, when everything was calm for once, he could still feel the war raging on inside him. There was no doubt whatsoever that he wanted you, but his morals were battling against that desire. Son Goku's morality and Zamasu's ambition, that was made them different, and that was what made him. It was true that he was a deity in a mortal body, but someone as strong as the kind-hearted Saiyan would not let his body go completely, especially when it was taken and used in such a manner. It was something so simple even the people of earth could understand. A different environment could produce two versions of the same person, and Goku's body was a different environment in a sense. And it had changed him.
But I'm neither of them, Black assured himself. I still hate humans. That's for sure and it always will be, I wouldn't want to like them anyways. But there is one I can tolerate.
That's what split him from Zamasu. That one exception that the Kai could not make.
You.
And the Zamasu inside him howled in fury.
"You should see how you make me, Y/n." Black exhaled, placing his head next to yours, clenching his eyes shut.
To his surprise, one of your e/c orbs opened slightly, focusing on his features.
"I know, Black."
His breath hitched in his throat, and he seemed at loss for words. "You should go back to sleep," he lied. No, that was the last thing he wanted after being apart from you for so long that he had missed the sound of your voice.
"I can't," You murmured back, entwining his hand in yours, to which he stared at in shock and maybe even a little discomfort. "I can't while people are dying."
"You know exactly why they're dying Y/n; they're dying for paradise."
"Oh Black, I know that you have a good goal in mind but there are better ways to do things than by killing everyone. As much as I appreciate your ambition, I don't think this is the right way to get there."
He gave you no response, instead just continued to gaze into your eyes.
"You really believe that, huh?" Black grumbled, you could tell that he was irritated but it was better than before when he would become physically aggressive every time something ticked him off. It didn't matter what it was, if a branch hit him in the face he would blow up the tree, and if it was raining when he didn't want it to then he could disperse the clouds with special chi blasts. It was even more violent with humans, in which case he had no mercy. You were the only exception to his purposeful brutality, and you were borderline a deity with human blood. And even then, he had broken your nose or hand multiple times on accident when you startled him. He never meant to hurt you those times, but violence seemed to be ingrained into his muscles.
Eventually, after a few more minutes of debate, you realized there was no point in arguing with him over mortals at this time, and especially when you were still very feeble. He could either remain silent for days or argue for hours, and usually there was no in-between.
"Anyways," You tried steering the topic away from mass genocide, and onto a slightly less gruesome subject. "I never thought you would team up with Trunks."
Black just huffed and looked away from you, muttering something about half-breeds under his breath. "That persistent little brat wouldn't fucking leave me alone," he growled. "I can still kill him though."
"No!" You grabbed his shirt as he began to raise his arm, slapping his glowing hand out of the air. Immediately tensing up when you realized what you did, you scrunched your eyes shut in case he decided to hit you. Instead, all you got was a light smack to the head and opening his eyes, you could see him smirking.
"I'm not going to hit you, Y/n. You remember what happened last time."
Back then, he had tried to surprise you by punching you, a little bit too eagerly, and ended up nearly breaking your entire torso. Sometimes he didn't even know his own strength, and more specifically Goku's. When he had first hijacked the body, their cabin would be filled with constant noise when everything he touched shattered into a million pieces, notably several sets of tea cups, chairs, and doors. Zamasu had become so angry that he had forced his partner outside for a day to learn to control his strength, which was part of the reason why there was a sparse space of empty land surrounding the cabin. It wasn't noticeable, but upon closer inspection quite a number of the trunks were mutilated from his "gentle" practice.
"I know you would never hurt me on purpose, Black." You reassured him, "I trust you."
He was taken by your sheer innocence, and sullenly wondered how you could ever have been born in a world like this. It just wasn't fair, but life never was.
A yawn forced its way past your lips, capturing Black's attention.
"You should go to sleep Y/n, the faster you recover the sooner we can return and sort this whole mess out," Black hummed tenderly against your cheek.
"But I-" You tried to protest, though it was promptly muffled against his chest when he pulled you closer.
"No buts. Sleep, now." His grip tightened around your back, letting you know that there was no room for arguments.
It wasn't over yet and you both knew it, but frankly you didn't have enough energy to care at the moment. Giving up once you realized there was no point in arguing with him, you soon fell asleep in his arms, lulled by the rhythmic thumping of his heart and the warmth of his firm body.
You had never slept so well.