Ch. 172: The New Genesis: Noah

"Essentially, these girls here monitor the timelines that you've allowed to exist, assuring that no other timelines are created, and no other versions of you are somehow brought into existence. Two are enough, I think." Chronoa explained the reason for the city of Core Girls at the Axis of Time to me.

From the way she went on to explain it, my plans for New Genesis had largely gone as intended. Sometime in the future, I send a Core Girl to the Axis of Time and have her set up a base there in order to deal with everything I'd caused by stealing baby me from the timeline. Eventually, it morphs into this huge operation, making Chronoa completely obsolete. Nowadays, Chronoa's entire mission had devolved into taking care of the Tokitoki and nothing else. We took care of all timelines, outrightly banning almost all time travel, which kept them incredibly stable. 

Naturally, there were still problems, and the extra three timelines that I'd created had caused a lot of problems, but the whiplash hadn't been nearly as bad as expected. 

I still had no clue just how many timelines actually existed in the Dragon Ball Universe, but my Core Patrol would now ensure that none more would be created. In Chronoa's words, 'three extra timelines are a small price to pay for that.'

"Mistress, here are the times and dates that you will need in the near future." A girl that I didn't recognize came up to me and handed me a sheet of papers. On it were dates, specific times, and a description of which event was which. 

...

"You're me, and this is the Dragon Ball Universe, right?" The brown-haired, blue eyed preteen girl in front of me said in an accusatory tone.

"Figured you'd catch yourself up while I was talking to Chronoa, Noah." I freely admitted, "I needed to create a timeline where I never existed, so that I can observe the original canon of the story."

"Who are we?" She asked.

"Gohan's twin sister, Hanna. At least, I am. You're welcome for the age-ups, by the way. I just saved you over a decade of growth, you know." I responded casually.

I could already guess what she was going to say next.

"Send me back. Right now, you kidnapping piece of garbage!" Yup, exactly what I figured. She and I had a fundamentally different approach to the way we saw this second life. I imagined that she was probably disgusted with me right now for doing what I'd done, robbing her of her chance to be a normal, happy child. But I'd already had that reality check.

"You won't find it there, Noah. What you're so desperate for, that acceptance, that happiness? You don't want to go back there. You can't make everything right just by existing." I told her, remembering the moment I'd seen Raditz kill my dad. Up until then, I'd also believed that everything would just work out, so long as I was strong enough to deal with it. The naivety I'd had still annoyed me to this day. 

"Someone who gave up doesn't get to tell me anything! If I just get strong enough to protect them-!" She started, but I interrupted her.

"Then you'll always be different, in another world from them. You'll be alone again, Noah, no matter what you do there! And if you try to hide it, and they find out, they'll always hate you for it, don't you get it!? It's not a tightrope that you can walk, it's just a bottomless hole that you'll be jumping into, Noah!" I shouted at her. 

You can protect people all you want. You can become so strong that nothing ever hurts them, but that's just another trap. Goku needed to die that day, or he'd never have learned the Kaio-ken. He needed to lose someone, or he'd never have gone Super Saiyan for the first time. Had I stolen those experiences from him, protected him, then forget about Cell and the Androids, Frieza would always have stayed an impenetrable wall that only I could climb. Being strong is great, but it's also the worst burden that you can carry, and that's something that I'd never fully comprehended until I'd actually gained power.

"I don't care!" She screamed back at me, rejecting the cold, hard truths that I was trying to force upon her. "Shut up! I don't care! It doesn't matter I don't care!!" She took a deep breath before continuing, "I'm not you anymore! I'll protect them all I can, all I need to, if that's enough to make me a part of a real family, that cares about me! Even if I'm so much stronger than them that their feeble, tiny little brains can't even comprehend my powers, at least they'll care about me!"

"They care about their daughter, not you. We can't even use the Nimbus, you know. It's rejected us from the day we were born, it'd reject you right now. We're just not like them. You'll be reminded of it every single day, Noah, and it'll tear you up inside, this secret that you'll need to keep from them, and if you decide to tell them, you'll always wimp out at the last second, because you don't belong there.

But at least you're protecting them, right?" The words hung in the air between us for a timeless moment as Noah visibly struggled to refute them in her mind, but they'd already taken hold. The moment that she'd realized who we were, they'd dominated her, and she'd fought valiantly against them, but there wasn't any refuting them.

Finally, she came to her answer. "Take me back, Hanna. I deserve my own chance." She said stubbornly. 

I'd expected this. The reason that I'd managed to hold as much power as I could was because of my impenetrable, steel will. So with a shrug, I opened a time-rift for her. Glaring at me with conflicted expression, Noah trudged through the rift without another word.