Ch. 173: The New Genesis: Noah (2)

As Noah stepped through the time rift, she could feel her appearance change. Her hair grew into her face a bit and darkened in color, while a tail grew out of her rear, poking a hole in her pants. After that, she felt her facial features shift a bit, as well as her height. By the time she was on the other side of the rift, she looked exactly like Hanna. "I thought I was a baby?" She muttered to herself, immediately suspecting that something was up.

But in the end, it didn't really matter. In a way, Hanna was Noah's closest family. Their opinions were different, but Noah couldn't bring herself to hate the older version of herself. She just really wanted her to be wrong.

"Hanna! You're home! Mommy missed you sooo much! Come here, my little girl!" Noah was able to recognize Chichi on sight but getting a hug out of nowhere from a woman she'd never even met before felt uncomfortable to say the least. 

"Yeah, c'mere too, squirt." Goku pulled Noah into a hug, too. 

"OOF! GUH! " Without warning, Goku's hug suddenly turned into a headlock, and he punched Noah in the gut so hard that she'd have dropped to her knees, were he not holding her. "hisssheee... what...?" Noah hissed, the pain almost making her black out. 

"You're not my child. You lied to me." He hissed into her ear. 

"Ha...nna!" Noah realized as the Goku disappeared into mist, leaving her to fall to her hands and knees. But apparently, whatever Hanna had set up to mess with the girl wasn't finished with her yet. 

Suddenly, Noah could see seven Gokus walking up to her in a half-circle formation, cold scowls on their faces. "Hanna, I'm not playing this game! Get me out of here!" She managed to breathe as she tried to crawl backwards, away from the Gokus as fast as she could. After about two feet, she tried to stand to take off, but fell on her butt instead. "Hanna!" She called once more, real fear beginning to replace the rage in her voice.

"And why would anyone want to help a waste of space like you?"

"Dad?" Noah muttered to herself as her past-life father walked past the seven Gokus and stooped to meet her gaze. "Alright, Hanna, I get it. But this is going too far. You have no place in this reality." She spat at her former father.

"Like you do? You'll cause nothing but trouble, you know. Just like you did before. Do you think that your brother thanked you for saving his life the day you died?" He told her, quietly preying on her worst insecurities. 

"Shut up." Noah said, accentuating it by spitting at his face, but the spit seemed to just slip past him, as if he wasn't there at all. 

"Without you there, his life became absolutely hellish, you know. Not that you did much protecting, to begin with."

"I said shut up!" Finally, she swung at him with her fist, but he just caught it and brushed it aside, laughing.

"Didn't protect him when you accidentally scared him out of that tree when he was five. Broke his arm."

"I..."

"You know, if we'd only had the one kid, your mom might not have had to work so hard. Wouldn't have gotten sick. That's why I hated you, you know."

"I don't know that..." Noah told herself, picking herself up off the ground. He didn't stop her. "Hanna, I get it. Get me out of here." She called. Nothing happened, so she said it again. "I get it, Hanna! Just end this charade... Get me out of here." 

A few moments passed, but finally, a rift appeared to Noah's right. 

"Have fun with your older self. At least this time around, you have a reference for how things could've gone. I don't need to hurt you here. All your failures, you'll know exactly whose lives you ruined just by existing. No excuses this time, Noah." Her former father's ghost left her with that advice as he faded back into mist.

"Maybe that's fine... It might just be worse to let you control me for the rest of eternity..." Noah retorted to her fears as she stepped through the rift.

...

"Forest of Terror?" Was the first thing that Noah asked me after she appeared from the time rift once again. While she'd been inside the rift, I'd returned her appearance to what it'd been before, based on a younger version of our original self with brunette hair and blue eyes.

In response, I tossed her a certain shimmering plant. This was a Paradise Herb. I knew myself pretty well, and the fears that my energy would have created in the forest of terror weren't ones that I'd have been able to deal with like Krillin had. My fears weren't intrinsically tied to people that I could just beat up and be done with, or my strength not being enough, but things that, in order to get the Paradise Herb, I'd need to deal with having repeatedly shoved into my face over and over again. I'd already had it shoved into my face during my everyday life. I'd eventually decided that it wasn't worth it, and I didn't dare send one of the Girls to get their fears chucked at them.

But...

"I get it, Hanna. You're trying to protect me. All of that, was just you trying to protect me from our worst fears. You might be right... I don't know." Noah admitted to me. 

Noah and I were different people. There was something different about us, deep down. When I'd seen Raditz kill dad that day, something had snapped inside of me. I didn't want her to go through that same thing, even if it was cruel. 

"I don't want you to be right, Hanna. So I'll play whatever games you're playing, and I'll tell you just how stupid you're being, at every turn, alright?" She said. After that, she put the herb into her mouth and swallowed, making a disgusted face as she did. "Disgusting..." She muttered.

"Duh, it's disgusting. It's basically just really special grass..." I told her, giggling, "Here, for your stomach." I tossed her a Senzu Bean, which she fumbled with and accidentally dropped before picking back up and swallowing. As soon as she swallowed it, I could tell that the pain in her gut had vanished without a trace. "Alright, Noah. It's a deal."