>>5549429“I honestly can’t say much more than what you and your allies have been able to discern on your own, but I can say this. The Towa of my time lived for years thinking she’d won everything. Babidi was vanquished, Dabura was back as the King of the Demon Realm, Raichi’s warriors were available for her to experiment with on a whim, Baby ruled near half the mortal realms and Mira took over the PTO, and even Shin was her prisoner. What’s more, she and Mira had their son Fu as a potential heir to the throne.” Basilea’s expression turns gloomy. “But she still had… use for me. Still would push me to make the most of my potential, even teasing out the idea that I may still be candidate for the throne. She did everything she could to instill in me the idea that my human side was weakness. When your counterpart attempted to befriend me, my Towa… punished me for it.” You see her tug a bit on the furs around her body. “I was sent out to look for the Black Star Dragon Balls for her and Baby, fighting against the counterparts of you and your friends numerous times. Each failure was met with further punishment. Each rare victory was met with the most marginal of rewards. I hated those things, and my hate was something Towa attempted to sharpen to a knife’s edge.”
“That’s why you went through with your plan, huh? Setting all of them to erupt?” you question.
She nods slowly. “My Towa thought of them as a jewel to fit on her crown of total victory. They ended up being the beginning of her great victory’s undoing, when your brother’s counterpart gained the power to strike down Baby through them. From there, she had no more use for me. I was to help her counterpart, your Towa, bring about an even greater victory. Whatever my Towa thought of me, yours thought even less. She saw me as nothing more than a tool. But she’s also craftier. She’s more willing to gamble, more willing to experiment, and now aware of how much more she needs in order to bring about total victory.” Basilea pauses for a moment, looking up in thought, then adding, “She’s also too smug for her own good.”
You and Videl both laugh at that. “Pft, okay yeah, absolutely true. I guess… last thing is, well… what do you want to do now?”
Your copy hands her a hotdog, while the goo girls get cotton candy. Cocoa ends up with a chocolate shake, Videl vanilla, and you yourself a mint one. Basilea looks it over awkwardly for a bit, then takes a cautious bite. A brief flash of genuine joy hits her face, but she attempts to hide it almost as quickly, even giving a pout. “…I want to make sure my counterpart doesn’t go through what I had to. Beelzebub doesn’t trust me, and if I’m being honest I haven’t given him much reason to up to this point. But I will do everything within my power to prevent this timeline’s Basilea from going down the same path I have.”
(cont.)
