Was he Taz, a young man from Earth who stumbled through life with empty ambition, who wasted his potential on vices, who ran from responsibility into games, late nights, and anime marathons because fiction was easier than reality.
Or was he Trunks, the boy who grew up in a graveyard, the boy who watched the world collapse, the boy who carried hope like a weapon and carried guilt like a chain, the boy who fought because if he stopped, everyone died.
Taz's forehead creased as the question echoed in his skull, because both answers felt true, yet simultaneously felt like lies.
He remembered his Earth life in messy fragments; cheap food, wasted afternoons, empty conversations, the heavy shame of knowing he could be better while still refusing to be better.
He remembered Trunks' life in sharper fragments; blood on concrete, Bulma's tired smile, Gohan's training, the desperate thrill of power increasing because power was the only thing that kept the monsters away.
Two lives.
Two histories.
One body.
One breath.
He realized something then, something simple and cruel, that made his chest ache more than the wound ever did.
It did not matter who he 'preferred' to be, because this world would not care about his identity crisis, and the future would not pause while he decided what name felt comfortable.
Humans outside were starving.
The last safe building on Earth was shaking with new threats.
A monster had escaped into the past, and from here he couldn't do anything about it, even if he wanted to.
And whether he was Taz or Trunks, the responsibility was sitting on his shoulders now, heavy as a mountain, and unavoidable.
Taz exhaled slowly, and the bubbles around his lips drifted upward like tiny ghosts.
He thought of the boy Trunks had been, the boy who did not get to be weak, the boy who did not get to hide, the boy who had to become a hero because there was nobody else.
Then he thought of himself, the Earth version, the one who had never been forced to grow, the one who had been allowed to fail and then stay failed, because consequences had never been as absolute as they were here.
A bitter truth formed in his mind, and it cut through everything like a blade.
Earth-Taz was not useless; he was just untested, and this world was the harshest test imaginable.
And Trunks was not some distant anime icon anymore; he was the shape of the life Taz had been handed, the shape of the responsibility that came with this body, this power, and this mother watching him with desperate hope.
Taz's eyes narrowed with a new clarity, and his heart steadied as if it had finally found its rhythm.
"I'm both." He murmured softly, and even though Bulma could not hear him through the glass, the words felt like a contract being signed inside his soul.
He was the man from Earth with regrets and bad habits and wasted years, and he was also the warrior forged by apocalypse, the boy who had already died once and did not get to die again.
The old name, Taz, felt like a skin he had outgrown, and the new name, Trunks, felt like armor he had to wear whether he liked it or not.
So he accepted it, fully, because acceptance was faster than fear, and fear was a luxury he could not afford.
When Bulma glanced back at him, he met her eyes steadily, and something in his expression must have changed, because her brows lifted as if she suddenly saw her son again.
"Okay! Okay, you're looking better already!" She declared softly, and her voice warmed in a way that made Taz sigh again.
He nodded once, and in his mind the world shifted, like a camera angle snapping into place.
He was Trunks!
.........
A few hours later, the tank hissed, and the liquid began to drain with a smooth mechanical rhythm that sounded like a controlled storm.
SWIIIISHH!!
Trunks' body felt lighter as the fluid lowered, and when the glass unsealed with a soft click, warm air rushed in, and he inhaled like he had been holding his breath for years.
Bulma stood nearby with a towel in her hands, pretending to focus on her gadget so she would not stare too hard, but her eyes kept flicking to him anyway because mothers always looked.
"You're going to feel a little strange when you step out because your body healed fast, and the tank pushes your recovery hard, so don't do anything intense for at least five minutes." She instructed seriously.
Trunks gave a nod, soft-spoken as ever, because part of him still wanted to be gentle with her even when the world demanded hardness.
He stepped forward and rose out of the pod, naked and dripping, the green fluid sliding down his skin in thin streams that pooled on the cold floor beneath.
Bulma immediately turned her head away with a flustered huff, shoving the towel toward him without looking, and muttering something about him still being a 'teenager' even though he was clearly not.
Trunks took the towel and wrapped it around his waist as he was about to leave, but froze the next moment because the instant his feet touched the floor fully, something surged inside him like a volcano surging upward.
His muscles tightened, his bones felt denser, and his ki swelled outward as if it had been compressed and then suddenly released.
WHOOM!
The air in the lab grew heavy, and the instruments on Bulma's monitor spiked so sharply that the screen flashed warning colors.
Bulma spun around, eyes wide, staring at the numbers like she could not believe them.
Trunks clenched his fists slowly, feeling power coil under his skin like a sleeping dragon waking up, and he understood immediately what had happened.
A near-death experience.
A healed body.
A zenkai.
So this was what it felt like? It was less like a random asspull and more like a sped-up adaptation to a crisis. So were Saiyans closer to beings like Doomsday or Mahoraga?
Interesting.
For now, Trunks moved forward to clean himself and plan his next steps because time waited for no man, nor Saiyan.