The meeting of two people sometimes happens by pure chance.
For instance, to use a clichéd, worn-out example with no originality whatsoever—colliding at a street corner.
Perhaps those two who collided are a man and woman, and that encounter might spark an acquaintance, a friendship.
It might develop into a relationship, and if things go well, perhaps marriage and children.
A one-in-ten-million, one-in-a-hundred-million possibility—but maybe one of their descendants produces a great figure who leaves their name in history itself.
However, if the timing had been even slightly off... or if someone else had called out to them, that meeting would never have occurred, and future history would have been completely different.
This is obviously an extreme example, and not everything works this way.
But it's not impossible either.
History's turning point was coincidence.
An anomaly that shouldn't have existed sent warriors to the past for training.
As a result, one Saiyan named Pambukkin wasted unnecessary time failing to conquer a city he should have easily taken.
However—and it's cruel to say this after all that buildup—Pambukkin has absolutely nothing to do with what follows.
The one deeply involved in this story is someone else, one of the Saiyans caught up in Pambukkin's delay and whose return to their home planet was postponed: a low-class warrior named Bardock.
Despite being born a low-class warrior, his combat power rivaled that of elite warriors, and none could match his valor.
The fact that even some elites and the Saiyan King himself remembered his name should indicate just how exceptional he was.
It happened while he was hurrying to the distribution center where his wife waited.
Perhaps he'd been in too much of a rush. Bardock accidentally knocked over a child in his path.
Naturally it wasn't intentional, nor was there any malice.
But the collision was a fact, and he was at fault.
Bardock, who possessed decent common sense for a Saiyan, looked at the fallen child and extended his hand with an annoyed expression.
"Whoops, my bad. I was in a hurry. Can you stand, kid?"
He looked at the other's face as he spoke.
And Bardock's eyes widened slightly.
The child lying there... looked exactly like him.
Especially the hairstyle, which even his wife called distinctive—it was identical.
If these two stood side by side, surely some would mistake them for parent and child.
If there was any difference, it would be that the child was somewhat darker-skinned than Bardock.
"What, old man? My face that interesting? It's nothing weird... Us disposable low-class warriors don't come in many types... So yeah, this kind of thing happens."
The boy laughed fearlessly, swatted Bardock's hand away, and stood up.
Apparently, matching his similar appearance, he was quite a hothead.
But it wasn't unpleasant. Saiyans were a race that thrived on this kind of spirit.
Bardock grinned back and gave the boy some attitude in return.
"True enough, but... when we look this similar, even I find it creepy. You're Turles, right? I'd heard rumors there was a kid who looked just like me."
"Heh, and you must be Bardock, right? There's talk of a low-class warrior with surprisingly good skills. ...I'd like a match with you sometime."
Saiyans were a warrior race.
They possessed traits that made them stronger with each battle, the ability to transform into Great Apes, and high average combat power.
And supporting all these traits was a universally shared, excessive fighting spirit.
A Saiyan with weak fighting spirit was probably as rare as Bardock's wife, Gine.
"Spirited kid, aren't you? Fine... I've got something to do today so I can't take you on, but I'll accept tomorrow. Training Room Five—how about it?"
"Sounds good. All the kids my age are spineless and boring. Including your kid Raditz. I'll see how different the father is from his son."
—The result was Turles's crushing defeat.
No surprise there.
No matter how strong he was, the outcome was predetermined between young Turles and Bardock, who was top-class even among adults.
But Turles didn't give up after one match.
Twice, three times, four times... From that day on, he challenged Bardock countless times, picking fights whenever he had a spare moment.
Perhaps he'd found meaning in life through meeting this man who stood at heights far beyond his own reach.
He spoke with flaring nostrils about how he'd defeat Bardock someday, make him kneel, and beg for his life.
And Bardock, though acting annoyed, never refused Turles's challenges.
Sometimes he even took him along on planetary invasions, breaking orders to give him combat experience.
Before long they were always together, their relationship seeming just like a real father and son.
Though foul-mouthed, hurling insults at each other at every turn, there was a casual familiarity there like close friends.
"Hey Turles... what happened to your parents? I've never seen them."
One day at the distribution center, Bardock asked about Turles's parents while chomping on meat Gine had brought.
Normally one would ask such things indirectly, tactfully, but unfortunately Bardock possessed no such finesse.
And Turles, when asked, also continued gnawing on his meat without seeming to care.
"Oh, they're dead. Got killed easily when the natives resisted on the planet they were invading."
"...Does it hurt?"
"Not at all. That man died because he was weak. Just another low-class warrior. Pathetic."
Turles bit into his meat again.
Then, barely chewing, he slammed the table hard.
"But I'm different! I'll become strong! Someday I'll replace Frieza and make this entire universe kneel before me!"
Bardock and Gine reflexively glanced around.
If Zarbon or Dodoria had been here and heard that statement, he'd have been executed on the spot. It was that dangerous.
But fortunately they didn't seem to be present, and the two breathed a sigh of relief.
"Heh... Big ambitions. Coming from a kid who's never beaten me once."
"Don't act like it's someone else's problem. Maybe I got it from you."
"...?"
Bardock and Turles shared no blood relation.
Therefore, there was nothing to inherit.
Turles should have been fully aware of this, yet Bardock's eyes widened at the words that came out anyway.
"You know what? Your kid... Raditz and me, there's a rumor we might've been switched. Our incubation pods were right next to each other. I think it's probably nonsense, but... look, anyone can see I look more like you, right? In personality too, and in combat power that's abnormal for a low-class warrior... That man who died pathetically didn't look anything like me either—just some long-haired guy with a receding hairline. Maybe—just maybe, you know..."
"Hah! Idiot!"
At those words, Bardock pressed down on Turles's head.
Then he roughly tousled that hair so similar to his own.
"Who'd want an unlovable brat like you? Someone like you... makes a fine student! And a particularly unlovable, incompetent student at that! Got it? Don't spout such nonsense again!"
"I get it... Ow, that hurts!"
Turles irritably swatted Bardock's hand away.
After staring at him for a while, his usual smile returned.
"I see, a student... I'm your student... ...Heh heh... Then that's fine."
Saying so, Turles smiled with satisfaction.
★
"Yo Bardock, heard you had a second son?"
"Turles."
"I heard—power level of two, right? Considering the kid next to him, Broly, has ten thousand, that's pretty terrible."
Several years later, a more robust Turles than before approached Bardock.
Now their appearances were virtually identical, differing only slightly in facial features and skin tone.
Actually, Bardock might still be slightly taller.
"Tell me about it. For a child of this Bardock... What trash!"
"But he picked a fight with that kid next door and made him cry, right? Even with low combat power, his guts are impressive. Kakarot's definitely your kid. ...He'll get strong, that one. Want me, the great Turles, to train him?"
As he spoke, Turles looked at the infant in the incubation pod.
The peacefully sleeping, innocent expression did indeed evoke the mother's features.
But the distinctive hair was exactly like his father's.
Turles roughly tapped the pod and spoke teasingly.
"Yo Kakarot, you did well getting born. Be proud, kid. Your old man's someone even I, the great Turles, acknowledge. ...Hurry up and grow, Kakarot... And when you do, let's raise hell together. Destroying planets we like, eating good food, getting drunk on good booze... There's no better life than that."
"Hey Turles, what the hell are you trying to teach my kid?"
Bardock delivered a merciless knuckle strike to Turles's head.
Their combat powers had grown much closer, so Bardock's retort held no restraint.
Naturally, this was an action born from a certain trust that Turles wouldn't be seriously hurt.
And though he didn't say it, Turles understood this too.
Those were happy days for Turles.
A goal to surpass, a goal he didn't want to surpass.
Challenging Bardock as always, losing, eating together.
Fighting shoulder to shoulder, protecting each other's backs, being protected.
Hurling foul insults at each other over anything, escalating to fights, and losing again.
Losing was humiliating, but somewhere in his heart, Turles wished for those days to continue.
He wanted to believe they'd last forever.
But nothing lasts forever.
The end always comes eventually.
It happened while Turles was attacking a remote planet.
Bardock had strangely recommended it, and though he wasn't enthusiastic, he'd gone anyway—only to find a disappointingly weak planet full of pushovers, which he conquered that day.
That day, Turles's Scouter was acting particularly strange.
Or rather, only the communication system had been deliberately tampered with.
He realized this after destroying the planet, so Turles reluctantly repaired the Scouter with makeshift materials and sent a transmission to Bardock.
"Oh, finally connected. Hey Bardock, I just finished the planet you told me about. But I don't get it. What value could such a planet have?"
'.....'
"But I found something interesting on a planet I stopped at along the way. Apparently it's called the Tree of Might. If you eat it, your combat power... Hey, are you listening? Bardock."
Turles had been talking one-sidedly, but noticing Bardock's strange behavior, he stopped speaking.
The transmission should have been properly fixed.
So why no response?
He'd properly tuned the frequency to Bardock's, and he should be able to hear.
Could he not be wearing his Scouter at all?
As he pondered this, a familiar female voice—not Bardock's—came through the Scouter.
'That voice... Turles?'
"Gine. Why are you...?"
'If you're looking for Bardock, he's not here anymore. He went to stop Frieza.'
"To stop Frieza...? Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"
A chill ran down Turles's spine.
A terrible premonition unlike anything he'd felt before.
As if he were about to lose everything... As if something irreversible were about to happen.
Somehow, it was accompanied by a conviction-like fear.
'Frieza betrayed us... Apparently Toma and the others were killed too. I just heard that Bardock was shouting about it in the mess hall. The others didn't seem to believe it though...'
"! Toma and the others...!?"
'Bardock flew off alone to defeat Frieza. ...But apparently... it didn't work.'
In Gine's voice through the Scouter, sobs like crying were mixed in.
She was probably crying on the other end.
And—what was that? He could hear something approaching.
The sound of something tremendously large, like flames, drawing near!
"Hey! Gine! What's that sound?! What's happening over there?! Gine!!"
'Turles... I'll share this planet's fate together with him. He'd probably be lonely alone... Oh, right... At Bardock's suggestion, we sent Kakarot to Earth as our child... Could you look after...'
Those were Gine's last words.
Though she was surely mid-sentence, an explosion heard immediately after swallowed everything.
The eardrum-breaking sound lasted only an instant, then only the static of a severed connection remained.
The Scouter on the other end had probably been destroyed.
"...Hey? Hey, Gine? ...H-Hey. This joke's gone too far. This is some kind of lie, right? Y-You're both trying to surprise me, right?"
He tried matching frequencies and calling again and again.
Over and over. Again and again.
But he couldn't hear her voice. Couldn't hear Bardock's voice either.
While part of him panicked, the calm warrior part of Turles was thinking.
That ominous sound was surely a massive energy blast or something approaching Planet Vegeta.
The coordinates recorded in his final transmission with Gine were indeed Planet Vegeta, so there was no mistake.
And most likely, Planet Vegeta and Gine had been annihilated by that energy blast's direct hit.
Judging from her final words, the culprit was Frieza.
Or rather, only he could execute something like that.
And Bardock, realizing this, had sent Kakarot away as a child-refugee to a planet called Earth, then challenged Frieza alone.
And the result was...
"...Frieza..."
Blood overflowed from his fists in rage.
He clenched his teeth, his head heating up until it felt like all the blood in his body was boiling.
Floating in his mind was that self-proclaimed Emperor of the Universe, Frieza.
Just picturing that face filled his entire body with murderous intent.
"FRIEEEEZAAAAAA!!"
As he screamed, the ground exploded.
As if to cool even slightly the emotions that wouldn't clear, Turles scattered energy blasts in all directions.
Overkill on an already devastated planet—naturally, the act had no meaning.
Still, if he didn't lash out at something like this, he felt he'd go mad with rage.
"Damn it!"
He understood. This act had no meaning.
Frieza was probably laughing triumphantly right now, and since even Bardock was defeated, he himself could never avenge him.
"Damn it! Damn it!"
But he wouldn't end here.
He would never let it end.
The Saiyans weren't extinct yet—he and Kakarot remained.
Then someday... someday, he'd drag Frieza down from his throne.
He'd rule the entire universe, trample Frieza's head, smash him against the rocks like an insect, make him kneel and beg for his life! Then kill him in humiliation!
"DAAAAMN IIIIIT!!"
—From that day forward, Turles transformed into a cruel, evil Saiyan.
A man already inclined toward evil, but this incident pushed him completely over the edge.
Someday he'd definitely kill Frieza—with that obsession alone, he grew stronger, invading planets and converting them into his nourishment.
And more than ten years later, he would eventually set his sights on that planet.
A planet called Earth.
The remote corner of the galaxy where Kakarot had once been sent as a child-refugee.
***
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