Chapter 13 - ch 5 part 1

# 🌌 **Saiyan of the Red Dawn**

## **Chapter 5 – The Second Hunt**

*(Part 1)*

---

Weeks passed.

The bruises faded. The nightmares did not.

Every time Kael closed his eyes, he felt the Alpha's claws grazing his ribs—the certainty that his heart would stop, the darkness swallowing everything.

But when he woke, he was still breathing. Still alive.

And each morning he rose before dawn to train again.

---

**Today was different.**

He felt it the moment he entered the citadel's main hall.

The walls were lined with warriors—veteran Saiyans in black and crimson armor, their scouters gleaming like a constellation of judgment.

Varis waited at the far end, hands clasped behind his back.

At his side stood Mistress Seris, expression unreadable.

Between them, on a low plinth, rested a rectangular case sealed with biometric locks.

Kael approached, heart thudding.

Varis inclined his head slightly.

"You proved you can kill," he said. "Today, you prove you can *hunt.*"

Kael drew a slow breath.

"I'm ready."

---

Varis gestured to Seris.

She stepped forward and unlocked the case.

With a hiss, the lid split and folded back, revealing a gleaming scouter and a pair of weighted gauntlets etched with Saiyan script.

"These are your tools," Seris said quietly.

She lifted the scouter and placed it over his left eye herself.

It powered up with a faint chime, the targeting reticle flickering into view.

"Not every kill is an ambush," she continued. "Sometimes, you must track your prey—learn its patterns. And strike when it least expects."

She nodded to the gauntlets.

"They will restrain your output. A handicap. So you learn discipline."

Kael picked them up. Even without ki flowing through them, they were heavy—each one likely doubled his arm's mass.

"Understood."

---

Varis stepped aside, gesturing to a wide holomap that flared to life.

A mountainous region appeared—sweeping cliffs, dense canyons, thin trails winding through pale rock.

"A squad of Frieza Force deserters has been preying on our supply convoys," Varis said.

Six power signatures pulsed across the map—one bright enough to make Kael's scouter beep a warning.

"Their leader calls himself Recco. A veteran with a known combat power over 90,000."

Kael swallowed.

"That's nearly twice the Alpha."

"And that," Varis said, "is why you will learn restraint."

He stepped closer, voice lowering.

"You are forbidden to ascend. No transformations. No wild flares of ki. You will wear the gauntlets and fight as you are."

Kael's mouth felt dry.

"And if I must?"

Seris's eyes hardened.

"Then you have failed this trial."

---

The holomap dissolved.

Silence fell over the chamber, the assembled Saiyans watching him with expressions ranging from contempt to curiosity.

Varis raised his chin.

"Will you accept this mission?"

Kael flexed his hands, feeling the pull of his growing power in his veins—like a river always threatening to burst its banks.

But he thought of the pedestal in his trophy chamber.

He thought of the woman in his dreams.

And he nodded.

"I accept."

---

**An hour later**, the dropship bore him away from the citadel, eastward across the rocky badlands.

The weighted gauntlets encased his forearms, humming faintly as they dampened his ki.

Every movement felt like fighting through sand.

But he welcomed the challenge.

*If I can master this,* he told himself, *then no one will ever cage me again.*

He closed his eyes as the ship banked lower, the wind buffeting the hull.

*I am alive. I am stronger. I will become more.*