The pod's lid irised shut over him with a seal that felt like a sentence. Metal sighed; vacuum pressed the hull; the desert, the boy, the monk, the failure—all of it collapsed into the narrow world of a coffin that knew his name.
He did not pass out so much as he fell without landing.
Something cold slid into his veins. Not mercy. Gel. It burned like ice with ambition.
[Zenkai Optimization Protocol — Initiated]Status: CriticalStabilizers: EngagedNutrient Gel: Flow ↑Sedation: 0% (Denied by Host Preference)
"Denied?" he rasped, lips cracked, voice a thread that somehow found its way through blood and pride.
[Reason: Host growth accelerates with conscious pain]Outcome Differential: +11% PL Gain vs Sedated Recovery
He laughed, and the laugh sounded like gravel striking a bell. "At least one of us understands math."
Bones ached with the deep, clean ache of work done wrong and eager to be corrected. The gel thickened around him, buoyed his limbs, insinuated itself into every wound with a patience that mocked his impatience. The pain rose—not in spikes, but in waves, tide pulling back, tide slamming forward, each pass a file across jagged edges. He rode it because there was nowhere else to go.
The pod dimmed. Lights became suggestions. He hovered between the thrum of systems and the slow percussion of his heart.
[Scan: Full-body microfracture mapping]Forearms: Micro-splittingRibs: Hairline fractures (lateral)Optic: Left eye—severe traumaRecommendation: Re-knit, then strain, then re-knit (×3)
"Do it," he said, and the gel obeyed.
Heat bloomed. It was not gentle. Filaments like liquid glass threaded through bone; they hummed as they aligned what he had cracked in stubbornness. The hum set his teeth on edge. He accepted it the way a soldier accepts rain.
He did not close his eyes. He stared at the blank of the lid the way men stare at distance. If he closed them, the last image would return: the boy stepping in front of the blue light for the monk, the bomb knowing who deserved it, the moment when pride had been too slow and luck too fast.
He did not blink, so it did not come.
"Show me Kakarot," he said instead.
The pod's interior became a room without walls. Goku materialized in front of him: gi torn, red aura licking, smile like a dare. Not a hologram; a shape—weight, angle, the first breath of a strike before the strike announces itself.
"Kaio-ken," Vegeta said. The word amused him. "Again."
The simulation obliged. Red bloomed. Feet slid. Hands shaped. Vegeta shifted in the gel—no leverage, no floor—and moved anyway, because movement begins in decisions long before it becomes muscle.
His palm caught the simulation's wrist a hair before the blow. Vector, torque, path. He felt the phantom's weight transmit through a machine he didn't trust and decided trust was optional.
"Again," he said, as pain in his ribs wanted attention. "Harder."
[Combat Visualization Suite — Online]Parameters: Kakarot (Kaio-ken ×2 … ×4)Environment: Null-grav training vatCoaching: Micro-vector cues overlay
Lines painted themselves over Goku's shoulders—thin, translucent threads showing where the next angles would live if the man remained himself. Vegeta ignored the lines. He wanted the mistakes that maps hide.
"Fake left," he told the phantom Kakarot. "You're polite. Be rude."
The phantom complied. It dug an elbow where a gentleman would not. A flick of pain climbed from his belly to his teeth. He grinned at it.
"Better."
When the pain crested—too clean to ignore, too honest to be melodrama—he let it carry him to memory's edge and then turn him around. The laughter that had shamed him on the sand—his own, at himself, at the joy of being pushed—hung there. He did not swat it away. Joy has uses.
Hours dissolved into mechanics. Gel warmed, then cooled. The pod forced oxygen into his lungs at a cadence calculated to annoy and strengthen. He held his breath when told not to. He stole control back in small rebellions that the System recorded and rewarded.
[Breath-Load Set — Begin]1:2:1:2 cycle (inhale/hold/exhale/hold)Maintain 1% ki in right palm during entire cyclePenalty for failure: micro-tear → repeat
He lifted his hand. The gel resisted like thick water. A bead of light formed above his palm—precise, arrogant, small. He breathed to four, held to eight, exhaled to four, held to eight. The bead quivered once, insulted by gravity's memory, then steadied, insulted no more.
"Again," he said, because repetition is a crown real princes wear.
The pod obliged. The gel itched, then burned, then cooled. Somewhere, bones decided to believe in each other again. He felt the instant a suture finished inside his forearm. It felt like forgiveness and cost like debt.
"Kakarot," he said. The room unfurled. The simulation came. He fought the man in three sizes—smaller than truth to force control, true to test the benchmark, larger than truth to remind his pride it still had ceilings.
"Frieza," he said once, almost lazily, like a man ordering a drink he wasn't sure he deserved. The pod hesitated.
[Warning: Frieza-Level Simulation Unadvised — Host Output Insufficient]Projected Outcome: Termination (psychological and/or physiological)Alternative: Frieza's shadow (posture/economy only)
"That will do," he murmured.
The shape of a chair became a throne. The angle of a chin became a decree. No face. Just weight on a room.
Every muscle in Vegeta's core contracted with an old, complicated obedience. He spat gel out of defiance and swallowed the rest because survival is a form of contempt too.
"Show me his hand," he said.
A pale hand appeared. Delicate. Dead. It lifted slightly, as if bored by gravity, and the whole world cowered.
He reached for it. The gel thickened, as if it had become air that had learned manners. He could not close his fingers around the wrist; the hand receded as though it did not recognize the concept of pursuit.
He smiled, small, ugly, affectionate with hate. "Soon."
The gel pulsed. Pain arrived with a crispness that felt like metal being hammered true.
[Cycle Complete]Re-knit pass 1/3 — Forearms: CompleteRibs: 40%Optic: 12% (partial)Initiate micro-strain? Y/N
"Y," he said, and laughed again at his own pettiness. In another life he would have been a man who loved forms. In this one, he loved what forms permitted.
The pod squeezed. Not his throat, not his limbs—his capacity. Bands he couldn't see wrapped his frame and asked very reasonable questions: What if this bone was heavier? What if your breath cost twice as much? What if acceleration made other choices for you?
He answered with patience and the kind of violence that looks like calm when performed correctly.
They gave him Nappa. He hit Nappa until the big man learned the difference between enthusiasm and tactic. He gave Nappa compliments he would never give to the real man, and the phantom improved because pride is cheap when it costs nothing.
They gave him Raditz. He broke Raditz's habit of celebrating while attacking, and for an instant he saw Kakarot's face in the man's undisguised hair. It amused him more than it should have.
They gave him himself. He watched the ghost of a prince make the same choices he had made on that desert, and he took a different step at the third exchange, and the future in the simulation shifted by degrees too small for gods to notice and too large for him to ignore.
Between rounds, the System's voice threaded through everything like silk with opinions.
[Host Mindset: Dual-source detected]Saiyan Prince: Aggression, dominance, ritualized contemptEthan (Human Soldier): Pattern acquisition, economy, patience under stressSynergy Bonus: +6% technique retention; +4% ki efficiency
"Name him," Vegeta said, not out of curiosity, but to force the System to obey the intimacy of naming.
[Ethan Cole — residual identity: integrated]
He tasted the human name like a spice that had snuck into a royal kitchen. "Useful," he said, and meant it. "Stay."
The pod did not answer with words. It answered with pain and a clean graph of earning.
Time unspooled. Or the lack of it did. Stars slid outside in silent lines whenever he let his eyes pretend lids were a good idea. He learned how many heartbeats it took before the gel cooled. He learned to hunt that number and use it.
He dreamed once without sleeping: blue light pooling like water, sticky with promise; a child's hands; a monk's laugh that had been a scream a second earlier; a fat man's sword catching a tail in a way that should not have been possible. He woke into the bright burn of his own left eye deciding it would see again and hissed because triumph and pain are the same animal when you hold them right.
[Optic Repair: 57%]Note: Scar probable. Function: acceptable
"Leave the scar," he muttered. "I enjoy reminders."
A soft tick, the closest the System ever came to indulgence.
He trained without floor, without opponent, without pride's favorite witnesses. He practiced the stupid little things that make big things obvious: shaping ki down to the width of a hair and writing letters in the gel with it; pulsing aura just enough to make currents that folded around his own body; moving the tips of his fingers in different directions simultaneously until the pod accused him of cheating and he accused it of boredom.
He let the gel drain a fraction and forced his lungs to pull against resistance. He starved himself of eight breaths out of every hundred on purpose. He saved the pain and spent it again in better places like money.
When the System offered a lull, he refused it.
[Rest Window Suggested: 20 min]Projected gain if accepted: +1% recovery rateProjected gain if refused: +1.5% technique retention (stress-state)
"Refuse," he said. "I did not come this far to sleep when rivals could be bleeding somewhere interesting."
He did sleep once, anyway, because bodies are small gods that demand worship. He woke into cold clarity and found that the pain had moved, which is more satisfying than when it leaves.
With clarity came memory given the respect of analysis.
Kakarot's face when the boy screamed. The way the man had said Not today without words. The sudden shift when his red aura had learned manners. The way the blue river had become a spear, not because it had grown, but because he had made it narrower.
"Humility," he said, as if trying on a forbidden garment in a private room. "Not modesty. The good kind. The tactical kind."
He asked the System for numbers it considered rude.
[Rival Kakarot — Estimated Growth Curve]Base (Earth arrival): ~5,000 (suppressed)Peak observed: ~30,000 (Kaio-ken ×4; severe self-damage)Projected ceiling without external intervention (6 months): ~90,000With King Kai techniques (unknown): variable; high risk
He rolled the figures around in his mouth and decided they tasted like permission to be cruel later.
"Frieza," he said again, less lazily.
[Frieza — Power Index: Redacted by sensor limitations]Known Benchmarks:— Dodoria: ~22,000— Zarbon (base): ~23,000; transformed: ~55,000–60,000 (est.)— Ginyu Force (range): 40,000 → 120,000+Host Survival vs Frieza (present): 0%Host Survival vs middle staff (post-recovery): moderate-high with advantages
The prince and the soldier agreed: do not die in public where your enemy is comfortable. Make your own public. Make your enemy come to you later with worse footing and worse faith.
The pod chimed in a different key. An alert, not a lesson.
[Hull Integrity: 62%]Plasma scoring from atmospheric exit (Earth)Microfractures propagated under stressRecommendation: Maintenance stop en route. Suitable candidate: Delta-47 Sargasso (uninhabited… formerly)
He arched a brow he couldn't see and felt the skin pull over the new scar. "Formerly?"
[Signal Traffic Logged — Sargasso Outpost]Pirate band activity: moderateEnergy signatures: disorganized, exploitableResource: salvageable med-pods; black-market stims; vessel plating
"Opportunity," he said, and gel compressed around him in approval that pretended to be physics.
He asked the System a question he would not have asked yesterday.
"If I break a planet and let it break me back, ordered—calculated—do I grow faster than a coward healed in a tank?"
[Zenkai Growth — Controlled Brink Strategy]Non-lethal brink cycles (×N) yield compounded adaptationRisk: Permanent damage if miscalculatedProjected gain across three controlled cycles (host profile): +12,000 → +18,000 PLProjected gain across one catastrophic cycle (uncontrolled): +25,000 PL; mortality risk: unacceptable
The laugh that escaped him this time was almost gentle. "Then we will be civilized about our barbarism."
He flicked gel off his lips with his tongue, tasted salt and metallic promise, and said: "Resume."
The pod obliged.
Kakarot came back, and this time Vegeta forced the phantom to use combinations the man had not yet discovered in himself. He found three and labeled them with ugly names to remember them better. He made his own hips learn what Goku's had hinted at. He learned to steal inches with breath the way the other man had. He did not imitate. He harvested. Imitation is flattery; harvest is monarchy.
Nappa came back, and he let the big man hit him once, hard, so he could feel the old friendship become education. Then he humiliated the phantom with economy the real man would never have understood and gave the ghost mercy the real man had not earned. Mercy is also education when applied correctly.
Frieza's hand remained a hand. It was enough. He made it reach. He made himself not flinch. He thought of the day he would make it bleed and collected that thought like a relic.
The gel thinned. He felt his own weight again. It pleased him that it felt like more.
[Zenkai Cycle: Stage 2/3 — Completed]PL Trending: 29,800 → 33,100 → 35,900Ki Efficiency: +8% (cumulative)Breath-Load Endurance: +240 seconds (sustained)Micro-vectoring: Rank ↑ (fingertip control)
He let the numbers pass through him without applause because applause is for witnesses and he had the only one he needed.
"Again," he said, and for a moment he could not tell if he meant training or war.
He forgot his body long enough to remember it properly. When the pod finally forced a rest cycle—shutting down stimulation, cooling the gel to a stingy chill, blanking even the ghost of Kakarot—he did not argue. He let his head tip back. The lid above him looked less like a coffin and more like a sky.
He whispered—not prayer, not gratitude, just an inventory a man gives himself when there are still fights worth the cost.
"Namek," he said.
The pod listened.
[Destination Update]Primary: Delta-47 Sargasso (maintenance/harvest)Secondary: Namek (resource: Dragon Balls; Frieza presence: high)ETA to Sargasso: 18 hours (subjective)
He closed his eyes, and this time he let the image come.
Green world. Blue water. Villages that smelled of calm. Balls that told lies about immortality to make men tell the truth about themselves. Frieza's shadow would look bad against that sky. He would look good against it.
He opened his eyes into the burn of his left, let it water, let the water sting, and grinned because scars are crowns when worn with the correct arrogance.
"Wake me at pain," he told the pod, and it did, and the hours between then and Sargasso were a string of good decisions shaped like suffering.
He spoke to Ethan as if to a brother he'd kill last. You get me patience. I get you teeth. The reply was only the particular quiet that soldiers make when they agree to something they should refuse.
He slept once more. The last thing he heard was the soft tick of a graph increasing. The last thing he felt was the old contempt for luck softening into respect for preparation. The last thing he decided was that the next time he saw Kakarot he would tell him thank you by making the man better with pain.
He woke when the pod rang a thin bell in his nerves.
[Approach: Delta-47 Sargasso]Traffic: Pirate band — activeHull: scoring present; repairs recommendedMission Offer — Side:**— Harvest 10,000 Hostile Life-Force (convert to training credit)*— Acquire med-tech (pods/stims)*— Optional: Establish local terror-signature (Royal Pressure +1%)
He flexed his fingers. They answered like subordinates who had learned names.
"Open," he said.
The lid did not obey. The outside needed air; the rack needed pressure. Systems argued a moment and then conceded to a prince who knew when rules served.
He rose from the gel with a hiss, skin streaked with silver sheen and old blood, hair flattened, mouth ready. He rolled his shoulders. Every sound inside him was the right one: creak, pop, hum.
He leaned on nothing and felt heavier than he had been and pleased by it. He thought of a broken boy's shout and a blue river that had curved because honesty asked it to and a fat man's sword in the dark.
He smiled, small and private.
"Let's go steal a planet," he said, and the pod grinned back in engine.
The thrusters whispered. The hull shimmied. The black outside shrugged and revealed a field of junk and lights around a dead rock that had learned piracy as a defense mechanism.
On his inner eye, the System unfurled the map like a dare.
[Sargasso — Orbital Yard]Docks: Six (derelict two, infested four)Power nodes: Weakly shieldedLeadership signature: Warlord-tier (PL ~6,000; subordinates 300–2,000)Collateral risk: containedRecommendation: Land away; enter loud; exit louder
He cracked his knuckles and decided which bones he would break first to make the right announcements.
He did not think of Frieza again while the ship burned down toward scavengers.
He did not have to. He carried the shape of that hand in his head now, and hands teach patience because they know work.
The pod screamed through the skeletal ring of the yard. Guns turned late. Men shouted on channels he couldn't be bothered to jam. The landing strut punched a crater into a pad that had not seen respect in years.
The hatch irised open. Heat breathed in. The air smelled like oil, bad meat, fear.
He stepped into it with the quiet smile of a man who loves his job.
The System flashed one more line across his vision, neat as a signature at the bottom of a declaration.
[Zenkai Cycle 3/3 — Pending Combat Trigger]Current PL: 36,100 (stable)Super Saiyan Progress: 55%Ascension Path: Open
"Begin," Vegeta said, and the first pirate who raised a rifle learned what it meant for mercy to be a skill you choose not to practice.