Meruem's tactic worked perfectly, and Frieza took the bait. Blinded by rage, he wasn't thinking about anything else. The only thought in his mind now was to kill Meruem.
"Eighty-five percent power! I'll show you what happens when you piss off Lord Frieza!" Frieza's beady red eyes blazed with hate, veins bulged on his forehead, and his grinding teeth squeaked with fury—all signs he was on the verge of going berserk.
Can't even handle this much? Figures—you're just a child. Seeing his trash-talk tactic successfully draw Frieza's aggro, Meruem finally let a faint smile curl his lips.
He then pictured those classic street-screaming scenes in his previous life. If those shrews hurled insults at Frieza, would it kill him out of sheer anger?
Hmm, if Frieza could only listen and wasn't allowed to hit back, he might actually pop a vessel.
"Come catch me, come catch me. If you do, I'll let you… heh-heh-heh… die, baldy." Meruem kept making taunting gestures at Frieza while his feet moved fast, streaking ahead at high speed.
"Don't run! Stand still if you've got guts! I'm going to kill you!" Frieza's face went white with rage—just like he'd scared the Namekians green.
"Lord Raditz!" Not long after Meruem drew Frieza away, the Chimera Ant elites hidden in the dark popped out one after another.
They pulled a Senzu Bean from a pouch and popped it into Raditz's mouth. After he swallowed, Raditz finally came around. Though the fingertip beam hole Frieza had drilled through him left him gravely injured, the Chimera Ant–modified Saiyan physique let him hang on without dying outright. If they'd been any later, even his body might not have held out.
"Thanks… wait, Kakarot!" After a long exhale, Raditz suddenly remembered what he'd been trying to do.
Raditz was one of the Saiyans who actually cared about family. As a kid it was Bardock; now it was Son Goku.
All told, even when he invaded Earth, he hadn't planned to kill Goku. Everything he did was because he was angry at Goku for being spineless—for disgracing the Saiyan warrior race. That's why he tried to make Goku kill. In the original story, he ended up with internal injuries from his little nephew's headbutt, then got taken down by his own brother teamed up with a Namekian.
Of course, we can't rule out that Raditz wanted Goku as backup to boost his standing on Vegeta's squad.
But that doesn't mean he didn't care about his brother. Otherwise, why didn't he just kill Gohan outright? Instead, he used Gohan to try to push Goku into killing.
The Saiyans are a warrior race. They love fighting—fighting the strong, masters, monsters. They're not a bloodthirsty race that loves random slaughter.
Raditz hurried to the big crater he'd wanted to check. Sure enough, when he looked down, Goku's body was lying there at the bottom.
From the faint ki emanating from him, Goku hadn't stopped breathing. He was stubbornly still alive.
"Hmph. Kakarot… lucky you." Once he saw his brother wasn't in mortal danger, Raditz immediately switched expressions.
"Here, a Senzu Bean. Eat it." He hooked an arm under Goku's shoulder, sat him up, and shoved the bean into his mouth.
"Whoa… that was close, way too close. Felt like I almost died." Revived, Goku sprang to his feet, patting his chest.
"Thanks, big brother Raditz." At last, he awkwardly called Raditz the one word Raditz had always wanted to hear.
"Hmph, don't get the wrong idea. He didn't save you on purpose. I'm just worried our few surviving Saiyans are on the verge of extinction." A textbook tsundere. If only it were a cute girl—then it'd be a sight to see.
Too bad he's a burly dude.
"Vegeta and the Namekian, here." Raditz took two more Senzu Beans from the Chimera Ant elites and tossed one each to Vegeta and Piccolo.
"No matter how many times I see it, I'm amazed by these things." The first words out of Vegeta's mouth after recovering were praise for the Senzu Beans' magic.
As the Saiyan prince, he knew well how crucial they were. They're a miracle item that can turn a battle on its head.
"Big brother Raditz." Once you accept a setup, it's easy to get used to it—especially for Goku. He leaned right up to Raditz, thick-skinned as ever.
"What?" Raditz said, a bit awkward.
"Who do you think is stronger, Frieza or Meruem? Will Meruem beat Frieza in the end?" The thing that most interested Goku was people stronger than him. Second was training.
"How many times do I have to tell you—call him King!" Raditz thumped Goku on the head with a fist.
"Ow, ow, ow!" Goku grabbed his head and begged for mercy.
After fooling around a bit, Raditz's tone turned very serious. "The winner will definitely be the King! No—he will be!"
"By the way, Son Goku. What was that golden, glittering form earlier? Is that a Super Saiyan?"
"I don't know. I just remember being really angry, then a power rose in me from who knows where, and then—shoom—I transformed. Oh, and what is a Super Saiyan?"
"…So basically you don't know why you transformed."
"Uh-huh."
"Knew you were a dummy."
"Where do you think you're running to?! If you don't stop, I'll blow this planet up!" After chasing Meruem for a while, Frieza realized he was being toyed with.
So he immediately resorted to threats. Though, because of the Dragon Balls, he might not actually be willing to destroy Namek.
Meruem wasn't afraid of the threat, but he had promised the Grand Elder. If Namek got blown up, wouldn't that mean Meruem had broken his word?
"So this is where you picked for your grave? Mountains all around and lakes nearby… actually not a bad place to be buried." The spot where Meruem and Frieza stopped was encircled by mountains with several lakes—honestly, a pretty decent setting.
"You're courting death!" Frieza was about to explode from Meruem's taunts.
"Wow, are you cosplaying as an egg? He's better-looking than you, at least. Not some random bald creep popping out of a crowd." Meruem kept digging his hole.
"I'm going to kill you, you bastard! Hell Rocket Cannon!" A huge, circular black sphere formed in Frieza's hand.
Heh, got him.
"Super Shinra Tensei!" Meruem knew this move of Frieza's had homing properties. Rather than waste stamina dodging, better to erase it outright.
"Frieza, guess where I am." Meruem shot Frieza a strange grin—and then another Meruem, identical to the first, stepped out behind him.
"What trick is this? A mirror? Afterimages? Or is that your twin brother? No—one of you isn't real!" Frieza didn't understand how Shadow Clones worked. In fact, putting aside mystic arts and bloodline limits, the two most useful things the Naruto world offered other worlds were the Shadow Clone and Substitution techniques.
Those two jutsu are incredible cheats elsewhere. Imagine if Frieza learned Shadow Clone—countless purple, bald-domed heads… yikes.
Ahem. Shadow Clones inherit a portion of the original's ninjutsu and all of his taijutsu—and they're physical bodies. Getting hit by them hurts.
Without special means, there's no way to tell the original from the clones. Even sensory ninja can't always do it. At least, a guy like Frieza had no way to distinguish Meruem's clones from the original.
"Heh-heh. Correct—but no prize." As he spoke, another Meruem stepped out behind Meruem and his clone. They spoke in unison. There were now four Meruems present.
"Come on, Frieza, take a guess. Where am I?" In front of Frieza, Meruem's numbers doubled again, then doubled again, several times over.
Finally, a dark mass of Meruems filled Frieza's field of vision.
They all spoke at once, but every Meruem was saying something different.
The whole sky buzzed with their voices like a giant marketplace, a chaotic din.
"Damn ants—shut up! Shut up! Shut! Up!" Frieza's fury shot to a new peak.
"You think you're some cutesy tsundere idol? Playing cute? Gross, you baldy!" Only when they were roasting someone did all the clones get on the same page.
"Ninety percent power! I'll kill you all!" Frieza didn't care about Dragon Balls anymore. Right now he had only one thought—to kill Meruem!
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