There was darkness.
Not the gentle kind that came with sleep, but a crushing absence—an endless pressure that wrapped around him from every direction, squeezing tighter and tighter as though existence itself were undecided, weighing him in some cosmic hand.
Then came heat.
Not warmth. Not comfort.
Judgment.
It pressed through him like a tide made of fire, too immense to belong inside anything so small. It didn't flow like energy. It commanded. It announced itself without words, without mercy, and his tiny body—still forming, still learning what it meant to be a body—convulsed as if it were trying to reject its own soul.
There was no air. No sound. No sky. Only pressure, heat, and an instinct as old as survival: endure.
The world ruptured.
Cold slammed into him like a blade, shocking every nerve at once. Air flooded his lungs, harsh and violent, and pain flared so sharp it forced him into motion. His chest seized. His throat tightened. He didn't understand breathing, not yet—only the sudden terror of needing something he couldn't name.
Instinct dragged it out of him.
And he screamed.
The cry tore free—raw, feral, unrestrained. It was not the thin wail of a helpless infant. It was sharp, resonant, carrying a weight far heavier than the small body it came from, as if something ancient had found a voice through newborn flesh.
The chamber shuddered.
Lantern flames bent sideways as if struck by an unseen wind. Dust leapt from the floor in little spiraling eddies. A hairline fracture split the base of a ceremonial pillar and raced upward, climbing stone like frightened lightning before stopping abruptly, trembling, as though reality itself hesitated to continue breaking.
For the briefest instant, the world turned red.
Not a color.
A presence.
A crushing pressure descended, not upon flesh, but upon meaning itself. It pressed into bone and blood, into breath and thought, and every Saiyan in the room felt—without explanation—how small they truly were.
A woman staggered backward, nearly dropping the newborn she held.
She had delivered countless infants. She had heard their cries. She had seen their first flailing motions, their wrinkled faces, their hunger and helplessness. She had watched warriors become fathers and mothers, watched bloodlines renew themselves beneath the banners of clans.
This was not that.
Her arms shook as though she were cradling a star.
"He's—" Her voice cracked. "He's burning."
She wasn't wrong.
Within the infant's tiny frame, something blazed.
It was not ki as mortals understood it—not an energy that flowed and gathered and obeyed will. This was heavier. Deeper. It did not move outward.
It pressed inward.
Divine power—vast, absolute, and utterly incompatible with the fragile vessel that tried to contain it.
The newborn's skin flushed red. Veins glowed faintly beneath flesh so thin it seemed translucent. His heartbeat thundered, too strong and too fast, as if his body were trying desperately to outrun its own destruction.
Around him, warriors who had faced death without flinching felt their throats tighten.
Someone fell to their knees.
Another backed away, whispering frantic prayers—prayers to gods that suddenly felt very distant, as though divinity had become a cliff above them and they had just realized how far they could fall.
"This isn't possible," an elder muttered. His tail was stiff with fear, fur bristling along its length. "There hasn't been— not since—"
His words died in his throat as the pressure spiked.
The infant's scream sharpened, echoing unnaturally, vibrating through stone and bone alike. It wasn't louder—it was deeper. Like a bell struck in the foundation of the world.
Outside the chamber, clouds twisted violently across the sky, spiraling around a point directly above the fortress. A single fork of crimson lightning flickered once—then vanished.
The air itself seemed to hesitate.
And far beyond the planet, something unseen paused.
A being whose awareness stretched across galaxies opened its eyes.
Elsewhere, another—older still, calmer than fear—smiled faintly, not in joy but in recognition.
Back in the chamber, the woman holding the child cried out as the heat surged again. Her arms trembled violently now, muscles screaming in protest as if she were being forced to hold an ocean in her hands.
"He's going to kill himself!" she shouted. "Seal it—now!"
The word seal cracked through the chamber like an order in wartime.
A figure stepped forward—old, scarred, wrapped in ceremonial armor etched with symbols of ancient Saiyan rites. The plates along his shoulders were marked with claw-scores, not decorative, but real: scars from battles fought before most of the room had been born.
His expression was grim, but his hands were steady as he approached the woman and looked down at the infant with eyes that had watched empires rise and fall.
Two fingers lifted.
He placed them gently against the newborn's forehead.
The pressure fought him.
For a moment, it felt as though the universe itself resisted restraint—like a storm refusing to be bottled, like a sun refusing to be dimmed.
The elder's jaw clenched. A thin tremor ran through his arm. His tail curled tightly behind him.
"You…" he breathed, voice low, as though speaking to the power inside the child. "You are not allowed to bloom yet."
The newborn's scream jolted, then fractured into a choking gasp. His tiny body arched, fists clenching so tightly his knuckles turned pale.
The elder pressed harder, not with force, but with authority—with ritual.
Symbols etched into his armor flashed faintly, responding. Lines on the floor—thin grooves filled with old red dust—began to glow in a slow circle around them, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Saiyan sealing rites were not gentle. They were born of fear.
Long ago, their people had learned a truth other races never understood until it was too late: power sometimes arrived before the mind was ready to wield it. And when that happened, the result was not greatness.
It was catastrophe.
The ring of light around them brightened. The elder's voice dropped into a chant, the ancient tongue rough and harsh, older than their modern words—words carved for binding monsters, not comforting infants.
The newborn's skin flared crimson again, as if the power inside him were lashing out.
A wave of heat burst outward.
The lantern flames guttered. A few went out entirely, leaving black smoke curling toward the ceiling. A warrior near the wall staggered, coughing, eyes watering from sudden dryness.
The woman holding the child cried out again, fear breaking through her professional steadiness.
"Elder Kaedor!" she pleaded. "He's—!"
"I know," the elder snapped, and for the first time, strain sharpened his voice. "Hold him steady."
Hold a newborn steady.
As if the child were not a child but a weapon refusing its casing.
The woman tightened her grip, arms trembling. Her face was pale beneath her tan, lips pressed tight as if holding back a scream of her own.
Around them, the council watched—twelve elders of the fortress, each representing a clan, each carrying their own ambitions, fears, and bloodlines. Some looked horrified. Others looked hungry.
A tall Saiyan with a braided tail and a scar running down his cheek leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowed.
"Is it truly divine?" he asked, voice quiet but sharp. "Or is this another mutation—another excuse to claim superiority?"
A second elder, female, her hair white with age, snapped her gaze toward him.
"Do you feel that pressure?" she hissed. "This is not mortal."
The braided-tail elder's lip curled.
"Mortal or not," he said, "power is power. The clans will want to know."
"And they will want to take him," another said, voice bitter. "To breed him. To weaponize him. To make him a banner."
The newborn's scream faltered into ragged sobs. For a second, his eyes fluttered open.
They weren't the dark eyes of a normal Saiyan infant.
They were… strange.
Not glowing, not flashy—just too still. Too aware in a way that didn't make sense.
A hush fell over the room at that single glance.
Then the pressure surged again, as if the child's awareness had tugged on the power inside him by accident.
Kaedor's fingers slammed down harder, and the ring on the floor flared.
"Now!" he barked.
Two attendants rushed forward with a carved stone bowl filled with thick red powder—ancient mineral dust taken from the heart of a dead meteor, used in rites meant to anchor unstable ki.
They poured it in a line across the floor's grooves, sealing the glowing circle. The powder ignited faintly, not burning, but shining like embers trapped in stone.
Kaedor's chant deepened.
The pressure began to fold.
Slowly—layer by layer—the red presence compressed inward, collapsing upon itself as if forced into a smaller and smaller cage. The glow beneath the infant's skin dimmed. The crushing weight receded like a tide pulling back from shore.
The chamber exhaled.
The newborn's scream broke into soft, broken whimpers.
Silence followed—thick, stunned, reverent.
Kaedor stepped back, breath heavy. Sweat traced down his brow, darkening the ridge of his cheek. For the first time, his hands trembled.
"It's sealed," he said at last. "Not gone. Never gone. Only… bound."
The woman looked down at the child in her arms.
So small now.
So quiet.
His fists clenched reflexively, fingers curling as if grasping at something only he could feel. His breathing was shallow but steady, eyes squeezed shut, face still flushed with the aftermath of power no infant should survive.
"What… what is he?" someone whispered.
Kaedor didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he stared at the child with an expression caught between awe and dread, as if he were looking at a blade that could someday cut even the hands that forged it.
"A reminder," he said finally. "That gods are not beyond birth… and that even divinity must begin weak."
Outside, the clouds began to unravel.
But the sky did not return to normal.
Not entirely.
A faint crimson sheen lingered at the edges of the horizon, like the universe had been bruised.
In the distance, deeper in the fortress, alarms began to ring—low horns blown by guards who had seen the lightning, who had felt the pressure ripple through the stone like a tremor. Footsteps thundered. Voices rose. Panic spread as fast as rumor.
In the chamber, the braided-tail elder straightened, eyes gleaming now with something sharper than fear.
"This cannot remain hidden," he said. "The clans will sense it. Even now, their scouts will be asking questions. Our rivals—"
"Let them ask," the white-haired elder snapped. "We decide what they learn."
"And if they come?" another demanded. "If they bring warriors? If they demand the child?"
Kaedor's gaze didn't leave the infant.
"They will," he said quietly.
The words settled like ash.
Because everyone in that room knew Saiyan nature. Knew their hunger. Knew the old laws that weren't written in books but in blood:
If something is strong, it must be claimed.
If something is rare, it must be controlled.
If something is divine, it must belong to someone.
The woman holding the child swallowed hard.
"What do we do?" she asked, voice small.
Kaedor finally lifted his hand away completely. The newborn's skin remained flushed, but the glow had vanished. The suffocating pressure was gone—yet the air still felt heavier than before, like the room had not fully recovered.
"We name him," Kaedor said.
A few elders frowned.
"A name?" the braided-tail elder scoffed. "As if that matters."
"It does," Kaedor replied, voice cold. "Names shape stories. Stories shape loyalty. Loyalty shapes war."
He looked at the infant again, and for a moment his eyes softened with something almost human.
"This child will not be raised as a trophy," he said. "He will not be bred like livestock. He will not be offered to clans as a bargaining chip."
"And who will stop it?" someone demanded.
Kaedor's lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"I will," he said.
A murmur swept through the chamber—fear, respect, disbelief.
Kaedor's reputation was not gentle. He had been a warlord before he became an elder, a butcher to some and a shield to others. He had buried sons. He had shattered enemies. He had bled for the fortress until the fortress had no choice but to offer him a seat among decision-makers.
He reached for the infant, and the woman hesitated before handing him over.
The moment Kaedor's hands touched the child, the air shifted.
Not an explosion.
Not a surge.
A subtle tightening—like the sealed power inside recognized a new presence and became still, listening.
Kaedor looked down.
The newborn's eyes flickered open again, unfocused but strangely calm. His tiny gaze did not wander. It seemed to rest—impossibly—on Kaedor's face.
The elder felt it then.
A pressure in his chest, not physical, not painful, but unmistakable.
As if the child's existence had weight.
As if, sealed or not, something divine sat behind those newborn eyes and watched him back.
Kaedor's voice lowered.
"Raizen," he said.
The syllables were old, harsh, and rare—drawn from a dialect spoken only in forgotten battles. The name meant many things depending on interpretation.
But at its core, it meant one truth:
Born of flame.
The child's fingers twitched, curling briefly around Kaedor's thumb.
A hush fell.
Even the braided-tail elder didn't speak for a moment.
Then, from somewhere above—beyond stone ceilings, beyond clouds, beyond atmosphere—something shifted.
Not a sound.
A presence.
A thought that did not belong to any mortal mind.
In a realm far removed from Saiyan councils and fortress walls, where time felt like a slow river and space like an endless hall, an angel paused mid-step.
Whis stood with hands behind his back, staff resting lightly in his palm. His expression was as calm as ever, but his eyes—sharp and ancient—tilted toward an unseen horizon.
"Hmm," he murmured, as if tasting something in the air.
Behind him, on a floating world adorned with trees that had never known seasons, a God of Destruction lay sprawled across a cushion, half-asleep.
Beerus's ears flicked.
He didn't open his eyes.
But his tail twitched once, irritated.
"Something's noisy," he muttered, voice thick with disinterest. "Turn it off."
Whis smiled faintly.
"I'm afraid it isn't something one can simply turn off," he replied.
Beerus cracked one eye open, irritation sharpening.
"What is it?" he demanded.
Whis didn't answer immediately.
He looked outward—through realities, through layers, through the subtle fabric of existence that angels monitored like gardeners watching a wild universe grow.
"It's… a birth," Whis said at last.
Beerus snorted.
"A birth," he repeated, unimpressed. "Mortals breed every second. Why should I care?"
Whis's smile remained, but something in his gaze deepened—an acknowledgment of rarity.
"Because," he said softly, "this one carries a scent you haven't smelled in a very long time."
Beerus sat up.
Now his eyes were open fully, gold irises narrowing.
"Don't," he warned.
Whis's expression stayed polite, almost playful.
"I haven't done anything," he said. "Yet."
Beerus stared into nothing, as if he could see across universes with sheer annoyance.
A faint pressure lingered behind his eyes.
Not enough to hurt him.
Enough to irritate him.
"Where?" he growled.
Whis tilted his staff slightly, as though listening to the cosmos.
"Universe Six," he answered. "A Saiyan child."
Beerus's lip curled.
"Saiyans again," he said with disgust. "Always screaming. Always fighting. Always—"
He stopped.
A memory slipped through his expression like shadow under a door. Something old.
Something red.
Something that should not have been possible anymore.
Whis watched him carefully, smile still faint.
"Should I investigate?" the angel asked.
Beerus's tail lashed once.
"No," he snapped. "Not yet."
Whis bowed slightly.
"As you wish," he said. Then, almost as an afterthought: "Though I suspect it won't remain hidden."
Beerus grumbled and leaned back, but sleep did not return to him easily.
Not with that pressure lingering in the back of his mind like a thorn.
Back on the planet, in the fortress chamber, Kaedor handed Raizen back to the woman with careful hands, as if the child were glass.
"Take him," he ordered. "To the deep quarters. No windows. No outsiders. No announcements."
The woman nodded quickly, clutching the infant close as if her arms were the only shield between him and the world.
"And his parents?" an elder asked.
Kaedor's gaze hardened.
"They will be watched," he said. "And if any clan approaches them—if anyone attempts to buy them, threaten them, charm them—"
His voice cut like steel.
"Bring me their names."
The braided-tail elder's expression tightened.
"You speak as if war is inevitable," he said.
Kaedor looked at him, eyes like stone.
"War is not inevitable," he corrected. "It's already beginning. You just haven't heard the footsteps yet."
As if to prove him right, a messenger burst into the chamber, panting, eyes wide.
"Elders!" the messenger cried. "Scouts from the Varkuun clan are at the gates—they demand an audience. They say they felt a crimson tremor in the sky!"
A second messenger followed, face pale.
"And the Solari clan—three ships were seen entering orbit. They're claiming it's a 'patrol.'"
A third voice shouted from outside.
"The Korda banners—!"
The chamber erupted into overlapping voices. Arguments ignited instantly. Fear and hunger and calculation collided.
Kaedor didn't shout.
He simply turned his head toward the woman holding Raizen, his gaze locking with hers.
"Go," he said.
The woman didn't hesitate.
She ran.
Down corridors carved from black stone, past guards whose eyes widened as they felt the residual pressure clinging to the air around her. Past murals of Saiyan conquerors painted in blood-colored pigment. Past statues that honored warriors who had died smiling.
Raizen's small face scrunched as the motion jostled him. He let out a tiny sound—not a scream now, but a weak protest.
Yet beneath that softness, something still coiled.
Something sealed.
As the woman descended deeper into the fortress, torches lining the walls flickered again—subtly—like the flame recognized a sibling.
She swallowed hard, refusing to look down too long, as if meeting the infant's gaze would confirm what she feared.
Because even sealed, even quiet, the child felt too heavy.
Like a future no one had agreed to.
At last she reached the deep quarters—rooms built for secrecy, for prisoners, for relics too dangerous to display.
She pushed through the heavy door, entered the chamber, and sealed it behind her.
Only then did she slump against the wall, breathing hard.
The infant in her arms had gone strangely calm.
His eyes opened.
And for the first time, he looked—truly looked—at the world.
Not with knowledge.
Not with memory.
But with a stillness that didn't belong to a newborn.
His tiny fingers curled slowly, as if he were grasping at something invisible in the air.
The woman's breath caught.
"Raizen…" she whispered, not even sure why she said the name like a prayer.
The infant's gaze didn't waver.
Outside, somewhere far above, horns continued to blare as clans gathered and ships moved and ambition sharpened into readiness.
And inside the sealed chamber, in the quiet dark, the child's heartbeat remained steady—stronger than it should have been—like a drum announcing a coming age.
Somewhere beyond mortal sight, the universe took note.
Not of a warrior.
Not of a prince.
Not of a destined hero carved neatly into prophecy.
But of an anomaly.
A variable.
A god-bound infant whose first cry had bruised the sky.
Raizen.
The one born burning.
The one who survived.
And the first chapter of certainty—of divine order, of mortal limitation—quietly began to crack.