Chapter 74
Training wasn't optional—it was survival. Bardock hurled me into the crimson dust of the training grounds before I could walk properly, my tiny hands scrabbling against the grit as his boot tapped impatiently near my head. "Ki isn't for weaklings," he growled, slamming his palm against the earth. The ground ruptured, sending a shockwave of blue energy rippling toward me. Instinct flared—my own palm met the dirt, mirroring his motion, and the collision sent us both skidding backward. Bardock's laugh was a low, approving rumble. "Hn. Faster than Raditz
."
The dust hadn't even settled when Bardock lunged again, his tail whipping through the air like a scimitar. I rolled sideways—too slow—and his knee clipped my ribs, sending me tumbling into the jagged rocks. Blood pooled in my mouth, metallic and warm, but I grinned through it. My fingers twitched, summoning a flicker of ki that danced erratically before coalescing into a crackling sphere between my palms. Bardock's eyes narrowed. "Shape it," he barked. "Or eat it."
The energy writhed like a living thing, searing my skin as I forced it into a jagged blade. It wasn't elegant—more like a broken bottle than a sword—but when I slashed upward, Bardock had to pivot hard to avoid losing his chin. His tail lashed out, snagging my ankle mid-air, and the world flipped as he slammed me into the dirt. Gine's shout echoed from the sidelines, but Bardock just planted a boot on my chest, his smirk feral. "Again."
By my second summer, my ki constructs didn't splatter like dropped fruit. When Raditz lunged with a sloppy energy wave, I caught it bare-handed, spun the crackling mass into a whip, and sent him crashing through the training drones. Bardock's approval was a grunt and a harder elbow to my ribs next session. The real surprise came at night—stealing moments while they slept—when I shaped ki into delicate, glowing replicas of Frieza's ships. Destroying them between my palms felt better than any bedtime story.
Gine found me once, mid-annihilation, her shadow stretching long in the hangar lights. Instead of scolding, she knelt beside me, her tail twitching in time with mine. "Your father's pride," she murmured, pressing a warm cup of something bitter into my hands, "isn't worth your bones, little storm." The drink tasted like char and herbs, but her palm against my back was softer than any victory. Dawn found us there, surrounded by shattered light, her silence louder than Bardock's drills.
Raditz cornered me after a spar, his grin missing a tooth but gaining something sharper. "You move like a hatchling with its tail on fire," he sneered, flicking my forehead hard enough to sting. Then, quieter: "Show me that whip again." His pride was a brittle thing, but the way his fingers trembled when he tried to mimic my ki-shaping betrayed his hunger. We didn't speak of it—Saiyans didn't do tenderness—but the next time Bardock kicked his ribs in, I "accidentally" blasted a crater between them.