Chapter 76
They tossed me back to Bardock like defective goods. My skin crackled with unstable energy, patches of fur sloughing off to reveal raw, glowing flesh beneath. Raditz recoiled, his usual sneer twisting into something unfamiliar—dread. Gine reached for me, but Bardock caught her wrist. "Watch," he growled. My fingers spasmed, and the air split with a sound like shattering glass. A jagged portal tore open behind me, revealing a writhing galaxy of stars—and something darker, hungrier, watching back
.
The thing in the void blinked—an eye the size of a planet, lidless and lined with teeth. A pressure built in my skull, a whisper like a thousand needles dragging across bone: *Little storm*. Bardock's grip on Gine tightened, his tail rigid as steel cable, but he didn't step back. Raditz did. His boot skidded in the dust, the first retreat of his life, and the thing *laughed*. The sound liquefied my organs.
Gine wrenched free, her calloused hands seizing my face—ignoring the way my skin sizzled against hers. "Fight it," she hissed, her breath hot with the iron-tang of fear. Behind her, Bardock's ki flared crimson, his fists clenched around twin spheres of energy. Not for me. For *it*. The portal pulsed, stretching wider like a wound, and the stench of rotting cosmos flooded the hangar.
Raditz's scream was the first coherent sound—a raw, jagged thing. "CLOSE IT!" He lunged, not at me, but *past* me, his ki whip lashing toward the void. The tendril of energy dissolved before it hit the threshold, swallowed whole. The eye *winked*. Then the ground heaved, the hangar lights exploding in showers of sparks as the gravitational pull warped reality itself. Bardock's armor groaned under the strain, his boots carving trenches in the metal floor as he fought to stay upright.
My bones were melting. I realized this distantly, like it was happening to someone else. The thing's gaze pinned me like a specimen—curious, amused. *You taste of saiyan*, it mused, the words forming directly in my marrow. *And something... older*. Gine's fingers dug into my cheeks, her nails drawing blood. "Breathe," she commanded, like it was that simple. So I did. And the void *breathed back*.
The exhale from the void wasn't air—it was a thousand dying stars collapsing into silence. My ribs buckled under the pressure, my vision fracturing into prismatic shards as the thing's presence *pressed* closer. Gine's grip was the only anchor, her hands blistering against my searing skin, but she didn't let go. Bardock's snarl cut through the chaos, his voice raw with something I'd never heard before—not fear, but fury tempered by calculation. "Focus the ki," he barked, "like I taught you. *Now*.
The command sliced through the white noise in my skull. My fingers twitched, spasming with the effort to obey, and a feeble spark of blue flickered between them. The void recoiled—just an inch—as if the ki were a language it couldn't parse. Raditz lunged again, this time slamming his entire weight against my side, his forearm wedged under my throat. "You *idiot*," he hissed, his breath hot and ragged in my ear. "You don't invite *things* to dinner!" His knee jammed into my spine, forcing my posture straight, and suddenly the ki flared brighter, steadier.
The portal shuddered, its edges fraying like burnt paper. The eye narrowed, its amusement curdling into annoyance. *Clever*, it conceded, the words oozing like tar down my vertebrae. *But you're still just a hatchling with borrowed teeth*. Then—pain. Not physical, but deeper, as if the thing reached inside and *plucked* a memory: Bardock's fist meeting my cheekbone in training, Raditz's sneer as he pinned me in the dirt, Gine's tears the night Frieza's summons came. It savored each one, humming with delight.
Gine's fist connected with my sternum. Not gently. The impact knocked the vision loose, her other hand seizing my tail—*hard*—a Saiyan's last-resort wake-up call. My scream tore through the hangar, raw and real, and the portal *wavered*. Bardock moved then, a blur of crimson and crackling energy, his palm slamming against my chest—not to hurt, but to *share*. His ki flooded my veins, a wildfire against the void's chill. The eye widened. The portal *screamed*. And for the first time in my life, Bardock smiled. "Good," he said. "Now *kill it*."
The thing recoiled, its presence shriveling at the edges like paper in a furnace, but it wasn't retreating—it was *laughing*. Its amusement slithered under my skin, oily and alive, whispering promises of power if I'd just *let go*. Raditz's claws dug into my shoulder, drawing blood. "Don't you fucking *dare*," he snarled, his voice cracking mid-snarl. Behind him, Gine's hands glowed—not with ki, but with something softer, warmer—as she pressed them to my temples. The void's whispers faltered. The eye *blinked.*
The void's laughter twisted into a shriek as Gine's warmth seared through me—not ki, but something purer, older, the unnameable thing Saiyans buried beneath battle-cries. My fingers spasmed, claws sinking into Raditz's forearm as I *pulled*, not from the void, but from *him*, from Bardock's wildfire ki still raging in my veins, from Gine's quiet strength. The portal convulsed, edges shriveling like burning film, and for one impossible second, the thing's pupil *dilated* with fear. Then my ki-whip lashed out—not blue, but gold, forged in the crucible of their combined fury—and severed its gaze clean from the void.