Chapter Text
A light breeze played across the lawn, drawing shimmering streaks as if the earth itself were breathing the fresh evening air. The blades of grass rustled slightly, obeying the wind's will and bending at its command, sending silken waves cascading across the emerald ocean.
Standing in the heart of this aeolian swell, you were the only thing that didn't yield to the mesmerizing, harmonious rhythm, and it made you feel even more alien than you usually do.
A Saiyan raised on Earth. Neither one... nor the other.
A stranger to everyone - even to yourself.
You shouldn't be here, a tiny voice hushed in your head. It didn’t specify where exactly - on this planet, on this lawn, or in front of this gravity chamber. And yet you were there, legs squared, hands on your hips, your Kame School training gi on, looking at the roundish structure sewn from riveted metal plates, as if it contained the answers to all the mysteries of the universe. With your heart thrumming, you strained all your Saiyan senses towards one single goal.
To feel him. The prince of your race.
The pull that led you here this day was stronger than your sense of reason - you couldn't explain it to yourself clearly. It was always like this when your mind clashed with your instincts, when your earthling facade threatened to crack under the bursting pressure of your violent, primal urges. As a descendant of a race of ultimate warriors - a stranger in this world of peace and comfort - you fought this battle day after day, struggling to carve your path in this life.
Over time, you've discovered the bitter truth - not all battles can be won, even if you can't afford to lose.
Driven to the end of your tether by attempts to rationalize all your feelings and keep your explosions at bay to preserve everyone’s comfort, you realized that for you, it was a dead end. You couldn’t take it anymore - the continuous, exhausting struggle of wrestling down a chaos that persistently refused you harmony.
No one in the world was more tired of you than you yourself were.
A frown tightened your face as your thoughts shattered your concentration - not that suppressing them mattered much anymore. Pretending they didn't exist was just a slow, deliberate torture, and you had come here to end it. Once and for all.
You sighed and tilted your head back, staring up at the choked, almost starless sky of West City. The urban sprawl had grown so vast, fueled by the very technology birthed within the walls of the Capsule Corporation, that its artificial glow, bleeding upward, had robbed the night firmament of its beauty. That stolen expanse always left you with a hollow, aching sadness, and usually, you avoided looking up entirely.
But tonight... Tonight, everything felt surreal. Tonight, you couldn't afford the comfort of your earthling mask. You had to stoke the sparks you spent every daily hour smothering, forcing the heat of your heritage to burn white-hot.
Self-pity would only drown the embers. You winced, then exhaled a jagged breath, slowly and cautiously reaching out for the safety locks of your mind.
The most emotional of your kin, you were a powerhouse, generating strength from the depths of your feelings. But there was one little drawback that constantly ruined your life - the reactor never shut down. Day and night, without a moment's reprieve, existing in this world meant processing every raw feeling… And as long as you were feeling, you were restless.
Only a few brutal remedies could temper such unruly energy, and training was one of them. The strain on your body, coupled with the concentration that the techniques required, took your focus away from spiraling and allowed you to channel the violent power of your emotions into a more productive, safer direction.
Years ago, when your strength was still at dawn, the solution was simple: pushing your limits alongside your fellow students at the Turtle School was more than enough to exhaust the fire. But as time passed and you matured, things got more complicated. Your emotions had become deeper, and your body had stopped keeping up with them... Instead of burning as fuel, they turned into a crushing weight - suffocating the air right out of your lungs and leaching the strength from your limbs. If your heart was heavy, its grievous pounding completely drowned out your sense of rhythm and combat intuition. It was unacceptable, frustrating, and dangerous, even more so considering that you had lost the joy of training and emotional outlet all at once.
And yet your body ached. Buzzed. Itched. It demanded to be thrown into action, to be challenged and resisted with skill you yourself were yet to obtain. The heat accumulating under your skin day and night demanded to be met with no less heat - you felt in your guts that fists capable of delivering devastating blows would be able to disperse this inner pressure and make it your ally again.
Your little brother stood as the strongest warrior on the planet, with your older brother rapidly closing the gap. Your martial arts comrades were all exceptionally talented, skilled fighters.
And no one, no one could help you.
They loved you. They cared about you. And they pitied you, while the fire under your skin burnt you from the inside out, turning you into an irritated, vicious monster, unfit to live in society.
You weren’t malicious. Just both your psyche and physique were redlining.
Your eyes stung and your lips twitched - a warning flare of the impending break. Looking down, you saw your hands trembling, and clenched your fists until your knuckles turned white. Closing your eyes, you let the darkness swallow all distractions, drawing a deep, deliberate breath to force your focus back into alignment.
Will it work this time…?
Yes! Your heart jolted with fearful excitement when you caught the prickly and furious, all-too-recognizable energy signature. Reinforced hull plating meant nothing to the acuity of Saiyan senses. You stilled, listening to the vibrations that rippled within the gravity chamber.
Swing. Strike. Kick. You didn't have to see to perceive. He was training.
Your warrior blood surged in response, a hot rush in your veins sweeping away all traces of your sudden weakness. No matter how hard you worked to maintain your civil earthling appearance, this blood was thicker than water, and this tension needed release.
Combat. Ruthless. Frazzling. Fulfilling. Demanding every ounce of your strength and pushing you to your limits.
A sharp frisson rippled across your skin. On any other day, you would have cringed in disgust at such a strong urge for violence. But as you built your resolve, the past guilt and shame were gradually losing their power over your heart, giving way to what was buried beneath.
Sinking deeper into the abyssal quiet of your inner self, to darkness no light could reach, you heard a rumbling, ominous growl, and a huge pair of blood-red eyes snapped open before your mind's eye, turning your blood into an icy, jagged slush.
You gasped. Your eyes shot wide open. Gripping your chest with your hand, you panted, feeling the cold sweat trickling down your spine. The Great Ape. The strength and pride of your race - and the bane you couldn’t banish. This recurring nightmare poisoned your happiest moments… Even though the Moon was long destroyed, you could still feel the dance of celestial bodies that drew you outside on the nights when it was supposed to reach its full form.
You spent such nights on the roof, or fled far in the mountains where the canopy of stars was clear and boundless, and you could soak up their radiance, while desperately longing for the gentle moonlight to embrace your skin.
It never happened. And even if it did… You put your hand on your lower back, once again relieved by a reminder that your tail - the key to your transformation - was long evicted from your body.
But that didn't mean the ancient cage inside you was empty. It meant that you discarded the only thing that could open it, condemning yourself to an eternal, restless stir - an alienation from a part of yourself more ancient than the Earth itself.
These nights passed without a trace, leaving you alone with this stir… Over, and over, and over again. Carrying your days with all this tension was slowly turning you into a mere shadow of your real self.
Lowering your head, you sighed deeply, then kicked a tuft of grass under your feet.
If things were different… if the Moon was still in the skies and your tail was still with you, you wouldn't have come here - you would have rather tied your tail in knots than sought the prince.
Vegeta. Proud, cold, harsh, and hostile, always keeping his distance, always making it clear that he considered himself superior to everyone else - the exact opposite of you. It was hard to believe that you and he belonged to the same species... Finding an approach to him felt like a task beyond even the magic of Dragon Balls - he turned down any attempt, molding it into another protective plate for his callous heart with scathing mockery and biting sarcasm.
And yet you had to bridge that distance if you hoped to put your life in order. As the Prince of All Saiyans, he knew more about your race than anyone else. Battles were his true element in which he truly shone, bespeaking an incredible strength, intense battle experience, and great skill, while his rough temper was a guarantee that sympathy wouldn't stop his fists from reaching the fire rebelling under your skin.
But apart from this, as the one who proved able to control himself in his Great Ape form, he was the only one who could understand and explain the primitive urges that prevailed over you, clouding your thinking, making you irritated and snappish.
You hid your face in your hands, remembering the sudden surge of energy that nearly shattered the desk glass when the cleaning lady simply moved your mug to wipe the dust under it.
You weren’t supposed to be like this. You had spent years perfecting the sweet Earthling mask, always staying nice to the staff to prove you belonged.
The confused face of a lovely woman with a rag in her hands surfaced before your eyes, and you pressed the heels of your palms into your eye sockets hard. Tomorrow you will definitely, definitely, definitely apologize…
The feeling of shame burned your face, mind, and heart, driving you into the corner of self-hate. Your teeth gritted.
You didn't want to go there anymore.
“Aaaaaangrh!” your frustrated groan tore through the air and echoed across the meadow, cutting the oppressive stillness.
Dropping your arms, you reached the hatch of the gravity chamber in a few long, determined strides. Your resolve was absolute. These tendencies had to go.
You quickly entered the chamber’s access code and pressed your finger into the button.
You'll figure it out. Somehow.
You have to.