Vegeta's Capsule Corp. ship sailed through Earth's upper atmosphere, the deep blue expanse of the Atlantic Ocean stretched out below. After escaping Bulma, he had returned to his room briefly, stopping only to gather up his battle suit and armor. He had brought it with him to the ship, entered, then set course for East Africa. Lake Turkana and the Kenyan Rift Valley—places he had read of in An Introduction to Paleoanthropology, the cradles of hominid life—were the first locations that had come to his mind when he stood before the navigation console.
Once airborne, he initiated a gravity simulation. Rage and adrenaline wracked his nerves, and every cell in his body seemed to tremble. The extreme pressure of gravity, perhaps, would force his cells into inertia, just as chains bind the movement of flailing limbs. Vegeta dialed the simulation all the way up to four hundred times Earth's gravity, fifty degrees higher than ever before. As the weight of his own mass descended upon him, he sighed, relieved. But as soon as he had exhaled, he fought to draw air back into his lungs. Choking, he gasped, and he knew that if his diaphragm collapsed in on itself, he would suffocate. Flattened to the floor, he struggled with his own will to survive until he finally manage to regulate his breathing. His skin glistened with sweat, and his eyes watered with pain and effort. The moment he realized the pressure would not overcome him, a bestial scream of stress and victory erupted from his throat. Only a live man could stave off death.
Vegeta remembered how his comrades had always thought his training methods exceptionally unorthodox. Not infrequently, the young Prince would hear statements such as, "I think he's suicidal," "He's lucky to be alive; whatever works for you, I suppose," "I guess there's a reason he's the best," "He's lost his mind," and "It's almost like he wants to die." Before Vegeta had come of age, Nappa would scold him for the extremity of his regimen, but no threat from his attendant could intimidate him more than that to which Vegeta already subjected himself on a regular basis.
"Does it turn you on or something, you little shit?" Raditz had asked once.
"When you have surpassed my power level, you may question my tactics," Vegeta had replied. He was fifteen years old at the time. He lay on a stretcher in the infirmary of Frieza's station, having recently awoken from a coma. The young prince had spent nearly a week in a healing chamber before regaining consciousness.
"It's a good thing your daddy is dead. He would cry if he saw you like this," Raditz countered sarcastically. "Are you sad, little Vegeta? Life got you down? Do you want to desert us all and die like a coward? Everybody knows you do. It's so pitiful I might cry myself." The older Saiyan raised a hand to his cheek, wiping away mock-tears.
"My father would have executed you for your insolence long ago," the young prince rasped angrily.
Raditz snorted with cynical amusement. "Whatever. But in all seriousness, Vegeta, does it turn you on? I'll keep it in mind if you ever want to have a little fun. I like the occasional strangling myself. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
"Touch me, and you die. Fuck you, Raditz."
"You know you'd like to, little boy."
"Your obscenity and perversion disgrace your Saiyan blood."
"Damn, you're so uptight. You should laugh a little. I can only imagine how tight your asshole is. I hope you don't kill yourself before I have the chance to find out." The tone of Raditz's voice had dropped, and his sharp teeth peeked out from behind a wicked smile.
"It seems that you, not I, are the one with a death wish." Vegeta spat at Raditz's feet. "You would not have the audacity to say such things were I at full health. I would steer clear of me in the near future if you value your life."
"Oh, I know! You'd beat me into oblivion. But right now, you couldn't if you tried. I'll mess with you while I can. It gets so boring between assignments. I need to entertain myself, and you're the cutest thing in a million miles." Raditz pinched the younger Saiyan's nose.
Vegeta let the other man shake his head back and forth only to make sure his guard was down before jerking upwards and sinking his teeth into Raditz's hand. The act elicited a shriek of pain and surprise. Raditz pulled his hand away violently, leaving behind a small chunk of flesh between Vegeta's jaws. The young Saiyan then proceeded to spit the blood into Raditz's face. "I hope I don't catch some disease because of that," he growled. "Your blood tastes of bile."
"Go ahead and kill yourself already, brat. Do yourself and everyone else a favor."
"I have more to live for than you ever will, low-class filth."
Vegeta had never wanted to die. Perhaps some frightened, young child who took up residence in his head from time to time had that desire, but that child was not Vegeta. No matter how convincingly that child disguised himself as Vegeta, he would always remain an imposter, and Vegeta refused to acknowledge him as anything but that. The true Vegeta—the strong Vegeta, the impassive warrior, the Prince of All Saiyans, the bearer of an unbroken, granite heart—he loved life. He loved the thrill of battle, the warmth of sleep, the rush of orgasm, the taste of fresh air, the beauty of the starry heavens, the perfect song of his heartbeat. Vegeta remembered how happy he was to rise up from the grave on Namek. He did not want to die. His instinct to survive had saved him that moment he lay struggling for breath on the floor of the gravity chamber. Had he wanted to die, he would have let the pressure crush him. Brushing so close to death reminded how urgently he longed to keep living.
Life could never be a mistake, Vegeta concluded. Any who thought so, by his estimation, had never lived. They had never seen starlight or learned love; they had never died, as he had. Even the lowliest wretch could find something of value in existence if ever he or she tried.
After landing his ship just a few hundred yards from the shores of Lake Turkana, Vegeta stepped out onto the dusty, Kenyan earth. He watched a red sun begin to rise over the glassy waters. This was the land of his earliest ancestors—the place did, in some inexplicable way, seem vaguely familiar. The ruby sky, the arid air, and the coppery dirt, coincidentally, all recalled faded memories of Planet Vegeta. After 70,000 years, a son of the Saiyan race again regarded the face of his homeland. Vegeta smiled, knowing that Frieza had never conquered this world and never would conquer it. Frieza could no more touch this world than he could reach back and touch the past that had run away forever.
Vegeta sensed the surge of a small mass of energy. A lion had leaped out from the brush and captured a large bird with its claws. From atop his ship, the Saiyan witnessed the maned cat mangle the neck of his prey. Vegeta could not shift his eyes away from the gore. Although a good fifty yards away, he felt he could see everything as if it transpired a few inches from his face.
Like the lion, Vegeta instinctually knew what it was to kill, to drink in the last moments of another's life. In a matter of seconds, thousands of memories, sensations, and emotions would flash across the victim's eyes, and Vegeta found he could almost see what the dying saw. In more ways than one, the experience held a profound beauty, one as grand and terrible as life and death themselves. The most accomplished Saiyans knew this mystery well, and they appreciated an artful execution. Humans might consider him—Vegeta, the murderer—nothing more than a sadistic madman, but Vegeta himself saw a delicate artistry in the torture and death he dealt both to himself and his victims alike. Life meant more to him because of it.
How breathtaking and tragic it was to watch someone die! Vegeta appreciated light all the more because he had seen darkness, its absence. He could define life with more precision after having distinguished it from death.
Bulma's blatant disrespect for him and his life had forced him to flee Capsule Corp. Her lack of understanding disgusted him, and he could have no peace of mind knowing that she could, at any time, chase him down and pry into him without authorization. More than once, she had misinterpreted him gravely. The Vegeta of her mind was a petulant, broken man, and she had said so both to Vegeta's face and to others. The Vegeta she claimed to know was a not-Vegeta; she knew nothing. To her, Vegeta was the man who constantly fought and lost battles with his inner demons, but the true Vegeta knew that he himself would never do such things. Vegeta despised associating with those that refused to affirm who he really was. For this reason, he found associating with himself alone both the safest and the most stimulating company he could have.
Vegeta was Vegeta, and only Vegeta knew him and the self-created tautology that compromised him. How could another dare to know him better than he knew himself? Others, by necessity, relied only upon a limited representation—a distorted reflection, a shadow—of who he was.