The air hung still still as the two forces looked at one another. On the ground stood the last hope of the saiyans, three warriors held together by their bond to one another. Looming over them stood one of their own kind, driven to destroy the last of his own people and everything they represented.
Destruction did not wait.
Raditz saw Turles's veins bulge to revolting proportions as he leaned forward. He knew what was going to happen next, he was going to tackle them into the ground, but that wasn't the issue. He took one glance at Kakarot and Nappa, and in an instant he knew that the two people he'd considered impossible to catch up to only hours ago would be liabilities in this fight.
They were too damaged to move, Nappa was completely stationary as he looked ahead and tried to keep all of his organs inside of his stomach. Kakarot's face was stuck in a contortion of agony as he tried to move his broken arm and leg. No matter how much they wanted to help, their time was done. This fight had to be in his hands.
Turles launched himself at them, a screaming wrecking ball of fury, but that's all he was, fury. Raditz just had to plan around it, it would only require perfection every step of the way.
Raditz jumped at Turles but made sure to go just a few inches higher than him. He stomped on the back of his enemy's head like a stepping stool and then yawned as loudly as possible while he waited for him to respond.
Turles came to a screeching halt in front of Kakarot and Nappa, then swung back around to look at Raditz. They didn't flinch at Nappa's single swing to the back of his head, or the sluggish kicks Kakarot landed on his sides.
Raditz and Turles only looked at one another, the two strongest warriors on the planet, both powered by the Tree of Might.
"Are you really going to waste your time on them?" Raditz asked. "Or are you going to actually prove your strength?"
Turles glowered at him as he bared his teeth. Flaring his ki threw Kakarot and Nappa back, into a gigantic root, planting them against it.
Raditz prayed that they would stay there.
"You think you can talk to me?!" Turles barked out.
Raditz sighed as he slowly floated backwards. "Unfortunately, I don't think I have a choice."
The moment Turles moved to chase him, he fled. He flew the fastest he ever had before, going across the planet and as high into the sky as he could. But Turles wasn't just keeping pace with him, he was gaining on him, one hardfought centimeter after another.
Raditz expected himself to be more panicked about the development, feel any sort of adrenaline from the battle, but he didn't. Ever since he ate the fruit he felt, for the first time, safe. Turles was trying to murder him, and he felt the same amount of concern he felt falling asleep under the silence of a clear sky.
As the pair flew away, Raditz looked back and saw that the Tree of Might was still in view, in fact, he couldn't see the end of it. The tree stretched off of the planet and had clusters of branches wider than entire cities as it stretched into outer space.
The idea came to him as if he was reading it off a page; no sudden epiphany or scrambling to figure out how to put it into motion, only the clear sequence of one bit of logic after another.
Raditz stopped flying diagonally and went straight up.
He felt the air begin to thin and became lightheaded, he pressed his fists to his chest, and smirked.
It didn't matter how strong they were, they were still saiyans.
Turles was coming for him with both arms extended, making his intentions all the easier to predict and account for. His timing didn't even have to be good, it just had to be better than a madman's.
Before Turles could touch a single hair on his head, Raditz spun out of the way, positioning himself behind his charging enemy. Without a second to spare, Raditz thrust his arms out from his chest and shouted, "Double Neon Sunday!"
The two beams of energy smashed into Turles's back, catching him completely defenseless, and sent him flying away with them.
Raditz's scream to get the final push of energy out didn't come with the fury of a warrior, but the celebration of discovery.
Turles disappeared into the endless horizon of space with the blast and as Raditz watched the green speck get further and further away, he wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his fist.
He watched for a few moments longer, expecting Turles to have a counter, but there wasn't any. He'd done it, he'd actually beaten the strongest foe any of them had ever seen.
"Strength can't beat the vacuum of space," Raditz said proudly to himself, "what happens when you fight somebody who's brain cells are working together."
Raditz thought about powering down, but realized he couldn't. He didn't have any control over his power whatsoever, it was draining out of him moment by moment. It only made sense, Raditz thought, he ate a sliver of food, and now he had worked most of it off. All of the strength he had gotten would be leaving soon enough.
It wasn't only good that he'd beaten Turles before the fruit wore off, it was essential. Raditz had a strong hunch that if it came down to endurance, he'd have been the one to die. There wasn't any chance Turles had seen the fruit and ate a smaller or similar portion to what he had.
He descended and began to feel the warmth return to his body when he froze in place.
He jerked backwards and stuck his hand out, catching the violet and green sphere of energy at the last possible moment. It detonated against his palm, letting out a blinding explosion of smoke that enveloped him as he felt blood flow down his arm.
Before he could get any feeling back in his arm he had to react again as another blast of ki the size of a saiyan pod was coming right at him.
Clutching his injured arm, Raditz shot down and tried not to notice that the tips of his hair had been singed by the attack.
The second ki blast stopped in place and stood still. It would've been a perfect sphere, but its energy rotated, creating ripples and waves of ki that crashed against one another.
"Raditz." Turles said from inside the ball of ki, his voice distorted into a drowning triumph. "You didn't think that would kill me, did you?"
Raditz tried to get away, but Turles was faster. His enemy got rid of the energy around him and lunged at him, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and yanked him back so hard that he bit into his tongue.
Raditz tried to fly against him and snapped the fiercest kick of his life at Turles's temple, but they caught him by his boot.
" ." Turles barked as he reeled his foot back and held Raditz out in front of him. "And die."
The kick to his stomach was devastating enough that Raditz felt it in his spine. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as their foot dug into him, and he lost consciousness before he was sent flying away.
When he came to, he knew he was in a crater, not by opening his eyes, but by feeling around. The familiar curve of the ground, the packed soil, it was a place Raditz had grown accustomed to over his years in Vegeta squadron, it should only make sense that he would die in one.
He didn't bother opening his eyes, he could sense the ki, and he needed the rest. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to think, it hurt to know that he failed. It was time to just lay down and be done with it.
"Finally." Turles said with a satisfied groan.
Maybe his plan to hurl the bastard into space had actually caused him to work off some energy, or maybe it was just the fact that victory was seconds away for Turles, but Raditz could've sworn he heard some level of sanity fighting its way back into the soldier. If he ever even had any to begin with, maybe he was more like his brother than just looks alone.
The thought of the three interacting together, of Turles ending up on Vegeta Squadron instead of wrapped around Cooler's finger, caused something strange to happen.
First Raditz smiled, and then he began laughing.
"Something funny?!" Turles shouted at him.
"Nothing," Raditz said between laughs as he kept his eyes closed. "Nothing, no, n-" he grunted, laughing hurt too, he stopped it as best he could. "Just imagining calling you my brother."
"What?" Turles gathered an erratic ball of energy above his head, just as unwieldy as the one he surrounded himself in before. "What are you talking about?!"
"You … Your probably would've said something stupid like 'I'm an elite frieza soldier!' and then Vegeta would've smacked you right on the back of your head for not acknowledging your saiyan pride." Raditz's laugh caused flecks of blood to end up on his neck, but he couldn't care anymore. "Kakarot would always be trying to fight you, hell with you around Frieza probably would've never even tried to make my brother into his pet. Or maybe you'd be such a little kiss ass that he wouldn't find any fun in toying with you."
"I would never obey, Frieza!" Raditz heard Turles's voice crack and rolled over onto his side, making a pained yelp that landed right between laughter and agony.
"No, you … you would!" Raditz shouted. "You only want somebody to praise you, to feel powerful." Raditz forced himself to sit up and finally opened his eyes, Turles wasn't just angry anymore, there was a pain on his face that no attack he ever landed caused. "You're just the pathetic person I'd be without a family."
"Then enjoy your family reunion in hell!" Turles's ball of energy spun too fast, its shape grew unstable, and it burst in his hand before he could even throw it.
Raditz pushed himself up to his feet and felt his back pop as he stood up straight. He never thought he'd be the type to bother with dying on his feet or not, but if his enemy was going to be making basic fumbles like this, he deserved to have a little more respect for his own death.
Raditz saw the splotches of blood on Turles's face and hand and shouted up to him. "You gonna send yourself first or are we gonna finish this?"
Turles silently charged another blast in his clenched fists that shuddered at his sides.
Before Turles could even get his arm up he was swarmed by pairs of green arms and legs wrapping around him; his back, his legs, his arms, even his skull, every inch of him was covered with saibamen.
"C'mon!" Kakarot shouted as Raditz found himself yanked out of the crater by his brother's telekinesis.
As the saibamen detonated themselves they blew all of the dust and debris in the crater with them into a thick cloud.
Raditz didn't say a word as his brother carried him, dashing over and under roots and behind rocks. He looked around and realized the area was eerily familiar. He couldn't have been more than a few miles away from where he left them. He had done everything only to wind up almost exactly where he started.
They stopped and hid inside a small haphazard hovel of stones that had been knocked together. Calling it a cave would've been generous, but it was safety all the same.
"That was a good plan," Kakarot whispered, "draw him out, find a weakness, but you could've said something."
"That wasn't the plan." Raditz shook off his brother's grasp with ease. "I was planning to beat him on my own."
"Huh…" Kakarot looked over his shoulder, in the general direction of where Turles's energy was radiating from. "You sure you're the smart one?"
"Oh shut up. You were supposed to run away. Why are you even still here?"
"Well, you dying isn't something I really want to see, so I figure'd it was better to stick around."
"And how are you supposed to help?!" Raditz struggled to keep his volume low as his grip tightened on his fool of a brother's good shoulder. "This guy is stronger than Frieza, you and Nappa are critically injured, and you think you have any chance of helping me? You've already done everything you can do, just hurry up and get the hell out of here!"
Kakarot tilted his head at his brother. "No he isn't." He paused for a moment. "Definitely the first and second form, he's probably hovering around the third, but that final one? No chance."
"Forms? What are you talking about?"
"Frieza has forms, he showed 'em to me years ago. Something about showing me where my place would always be and his power, but you know how it is. Just another level to reach!"
Raditz felt very, very small.
"So you're telling me," Raditz said, his voice devoid of emotion. "I'm fighting for my fucking life against somebody who's not even as strong as the guy you want to lead us to beat?"
"Somebody who we're fighting against." Kakarot corrected. "Me and Nappa came up with a plan, he's not too far away from here and I already made the hole for it."
Kakarot looked back towards Turles's energy signature. "He's going in the wrong direction. Good thing he doesn't know how to sense energy." He peeked out of the hovel and began skulking in the opposite direction, presumably back towards Nappa. "Okay, you remember that move I made up when we were training with River?"
Raditz didn't say a word and walked behind his younger brother.
"I was thinking that you should use it from inside of the hole I made. When I was sensing him doing that ki ball thing earlier it was terrible. He was just putting all of his energy into the direction you were at, so we just need some bait to get him to do it again, then you attack from underneath and-"
"I couldn't sense it."
Kakarot didn't stop moving. "Couldn't sense what?"
"The weak point. I couldn't sense that his attack had any, I just knew that it would kill me and got out of the way." Raditz looked down at his bleeding arm and spoke with an accepting melancholy. "You should've been the one to take the fruit."
"What are you talking about? We're about to win anyways."
"You don't know that. You just think that … that's why you're better. I've only ever worried about surviving the fights, I've never thought about winning them."
Kakarot scratched at his head, his confusion growing with each word. "But you're strong now. You can just win."
"Do you know why I started doing clean up duty for you and Broly? Slaughtering millions so that you can go off on your little escapades."
"So that I could get stronger?"
"Because they couldn't fight back." Raditz clenched his fists and looked at the blood on his hands in disgust. "Ever since Thaw I knew it was possible for us to get stronger, I saw you start to surpass me, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it before you came along, and I couldn't do it even after you showed up and showed me the way on every single mission."
Kakarot groaned, but struggled to keep it as quiet as he could. "Couldn't do what? You're not making any sense. Just say what you mean!"
"Fighting, injuries, dying - I hate all of it!" Raditz said in a whispered shout. "Vegeta calls me a coward and he's right! I used to think I was powerful when we were kids, when I could just push you around and make you do whatever I want, but then you just passed me like it was nothing!"
"Because I trained against stronger people, just like River taught us, you have to-"
"You have to challenge yourself to get stronger, and do you know what that means for us? It means purposefully waking up everyday and deciding to get as close to getting yourself killed as possible. All so that you can make Frieza richer."
"All so that one day we can beat Frieza. Why are you having such a hard time getting that through your head?!"
"Because it's not possible! A saiyan can only get that strong through a curse of birth or," Radtiz pointed at the Tree of Might, "some fruit that sacrifices the life of an entire planet, and both of them seem to drive us to madness! Broly's terrified of his own strength, Turles lost all of his sanity and his body is destroying itself for something temporary. I'm only just holding a candle to him after figuring out how to wield it, and you think we can beat Frieza? Somebody who ruled over the entire Saiyan Empire at its peak? What in the gods' names made you believe something that stupid?"
Kakarot and Raditz walked in silence for a moment, until Kakarot finally responded. "Vegeta thinks you're a coward, Frieza definitely thinks he's stronger than any saiyan could ever be, and you thought you'd always be stronger than me." He smiled at his older brother. "Everyday is a chance to prove someone wrong if you're willing to, it just takes a lot of days to do it. So why not try?"
Raditz rolled his eyes at his younger brother, pinched his nose between his fingers, and sighed. "Well the alternative is rolling over and getting beaten to death, so I guess it's time to give this one more go."
Kakarot smile grew into a stupid grin. "Great, just like any other day at work, huh?"
Raditz, much to his reluctance, chuckled with his brother. "Whatever. Let's just find Nappa and finish this."
When they found the older saiyan he was exactly where Raditz had left them before, except now with a deep hole carved out around him wide enough to walk around in. The sight reminded Raditz of a castle defended by a moat.
Nappa was laying down and his breathing had slowed to a laborious crawl. His skin had paled, a cold sweat had collected on his brow, and his eyes were half closed. Positioned next to the deep hole in the ground, Nappa looked exactly one shove away from death.
"'Bout time," Nappa groaned, "I was just about to take a nap."
Raditz knew that the blow he had taken from Turles was devastating, but now time had allowed him to see how fatal it actually was. Nappa was in a pool of his own blood, and the only thing stopping his organs from falling out was him laying on his back and holding them in with his own two hands.
"Screw this fight, we need to get you to a medic," Raditz said. "Turles can't even sense us right now, we could just slip away and-"
"As much as I hate to say it," Nappa said, "he's a saiyan, and he's following orders. He's strong enough to blow up this whole planet right now if he felt like it. Only reason he hasn't is probably because he wants the honor of showing off our skulls himself. He even thinks we're moving and he's gonna blow this planet into rubble."
Nappa hocked up a loogie of blood and spat it onto the ground. "Little prick makes fun of us, but is the spitting image of saiyan pride."
"He's right," Kakarot said, "we finish this now, one way or another."
Nappa grimaced as he nodded his head. "We all live or we all die. So what's the plan, smart guy?"
Raditz looked at the two and felt his resolve harden. It didn't matter that he could feel he was on the last reserves of the Tree of Might's power boost, or that he could feel that his anxiety was trying to creep its way into him. They would all either survive or die protecting one another.
"We're going to hide in that hole that Kakarot blasted open," Raditz said, "And we're both going to attack him at once from his weak spot."
"Huh," Nappa grunted, "exact same plan Kakarot had."
Kakarot scratched his nose while looking at his brother, his cocky grin still plastered onto his face. "What can I say, I knew you'd want my help."
"Need." Raditz said as he jumped down into the hole. "Not want. Now get the bastard's attention and let's finish this."
Kakarot pulled out the last remaining saibamen seed from a capsule in his pocket. "Nappa tried planting one in the ground," Kakarot said, "didn't work though, so I've got this work around."
Raditz thought about explaining to his brother how soil depletion was probably to blame, but was too busy watching the abnormality in front of him to bother.
Kakarot's ki channeled around the seed, causing it to bloom into a saibamen that grew around his fist. It's skull sprouted out over his thumb, and as its torso and limbs began shrooming out underneath it, Kakarot threw it out of the hole. It landed with a dull thud, and cried out a celebratory, "Kee kee haree!" when it finished growing.
Raditz stroked his chin for a moment. "Nappa," he called out, "are you ready to be the bait?"
"I'm ready to do whatever it takes to kill this bastard, just tell me what to do," Nappa said.
"Whatever you think would get his attent-"
Given even the hint of an opportunity, Nappa shouted saiyan profanities at the top of his lungs, amplifying them with his ki to echo out through the land. "Perka cupa dog! Mutt of the Colds looking cupa! Mierbat' your cowardly cupa, using cheap tricks to get stronger!" Nappa broke into a coughing fit but didn't stop as the sound of Turles's ki rising in the distance sounded like a clap of thunder and shook the ground. "No pride in your people, no pride in yourself, nothing but a maldiatiye moron, mierbat' off and die for your master!"
Raditz and Kakarot both sensed the rushing force of ki, it was impossible to miss, but it was coming from the other side of where they were.
The pair dashed off in opposite directions, Raditz sprinting at full speed and Kakarot flying to avoid putting any weight on his bad limb. The moment they were back together, the pair locked their fingers together, held up their palms, and pointed them towards the ground.
The energy between the two of them crackled like lighting, illuminating the entire moat around Nappa in a storm of their kis.
As Raditz channeled every last bit of strength he could muster, it occurred to him that he had no way of judging when to attack. Even after being told exactly where the weak spot was, he still wasn't skilled enough to sense it.
"Kakarot," Raditz said.
"Bro," Kakarot chirped, "just leave it up to me, let's end this!"
As the last of his strength entered into the glowing collection of energy in their palms, Raditz felt time slow down and the world go silent. He was back to his normal self, he'd put everything he had into this last attack.
"Now!" Kakarot shouted.
They pushed their palms down and launched off of the ground with an ignition blast of their energy, keeping the rest stored within them.
Their hands curled into fists and crashed against Turles's sphere, cracking against its shell and trapping it in place as Turles tried to push forward and attack Nappa as the saibaman disintegrated against his sphere of energy.
"We're putting everything we've got into this move!" Kakarot shouted out as the sphere continued to crack.
Raditz screamed at the top of his lungs, "Coming through!" as the pair finally unleashed the rest of their ki, exploding into a ki propelled fist that speared through Turles's barrier.
Only now did Turles look down and see the brothers coming directly for him.
"Great Apes' Fists!" The pair shouted as their ki fused into one, and crashed into Turles's jaw.
Raditz felt bone give, cracking and shifting as he and his brother uppercutted Turles at the speed of sound. He could feel him trying to resist, trying to push them back down, but he had been caught off guard and overpowered.
All of Turles's resistance resulted in nothing, and Raditz and Kakarot sent him spiraling away as his ki signature faded away.
The brothers kept soaring into the sky, their attack too powerful to stop their momentum, and joyously shouted with one another.
Those shouts eventually formed into words, and as the brothers attack began to crest and fall back to Throhbaq, they shouted out together, over and over and over again, "We did it!"
Until Kakarot stopped.
Kakarot let go of his hand and kicked him away. An instant later, that same leg was smoking, burned through by two eye beams.
"Kakarot!" Raditz tried to fly to his brother, but before he could get even an inch to him, Turles had grabbed both of them by their throat.
"H…How," Raditz choked out, "I sensed you go unconscious. I felt your bone crack. You shouldn't be moving, this is impossible!"
Turles had blood dripping from his mouth and running down his chin, his face looked ragged and his eyes were sunken in, but still he found the energy to laugh.
"Impossible?" Turles croaked out. "Impossible is for the weak. For those without drive."
Raditz felt the grip around his throat tighten. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't scream, he could only watch as Turles let go of Kakarot, and then spiked him towards the ground with a casual slap, sending him careening down until he landed with a distant crash.
"You know," Turles said as he rolled his neck, "you almost impressed me for a bit, I think you may have pushed me further than anybody has while I've taken the fruit, and that's saying something. This was the strongest I've ever felt in my life. But that punch, why it gave me a quick nap, a moment to get my thoughts in order."
Turles watched him, obviously savoring the sight, but Raditz couldn't hide his fear. He'd failed everyone.
"Oh don't look so sad," Turles said, "This is probably the most useful you've ever been in your pathetic life. I'm a man of honor, of my station. I'll let you be the first to say your farewells to your fellow soldiers. How does that sound?"
Raditz pressed his hands to his lips, miming that he wanted to talk, and Turles loosened his grip enough so that he could speak. "Oh, you want to say your last words to me?"
Raditz let out a whisper so quiet that the wind swept his words away the moment they left his lips.
"Oh come on!" Turles said as he pulled him closer. "Speak up, you're useless, not a mute!"
As soon as Turles jerked him closer, he took his opportunity. Raditz latched his hands onto the sides Turles's head and drove both his thumbs into Turles's eyes. He did not feel blood or hear a satisfying squelch of his foes eyes being gouged from his skull, he only smelled burning flesh.
The blow was so quick and intense that Raditz didn't feel any pain, he only saw both of his burnt thumbs fly off of his hands, go into the sky, and scatter into ash before they hit the ground.
Turles grip tightened again as he held him with one hand, and held the other out with his palm open. "Did you really think?" The first smack made Raditz's ear ring as head struggled to stay attached to his neck. "That would catch me off guard?" The backhand matched the first, making his other ear ring as a tooth shot out of his mouth.
"Craven. Weak. Always looking for a shortcut. Pathetic excuse for a soldier!" With each insult another slap smashed against Raditz's face, until his world was one swelling ringing nightmare.
"Now," Turles said as he reeled Raditz back behind him, "think on your final words."
The throw wasn't harsh, it didn't need to be. Raditz reached the ground at the same speed that naturally falling would've taken him, and landed squarely between Kakarot and Nappa.
Nappa had not moved an inch since they hit Turles.
"I'm sorry, everyone," Raditz said. "I … I failed, I failed and it's all my fault."
Kakarot took a labored breath as he laid on his back. "It's okay. We got really close … and it was a lot of fun." His laugh was tired, quiet as it drifted off. "Why didn't we team up more often?"
"Because I'm an idiot," Raditz said bitterly.
"Really?" Kakarot said. "I thought I was stupid."
Nappa made a single cough and said with a grin. "No, you're Kakarot."
It was the worst joke he'd heard in his life, at the worst time to ever hear it, and maybe that was what made it funny to them. The three laughed together, and kept on laughing even as Turles landed with them.
"What?" Turles said. "What's so funny?"
Nappa turned his head to Raditz and smirked as he jabbed his thumb in Turles's direction. "Nothing he'd ever get."
Turles walked towards Nappa, paused, and then turned towards Kakarot.
Raditz and Nappa's laughing stopped, but Kakarot's kept on.
"I'll take your head first," Turles said, "you've been a thorn in my side since I got here."
Raditz saw a ball of green light go up the Tree of Might, but he didn't care what it meant.
"Stop," Raditz pleaded. "I was the one who pushed you - you told me! Kill me first!"
Nappa tried to sit up but failed and fell back as he groaned out, "Too stupid to kill the real brains of this operation?! I'm right here!"
Kakarot just kept laughing.
"How about this," Turles said. "Maybe if you two can beg hard enough, I'll let one of you die first."
The light going up the Tree of Might disappeared, going higher up than any of them could see from the ground.
Raditz rolled over and pressed himself up to his hands and knees and realized that his thumbs had been burned off to the base. As the pain finally set in, he realized he'd never be able to properly use a tool again.
Nappa was past being able to move, and only broke into another coughing fit as he struggled in place.
Before Raditz's head could reach the ground, Kakarot stopped laughing. "Don't," he said softly, "he's gonna kill me first anyways. Oldest trick in the book."
Raditz knew it was true, it was the only outcome that made sense, the only rational choice. So he did the only rational thing left too, the only the thing he could do, he let the burning hot tears of frustration run down his face as he watched and scraped his fingers into the dirt.
"Those final words are still on the table," Turles said as he looked down on him. "Have any, or should I just remember your sobs?"
Raditz couldn't think of anything to say, but he knew that if he could, he wouldn't have the strength to say them.
"Hey, Raditz," Kakarot said with a smile, "you were the best bro a guy could ask for."
Turles drew his hand back, gathered ki into his fingers, and sharpened it into the shape of a blade.
"Oh, and one more thing," Kakarot said, "cover your head."
Raditz felt the surge of ki coming to them as the words left his mouth. But it wasn't coming straight for them, it was going through every root in the planet. It was ripping apart the Tree of Might.
Raditz threw his body over Nappa and covered his head as looked at Kakarot and Turles.
Turles swung his hand. The moment his hand moved, they were all blown away by an explosion of dust and sound the likes of which they'd never experienced before.
The ground quaked, the world screamed, and his vision became one turbulent sheet of debris as every single inch of the Tree of Might exploded at once.
Raditz tried to put up a barrier of ki to protect them, but he didn't have the strength left. Both him and Nappa were consumed like Turles and Kakarot, lost to the shockwaves that shook the planet to its core.
He awoke half buried in a pile of rubble and dirt, alone.
With only a slit of vision from his swelling, Raditz's eyes drifted across the battlefield as best they could with the slit of blurry vision his swelling allowed him and saw it, the only ki signature left on the planet.
"What is this?" Vegeta shouted as he rose from the hole where the Tree of Might stood, his arms folded over his chest, and his scowl evident for all to hear. "Trying to hide from the Prince of All Saiyans? I would too if I knew I was going up against the legendary super saiyan! Now show yourself!"