AN: Sorry for not posting in forever. Long ass author's note at the bottom.

Enjoy

.

.

.

Oh my god, hospitals suck. Before this, I never had to stay longer than a few hours, so I didn't know how boring they were.

Or maybe that's my natural Saiyan antsiness. Every other Saiyan I've seen here seems to feel the same. I don't know for sure though as I haven't asked any of them.

On account of me missing about ninety percent of my teeth.

When Nappa gave me a mirror yesterday I nearly screamed my head off. The front of my mouth was covered in burns and scabs, and I swear I could still taste ash.

On a very small plus side, I learned that Saiyans are polyphyodonts, meaning we continuously replace any teeth we lose. That little tidbit was almost worth vaporizing my teeth.

What made the entire thing more than worth it was what I got from the fight.

After King Cold 'conquered' the Saiyans, I wondered why Saiyans were considered the ultimate warrior race. When I asked Nappa he laughed at the question. The next day, he gave me 'The Official Saiyan Handbook' after training. Nappa told me that the book was written by some of the universe's greatest scholars in hopes that the information would save planets from being dominated by us.

Nappa told me that this was one of our race's greatest achievements. We were so feared that they needed to band together just to have a ghost of a chance.

Retaining our youth well into our eighties, the ability to improve during and after a battle, transforming into an Oozaru. If I was against a whole race of people that could do all that shit I'd wipe them out too. Saiyans are like the Uchiha of Dragon Ball.

Unfortunately, Zenkai boosts have a giant asterisk attached to it.

It wasn't the ultimate, all-around power boost it was made out to be in the show. There were limits and rules to it. The most obvious one is that we need to get close to death. Theoretically, the closer to death we get the bigger the boost. However, you can't exactly measure 'getting close to death', which is what makes a zenkai so ambiguous and hard to achieve.

Another stipulation is what kind of boost exactly a zenkai provides, though this is kind of straightforward. Survive an opponent who's faster than you? If a zenkai triggers, then you'll be faster. It even applies to more abstract things like Ki control. Not every zenkai is equal though. The biggest difference is that generally, those born with higher power levels seem to get 'better' zenkai's. New abilities and massive power jumps were considered to be the greatest form of zenkai, and almost always reserved for people of noble blood.

After my fight with Root, Nappa brought me to the hospital to heal up a bit. His words, not mine. The only reason I'm still here is so the doctors can make sure my lips grow back properly. 'Cause of course I also blasted my lips off.

Nappa said it was because I wasn't used to firing beams from my mouth, and that he was going to fix that. Something I'm more excited about than I probably should be.

Nappa got me a private hospital room, which has been nice. It's given me a lot of time to read my birthday present. I'm like ninety percent sure that it has some sort of magic on it that makes it bigger than it is. I've pretty much been reading the thing nonstop since Nappa brought me in two days ago and I've only read a tiny fraction of the thing. However, it seems that I'll have to take another break.

Three heavy raps on the door resounded through my hospital room before the door immediately opened.

"You up kid?"

A large man with a small tuft of hair on his head barged into my room. His broad shoulders a towering height barely fit into the doorway.

"…Nappa, what's the point of asking if I'm up if you're just gonna come in here anyways," I asked him. My voice sounded weird, but that was because I was careful talking so I didn't reopen any wounds.

"It's polite." He told me

How this man spends so much time with the king, yet has no sense of decorum baffles me.

I give him a large dramatic sigh because that's exactly what he deserves. "What are you doing here exactly?" I asked him. "I'm not gonna be discharged for another two days."

He merely waved me off before he plopped himself in a chair next to my bed.

"Is it so hard to believe that I merely came to check up on you?" He asked me.

Honestly, Nappa was like the uncle I never asked for. He was loud, boisterous, and lacked manners, but he was the one to train me. To educate me and teach me how to fight and survive. I'd never let him know that I was grateful for all of that though.

"Yes, it is." I told him. I'd have smiled, but the doctors told me not to otherwise it would take longer to recover.

The mountain of a man just let out a big sigh.

"Well you're not wrong, but it hurts to hear that." He told me as he pulled out a scout scope. "I came to check if you got a zenkai."

He activated the device, and after many beeps a number finally flashed across the handheld device.

Nappa let out an annoyed groan. "1584. Shit." He said, his tone a bit clipped.

"Is that a bad?" I asked him. Isn't good that I got a zenkai? I thought Saiyans loved getting stronger.

"For you? No this great." He clarified. "For me though, Vegeta is probably gonna have my head."

I was gonna ask what he meant by that, but it clicked. Zenkais is caused by a threat of death, which means there was a real chance of me dying in that fight against Root. Which means…

"Oh my god, you almost killed me." The implications of a zenkai completely eluded me until just now.

That seemed to get his full attention. "Woah, woah, woah, slow your roll there pal." He said putting his hands up towards me.

I should have yelled at him. Screamed, shouted, cried, anything. He nearly got me killed. A kid who just turned four. Instead, I found myself wanting to do it again. The racing of my heart, the way all of my senses were turned to eleven, even the pain felt good. None of that compared to the fact that I beat that fucker into the dirt and I came out stronger.

"It's fine, don't worry about it," I told him. He seemed surprised for a moment but just decided to roll with it.

"Right, well," he started. "Your zenkai complicates things."

"How so?" I asked him.

It took him a moment to answer me. "Well for starters we aren't going to train anymore." That was disappointing. Despite it being so early in the morning I grew to enjoy the training. "We only did that because you didn't grow up in an incubation pod. Otherwise, you'd probably have been placed directly on a team after being released." He said.

That got me thinking. "Does that mean that I'll be on a team now?" I asked Nappa.

He made a so-so gesture with his hand while answering. "Maybe. At this point, our empire is in a state of turmoil. You might get placed in a team, or you might be transferred to the Cold Force. I can't guarantee you what exactly is gonna happen now."

That second bit about the Cold Force made my blood run cold for a second. Queen Route is currently pregnant with Prince Vegeta, which means Frezia will take over the Cold Force this year. Something that I'll try and avoid at all costs.

"Though honestly," Nappa said. "I'll probably have new orders for you by the end of the day. Definitely by the time you get discharged. Many people are interested in your success, so I doubt you'll get anything assigned to you."

That was news to me. I knew King Vegeta was interested in me. He was grooming me to be his son's right hand. Nappa, too I guess, but two people aren't 'many'.

"Ah okay," I said. "Any other bombshells you wanna drop on me?" I asked him.

He hummed and pretended like he was deep in thought. "Nope." He said, popping the 'p' and making his way to the door. "But I think your mom might."

Huh?

.

.

.

AN: I'm not dead! Hooray! (TLDR at bottom)

It's been like 3 months? Uhhhhh, whoops.

Holy shit this chapter was a bitch and a half to write. The way I plan out chapters did not play nicely with this chapter that's for sure. I always try and give each chapter some meaning, whether it's exposition, plot development, character development, etc. And for the longest fucking time I couldn't think of shit for this one. And as time grew I started to get nervous for when I eventually posted the chapter and I kinda got cold feet. This is my first fan fic and after the initial response, I had wild expectations for myself that I wasn't meeting.

I also started a second fic that I thought was going to have an even better start because it's a Naruto one, but it didn't and it made me doubt myself. So I wrote a second chapter and it did about the same. Seeing something that I tried really hard at not meet my expectations sucked for a while, but it's all good now. (Though I guess if you guys reallllllly wanna check it out it's in my profile. The first chapter for that one was way better than this one that's for sure.)

Lastly, I'm now in my second year of college, and I'm taking Calculus 2, Physics 1, and Computer Science 2 all at once (horrible fucking mistake right there). The start of the school year was really rough because I really wanted to get another chapter out, but I had all of these dumb STEM classes that needed a lot of time to study. On top of all that I'm on a job hunt right now too, so theres that.

TLDR; Psyched myself out of writing, plus writing difficulties, real life busy schedule. All around super stressed for a while. Better now :)

As always review, favorite, I'm not your mother, peace.