Chapter 13: The Prince's Wrath
The command hung in the air, thicker than the coppery scent of blood and the dust of pulverized trees. "Show me your true power." It was a taunt, a goad, a demand laced with the absolute certainty that there was nothing to show. Vegeta's silhouette blotted out the faint light filtering through the shattered canopy, a figure of pure, unassailable dominance.
Kakarot's body was a symphony of agony. Every nerve ending shrieked. The bones in his back felt like gravel grinding together. His vision swam, the image of the smirking Prince doubling and blurring. He tried to summon the rage, that molten core of fury that had been burning within him for days, but the physical trauma was a bucket of ice water thrown onto the flames. All he could muster was a low, pained growl that bubbled up from his chest, a sound more of animal suffering than defiance.
It was all the answer Vegeta needed.
The Prince's foot moved faster than Kakarot's pain-hazed eyes could track. It wasn't a kick; it was a piston-driven hammer of bone and muscle encased in armored boots. It connected with Kakarot's ribs with a sickening, wet *CRACK* that echoed like a gunshot in the clearing.
The air exploded from Kakarot's lungs in a choked, bloody spray. He felt ribs splinter, the sharp ends grinding against his organs. He was lifted from the ground and hurled sideways, crashing through the undergrowth before slamming into another tree trunk with enough force to shake its roots.
Before he could even slide to the ground, Vegeta was there. A hand, fingers like steel talons, seized him by the hair, yanking his head back with brutal force. The Prince's face was inches from his, features contorted into a rictus of cold, aristocratic fury.
"Is this it?" Vegeta hissed, his breath hot against Kakarot's face. "This is the power you dared to boast of? This pitiful, mewling weakness?"
His free hand, clenched into a fist, drove forward like a meteor. It impacted Kakarot's face with a nauseating crunch of cartilage. Kakarot's head snapped back against the tree, his vision exploding into white stars and swirling darkness. He felt his nose flatten, the delicate bones shattering into dust. Blood, hot and thick, immediately flooded his mouth and poured down his chin.
Vegeta didn't let him fall. He held him pinned against the tree, a specimen for his wrath. Another fist sank deep into Kakarot's gut, and this time, it wasn't just air that was driven out. A torrent of vomit, mixed with dark, coppery blood, erupted from Kakarot's mouth, splattering against Vegeta's pristine armor. The Prince didn't even flinch. His expression was one of utter, disgusted contempt.
"You are a stain," Vegeta snarled, punctuating each word with a short, brutal blow to the body. A jab to the kidney that made Kakarot's entire nervous system shriek. A hammer-fist to the collarbone that snapped it with an audible *SNAP*. "A blight on the Saiyan name. A low-class worm who forgot his place."
He released Kakarot's hair, letting him slump forward, only to grab him by the shattered remains of his chest plate. With a roar of pure, unadulterated fury, Vegeta spun and hurled him across the clearing again.
Kakarot tumbled end over end, a broken doll, landing in a heap at the base of the stone outcrop. He tried to push himself up on arms that felt like jelly, his muscles screaming in protest. His body was a map of ruin. One eye was already swelling shut, the lid puffed and purple. Blood streamed from his ruined nose, his split lips, a gash on his forehead.
Through his one good eye, he saw Vegeta stalking toward him, a predator moving in for the kill. There was no strategy, no technique to this. This was not a battle. It was an execution. A dismantling.
"You speak of respect?" Vegeta's voice was a low, thunderous roll. "You will learn respect. You will learn it as you die, knowing that your last sight was of your superior, your Prince, putting you down like the rabid animal you are!"
Vegeta's foot lashed out again, this time catching Kakarot in the side of the head. The world dissolved into a ringing, high-pitched whine. He felt teeth loosen in his jaw. He sprawled onto his back, utterly defenseless, staring up at the green canopy and the furious god who stood over him.
Vegeta planted a boot on his chest, right over his shattered sternum, and leaned down, applying pressure. Kakarot gasped, a wet, ragged sound, as the broken bones ground together. He felt a sharp piece of something, a rib, perhaps, pierce deep into his lung. Every breath was a knife wound.
"This is the difference between us, boy," Vegeta said, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper. He leaned closer, his face the last thing in Kakarot's narrowing world. "You play at being a warrior. You take pleasure in breaking things weaker than you. I am a warrior. A King. And I break whatever I wish."
He raised his fist one final time, ki flaring around it in a brilliant, deadly aura of crimson. This wasn't just a physical blow. This was a ki-enhanced strike meant to vaporize, to erase. It was the same technique he'd used on a tribal chief, the one that left a smoking hole where a heart had been.
"Remember your place in hell," Vegeta spat.
The fist began its descent, a comet of annihilation.
"VEGETA, NO!"
The roar was raw, desperate, and it didn't come from Kakarot. It came from the edge of the clearing.
Raditz and Nappa stood there, having finally tracked the massive energy signature of Vegeta's rage. Their faces were pale, etched with a fear that had nothing to do with their own safety. Raditz's long hair was disheveled, his scouter cracked. Nappa's massive fists were clenched, his usual brutish confidence replaced by sheer, panicked urgency.
Vegeta's fist halted, mere inches from Kakarot's chest. The energy around it sizzled, casting a hellish red glow on Kakarot's broken face. The Prince didn't turn. His gaze remained locked on his prey. "Interfere," he said, his voice dangerously calm, "and you will join him."
"My Prince, please!" Raditz pleaded, taking a hesitant step forward, his hands raised in a placating gesture. "You can't! Not like this!"
"He is insubordinate, Raditz!" Vegeta snarled, the ki around his fist flaring brighter. "He challenged my authority! He deserves death!"
"He's a fool! An idiot!" Nappa boomed, his voice uncharacteristically strained. "But he's a Saiyan! We are the last! The only ones left! You can't kill him! Not like you did Okure! Not like you did Kado!"
The names hung in the air, ghosts at the feast. Memories of other Saiyans, other warriors who had fallen to the Prince's temper.
Vegeta's eye twitched. The memory was an irritant. "They were weak. They failed. He has failed."
"He's your last warrior!" Raditz cried out, his voice breaking. He was genuinely terrified. Not for Kakarot, but for their entire, extinct race. "Frieza's orders are relentless! The missions keep coming! We need every hand, even his! Please, my Prince! For the glory of the Saiyan race! Do not diminish our numbers further!"
"He is not a warrior," Vegeta seethed, but the ki around his fist flickered slightly. "He is a child playing dress-up."
"Then let him be a child!" Nappa implored, his massive frame seeming to shrink under the weight of the moment. "Let him be a fool! But let him *live*! What are we without him? Three? Three Saiyans against this entire cursed universe? We are a dying ember, Vegeta! Do not snuff it out with your own hands!"
The pressure on Kakarot's chest lessened a fraction. Vegeta's head turned slightly, just enough to cast a sidelong glance at his two pleading elites. His face was a storm of conflicting emotions—royal fury, impatience, and a cold, hard sliver of pragmatic reality.
He looked down at Kakarot, who was drowning in his own blood, his one good eye barely open, glazed with pain and the imminent approach of death. He was pathetic. Useless. A broken thing.
But he was Saiyan.
With a sound of utter disgust, a guttural snarl that seemed to come from the very depths of his being, Vegeta extinguished the ki around his fist. He didn't pull his punch; he simply drove it down, a brutal, physical blow.
It connected with Kakarot's chest with a final, devastating *THUD*.
Kakarot's body convulsed, a last, silent scream trapped in his ruined throat. Then, everything went black. Consciousness fled, not into sleep, but into a deep, cold, and welcoming nothingness.
Vegeta straightened up, removing his boot from the crater he had made of Kakarot's chest. He turned fully to face Raditz and Nappa, his expression once again a mask of cold, imperious control. His armor was spattered with Kakarot's blood.
"He lives," Vegeta stated, his voice flat and final. "Barely. Get him on his ship. We are done here. The planet is clear."
He didn't wait for a response. He turned and walked away, leaving the two older Saiyans standing over the shattered, barely breathing form of the youngest and last of their kind. The forest was silent once more, the only sound the ragged, wet, and agonizingly shallow breaths coming from the body at their feet.
[A/N: Can't wait to see what happens next? Get exclusive early access on patreon.com/saiyanprincenovels. If you enjoyed this chapter and want to see more, don't forget to drop a power stone! Your support helps this story reach more readers!]