I shouldn't exist.
That is what the demons told me.
Twenty-five years trapped in this hell. Twenty-five years without seeing my father.
I find myself wondering...
Who is he? What kind of man is he?
The Underworld
< Day 1 >
Sleep functions strangely in this realm.
You lie down, you close your eyes, but you never truly sleep. It is as if the very concept of rest does not exist here.
Apparently, I am the spawn of a Saiyan.
Yet, as for the womb I crawled out of... I haven't a clue.
Even my horned neighbors are stumped.
It seems my birth parents pulled the classic maneuver: went out for a pack of cigarettes and never returned.
Life is hard.
I was eventually adopted by a wandering witch hailing from the Demon Realm. The sort of creature who enjoys forging binding pacts with newborn infants.
"Hanabi! Get over here! Some assholes are invading my turf!"
That screech belonged to Lady Misha, my adoptive mother.
Her price for caring for me was trapping me in this hellhole for twenty-five years.
She wasn't physically imposing, but she possessed the sheer, volatile temperament of a powerhouse.
"Coming..." I muttered.
I dragged myself up from the slab I used as a bed and shuffled toward her bellowing.
The thing about living in hell is this: any evil bastard strong enough to avoid dissolving into a generic wandering soul gets to keep their physical body.
And that is a massive inconvenience for me.
Outside, Mom was already mid-tirade.
"Hey, you shitheads! Ain't nothing here for you! Turn around and piss off, or else my daughter is gonna tear you all a new asshole!"
I stepped out of the shack, still half-asleep, expecting the usual horned brutes.
Instead, I stopped.
Five guys were standing out there in matching armor. In the middle of all that gray dirt and smoke, they looked like someone had spilled a box of glowing crayons.
The one in front, purple skin, black horns, veins standing out on his forehead, actually flinched at what Misha said. Like she'd hit him.
He put a hand on his chest, staring at her in dramatic disbelief.
"Excuse me, madam! Such uncouth language! Is that any way to address the universe's most elite fighting squadron? We demand etiquette!"
Misha opened her mouth to fire off another insult, but she didn't get the chance.
All five of them moved at once.
Not to attack,no.
They spun, stepped, and threw their arms out like they'd practiced this a hundred times.
They froze in a perfectly timed pose that screamed we worked really hard on this.
The tall blue one in the back, long, snake-like—leaned forward and hissed, clearly offended.
"We are the pinnacle of power and style! Show some respect!"
"Yeah!" the red one with white hair chimed in, sliding into an over-the-top side pose.
"Oi, watch it, granny! You're not dealin' with a bunch of nobodies, alright? You're starin' down the Ginyu Force! We serve Lord Frieza, mate!"
I just stood there, staring at them.
My life was already a mess. But this?
This was somehow worse.
Misha didn't even look impressed.
She just turned on me instead.
"Hanabi! Stop standing there like you've never seen idiots in spandex before! Go do something useful! Get them out of my yard before I lose my patience!"
Right. The pact.
I let out a tired sigh and started walking toward the circus lineup.
No big entrance. Just me, shoulders slouched, arms hanging loose. If anything, I looked like I'd rather be anywhere else.
As I got closer, the smallest one, the green guy with four eyes on the far right, finally cracked.
"Uh, Captain? Who's the girl? Wait a minute... check out the spiky black hair. Hey! She looks exactly like one of those filthy Saiyans!"
Guldo's squeaky revelation broke their concentration.
The perfect formation crumbled as the other members turned to look at me, disgust plastered across their colorful faces.
The red one with the white hair, Jeice, dropped his flamboyant salute and scoffed.
"A Saiyan? Here? Aw, don't be daft, Guldo. Those savage blokes usually get themselves wiped out long before they ever make it to the afterlife. Besides, have a look at her, way too scrawny to be one of those monkeys, mate."
"Indeed." added the tall blue one, Burter, crossing his arms and looking down his snout at me.
"If she is a Saiyan, she is clearly defective. Where is the aggression? She looks like she's about to take a nap standing up."
Captain Ginyu stepped forward, waving a purple hand to silence his subordinates. He approached me, stopping just outside striking distance, and inspected me like a smudge on his pristine armor.
"Hmph. General aura of sullen incompetence... highly suggestive of a low-class warrior."
He straightened up, puffing out his chest and striking a fresh, highly unnecessary mini-pose just for emphasis.
"Listen here, you little lost monkey! You stand before the elite of Lord Frieza's army! It's an honor for a speck of cosmic dust like you to even witness our magnificence! Now kneel before the Ginyu Force… and beg forgiveness for your mother's vulgarity!"
I stopped walking about ten feet away from them.
I didn't bother raising my fists or getting into a fighting stance. I just stood there, slouching, scratching the back of my neck with a loud yawn.
"Are you done?" I asked, my voice flat.
Ginyu blinked.
"Am I... what?"
"Talking. Are you done talking about how great you are? Because honestly, I zoned out after the first pose." I gestured vaguely behind me with my thumb.
"The old hag says I have to handle you, and I really want to go back to laying down and staring at the ceiling. So, can we just skip to the part where I beat you up?"
For a moment, nobody said anything.
I guess they weren't sure how to react to someone who just… didn't care.
Then they all lost it.
Like someone had flipped a switch, the five of them burst into loud, over-the-top laughter. It echoed way more than it deserved to.
The small green one was wheezing and giggling, practically folding in on himself. The red one slapped his thigh like he'd just heard the best joke of his life. The tall blue guy let out this smug, drawn-out chuckle. The huge one laughed so hard I could feel it in the ground.
Even their captain was cracking up, one hand on his hip, the other pointing at me like I was the punchline.
"Oh, marvelous! Truly marvelous! The audacity! You, a sullen little twig, threaten us?"
He sighed dramatically, placing a hand over his chest in mock sorrow.
"It is a profound tragedy, truly. The administration in this realm is terribly inefficient, they stripped us of all our standard-issue equipment upon arrival."
He tapped the side of his purple head, right where a scouter used to sit.
"A crying shame. If only we still had access to our scouters. We would have genuinely enjoyed getting a reading on your unbelievably pathetic power level before we vaporized you into oblivion."
I waited for their synchronized cackling to die down. It took longer than necessary, mostly because Recoome insisted on finishing with a flex that made his armor creak.
When the noise finally subsided to just condescending snickers, I spoke up.
"Hey… you mentioned someone earlier. Frieza, was it? He's the one in charge of your little circus?"
The name made them all snap to attention, chests puffed out in reverence.
I continued.
"Is that the short, pale lizard guy? Kinda looks like a shiny white gecko walking on two legs? Has a weird obsession with purple lipstick?"
Ginyu choked on his own laughter. His purple face somehow turned an even deeper shade of violet. The other members gasped in collective horror.
"Silence, you insolent wretch!" Ginyu roared, abandoning his playful demeanor foroutrage.
"How dare you speak of the mighty Lord Frieza with such disgusting disrespect! He is the Emperor of the Universe, not some common garden reptile!"
He took a threatening step forward.
"You should tremble at his very name! You have no concept of true power. If you were to ever stand in his glorious presence, the sheer pressure of his aura alone would crush your insignificant little body before you could even think to—"
"Yeah, about that." I interrupted, picking at a hangnail on my thumb.
"I ran into him a few days ago. He was being loud and annoying, too."
I looked up, meeting Ginyu's furious glare with dead eyes.
"So I beat the living shit out of him."
The laughter died fast.
Not in a dramatic way. Just… cut off. Like someone pulled the plug.
They stared at me. All five of them. Ginyu's finger was still stuck in the air. The little green one's eyes looked like they were working overtime. Even the big guy stopped posing.
Nobody said a word.
The only sound was me absentmindedly picking at a hangnail. It went on long enough to get uncomfortable.
Then the tall blue one in the back let out a sharp, annoyed hiss. He uncrossed his arms and stepped forward, brushing past his captain like he'd had enough.
He looked down at me, shaking his head.
"That is complete nonsense."
He flicked a hand at me like I was something stuck to his boot.
"Do you really expect us to believe that? Lord Frieza rules the universe. And you?"
He looked me up and down.
"You wouldn't last a second."
He leaned in a little closer, eyes narrowing.
"You're not just weak. You're a bad liar. If you're going to make things up, at least try."
I opened my mouth to argue—
—and got cut off by a shriek from the porch.
"Hanabi! Stop flirting with the lizard-men and kill them already! Ten seconds! Or I'm adding five more years to your sentence!"
I let my head fall back with a long, tired groan.
"Five more years? Seriously?"
I glanced back at them. The tall blue one was still wearing that smug look.
"Alright, sorry about this. She's on a timer, and I'm not adding five more years to my stay."
"You don't get to just decide you're going to win, you little—"
"Blue Hurricane!" Jeice shouted from the side.
"Show 'er some real speed, mate!"
"With pleasure!"
And then he disappeared.
To most people, it would've looked like he blinked out of existence.
"I'm the fastest in the universe!" his voice rang out as he circled me at full speed.
"You won't even see it coming!"
He showed up behind me a split second later, already mid-kick, aiming for my head.
I didn't bother turning around.
I just tilted my head a little.
His boot sliced past my ear and hit nothing. Wind rushed by. Dust lifted off the ground.
That was it.
"Huh?" He said, thrown off as his own speed carried him forward.
Before he could steady himself, I turned and punched him in the stomach.
... And his whole body folded over my arm like he'd been unplugged.
I tapped his forehead with a finger.
He dropped flat on his back and didn't move.
The others went quiet.
They stared at him in the dirt like their brains were trying to catch up. No one laughed this time.
"...She just got lucky!" The red one shouted, a little too fast.
"Burter dropped his guard, that's all!"
Their captain nodded quickly, sweat starting to show.
"Exactly! A fluke! No single fighter can handle the full force of the Ginyu Force! New plan! Formation Z! Full assault! We hit her together!"
"YEAAAAAH!"
They powered up all at once, shouting, glowing, charging. The small green one held his breath, the red one formed an energy sphere, the big one rushed forward, and their captain led the charge.
They came at me in a messy wave of color.
< Three Minutes Later >
Steam drifted up from the pile of bodies in front of the shack.
The so-called elite squad was stacked up like laundry.
The red one was face-down in the dirt.
The big guy was half-sprawled over a rock, mumbling about his teeth.
The small green one hadn't even moved—just quietly sniffling into the ground.
Their captain was stuck at the bottom.
He tried to lift his head, winced, and dropped it again. They all had the same swollen bump on their foreheads, still faintly steaming.
I sat on a rock nearby and brushed the dust off my hands. On the porch, Misha leaned against the railing, sipping something that looked toxic and oddly pleased.
I nudged the captain's side with my boot. He wheezed.
"So, why are you even here?"
The pile shifted. After some effort, he managed to lift his face out of the dirt.
"We… were on an important mission, recon. Securing supplies."
"We wanted lunch..." Jeice muttered from the middle of the heap.
I stared.
"Lunch."
"Yeah, lunch! That's what I'm sayin'! Down here you don't get hungry, don't need to eat, nothin'! D'you have any idea how bloody borin' that is?!"
The big one sat up slowly.
"I miss crunching things."
The small green one raised a shaky hand.
"I just wanted a cookie…"
I looked at them.
The captain finally sat upright, crossing his arms like that would fix it.
I glanced at Misha. She just shrugged and took another sip of her glowing drink.
"Unbelievable." I muttered.