I am Piccolo

The force tightening around his metal fingers was enough to crush titanium alloy with ease.

Piccolo hung suspended in midair, his feet dangling limply.

His throat bones crackled under unbearable strain as oxygen was completely cut off.

The howling of the violent winds around him, Bulma's anxious cries, even the roar of Sphere God No. 1's engines—

All of it was pulled infinitely far away in that instant, becoming utterly indistinct.

His consciousness was sinking uncontrollably, falling into a viscous, frigid sea of darkness.

Was this the end?

He asked himself in the darkness.

There was no pain, no fear—only a tranquility so profound it left him utterly weary.

The pain in his body gradually faded, replaced by a sense of weightlessness.

Within this boundless inner world, time flowed in an exceedingly strange manner.

Scenes from most of his life played before his eyes in rapid succession, like a revolving lantern.

"Drip."

The sound of a water drop rippled through the depths of the void.

A faint glow pierced through the darkness.

Piccolo saw a little boy with a bowl cut, his face covered in tears and snot.

The boy wore a tattered training outfit and timidly held out a red apple that had been gnawed full of dents.

"Uncle Piccolo, have some."

That was Gohan.

The source of his entire personality collapse.

Piccolo gave a self-mocking laugh deep in his subconscious.

Back then, he had been a terrifying existence who bore the name of King Piccolo.

He had only kept Goku and Krillin's son around to deal with the approaching Saiyan crisis.

To awaken the potential in the boy's bloodline, he had ruthlessly thrown young Gohan and Trunks into the wilderness, leaving them to keep company with bloodthirsty dinosaurs.

He had thought he could remain cold and ruthless to