Fragile Facade

Raditz's scouter went crazy.

The red lens embedded over his left eye flashed crimson at an unprecedented rate, its numbers wildly jumping—one thousand, two thousand, three thousand—before finally freezing on a value that made Raditz's pupils contract.

"4907..."

He read the number aloud involuntarily.

A four-year-old Saiyan brat. A battle power of 4907. More than three times higher than his own.

"Impossible." Raditz's lips trembled, whether from rage or fear he did not know. "That's absolutely impossible! The scouter must be broken!"

But he knew perfectly well that it was not broken. The force of those two punches that had shattered his nose could not be explained away as an equipment malfunction.

Ji Ming crouched atop a rock, his small chest heaving violently. He gave a bitter laugh inwardly. That burst just now had already pushed him to his current limit. 4907 looked intimidating, but it was the result of releasing all his ki at once in an extremely short span of time. In a normal state, his battle power was probably not even one-tenth of that number.

Worse still, his body could no longer hold up. Three broken ribs, a fracture in his right shin, massive blood loss—this four-year-old body had not died on the spot only because of the absurd vitality stubbornly coursing through Saiyan blood. Every movement felt like dancing on a blade's edge, every breath tasted of rust.

He could not keep fighting head-on.

But he was not in a hurry. He still had cards to play.

Raditz wiped away the blood from his nose, and his gaze changed. All contempt and mockery vanished, replaced by the caution of a hunter facing a beast of equal rank. Without drawing attention to it, his right hand moved toward the switch on his scouter at his waist, expanding its scanning range to the maximum.

He could not call for reinforcements. At least, not yet. That bastard Kakarot had actually spawned a monster with a battle power close to five thousand. If Vegeta and Nappa found out, he would have to split the credit—no, Vegeta might come personally, and then Raditz would become nothing more than an outsider.

Greed and fear wrestled within him. In the end, greed won.

"Good." Raditz bared a grin, his teeth stained with his own blood. "Brat, you've succeeded in making me take you seriously. Once I take you and your father back, King Vegeta will definitely—"

Before he could finish, he lunged again. This time, he was two levels faster than before. The ground beneath his feet collapsed into a crater five meters wide as his whole body became a black blur. The scouter's shrieks in his ear had lost all meaning. He no longer trusted numbers—only his fists.

Ji Ming's pupils suddenly shrank.

So fast!

He had no time to dodge—this body simply could not keep up with his brain's reaction speed. He only managed to cross his arms before his chest when Raditz's knee slammed into him.

Bang—

The sound of bone cracking—he could not tell whether it was his arms or his ribs. Ji Ming was blasted away, his body drawing a streak of blood through the air. He smashed through three tree trunks as thick as barrels in succession before finally embedding himself in the fourth, wood chips flying everywhere.

"Gohan—!!"

Son Goku lay facedown in a pool of blood in the distance, his eyes nearly splitting with rage. He wanted to get up, but his limbs felt filled with lead; he could not even lift a finger. His battle with Raditz had drained every ounce of his strength. Now, he could only watch helplessly as his son was beaten into pulp punch by punch.

Piccolo leaned against a broken tree, blood still dripping from the stump of his severed right arm. His face was pale from blood loss, but his eyes remained locked on the child.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

That child's eyes, that smile, that "Just in time"—that was not four-year-old Son Gohan. He had met Gohan before. That timid, crybaby little brat spoiled by Chi-Chi would never wear such an expression in the face of death.

Those were the eyes of a veteran who had gone through countless battles and crawled out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

But he was only four.

An absurd thought crossed Piccolo's mind—could something have possessed him? A demon? No, impossible. He knew the lingering aura of demons better than anyone. A god? Even more impossible. Earth's god was inside his own body. Some mutation unique to Saiyan physiology? He could not be sure.

But he was sure of one thing: if this child survived, he had to get answers.

Kakarot, what kind of thing did you give birth to?

Ji Ming's consciousness drifted through darkness for a moment before agonizing pain dragged him back.

Pain.

Fucking unbearable pain.

He felt as if he had been run over by a truck, then tossed into a rock crusher. Yet Ji Ming was not afraid because of the pain. On the contrary, it sent him into a state of intense exhilaration. Before transmigrating, he had only been an ordinary office worker, never having experienced a true fight to the death. But now, the thrill of standing at death's door made his very brain boil.

Was this Saiyan blood?

He coughed up blood, slowly raised his head from the shattered tree trunk, and looked at Raditz approaching in the distance.

"Still not dead." Raditz's voice was devoid of emotion. His steps were steady, each one landing on Ji Ming's heartbeat. "Your body's tough enough. But your aura has weakened considerably. That burst just now was your last trump card, wasn't it?"

Ji Ming did not answer. He counted his own heartbeat and the rhythm of Raditz's footsteps.

Three steps. Two steps. One step.

"Your tail."

Ji Ming's voice was quiet, barely more than a murmur. Raditz halted, frowning. "What?"

"Your tail."

Raditz's expression changed instantly.

A Saiyan's tail was a weakness. If it was grabbed, the entire body would go limp—this was a core Saiyan secret, known only to Saiyans themselves. How could a Saiyan brat born on Earth and raised by Earthlings possibly know it?

Unless—

This child had not grown up on Earth at all.

"How do you know the secret of a Saiyan's tail?" Raditz forced the words out through clenched teeth, his voice terrifyingly low.

Ji Ming struggled free from the tree trunk and swayed as he stood. Blood streamed down from his forehead, covering half his face, but the eye still exposed shone far too brightly for someone so badly injured.

"I know more than just your secret." The curve of his lips made Raditz's back turn cold. "I know Vegeta's secret. I know Nappa's secret. I know Frieza's secret. I know that in the end, you'll die at the hands of the Earthlings you called 'insects.' A Special Beam Cannon will blast a hole through your neck, and your corpse will be buried in the wilderness with no one to claim it."

Silence.

Only the rustle of wind passing through the trees filled the air.

Raditz's expression froze. It was not the content of those words that frightened him—he had never even heard of something called the "Special Beam Cannon"—but the tone the child had used when saying Frieza's name. That certainty, that disdain, as though he were talking about a dead man.

Frieza.

Frieza, Emperor of the Universe.

The truth behind Planet Vegeta's destruction by a meteor, the true reason for the Saiyans' extermination—a secret known to only a handful of people in the entire universe. Raditz had only learned of it by pure chance, after accidentally overhearing a private conversation between Vegeta and Nappa. How did this child know?

"Who exactly are you?" Raditz's voice had gone hoarse.

Ji Ming did not answer. He slowly raised his right hand and held up one finger.

"First question: do you know why your scouter has never been able to lock onto me?"

Raditz instinctively looked at the scouter's screen. Yes. Ever since he launched his second attack, its readings had started jumping wildly—zero one moment, two thousand the next, then five hundred. It was completely abnormal. He had thought the scouter was malfunctioning, but now—

"Gods can control their ki, limiting their strength to at most one-tenth of normal." As Ji Ming spoke, Whis's smiling face and Beerus's lazy expression flashed through his mind.

Of course, he could not control ki.

But bragging was tax-free.

Raditz's pupils trembled. Gods? What gods? This child had even come into contact with the legendary gods? Saiyan low-ranking warriors had been taught since childhood that all they could do upon encountering a deity was lower their heads and bow. What if this child had truly been trained by a god? What if his ability to control his ki had really reached the realm of the gods?

A brick named "fear" had quietly been slipped into Raditz's mental defenses by Ji Ming.

"Second question." Ji Ming raised a second finger, his voice growing steadier. "You just said you wanted to take me back to Planet Vegeta to train. But have you considered this—what would Vegeta and Nappa think about a Saiyan child whose battle power might exceed four or five thousand at any moment?"

Raditz's Adam's apple bobbed.

A smile tugged at Ji Ming's lips. On that baby-faced visage smeared with blood and grime appeared a smile only adults could understand. It was like a dull knife, slowly stabbing into the darkest corner of Raditz's heart.

"They even dared to kill their fellow Saiyans. They had the nerve to wipe out tens of millions of Saiyans. So what do you think they would consider a Saiyan child who might surpass them in the future? A pet? Or a threat?"

Raditz's hands began to shake.

Without realizing it, he followed the child's train of thought.

Vegeta would be jealous. Nappa would be enraged. Together, their battle power far exceeded that of this bizarre child in his current state. But the problem was—if Vegeta learned that this child knew Frieza's secret, knew the truth behind the Saiyans' extermination, knew the weakness of their tails, knew everything he should not know—

Vegeta would be the first to act.

Not to kill the child.

To kill Raditz.

As someone who knew the secret, as the one responsible for bringing this child's existence back to Vegeta's attention, he would be silenced as well. Vegeta never showed mercy to the weak, and for weaklings who knew secrets, he exterminated them without exception.

A drop of cold sweat slid down Raditz's temple.

Watching that drop of sweat, Ji Ming knew the seed he had planted had begun to take root.

"Then I won't take you back." A low growl rumbled from Raditz's throat as his finger joints cracked under his clenched grip. "I'll kill you here, and no one will ever know."

The air filled with killing intent once more.

Piccolo clenched his teeth in the distance. Damn it, the kid was so close to succeeding, but he had said too much. Backing Raditz into a corner would only make him fight to the death.

Son Goku was also desperately trying to stand, his muscles trembling as he lifted himself inch by inch, only for his legs to give out and collapse beneath him again.

Only Ji Ming remained calm.

"Kill me?" He tilted his head and used a child's innocent voice to speak an adult's calculation. "Why don't you think about it again? If you kill me, then the mission has failed. Vegeta and Nappa are still waiting for you to bring Kakarot back. Returning empty-handed would be one thing, but if you told them—there was a Saiyan child with a battle power over four thousand, and you killed him—"

He paused, letting the words ferment in Raditz's mind for three seconds.

"What would Vegeta think? He would not even believe that you killed someone with such high battle power. He would only think you were lying, that you botched the mission and let a potential threat escape. When that time comes, it won't be me refusing to spare you. Your prince—your Prince Vegeta—won't give you the chance to keep living."

The logic was airtight.

Raditz's expression cracked.

The four-year-old child before him was not a battle prodigy. He was a devil. A devil who could dismantle a person from the very foundations of rules, perception, and logic.

"What exactly... are you?" There was a trace of fear in Raditz's voice.

Ji Ming silently paid tribute to the lines of every villain from the original story that he had "borrowed" from, then walked toward Raditz step by step.

He moved slowly, limping as he went, leaving a small bloody footprint on the ground with every step. Yet the presence radiating from him made an adult Saiyan warrior unconsciously take a step back.

"You don't need to know who I am." Ji Ming stopped three steps away from Raditz, looking up at the massive body that stood twice his height. "You only need to know this—if you want to live, turn around and leave. Forget what happened today, and do not mention the battle on Earth. Your scouter malfunctioned just now, so you couldn't record any data. As long as we stay out of each other's way from now on, I guarantee you can live a few more years in the universe."

Raditz opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Fear.

Doubt.

The desire to survive.

Greed.

Countless emotions tugged back and forth within his chest. In the end, the instinct to survive overwhelmed everything else.

He took one step back. Then another. Then he turned around and flew into the sky.

Piccolo and Son Goku's eyes widened at the same time in the distance.

Raditz, whom even the Special Beam Cannon might not have been able to kill in one shot, had been scared off by a few words from a four-year-old child.

But the moment the sound of Raditz's spaceship engine started up, Ji Ming's body swayed. Unable to hold on any longer, he finally toppled backward.

Before his consciousness completely sank into darkness, he had only one thought.

This body's foundation had to be rebuilt from scratch.

He was too weak.

Piccolo stared at the unconscious child on the ground for a long time in silence. Then he turned to look at the equally dumbfounded Son Goku.

"Kakarot."

"Ah... huh?"

"Your son..." Piccolo's mouth twitched, as though he wanted to curse but held it back. "Was he possessed by something?"

Son Goku stood there with his mouth open, unable to say a word for a long while.

He only looked at his son lying in a pool of blood, breathing faintly yet smiling at the corners of his mouth. For the first time in his life, he felt—

This son of his seemed far more terrifying than he had imagined.