[A/N: A Shoutout to my new patreon members. KingDre_22, Otku_2245, Reno, Bruno_%98.]
Chapter 22: The Appetite of Kings
The cavern's rhythm had been irrevocably altered. The eleventh day dawned with a new, watchful tension. The Saiyan in the cage was no longer a silent, broken monument; he was a conscious entity, a hungry intelligence bound in scarred flesh and bone. His single free hand hung limp, but the fingers would occasionally twitch, a subtle reminder of the potential violence contained within.
Kael entered the chamber at first light, carrying a bowl identical to the one from the previous day. The routine was established. She unlocked the cage, placed the food in his waiting hand, and retreated, locking the door behind her. She and the other women watched as he ate with the same methodical efficiency, scraping the bowl clean.
He finished, let the bowl clatter to the floor, and then his eye, sharp and demanding, fixed on Kael.
"Again," he said, his voice a low rumble.
Kael raised an eyebrow. "The meal is once a day. That is the agreement."
A flicker of impatience crossed his features. "The agreement was for information. The meal was a tool to facilitate it. This," he gestured with his chin to the empty bowl, "is not a meal. It is an insult. My body is repairing itself. Saiyan physiology requires protein. A great deal of it. What you gave me is less than an appetizer. It does not even register in my stomach."
Lyra scoffed from the sidelines. "You are a prisoner, not a guest. Be grateful you are fed at all."
His gaze slid to her, cold and dismissive, before returning to Kael, the real arbiter of power. "Gratitude is irrelevant. This is biology. To maintain my current mass, I require ten times that amount. To heal, to regain my strength, I require fifty times that. You want information? You want a weapon against the others? A starved weapon is a useless weapon. My power is tied to my caloric intake. It is a simple equation."
Kael studied him. This was not a plea. It was a clinical statement of fact, another piece of the Saiyan puzzle. He was negotiating from a position of weakness, but his arrogance was undimmed. He was telling them how to make him more dangerous.
"And what information would be worth such a price?" Kael asked, her arms crossed. "You have given us names. All that we need to know. What more do you have?"
He leaned his head back against the bar, a faint, grim smile on his lips. "A timeline. You operate under the assumption that the silence from the sky is peace. It is not. It is a marketplace."
He paused, letting the ominous words hang in the air. The women leaned in slightly, their suspicion warring with a dawning fear.
"Frieza does not conquer planets to let them lie fallow," he continued, his voice dropping, taking on a conspiratorial tone that was more threatening than any shout. "He conquers them to sell. This rock has been pacified. The bioscans are complete. The auction has already begun. New inhabitants will be arriving soon. Not conquerors. Colonists. A lesser empire, flush with credits and eager for expansion, will come to claim their new home. They will not be warriors. They will be bureaucrats, farmers, engineers. But they will come with Frieza's guarantee of safety. And if they find a handful of native pests still scurrying in the caves... their first call will not be to an exterminator. It will be to their new landlord."
The color drained from the faces of the women. This was a threat they had not conceived. They had prepared for the return of warriors, for a fight they knew they would lose. This was different. It was an end to their existence not by violence, but by paperwork and population replacement. Their world would be stolen twice over.
"We... we could use you," Kael said, the idea forming even as she spoke it. "As leverage. To negotiate with them. To demand a place."
Kakarot let out a sharp, derisive bark of laughter. It was a harsh, ugly sound. "You think too small. And you understand nothing. Frieza, Vegeta, Raditz... they would not give a single shit if you paraded me in front of them on a leash. In fact, Vegeta would probably blast through me to get to you, just to prove a point. I am a tool. A broken tool is discarded, not ransomed."
He shifted in his bonds, the chains clinking. "The only one who cares about order is Frieza. And he does not like his transactions complicated. Pests that challenge him..." His voice grew distant, and for the first time, a genuine, deep-seated emotion that wasn't anger or arrogance surfaced: a cold, foundational terror. "He does not tolerate challenges. He is the one who blew up Planet Vegeta. My world. My entire race. Because he feared a legend. Because he feared we might one day become strong enough to challenge him."
The revelation landed in the cavern with the force of a physical blow. The women stared, utterly stunned. Their tormentor was also a victim? The genocidal monster who destroyed them was the same one who had genocided his own people?
"How... how do you know this?" Kael whispered, the question escaping before she could stop it.
Kakarot's eyes lost focus, looking at something far away in his own mind. "I don't know. A memory. Or a dream. I was in a pod. A small pod. My mother was crying. My father... Bardock... he was shouting. He knew. He tried to warn them. 'Frieza fears us,' he said. 'He will destroy us all.' They called him a madman. Then... the light. A green light. Then nothing." He blinked, returning to the present, the vulnerability vanishing behind a wall of cold fury. "The others don't know. They serve the butcher of our world because they are blind, loyal dogs. But I know. And one day... one day I will have my revenge."
The confession was monumental. It was the key to his entire being, a bottomless well of rage not just at Vegeta, but at the emperor he was forced to serve. He had given them the greatest weapon imaginable: his deepest, most motivating secret.
"Now," he said, the moment of vulnerability gone, replaced by the demanding prisoner. "Give me my food."
Kael looked at the others, their faces a mirror of her own horrified realization. The universe was far more vast and terrifying than they had ever imagined. Their enemy's enemy was not their friend; he was a chaotic, self-destructive force of vengeance.
"We need to tell the Elder," Kael declared, her voice tight. "We need to discuss this."
Shera nodded, her face grim. "We will handle the food. Go."
Kael turned and ran from the chamber, her footsteps echoing into the tunnels. The other women looked at each other, then at the Saiyan in the cage. Without a word, they gathered a significant portion of their smoked meat stores, a risky, enormous investment and brought it to him. He took it without a word of thanks and began to devour it, a predator finally being fed.
***
Five days passed.
The Saiyan had eaten a staggering amount of food, enough to feed their entire group for a week. Then, he had fallen asleep. But it wasn't a normal sleep. It was a state of profound torpor. His breathing had slowed to an almost imperceptible rate. His body, which had been gaunt and scarred, seemed to have filled out, the muscles looking harder, denser under the skin. The terrible wounds were now nothing but thick, silvery lines. He hung in his bonds, utterly limp, like an animal in hibernation. The women kept their distance, unnerved by the transformation.
On the fifth day, Kael returned. And she was not alone.
Beside her walked a being unlike any they had ever seen. He was short, his skin a pale, wise green. He had no hair, but two long, pointed ears and two sensory antennae on his brow. He was dressed in simple, clean brown and white robes that seemed out of place in the gritty cavern. His presence was one of immense, ancient calm.
Lyra and Shera looked at the newcomer with a mixture of awe and confusion.
"Elder… welcome back…" Lyra bowed respectfully.
Kael smiled. "Elder Moori is back. He has been helping survivors across the continent in secret."
The green-skinned alien, Moori, stepped forward, his large, dark eyes fixed on the suspended Saiyan. His expression was unreadable, a mixture of deep sadness and intense curiosity.
"How long has he been in this state?" Moori asked, his voice a soft, gentle rumble.
"Since the day he ate," Shera answered. "He consumed nearly all our meat and then... shut down. Like a machine powering down."
Moori nodded slowly. "A deep healing trance. His body is diverting all energy to cellular reconstruction and metabolic consolidation. A remarkable adaptation."
Before anyone could say more, a low groan echoed from the cage.
Every eye snapped toward it. The Saiyan's body shuddered. His head, which had been lolling on his chest, slowly lifted. He blinked, his eyes focusing with a new, terrifying sharpness. They scanned the room, taking in the women, Kael, and finally, locking onto Moori.
"How long was I out?" he asked, his voice no longer a rasp, but a clear, powerful baritone that vibrated in the confined space.
"Five days," Lyra answered, her own voice barely a whisper.
He didn't seem surprised. He flexed the fingers of his free hand, then his still-bound left hand, testing the strength. Then his eyes narrowed, his head tilting as if listening to something they could not hear. "Are they here yet?"
Moori took a step closer. "I do not sense any other lifeforms on this planet besides the few dozen that survived your people's invasion."
The Saiyan's intense gaze focused fully on Moori. He studied him from head to toe, his eyes missing no detail of the strange robes, the antennae, the calm demeanor.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "You're not from this planet."
The green being offered a slight, polite bow. "I am Moori. Of the Namekian race. I was a visitor to this world long before the invasion began. I have been attempting to help where I can."
"Namekian," Kakarot repeated, the word unfamiliar on his tongue. His eyes then flicked to Shera, Lyra, and Kael, a slow, dawning understanding spreading across his face. "I've heard you people have weird powers." His gaze returned to Moori. "It explains how they knew. About Nappa. About Raditz and Vegeta. They didn't see them. They only saw me. I thought they heard it from other survivors. Now I see. They heard it from you. You were watching. You saw everything."
Moori did not deny it. He simply stood, a silent confirmation.
A slow, terrifying smile spread across Kakarot's face. It was the smile of a predator that has just solved a complex puzzle. "I guess then," he said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper, "I don't need to do this anymore."
Before anyone could move, before anyone could even process the words, his body flexed. It wasn't a strain against the bonds. It was an internal explosion. A surge of invisible energy, ki, erupted from his core, not as a blast, but as a wave of pure, concussive force.
The effect was instantaneous. The vines holding his left wrist and his ankles didn't break; they vaporized into puffs of dust. The reinforced metal bars of the cage, forged in the heat of his own wreckage, didn't bend; they screamed and tore like paper, the entire structure blowing outward in a shower of twisted, white-hot shrapnel.
The women were thrown backward by the shockwave, crashing against the cavern walls. Moori raised a hand, a faint green energy barrier flickering into existence just in time to deflect the debris.
Where the cage had been, Kakarot now stood on the cavern floor, free. He was taller than they remembered, his physique no longer just healed but perfected, every muscle coiled with impossible power. The last traces of his scars were gone. He rolled his shoulders, a gesture of supreme ease, and cracked his neck.
He turned his head, his eyes, now burning with a faint, golden aura, locking onto Kael.
"Now," he said, his voice echoing with newfound power in the stunned silence. "Who has the power, Kael?"
[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!]