Chapter 26: The Devil's Bargain
The silence that followed Kakarot's ultimatum was thicker than the mountain itself, a suffocating weight of impending doom. The women's weapons, held in trembling hands, seemed pathetic, childish things against the raw, simmering power that radiated from the Saiyan. Their defiance, born of desperation, was crumbling under the sheer, hopeless math of their situation. He was right. They were already dead. He was the only variable.
Then, Moori spoke. His voice was not loud, but it cut through the tension with the clarity of a struck bell. There was no fear in it. Only a deep, weary sadness and a resolute calm that was somehow more terrifying than Kakarot's rage.
"Your proposition is… clear," the Namekian said, his large, dark eyes fixed on Kakarot, unblinking. "You see a path to power, and we are obstacles or stepping stones upon it. A simple, if brutal, calculus."
Kakarot's eyes narrowed, suspicious of the lack of resistance. "Then stop wasting my time and get started."
"I did not say I agreed," Moori replied, his tone even. "I said your proposition was clear. There is a difference. If I am to even consider your… request… there will be conditions."
A derisive snort erupted from Kakarot. "Conditions? You are in no position to make conditions."
"We are in the only position that matters," Moori countered softly. "The position of having nothing left to lose but the lives you have already deemed temporarily useful. My terms are not for me. They are for them." He gestured with a calm hand to the women and the hidden children. "You will not harm any being in this cavern. Not a single hair on their heads. Your rage, your violence, stays directed outward, at the enemies you speak of. You will take what you need for sustenance, but you will not take so much that you leave them to starve. Their survival, their well-being, is the non-negotiable price of my cooperation. You agree to this, or you may exercise your power now and kill us all. And in doing so, you will annihilate your only chance to learn what you seek."
The audacity of it left Kakarot momentarily speechless. The green fool was not pleading; he was negotiating from a place of absolute zero. He was leveraging Kakarot's own desire against him. Kakarot's ki flared, a hot, angry wave that made the women stumble back. He took a sudden, aggressive step toward Lyra, who flinched, raising her sharpened bone knife in a useless gesture of defense. He loomed over her, his face a mask of pure menace, and glared back at Moori, testing him.
Moori did not move. He did not beg. He simply watched, his expression unchanging. "The choice is yours, Saiyan. A tool you cannot learn to use, or a handful of lives that mean nothing to your grand design."
The standoff lasted ten full heartbeats. Kakarot was calculating, his Saiyan mind weighing the immediate gratification of violence against the long-term strategic gain. With a final, contemptuous glare at the cowering Lyra, he turned away.
"Fine," he spat, the word tasting like ash. "Their lives are yours to manage. A shepherd for a flock of weaklings. But remember, Namekian, their continued existence is tied to their usefulness to me. To our deal. The moment you cease to be useful, they cease to be." It was not a promise of protection; it was a statement of contingent value.
Moori gave a single, slow nod. "Then we have an understanding."
The women slowly lowered their weapons, their bodies trembling with a mixture of relief and deeper, more profound terror. They had not been saved. They had been made part of a transaction.
"Now," Kakarot demanded, turning back to Moori. "We begin. Show me how to hide my energy. Then how to make those energy blades you used."
Moori almost smiled, a faint, sad twitch of his lips. "You presume to build a tower starting with the highest spire. You speak of power levels as if they are the absolute truth of the universe. They are a crutch. A lie told by machines to simple minds."
Kakarot's anger flared again. "What did you call me?"
"I called the reliance on them simple," Moori clarified, unmoved. "Your 'scouter' cannot measure will. It cannot measure strategy. It cannot measure the energy of a healing spell or a created object. It sees a fire, but not the potential of the spark, nor the direction of the wind. Your first lesson is to stop looking for power through a machine's lens, and to start feeling it with your own spirit. Close your eyes."
This was not what Kakarot had expected. He had expected drills, techniques, brutal exercises. Not this… meditation. "I didn't come here for philosophical garbage! I need to fight! I need to be stronger!"
"And you will remain weak," Moori stated with finality, "if you cannot master this. All true power begins with awareness. You are like a man with a vast treasure chest, shouting that he is poor because he has lost the key. I am offering you the key. You can refuse it. The choice, again, is yours."
Furious, frustrated, but trapped by his own need, Kakarot snarled. With immense reluctance, he sat down on the cold stone floor, crossing his legs with jerky, aggressive motions. He slammed his eyes shut. "This is a waste of time," he muttered.
"Silence," Moori commanded, and for the first time, his voice held a note of undeniable authority that wasn't physical. "Empty your mind. Do not think of power. Do not think of your enemies. Listen. Not with your ears. Feel. The energy of life that surrounds you. The small, quiet sparks. Reach for them."
It was agony. Kakarot's mind was a battlefield of rage and impatience. He sat for what felt like an eternity, sensing nothing but his own simmering fury. He would grunt in frustration, his eyes snapping open to glare at Moori, who sat serenely opposite him.
"I feel nothing!"
"You are trying to grasp a river with a clenched fist. Relax. Open yourself."
"This is stupid!"
"Your failure is not a reflection of the technique, but of your own inability to focus."
Meanwhile, the women watched. Kael assigned a rotating watch, not to guard against outsiders, but to observe the monstrous pupil and his reluctant teacher. They sat in the shadows, their eyes wide, watching the Saiyan who had massacred their world now sitting like a petulant child, being scolded by their gentle elder. The surrealism of it was dizzying. Their fear was still there, a constant hum, but it was now mixed with a bewildered, nervous curiosity.
Days bled together. Kakarot's progress was nonexistent. He would sit for an hour, then erupt in anger, pacing the cavern like a caged animal, shouting that Moori was tricking him. Moori remained patient, infuriatingly so, always guiding him back to silence, to emptiness.
The breakthrough, when it came, was not what Moori intended.
It happened on the fourth day. Kakarot was once again fighting against his own mind, his frustration a boiling kettle about to whistle. He was thinking about the women watching him fail, their fear, their silent judgment. He focused on that feeling, the sensation of being watched by terrified, weak creatures. He leaned into the heat of their fear, the acid taste of their hatred for him.
And something shifted.
He didn't feel the gentle spark of life Moori described. He didn't feel the peaceful energy of the planet.
He felt *dread*. Pure, undiluted, paralyzing terror. It wasn't a thought; it was a sensory wave. He could feel it emanating from every single being in the cavern, from Kael, a steady thrum of protective fear; from Lyra, a sharp, bitter spike of terror and loathing; from Shera, a deeper, more resigned dread; from the children hidden in the back, a bright, panicky flutter of pure panic. He could feel it all, a symphony of fear, and he was its conductor.
His eyes snapped open.
The cavern looked different. The people in it were no longer just bodies. They were pulsing, glowing nodes of raw emotional energy, and the energy they were emitting was fear. His fear. He looked at Lyra, and he could almost see the terrified aura surrounding her, could feel the memory of his violation of her radiating from her like heat from a stone.
A slow, cruel, and deeply unsettling smile spread across Kakarot's face. It was not a smile of joy, but of dark, possessive discovery. He had done it. He had tapped into the energy. Not to understand life, but to *feel* his dominion over it.
He looked at Moori. The Namekian was watching him, and for the first time, Kakarot saw it: a flicker of deep, profound dread in the elder's own eyes. Moori understood immediately what had happened. He had wanted to teach the Saiyan to feel a connection to the universe. Instead, he had taught him how to feel his own monstrousness reflected back at him. He had given a predator a new, more sensitive way to hunt.
Kakarot stood up, his movements smooth and filled with a new, sinister confidence. He didn't say a word. He simply looked around the cavern, his gaze lingering on each woman, savoring the fresh wave of terror that rolled off them as his attention passed over them. He had never felt more powerful.
The lesson was over. The first door had been opened. And Moori felt a chill colder than the void of space, realizing the horrifyingly specific and dark genius he had just unlocked.
[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!]