CHAPTER 9: The Promise

Bardock snorted as he watched his eldest son leave, off to mope alone in some thicket, hopefully far away from them. Gazing back to Kakarot, he saw the younger Saiyan still staring after his brother with a baffled frown. He had been introduced to the family drama with a blast, but Bardock doubted that someone with as odd a character as he would ever let Raditz get under his skin. There had been something promising about Kakarot's eyes during the short period he had stayed transformed, some of the true Saiyan that still lurked under the cheerful surface.

"What's that guy's problem? I wasn't even directly the one who killed him", Kakarot wondered, one brow arched as if even he had been questioning the absurdity of his brother's behavior.

"He is the problem. His entire existence is spent in a state of denial. You'll get used to it", Bardock murmured, forever ashamed of having to call that childish bulk of flesh and hair his son.

Saying that, he ended up being stared down by his better son, through an expression that proved difficult for Bardock to read. Was he being judged? Bardock narrowed his eyes challengingly, and Kakarot soon wrote the situation off with a nonchalant sigh.

He had expected more questions from Kakarot, about their revealed family ties, about anything at all, but this strangely laid-back warrior simply reached out for more food and started talking about the inconvenience of not being able to train and fight. Bardock watched and pretended to listen, but on the inside he found himself mulling over how negligibly impressed Kakarot seemed to be with him. Either his son was amazingly impassive even by Bardock's standards, or then he had to come in terms with the harsh reality that he was not the capable senior he once thought of himself as. Not in comparison to the Super Saiyan of the legends…

Not long had passed before another presence suddenly interrupted Kakarot's monologue. One of the Yardrats popped into existence right on top of the pile of dirty, scavenged bones that Kakarot had heaped up while dining. Kakarot startled with a yelp, while the Yardrat itself let out a high-pitched scream of terror as soon as it realized what it was standing in.

"WHAT IS THIS?! EUUGH!" it squealed, frightened as if it had stepped in the corpse of its mother. Its tiny eyes bounced wildly between Bardock and Kakarot while it practically somersaulted away from the animal remains.

More surprised than he let on by the sudden arrival of a Yardrat, Bardock stood in the same spot with folded arms and eyes slightly widened. Kakarot, however, seemed to relax almost immediately. "Hey, it's you! The little guy! Biru!"

Bardock was impressed by his ability to actually individualize these creatures and tell them apart from one another so fast, as he would never have been able to recognize the Yardrat as the same kid that had bothered him before.

"What did you do?!" Biru shouted at Kakarot with a demeanor of someone that had been gruesomely betrayed.

"Huh?"

"You said you weren't here to kill!"

Kakarot blinked, his eyes falling on his dinner, and then he seemed to comprehend the implications. "Oh. This is my dinner! Bardock got it for me."

"D-dinner?!" If Bardock could read the kid's odd, round face right, Biru was both shocked and absolutely disgusted. He kept backing away melodramatically, crouched like a cornered prey.

"We're an omnivorous people, with a preference for meat. Get over it", Barkod barked sternly, confusing but fortunately also silencing the kid for one blissful moment.

"Yeah, we're not here to eat any of you people!" Kakarot reassured with a puzzled grin, though the creature did not look very convinced. Bardock wasn't convinced either, he now wondered if the herbivorous people of Yardrat would taste delicious.

But before he could tell his son to speak for himself, Kakarot quickly changed the subject. "How did you get here so suddenly? I didn't sense you at all!"

"Sense" was a strange way to phrase it, but perhaps one could refer to refined Saiyan instincts and senses like that.

The Yardratian still seemed fazed by the bloody dinner they had been enjoying, but managed to stutter out a reply. "U-uh. Easy, it's just teleportation."

Kakarot's eyes gleamed with sudden curiosity and admiration, but Biru didn't seem to think of it as a big deal. "So, I see you people found each other? And… apparently found a common tone right off the bat."

Kakarot laughed, amused for some reason. "Oh, yeah! Turned out this guy's my dad!"

Biru's mouth formed a circle that perfectly imitated the shape of his head. "What, really?!" he exclaimed, genuinely shocked. "That's… oddly convenient. Cool all the same, though!"

Bardock wondered if he as a Yardrat could even tell the two of them looked very much alike, or if all Saiyans looked the same to him much like all Yardrats looked the same to Bardock.

The pile of bones didn't seem to bother the kid anymore. He was too busy pointing his strange, blank face at Bardock, accompanied by one of the creepy smiles of his kind. "I bet it was super nice meeting him again, since he was dead and all!"

Kakarot laughed and dismissed his words with a wave of his hand. "We hadn't really met before. This guy, Freeza, killed him and apparently most of the other Saiyans off when I was still a baby", he explained, without a hint of weight behind his words. Bardock doubted he had really spent a lot of time wondering about his origins.

Biru pulled up short and leaned forward. "Freeza? You mean THE Freeza?"

"Yeah? You know him?" Kakarot asked, as if it hadn't been a norm for people all over the galaxy to know the tyrant's name by heart. Biru nodded cautiously, glancing furtively around him, afraid the bigwig himself might've been spying on them somewhere behind the trees.

"Yes. His army attacked our planet not too long ago. They've been chasing us down for weeks, trying to take over this planet and learn our tricks!" Biru explained spreading his arms dramatically.

That detail caught Bardock's attention. Knowing their "tricks" from earlier, and after what Raditz had told him, he figured the people assigned for this planet weren't any of the weaker goons. Even with the head honcho dead, that could mean big trouble for them.

"Who attacked you exactly? And where are they now?" he asked before Kakarot could chime in.

As the kid started to explain, he pointed his hand at a random direction. "They attacked the capital, about 20 000 kilometers that way. I've heard people referring to them as… as Ginyuu something."

"The Ginyuu Force", Bardock blurted in unison with Kakarot. The two of them exchanged knowing looks, Bardock clenching his fists tightly around his arms. That was bad news.

Freeza's elite could easily hunt down the three of them and could already be on their way after he had forced Kakarot to transform. As they were now, they would be no match against their squad.

"They're… here? But I'm pretty sure they're all dead", Kakarot said thoughtfully. Biru tilted his head.

"Why would they be dead? They're super strong!" Biru doubted, scratching his non-existent chin. Bardock too, wanted Kakarot to be more specific.

His son pointed one finger up out of an apparent habit as he began recalling a series of events. "Right before I arrived here, I was on Namek and these Ginyuu people were there as well. I beat them up pretty bad, and Vegeta killed them all afterwards. Well, one of them turned into a frog, but I think he's also either dead or on Earth right now."

Together with Biru, Bardock stared at his son in awe. It should not have come as a surprise by now, the fact that he could single-handedly eliminate all of Freeza's elite fighters, but the gap in power between them just didn't seem to stop baffling him.

"You what?! You beat them up?! Seriously?!" Biru gasped, probably having not realized what kind of a powerhouse he was dealing with until now. "Wouldn't that make you, like, crazy strong?!"

"Crazy strong" was the appropriate way of describing that rogue Saiyan youth. Biru stood in a moment of admiring silence as Kakarot confidently smirked at him. "No wonder nobody's heard of those guys in a good few days. Some of us were worried you were them, and that you were back to kill us all, but wow…! I can't believe it turned out to be you who actually took care of them! I'm sure you'll win them over once I tell everyone what you did, even if you killed a few animals!"

Bardock rolled his eyes at the unnecessary remark, annoyed at the beings' stupid vegetarian mentality. That's when Biru seemed to remember something. "Speaking of the others… Um, Turkiis sent me here to get you. You really shouldn't be getting out of bed yet, your bones are all messed up, they said!"

Kakarot's face fell hearing the news he must have been afraid to hear this whole time. With a grimace of reluctance he shook his head, and said: "No way, they had horrible meals! And I don't have time to be lying around in hospitals!"

The blue alien put his hands on his waist and assertively tapped his shoe against the ground. The universal sign of impatience. "Mister, you're injured and you can hardly move around on your own. They said that you will take much longer to heal up if you don't go back and even then you might heal wrong! Do you want that?"

For a being that hardly passed for a humanoid, he sure had a talent for sounding just like a certain Saiyan woman Bardock knew. Kakarot groaned loudly into his knees, pondering the scarce options he had at his disposal. If he was anything like other Saiyans and had even a trace of their pride, he probably didn't want to depend on Bardock to help him to a meal again.

"Ugh. Fine. I guess you don't have any senzu beans here, either…"

Biru blinked with a polite smile. "What's that?"

"That's a no."

Resigned to his fate he once again started his admirable efforts to get up on his legs, but Biru was quick to deter such intentions. He ran over to the injured Saiyan, pushing him back down. "No, no! No need for that, mr. Broken Bones! My Instant transmission will get us both back there in a jiffy!"

"You can teleport others, too?" Kakarot marveled, clearly impressed. Biru nodded with a proud smile. It was becoming apparent to him that an everyday skill for him was an amazing feat to an alien.

Kakarot relaxed as he was told, and grabbed Biru by the shoulder soon as he signed him to do so. All set and ready to go, the younger Saiyan then turned back to Bardock. "I guess I'll see you around, then? Oh, and there's something I want to ask of you."

Bardock cocked his head to the side, waiting for him to go on.

"I don't really trust Raditz not to do something bad to the people here. Could you keep him at bay, at least until I'm well enough to do so myself?"

Biru twitched uncomfortably, probably perplexed by the accusations, but said nothing. Bardock looked Kakarot in the eye, and saw it in his expression that the request was genuine. Despite how weak Raditz was in comparison to him now, he seemingly still worried that the man would make good on his ancient threats to kill everyone on the planet, Earth or not.

Bardock doubted Raditz could successfully kill even one. Perhaps Biru, since he apparently had no sense of self-preservation.

"Listen. Just because I commend you and respect your feats, it doesn't make me a 'good' guy in your book", Bardock said, speaking in a clear voice to make his opinion clear. The trust in Kakarot's stare wouldn't falter still, and Bardock could sense a hint of adamancy behind that friendly mask.

He sighed.

"Fine, as a sign of gratitude for defeating Freeza, I'll grant your request. That brat isn't stepping out of line as long as I stand in watch."

"Great, thanks!" There was not a fraction of relief in Kakarot's body language, just pure cheerful gratitude. It truly was aggravating that, in a way, he seemed to know that Bardock wouldn't turn him down in this matter.

"You even beat the tyrant?!" Biru exclaimed in pure, almost frightened awe. Bardock could not hear the rest of that discussion before the two of them poofed out of his sight, leaving him alone in the soothing silence.

Silence, and the exhaustive realization of having finally met the son from his visions. His son, the Super Saiyan of the legends, and a being so fearsomely strong he had made Freeza's entire army seem like a joke. Back then when Bardock had died, he had still felt young, a male in his prime. Now he felt old, expired, outclassed.

When it was his own blood, it wasn't really a bad thing. Damn, there was no ounce in his body that didn't stand proud to call that bizarre Saiyan his son. But still, he felt empty.

All those years spent in hell, he had unknowingly spent harboring but one goal. Freeza was dead and with him everything that fueled his vigor. Kakarot had already executed his vision, much quicker than anyone would have known to expect.

Bardock walked along a natural ridge by the woods, gazing down at the city and the sun that slowly made its way up in the skies. What now, then? He had never known to plan what to do with his life should he be revived. There was no Planet Vegeta, there were no Saiyans, and there was nowhere to go. The life had gone on without him.

It seemed that he would have to recreate his place and purpose in the world, one way or another. But before that… he had one Raditz to find.