And setting their course towards it the Edain came at last over leagues of sea and saw afar the land that was prepared for them, Andor, the Land of Gift, shimmering in a golden haze. Then they went up out of the sea and found a country fair and fruitful, and they were glad. And they called that land Elenna, which is Starwards; but also Anadûnë, which is Westernesse, Númenórë in the High Eldarin tongue.
"We fought in a battle, nobody won. And now we face a mountain to be overcome."
[ Intro ] [ Ch. 2 - Aftermath ]
Pairing: Raditz x Female Saiyan Reader
Timeline: canon divergent. saiyan saga - post cell games/7 year time skip
Rating: T
Warning: ( canon-typical violence, mutually unresolved feelings leading to a slow burn, foul language, childhood friends, character death )
A/N: the placeholder name stuck so now that I named it, I am committed to taking it all the way to the sappy, emotional ending that keeps playing over and over in my head where everyone lives happily ever after adjacent
Tagging: @mothlings-blog, @amska1234, @emmacornell (tagging you just cause ♥ )
Your thoughts could barely finish themselves with your heart racing with anticipation. You felt like you were boiling in bitter hatred, it was like you couldn't come down after the catastrophe of Raditz's arrival on Earth, and all the loathsome days that followed the events of confronting him creating a bigger disaster. In the silent room, you slumped in your chair, thumping your tail anxiously against the structure and staring down the containment on the table in front of you. Deeply thinking why you were torturing yourself with its presence. There were so many odds against survival bearing down on your home— the planet you grew to call your home in the four years you were here— that you were willing to take a risk and bargain a deal with the devil to put things right again. It was the least you could do to try.
Rubbing the weariness from your eyes, you sit up enough and grasp the fractured green scouter, sliding it to you and looking it over for the umpteenth time as if some new feature was going to expose itself once again. They had improved drastically from your old model that you couldn't help finding fascination in it despite the trouble it's caused you so far, the irony of stretching its importance to find it so useless now. Bulma's meddling with it over the last few days certainly did not ease the situation at hand either but it at least opened up some clues to the withheld secrets you never got to discuss.
Slowly inhaling, you closed both your hands around the tech and practically folded it against its construction, crumbling it into pieces and letting them clatter against the table, turning your dark eyes once again to the container across from you with a heavy sigh. Taking it in one hand you slide your chair back from the table and tear off the inscribed talisman, proceeding to throw the bottle against the baseboard and unleashing a thick smoke upon its shattering. The air around its broken pieces filled out a tall silhouette, clearing away to a breathless and battered Raditz shakily holding his exposed wound through his broken armor. His eyes bounce around to take in the unfamiliar surroundings before settling on you.
"What was so important to you, you needed him?" You ask him with coldness to your tone, slowly turning in your chair to face him and narrowing your eyes into a glare. "Choose your words wisely."
He seemed caught in a mix of feelings, just as anxious and angry as he was disheveled and reeling from the shock of his battle. A hand pressed to the wall to help him steady himself as he fixed his eyes to glare back at you, swallowing a mix of spit and blood from his lip down. "I-I don't owe you an explanation." He rasps, setting off a fire inside you.
"Yes, you do." You started to seethe, tail brimming with your anger. Immediately, you jump to your feet throwing the chair down and stomping over towards him. "—Yes you do! Why did you kill him?! If he was necessary for you to be here, why did you kill Kakarot?!" You raged, voice scratching your throat as it left your lips. "Your own brother!"
Raditz stood silent and unshaken by your sudden shouting. He assesses you, reading into your delay to attack and picking up on how all the wounds you took from battling him just seemed to be missing. Meanwhile, he could barely stand on his own two feet. Yet you insisted on interrogating him for that. What was stopping you from finishing him off right now if you were so mad? Just how long had he been trapped inside that weird jar that you were completed healed by now? He then lowers his eyes with the news settling on him, seeming further distant from cooperating. He does remember the attack he left in the wake of his brother's persistent resolve to defy him, learning the runt didn't survive it however...Raditz didn't feel the satisfaction he thought he wanted from that immediately. How he trained himself to cope with such unwanted feelings made him laugh in response to how piqued you were about it all instead.
"He's better off dead." He sneered and winced, lowering himself against the wall with his tail hanging loose around his waist, carefully clenching his most severe wound. "H-he should have done what he was sent here for, instead that weakling let this planet spoil him. T-That low-class warrior was lucky I-I gave him a chance to fight." It took so much of your self-restraint not to attack right then, clenching your fists so tight your nails drew blood from your palms.
"...You could have just left." You muttered through your clenched jaw. You and Goku gave him that chance more than once, you even went as far as insisting the scouter was more important than killing Raditz outright to get it. It wasn't a lie that killing him might just attract his squad, but the truth was you were still trying to spare him in the wake of your old bond. Unfortunately, that history seemed lost to time on him and you didn't want to accept that. You're not kids anymore, you're not even friends anymore. Not after what he's done.
"So you're going to finish me off now for killing my own brother?" He follows up seeming to be pleased to utter that fact. "-Or you're going to try to let me go again? That's how you pathetic earthlings do it around here, I take it. So which is it?" You take in another deep breath to level yourself out, looking off to the side and swallowing down your pride.
"Prince Vegeta is coming." You confess calmly. "To Earth."
"What?" Raditz gaped up at you with shock. "H-He's coming to Earth for me?" You turn your eyes back down to him, through his pained expression you watched the sensation of joy in his rising grin and the triumphant cackle that followed. "I knew they wouldn't abandon me here! The hell you're all going to pay when they do-"
"-He is not coming for you." Your cold tone rears itself again. "It's the dragon balls he wants." The excitement fell from his face as Raditz stared back at you. It was the most rewarding thing you got over the last few days, but hard to get past the numbness you felt in place of it. Turning back to your downed chair, you bring it back on all fours and take a seat in it. "You see, once we got our hands on this-" Spoken as you smacked the pieces of the broken scouter at his feet. "-We got to know a little somethin' about your squad." An indirect encounter and a huge mistake in the long run, yours and Bulma's tampering exposed the assumed deactivated scouter to your conversation about reviving Goku and therefore the listeners on the other side of the magical dragon balls. They got enough out of that to tempt them to set them bound for the Earth.
Folding your arms, you tilt your head slightly with a smug grin. "We lied and told him you fled elsewhere after we kicked your ass. 'Good riddance to Weak Little Raditz,' as he put it. So we told him you were dead instead to try to keep him from coming here and he didn't change a beat." You explained further, chuckling to yourself. "That tells me you were just as expendable as you deemed us." A look of fear quickly took hold of him and he lowers his head in his shock. "Nothing to stop us "pathetic earthlings" from avenging Kakarot now."
Dread washed over him, that's just it, then- After all of that, he's doomed to this stupid planet whether he's alive or dead? He was worthless to those he was close to for so long? You—You were going to kill him now?!
"-But you could fight with us instead, Raditz." The bargain with the devil. "It's the least you could do for getting us involved in your bullshit."
You don't think you've ever seen a more frightful, wide-eyed stare than the way he looked at you. How the hairs of his tail stood up and he jerked his head with an aggressive shake. "You're delusional if you think you can defeat Nappa and Vegeta!" He barked, wincing at how that racked his wounded body, Raditz pushing through pain attempting to climb back up to his feet. "Y-You couldn't even beat me! You, Kakarot, that Namekian- you're all going to suffer when Vegeta and Nappa arrive here. You'll see, they'll rejoice at finding me still alive when I drop all your bodies at their feet!"
You watched him stagger, managing to get to a knee with drips of blood forming around him and urging himself with exhaustion to climb back up on two feet to find the nearest exit. He's fleeing, and very poorly.
"...Soon, we'll have Kakarot back to fight too. Depending on your cooperation, we could have your strength on our side as well." You insisted. "We could stand a chance-"
"I'm not going to help you freaks do anything!"
"You think they want your help, you gutless shit?! After what you did?!" You snapped back, slamming your fist through the table as you jump up once more and put yourself in his path. "I'm the only one giving you this chance to live, Raditz! Are you too stupid to even see that much?! You step outside this house in your wounded state, and I guarantee you will die!" Your body was brimming, shaking with rage and radiating energy. "Everyone knows what you did to Kakarot by now, any moment they'll figure out I stole the sealed containment that held you, I freed you to give you a chance! They will track your energy and be on your ass before you could reach that door! They will come right here to finish you off for what you did!" You huffed with rage tearing your throat again until your voice cracked. "So you can die like some crippled animal by the hands of some deeply pissed-off Earthlings, or get out and deal with the namekian who damn sure is waiting to take advantage of your weak state, or better yet you can chance survivin' and fight with us like a real warrior!—A true saiyan who fights for the glory of his family, for their home!"
"Shut up already! What's stopping you then, huh?!" He barks back, shunning his wounds and snatching you by your collar. "You don't get spew that at me, you traitorous brat! I am the elite saiyan warrior here! Try to finish me off yourself if you think you are worth it! Even like this, I could pulverize you!"
"Well I'm not giving you a choice anymore then, am I?! You fight with us or I kick your ass right here and now for calling me soft!"
"Twerp!"
"Fathead!"
It was a vicious stare down between you, puffing with heated snarls and contempt, practically in each other's faces ready to go for each other's throats. You hated this so much, you hated what he has done to himself to be this cowardly excuse of a saiyan warrior. Every part of you screamed to take his stupid head and put it through the wall. And then another and another and another. But it could never make right everything else that's happened to get you here, it couldn't fix all the lost time between you or make what was to come easier to deal with without his help. Yielding with an exasperated sigh, you snatch yourself free from his grip and turn away.
"Stop doing that! Stop backing down from me!" Raditz snarls at you, left staring at your back when you don't react to him. His brow arches with disbelief at you. He actually expected you to take the chance to fight him now that you were riled up. Something familiar knocked loose in his memory, once again soured by the opposite taking place. "...Who even are you anymore?" He sneers lowly, squeezing his bloody hand against the drenched wound.
You turn back to glance over your shoulder towards him before moving away. "What do you even care?"
