Chapter 6: What Redemption?

  “Take it easy man!” the thug said.

  Vegeta slapped Burdwell across the face, the man sliding across the concrete to smear his blood across the street. He was in good company with the other mobsters Vegeta had stopped that day, most of them lying on the ground in pain. There were ten in total and he’d already killed their boss after taking back the money he’d stolen from the city.

  The Saiyan was doing his best to hold back his strength but regular humans were just too fragile. Even the slightest pressure seemed to break every bone in their body or permanently cripple them. However, Vegeta wasn’t a fan of sparing villains. If they died at his hands, they died. If they lived through their injuries, they’d be taught a lesson.

  Most of the thugs had survived Vegeta’s extremely suppressed punches. The last one he hit in the face was an exception but it got the point across. The mobsters that lived struggled to their feet, looking up at him with pure fear. To them he was nothing but an angel of death, a being beyond rational explanation.

  “Leave,” Vegeta said.

  The eight of the ten mobsters fled, scrambling to their feet in a hurry. They fled into the night at the field at the edge of the town. The brawl that broke out was at the periphery of Gingertown where no one could see. Vegeta did not want anyone to see the disturbance.

  After killing their mob boss, he sent a letter to the other angered mobsters that it was him who did it. After stating where he would be at what time, they surrounded him, thinking they could take him. When they all ganged up on Vegeta they were surprised when bullets didn’t even faze him. It was his turn to teach them a lesson and drive them out.

  He sighed before walking down the street, no one occupying this part of Gingertown for the time being. Vegeta had seen to that. After a little bit of walking down the street he found a fat man in a business suit with a large mustache smiling up at Vegeta.

  The Saiyan hoped with all his might the night obscured him from all sight but he knew there were other prying eyes. The mayor would not allow himself to be met under the cover of darkness without others keeping track of him in case Vegeta wanted to trick or hurt him. He understood that well.

  “We found Mr. Borbonne with a hole in his chest this morning,” the mayor said. “We assumed that was your work.”

  “It was,” Vegeta said. “I found as much money as I could in that scumbag’s office and gave it back to the commerce council of Gingertown. I hope you don’t mind me giving it to them rather than you.”

  “Not at all,” the mayor said. “Any funds we find stolen are given to them to hand out to the residents of Gingertown anyway. They keep better track of the deficiency in finances for each resident since Borbonne infiltrated our town than I ever could.”

  “That reminds me,” Vegeta said.

  He reached underneath his blue shirt to hand the mayor a stack of hundreds in his pocket.

  “I found some more when I was taking care of Borbonne’s henchmen,” he said. “I figured it was another amount he pilfered from your citizens.”

  “Thank-you,” he said.

  He ran his hands through the tops of the bills, laughing a little as he did.

  “I’ll be sure to return this to any citizens lacking in funds to get this,” he said. “So…why must we meet under the cover of night? Don’t tell me someone as strong as you fears retribution from us mere mortals.”

  Even though Vegeta didn’t show it, the mention of his strength pierced him a bolt of pure pain. He could only think of Goku standing in front of him, his qi so large it was hurting Vegeta just to stand before it. The fact that he’d been resurrected from the dead was trivial in comparison to the Super Saiyan before him. He could even see his soft grin.

  “Scared?” he asked. “Glad you didn’t become this?”

  The memory hurt him, causing Vegeta to wince in pain. He turned around in pain, not wanting anyone to see him crying. The mayor ran after him, crying as Vegeta fled into the air.

  “Wait!” the mayor shouted. “Did I offend you?! I’m sorry! Please, my condolences-!”

  By the time Vegeta was above the skyline, the mayor was already out of earshot. As Vegeta soared through the night sky, he grit his teeth in pain, his heart still stinging. Tears stung his eyes as he landed in some woods miles from Gingertown. His boots slammed into the forest floor, scaring squirrels, deer and racoons away as he leaned against a tree. He placed his head on the trunk, tears running down his face as he sniveled.

  “Glad you didn’t become this?”

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  The words repeated in Vegeta’s mind like the continuous lash of a whip. He couldn’t stop ruminating on it, couldn’t stop feeling pain over it, couldn’t stop crying over it. Everything in him wished he could pull those words out of his mind and cast them into the ocean. Everything about those words had offended Vegeta’s world when he first heard of them.

  Yes. He admitted. Yes I am.

  When he saw Goku he knew exactly what he was. What the Super Saiyan was. He was a slave.

  You had no freewill of your own. Vegeta understood. No ambition, no incentive except to the souls that force you to fight. It…It was the complete opposite way to live and gain strength the Saiyans taught me!

  That realization broke Vegeta more than anything. The knowledge that he had been pushed, pressured, and forced by his father and Freeza to be ruthless and attain strength was wrong…it killed him in a way Freeza never could. Knowing that the path he had been put on didn’t achieve the legendary might of the Super Saiyan but was the complete opposite of how to ascend.

  And once you did…He thought. You were a slave to those…those things that formed the Trampled Innocence. Those souls that composed Goku when I saw him after transforming…I recognized some of them. I saw some of those I slaughtered while laughing.

  He lifted his head from the tree, still grappling with the curse of the Super Saiyan transformation.

  How was I supposed to know it was all a lie? Vegeta wondered. How was I supposed to know everything I did was the opposite of what was right?

  He slammed his forehead into the tree, nearly snapping the tree in half as the wood was deeply dented.

  Everything! He screamed inside himself. Everything was wrong! Right from the start! I don’t become a Super Saiyan through ruthless aggression! But only being gifted through kindness!

  And that only made him glad he had never taken Goku’s path of selflessness. If he had, it meant he would never be free again. He would be controlled by a multitude of others, a multitude without count.

  So…? He wondered. Do I not regret my evil? Am I glad to be a murderous sociopath? Just so I’d never lose control of my own being and be assimilated into the Trampled Innocence?

  Vegeta lifted his head from the dented tree, feeling solace in that.

  Could I be glad that I was as wicked as I was? He thought. I would rather be my own person than both powerful and possessed.

  Then remembered the day Goku appeared to him on the shore of Kame House. He mentioned Patata. He said she was waiting for him. And it made Vegeta hate himself all the more.

  “Patata wants you to join her in the afterlife,” he said. “She wants you to make it to Heaven.”

  The mention of her name…it hurt Vegeta more than anything. More than realizing he could never be the Super Saiyan of legend, more than realizing he’d never want to become the Super Saiyan of legend, more than Freeza killing him. Just the mention of her name. The acknowledgment of her existence.

  Patata. Vegeta thought. You hurt me.

  The smiling face of the Saiyan girl…he knew it. It was so paradoxical how deeply etched in his mind it was and how much he’d forgotten it. It was like a beautiful, incredibly detailed portrait etched in stone that had been covered in eons of darkness. Something so real, so visible, so defined yet had not been seen by man for thousands of years.

  Vegeta had pushed Patata’s existence out of his mind for decades at this point. He didn’t even want to acknowledge she was real. That she was just a dream he made up to cope with the pain of his Saiyan training. But now…now he could deny it no longer.

  Her existence was like a treasure that was just beyond his grasp. A trove of silver and gold his fingers had grazed but he could not hold. Vegeta felt no relief at acknowledging her existence. Only a burden on his back so heavy he couldn’t stand.

  I will never see you. He thought. I will never see you again. My sins…they are too great to ever reach where you are. My crimes are the stuff of legend. I cannot…I’m afraid…I’m afraid I cannot join you.

  He finally admitted it to himself. He finally told himself the truth. The thing that bothered Vegeta since Goku had mentioned her. Vegeta couldn’t care for heaven but the idea that he could see Patata, he could be where she was…it gave him hope. A poisonous, toxic hope that made him crawl across the rocky, splintered ground to attain it. The treasure of seeing her, being with her, was up the highest mountain and he had only scaled the first ten feet.

  I will never see you Patata! He screamed. Never! For each good deed I do, I have a thousand I committed as a Saiyan warrior! No man as wicked as I can atone for the hundreds of millions of lives I destroyed!

  He continued to sob at the thought. It all came to him at once. The last sight Vegeta had of her before she was incinerated by Nappa. The rage, the pain, the feeling like he was living on the edge of a blade, it all came flooding back to him. The day he made his choice to become a Saiyan warrior to impress his father…Vegeta realized it was the worst decision he ever made.

  If I had chosen to die along with you, Patata, I would be in paradise now. He thought. My life in this horrid realm we call the mortal world would be over and I’d enjoy her company in the afterlife! The reason I chose…I chose to make my journey in life more difficult and reject the heavenly was…because I was a coward.

  He grabbed his hair, wishing to rip it right out of his skull.

  How can I make up for every deed I ever did?! Vegeta thought. How many deeds will it take?! How many villains will I have to slay, innocents I’ll have to rescue?! Will I have to commit one pure hearted act for every evil action?! That would take my whole life! And that would just be to make me even! How many will it take to prove me worthy of seeing Patata?!

  “Vegeta,” he said. “You’re thinking of this the wrong way. You can’t undo all your evil with a good deed to compensate. I told you…just-!”

  “Get away from me!” Vegeta shouted.

  He shot a blast of qi behind him, knowing that was where Goku would appear. He could never forget his voice after the Saiyan cursed him with new morality. After burning a few trees to cinders, Vegeta raced forward into the darkness as he crashed through the underbrush and branches in front of him.

  This…Vegeta thought. This isn’t enough…no amount of good deeds are! I have accumulated too much wickedness in my life for any amount of good to be acceptable!

  The Saiyan crashed into the forest floor below, angry this is what his life was, stuck between two realities of himself. One where he was a bloodthirsty warlord, one where he was desperately trying to make amends. And both were just to please someone.

  I should stop this foolhardy quest for redemption. He thought. It’s just giving me more pain than anything else.

  “I should stop pretending I'm something I'm not,” Vegeta said.

  And just as he expected Goku to appear behind him and say something contrary, the voice that whispered into his ear was far different.

  “Yes,” it said. “You should.”