High above a storm-swept archipelago, Vegeta floated in perfect stillness, legs crossed, aura retracted to a paper-thin layer of violet fire.
Days had blurred into one long, exquisite grind.
No sleep. No food. Only breath, ki, and the endless war inside his own body.
Every cycle of meditation pushed the ocean of power deeper into his bones. Control that had once been a suggestion was now absolute law.
He could feel individual cells humming like an orchestra.
Two million five hundred thousand had only been the opening act.
Now? He was something else entirely.
Vegeta exhaled once, slow and deliberate, and the clouds beneath him parted as if bowing.
His eyes snapped open black, predatory, amused.
Footsteps in the distance. Two ki signatures.
One small, frightened, flickering (a child).
One large, brutish, and charging straight at him like a pink meteor with a death wish.
Dodoria.
Vegeta's lips curved into a slow, vicious smile.
"Perfect timing, pig."
He remembered the script perfectly:
Dodoria chases Dende.
Krillin and Gohan intervene.
Dodoria is about to turn them into red paste…
and original Vegeta drops in, murders Dodoria in three seconds flat, then walks away like he's taking out the trash.
Except this time the gap wasn't a canyon.
It was a different universe.
Dodoria's ki was a bonfire.
Vegeta's was a star gone supernova.
He didn't bother powering up. No dramatic aura flare. No speech.
He simply waited, arms loose at his sides, tail flicking once in anticipation.
Far below, Dodoria rocketed over the waves, face twisted in rage.
"Damn brat! When I find you and those two bald bastards, I'll crush you into "
His voice died.
Because the Saiyan prince was suddenly there, hanging in the air directly in his path, smiling like death wearing royal armor.
Dodoria's eyes bulged.
"V-Vegeta?!"
Vegeta tilted his head, voice soft, almost kind.
"You're late, Dodoria."
Then he moved.
One instant he was twenty meters away.
The next, his fist was buried knuckle-deep in Dodoria's gut.
The sound was wet thunder.
Dodoria's mouth opened in a perfect O.
All two hundred and fifty kilos of him folded around Vegeta's arm like wet paper.
Air, spit, and blood exploded from his lungs in a single explosive cough.
Vegeta didn't stop.
He twisted, elbow screaming upward, catching Dodoria under the jaw hard enough to snap spines and shatter teeth.
The pink mountain shot skyward like a missile, unconscious before he even started falling.
Vegeta watched him rise, then fall, then caught him by one ankle on the way down.
He dangled the limp body like a broken toy.
Somewhere behind a distant island, two small ki signatures (Krillin and Dende) froze in pure, disbelieving terror.
Vegeta glanced their way, smirked, and spoke just loud enough to carry.
"Run along, bald man. Take the kid. This one's mine."
He turned back to the unconscious Dodoria, grip tightening until bone creaked.
"Wake up."
A pulse of ki straight into the spine.
Dodoria jolted awake with a strangled scream.
Vegeta's face filled his vision calm, regal, and utterly without mercy.
"You have exactly three seconds to tell me where Frieza is keeping the Dragon Balls."
Dodoria tried to speak. Only blood came out.
Vegeta sighed.
"Wrong answer."
He flicked his wrist.
A single finger beam, thin as a needle, punched clean through Dodoria's forehead.
The massive body went limp again this time forever.
Vegeta released the ankle.
Dodoria dropped like a stone, hit the ocean, and sank without a splash.
The Prince of Saiyans wiped a speck of blood from his gauntlet, expression unchanged.
"One down."
He looked toward the horizon, eyes narrowing.
"Your turn next, Zarbon."
Then, quieter, almost gentle:
"And after that… Frieza."
The hunt had officially begun.