He should have known that this was too good to last.

He only just managed to hear a whistling sound, and then, suddenly, something hit Kamina HARD in the back, throwing him straight down, towards the city far below him. An expression that was a mixture of shock and pain spread across his face, his eyes widening as he tried to turn around to see what had hit him, only just managing to see a dark blur flying straight towards him, as he managed to halt his own fall, floating in mid-air.
“The hell…?” Kamina muttered, the pained expression still on his face as the blur moved straight towards him, gliding through the air around them far faster and far easier than Kamina had been able to…
The pained expression quickly returned to Kamina’s face as a blow to the face sent him reeling back, only just managing to stop his movement with a blast of ki in the opposite direction.
That was a punch. He was sure that he had felt something like knuckles hitting his face. Reaching up, he traced his hand along his chin as he looked around, trying to get a look at his attacker… who came soaring at him from the side this time, dealing another blow that sent Kamina flying.
Finally getting a chance to look at the hand that he had trailed across his chin, Kamina had a chance to see the blood on it… his eyes widening in panic.
What the hell was going on? Who the hell was doing this to him? He hadn’t fought anyone this strong before…
And then, he just glimpsed a flash of light as a blast came soaring at him from the distance, giving him a second to move out of the way… only barely avoiding the attack.
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE!?” he shouted, looking around as he tried to find his opponent once more… and this time… finally seeing him.
A man clad in a strange armor, with long black hair that stood out in all directions and a small goatee… he wore a strange device, almost like some kinda transparent sunglasses over his left eye, though it was attached to a rather fancy earpiece.
The man was huge. Easily one and a half time Kamina’s height and the same for width. His muscles were, well, rather exaggerated… but there was no denying the man’s actual strength. Kamina stared at him, wide-eyed, as the man chuckled as his disbelief.
“Well, well… Is that all you can do… boy?” the man asked, as he crossed his arms over his chest, while he hovered, just staring at Kamina.
“Who the hell are you!?” Kamina shouted back, as he slowly backed away, moving into a defensive position as he stared towards the man. He wasn’t used to fighting in the air… after all, it wasn’t like a whole lot of people could actually fly, so the number of people he actually had the chance to fight like this was… well… He hadn’t tried doing it before.
His opponent obviously didn’t have the same problem.
In an instant, he moved to the side, and before Kamina knew what was happening, the big guy was coming in from the other side, delivering an elbow to Kamina’s side. Kamina groaned in pain as he grasped his side… he was sure that some of the ribs were bent, if not cracked… and the big man was just chuckling.
“My oh my… is that really all you can do? No matter you were sent to a weak planet like this... Can’t even take a single blow before going down… Wimp.”
The feelings that were running through Kamina’s body were completely foreign to him… he had not felt anything like this before… panic, fear… he had never been in a situation he couldn’t handle before… Nothing where he had a chance of doing anything, at least… Oyaji’s death had been slow, but it was old age… he could deal with it… nothing to be scared of… sad, yeah… but this? This overpowered feeling, not having a chance in hell against the demon that came mercilessly at him, taunting him all the time? It was a completely different feeling than anything else he had felt before… And feeling like this scared him more than anything else right now.
“WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?” he literally screamed at the top of his lungs as he spun towards the enemy, ki gathering into his hands and being released into a massive blast as he reached in for everything he got, awakening the power the he knew he held within.
The blast immediately prompted the man to throw up his arms before his face, protecting it, before, panting heavily, Kamina lowered his hands, simply glaring at the man, as he held his side with a pained look on his face, his body almost glowing with the energy that he fought to keep up.
As he lowered his arms, the man chuckled once more.
“I am Salat… Saiyan Warrior!” he stated loudly, as he pounded his chest once… just as his tail uncurled from around his waist, waving around.
Kamina just stared at the tail. It was just like his own.
“You… you have a tail… like me…?”
He was dumbfounded. The panic was giving way to confusion… but the fear was still there.
“Aye, boy. Seems like there was an error in the pod that you were sent here in… you were never taught just what you were sent here to do, after all,” he said, still chuckling as Kamina tried backing away. Similar tail or not… he wasn’t sticking around. Until a ki blast from Salat that passed right by his face stopped him. “Stay and listen, boy. Let me tell you just who you are! After all, your dad sent me here!”
Kamina blinked once. “My… dad?”
“Aye. Now shut up and listen. You’re a saiyan, boy. Just like me and your dad. Proud warriors, spreading terror across the galaxy, conquering planets and star systems! We send our kids out a few days after they’re born, the spacepods telling them everything… But it seems like your pod was malfunctioning! No learning, no telling you what you can do and all that… and you even ended up on the wrong planet! You got no idea how long we’ve been looking for you!” he blurted out, throwing his hands out to the side and laughing. “Your daddy want you back at Vegeta, he’s planning some kinda coup and want you in on it!”
Kamina just stared at Salat. Was this guy for real? Of course, it made sense, but…
“Why’d you attack me then!?” he blurted out.
“Had to sense how strong you were, boy. Of course you’re a disappointment, but a few months under my eye and you’ll be up to saiyan standard power in no time!”
“Up… to?” Kamina muttered. Oh God… he didn’t have a chance against this guy. Everything he said, it just sounded like a crazy guy talking, but still… somehow… he knew the guy wasn’t lying. But even then… he had lived here his entire life… he had learned here, not on Vegeta… not by the man who had sent Salat, his father… and he had no relation at all to this guy.
“So, you coming boy?” Salat asked, as he turned away from Vegeta. “It’s a long journey, and you got a lot of catching up to do, after all!”
“Coming…?” Kamina asked, as he looked down at the city below for a moment. “To conquer, spread terror and all that? Become a saiyan warrior or something like that?” His hair hid his eyes for a moment, as he reached into his cloak.
“Aye! To see glorious conquest, battle and carnage!” Salat blurted out, turning to Kamina once more. Of course, he completely failed to catch the tone in Kamina’s words.
“WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM!?” Kamina shouted at the top of his lungs as he looked up, sporting his sunglasses as his cloak suddenly moved in the wind. “You talk of oppression, hatred, killing people and just being plain out evil! And what the HELL makes you think I would, for even ONE second consider going along with you!?”
Salat simply glared at Kamina… and if a look could kill…

“That I’m allowed to kill you if you don’t, boy…”

Kamina didn’t flinch. He had expected something like that. But he was going to die before he went with this guy. He stanched himself, gathering his hands together as he begun powering up, focusing energy like Roshi had taught him.
“Oh come on! You want to fight me you punk! Your power level’s not even 8000, for crying out loud!” Salat shouted, as glared at Kamina.
“Ka… ME…” Kamina said, as ki energy gathered into a ball between his hands.
“MY POWER LEVEL IS OVER 9000 YOU PUNK! THE LIKES OF YOU DON’T STAND A CHANCE!” Salat practically screamed at Kamina now.
“Ha… ME…” Kamina continued, as the energy continued to solidify into the ball.
The look in Salat’s eyes changed… to confusion. “Your power level… is increasing?” he asked, seemingly not understanding a word of what was happening.
“HA!” Kamina suddenly shouted as he thrust his hands forward, releasing the powerful blast directly at Salat at point blank range.
Smoke rose from Salat’s body as the Kamehameha enveloped him, seemingly pushing him back… until suddenly, the moment that Kamina let up, Salat emerged from the blast, parts of his armor destroyed, his hands held above his head as he moved in at Kamina. “THAT HURT YOU PUNK!!!” he shouted as he slammed his hands down, directly into Kamina, sending him flying directly towards the city below.

The wind pulled at Kamina’s hair and cloak as he desperately tried to stop his fall, but the power that he had been hit with was far greater than before… and he could not risk releasing a blast of ki to stop his fall, who knew what damage it would do to the buildings below? Or the people in them, for that matter?
Not that any precautions that Kamina wanted to take would have mattered… as he didn’t exactly have any time to react before he slammed into the ground in the middle of a busy street with enough force to send several cars flying away from him.
As people ran towards the point of impact to see Kamina in the hole, Salat hovered above, his arms crossed as he looked down at Kamina. “Do you see the strength of a true saiyan warrior, boy!? The strength of one such as I who have survived hardships to become stronger!” he shouted.
The people that had previously looked down at Kamina, who was struggling to get to his feet, finally began to panic as Salat raised his hand, glowing energy gathering in a ball that hovered just before him, before being shot out in a beam. The small beam hit directly through Kamina’s shoulder, causing him to scream in pain as it cut a hole clean through, before, finally, he managed to get out of the hole, just in time to evade the explosion as Salat threw a blast in after him.
Rolling around, Kamina looked up, his sunglasses having fallen off, lost somewhere in the rubble. He did not have time to think, he did not have the time to hesitate… he could only act.
“Get out of here!” he shouted to everyone around him, the people not moving, just staring at Salat and Kamina… most too shocked by seeing everything that was going on here. “COME ON! MOVE!”
Laughing, as he watched Kamina clutch his shoulder, Salat slowly turned to the humans that flocked around them. “Ha! These are the vermin that have populated this weak planet? You should have chosen a stronger race to stay with, boy!”
As he shouted, Salat pushed his hands out to the sides, releasing a massive blast of energy from each hand. The blasts soared towards tall buildings, massive explosions rocking each, before they started falling to the ground. Laughing, Salat turned towards the people around Kamina, starting to shoot randomly at them and the buildings around them… explosions rocked the entire area, as people ran around screaming, before they were blown into pieces.
Kamina just stared in shock as Salat destroyed the city around him… He wanted to fight back, he wanted to do something to stop the saiyan warrior... but whatever he had tried so far, even the Kamehameha that Roshi had taught him, had been completely ineffective. But could he just leave everyone around him alone to die? Could he just let them pay for the fact that Salat had come here for him, and that he refused to go with him?

Hell no.

He had to do whatever he could… die trying, if necessary.
“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!?” he shouted, as he begun throwing blast of gathered ki energy at Salat.
The first blast hit Salat right in the face, causing him to flinch. The next was simply swatted away, like it was a mosquito or something like that… The third blast? It was thrown right back at Kamina, forcing him to jump away… with Salat moving in for the kill, laughing loudly the entire time. He enjoyed this far too much.
As Kamina jumped back, Salat came right at him, slamming into him shoulder first, sending Kamina flying even further back.
As he screamed in pain from the impact, Kamina was thrown straight into a building, through the wall… destabilizing the wall enough to cause the entire place to shake.
Inside the building, Kamina laid sprawled across a destroyed computer and table… with a panicked man standing besides him. His cloak utterly torn, Kamina slowly opened his eyes, moving a hand up to wipe the blood away from his mouth as he sat up. He had ended up inside an office building… It was sheer luck that he had not hit anyone when he crashed in here…
Everyone was simply staring at Kamina, like he was some kind of alien, which he guessed that he were, but nonetheless… it was a short reprieve. A short chance to catch his breath.
Until he heard Salat calling out for him.
“Come on boy, get outta that pig sty! You’re not gonna be able to hide from my scouter!” he shouted, making sure that Kamina could hear him.
Kamina’s eyes widened. Scouter? That thing over his eye that had tracked how strong Kamina were before? It could actually track him.
And then… Kamina came to a sudden realization. Salat knew where he was. He could find him, even as he jumped down from the table… and he would most likely also know that about everyone that were all around him…

“Fuck.”

The second after, a massive blast came down from above, tearing down the ceiling of the room, instantly killing several of the people around Kamina… followed by several blasts just like that, seemingly shut at random.
And then the entire building crashed down upon Kamina, burying him in the rubble and concrete.
Salat simply hovered above the ruins of the building, chuckling all the while. He was playing around, of course. How else would Kamina have lasted his long, after all? The kid was a punk, nothing more. He thought that he was stronger than he was… Too bad, though. He had spirit. He could have been a powerful saiyan warrior, with a little guidance and training… and a whole lot of hurt. A grin crept across Salat’s lips as his scouter picked up life readings from below.
“Well, what have we here! ? The boy is STILL alive!? Impressive!” Salat shouted, making sure that everyone around could hear him. “Come out, boy! Come out and PLAY!”

The rubble of the building slowly moved… and finally, after minutes of silence, Kamina burst out. Bloody and battered, his eyes hidden by his hair having fallen down in front of his face. A metal pole was sticking out from his side, part of it covered in blood. It had been forced through his body as the building had crashed down…
Slowly, Kamina reached down to the pole as Salat hovered above, seemingly satisfied with simply watching the show. With a groan of pain escaping his lips, Kamina grabbed hold around the pole. Just the act of touching it caused pain to shoot through his entire body.
He knew that pain would be nothing compared to what came next.
With a guttural shout born purely from pain Kamina defied everything going on around him… every reason why this should not be possible… and pulled the metal pole out of his body, before twisting it around, plunging it into the ground, using it to support his weight for a moment, as he caught his breath.
He would fight back. He would not let Salat win. He could not let Salat win here. He had to avenge everyone around him… everyone that Salat had killed… He had to kill Salat… he had to win this…

And then, in an instant, Salat appeared besides Kamina, a wide grin still on his lips. Kamina moved, throwing a punch at Salat… only to have Salat catch his fist with his own hand, and, with a sick sound, closed his own hand, breaking the majority of the bones in Kamina’s hand.
Screaming in pain, Kamina fell to his knees, struggling to free his arm from Salat’s hand… only to have Salat pull him up by the hand, then mercilessly begun poking him in the various wounds that he had received… such as where the metal pole had just been pulled out.
“You’re nothing but trash, boy… You got spirit, I’ll give you that… but that’s all you got,” Salat whispered into Kamina’s ear, before he dropped him… and then kicked him.
Kamina was sent flying out from the rubble of the building, into the street where he had first crashed.

Slowly, Kamina looked up… seeing his sunglasses lying before him… and something else. Something that caught his attention. And he remembered what Korin had told him…
Slowly, he reached forward, grabbing the bean… and moved his hand back, pushing the senzu bean into his mouth and started chewing.

Salat came closer, deliberately walking slower, wanting to draw Kamina’s pain and fear out… To him, there was no reason to be quick about this. Not in any way.
He smiled as he stopped above Kamina, looking down at him… not noticing that Kamina was still chewing on the bean in his mouth. Salat raised his hand, energy glowing in it.
“C’mon, boy… let me hear you beg for the mercy of the great Salat!” he almost shouted.
Kamina stared defiantly up at him, as, finally, he shallowed the bean… and instantly he felt his power returning, instantly he felt the wounds that he had been given by Salat starting to close up… and more than that… he felt stronger than ever before.
“WHAT!?” Salat shouted, as he released the blast of energy down at Kamina… only to be blown back the second after, sent sliding along the ground.
“What the hell just happened!?” Salat shouted as he got to his feet, the confidence he had shown up until now all but gone. His scouter was showing Kamina’s power level to be rising… and fast. Not just to its original level… but higher than that. “No… how can he heal like that!?” Salat could not understand what was happening… and really… how should he be able to? Senzu beans were not exactly common knowledge throughout the galaxy, the life-threatening injuries that Kamina had received would have taken weeks to heal in a restoration tank… but now, in an instant… he was completely healthy again. And Salat could hear something being muttered…

As the dust that Salat’s blast had whirled up begun to settle, the shadow of a man could be seen within it… standing to his full height, Kamina smirked within the dust as he looked out at the shadows… and, as it was finally blown away by the wind, he was wearing his sunglasses once more, his hands pulled back as a Kamehameha was gathered in his hands.
“You should have finished me when you had the chance!” he shouted, as the energy shone between his hands. “WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM!?” and as Kamina shouted that, he thrust his hands forward, releasing the kamehameha straight at Salat… and this time, it had the desired effect, sending Salat flying back, away from Kamina, crashing into a wall that still stood of the building from before.
“WELL WELL WELL! Taking me too lightly, eh!?” Kamina shouted, as he set off from the ground. Flying directly at Salat, he was met with a barrage of blasts that hit him straight in the face, causing him to fall to the ground, as Salat emerged from the ruins with a mad roar in his throat.
“I don’t care if you found out that saiyans get stronger when we get healed after almost dying! I’ll still take you out you punk! I’m still stronger than you!” he shouted, as he continued throwing a multitude of blasts at Kamina.
The sun being reflected in his sunglasses, Kamina looked up from where he had crashed into the ground, dashing to the side to evade the blasts, while throwing a blast back, in return. He seemed to be more accurate that Salat… at least, his blast hit Salat straight in the face, destroying his scouter.
“GAARH!” Salat shouted, as he gripped the side of his face. “YOU PUNK!”
Kamina smirked, as he charged straight at Salat, delivering a punch to the side of the saiyan’s face, just where he had hit him. While Salat shouted in pain, he punched back, hitting Kamina in the guts. Groaning in pain, Kamina was momentarily caught off guard, allowing Salat to catch him in a bear hug. Not that Kamina gave him a moment to relax, instantly grabbing hold of Salat’s head with both hands and head butting him, causing the saiyan warrior to let go, dropping Kamina to the ground… followed by a swift blow by Kamina to Salat’s crotch.
Really… Kamina had never said anything about being above stuff like that.
Falling back, Salat gasped, as he gripped his crotch… as Kamina took a step back, as well. He had an idea… Something that could end this fight… but he wasn’t sure if he would be able to do it or not… but nonetheless, he had to try.
The destruction that had already been caused in this city would only intensify now that they were this evenly matched… but… perhaps he could do something about it. End this quickly, in a single blow… at least, if everything was right.
“Really, I didn’t know ANYTHING about that thing, just figured you were so old you had gotten weaker!” Kamina shouted. “But thanks for telling, old man!”
Salat growled as he regained his composure… just staring at Kamina for a moment. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, boy!? You can use your energy like that!” he shouted.
Kamina had begun to gather his ki… he figured that if he could use it in as powerful a blow as the Kamehameha, he would be able to use it for something else as well… something that could perhaps be more than just a bit more destructive. Something that could spin around… something… like…

As Kamina’s thoughts began to gather into something, his ki slowly began focusing into the shape that he imagined… into the weapon that he believed would be able to defeat Salat… unconsciously developing a brand new technique, quite different from anything he had shown so far… the energy whirling around, gathering into a huge spinning drill, easily at the size of Kamina’s upper body, the energy swirling around his hand as Salat watched him… seeing as Kamina’s power level spiked once more.
“What the hell is that?” Salat asked, momentarily shocked… before he threw himself towards Kamina, seemingly realizing that he would need to get stop him before he was finished.
The realization came too late, however… as Kamina grinned widely, while holding the drill up towards the sky. You could hear it spinning… you could watch the ki energy spark around it, like it could almost not be contained within the technique… And even though, in these, his final moments, Salat would not admit it… he knew that he would not survive this.
“MINE IS THE DRILL THAT WILL PIERCE THE HEAVENS!” Kamina shouted at the top of his lungs as he finally moved, setting off towards Salat as well… pulling his arm back, as if to deliver a punch, the ki energy still sparking off the drill, even as it didn’t touch anything… just the pure power held within it being far beyond what Kamina could contain on his own.
“That’s impossible…” Salat just managed to mutter, as Kamina, in what seemed by Salat to be slow motion, thrust his drill forward, towards Salat…
“NOT TO ME!” Kamina shouted. “I kick reason to the curb and go beyond the impossible!!!”

And just then, Kamina’s drill collided with Salat’s face.

To Salat, the tip of the drill just seemed to come closer and closer, moving in slow motion, as everything seemed to do to him, at the moment. The tip seemed so very sharp… but yet, he could not get a clear view of it, as it was spinning around at incredible speeds, the sparks of ki flying from it lightly burning Salat’s face, causing him to groan in pain, before the drill itself actually connected…
First the tip. The searing hot tip of the drill, spinning around, starting to drill into Salat’s chin, as the sparks continued to fly off the drill… slowly, surely, it twisted his skin, and, as it moved further in, his flesh. The wound, that which had started as a small hole, nothing more, slowly, but steadily, widened, forced open as more and more of the drill was forced into Salat’s face. He felt his mouth open… his skin ripped off, ripping around the drill, attaching, pulling more off with each spin of the drill… he screamed in pain, not even bothering for a moment to try and fight it back… and he continued screaming, only intensifying in volume as the drill, after what had seemed like months, broke through his flesh and into his skull… first the tip drilling a small hole, then the rest of the drill following suit, forcing a greater and great hole into the bone… spinning around… going further and further into the skull of Kamina’s enemy, as he screamed in pain.

To everyone else but Salat, to Kamina and the onlookers, it was short and brutal. Kamina had raised the ki powered drill, sparks flying from it as he had thrust it straight into Salat’s face without giving him a single chance to survive. Salat had made a mistake by going too easy on him, Kamina knew that… he would not make the same mistake. He wanted to help people, sure. He wanted to save them. He wanted to stop the bad guys, or, whatever… and he wanted to become stronger. But, as much as he wanted to be a hero… as arrogant as he might act… he very well knew that he could not afford to take any chances with this guy… and as such, he drove his drill through Salat’s head, until it emerged on the other side… and kept it in there, spinning around, cutting and grinding everything inside Salat’s head to goo… until, finally, Salat stopped screaming and Kamina pulled back the drill, leaving a gaping hole in Salat’s face.

For a moment, Kamina simply stared at Salat. He had not quite expected this… not this brutally… but… it had to be done. He had to use everything at his disposal to win… If he had been able to do this before, well…
He looked around, surveying the destruction. Salat’s body fell. First to his knees. His remaining eyes was wide open, as was what remained of his mouth… In shock, pain and fear. And then, finally, it fell over, face first into the ground, leaving only Kamina standing amidst the destruction that their battle had caused within the city… Buildings had been destroyed… people had been killed. Who knew how many that Salat had killed? Who knew how many that Kamina had failed to protect?
Kamina didn’t know… but he knew that he could not let something like this happen again. If he was to be the hero that he wanted to be, he could not let others suffer like this ever again… but there would be others out there, stronger than Salat. He could almost feel them… and still… he felt no fear. He felt… excitement. He couldn’t help himself but look forward ot the battles to come, no matter what they would mean for him. He would become stronger. Strong enough to face any opponent.

---
5003 words
Power Growth in effect, using Sauna after battle
Near Death used, one senzu bean used
5003/2 = 2502
2502x1.2x1.25 = 3753

Current pl = 7682
New pl = 11435
New pl after near death boost = 17153