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by
Jamie L. Word Education
Of A Warrior
Four years later
Shuji and his family were in a training chamber.
Shuji was wearing his battle attire without the tunic,
armored chestpiece, cape, or scouter.
Echiko was wearing an outfit similar to Akemi's, but
she didn't have her scouter on.
Koji was wearing an outfit similar to his father's
battle attire but with a sleeveless tunic underneath his
armored chestpiece. Both
parents dilligently trained their young son in the art and the
science of fighting, and the lad was like a sponge, soaking up
everything his parents taught him with uncanny quickness and
comprehension. At
the time, Echiko was silently watching Shuji and Koji spar
against each other from across the chamber.
"This is incredible!" Shuji thought to
himself as he sparred with his son while Echiko watched on in
stunned disbelief. "My
son is learning all of the fighting techniques we teach him
almost as if he already knew them before he was released into
the world! He
progresses from perfecting form to comprehensive application
with such fluid transition! His raw natural talent is undeniable! I've seen very few like him!
Only Prince Vegeta is more remarkable, but my son is
hardly a stone's throw behind his royal prince!
His power level is astounding, but, then again, when he
was tested at birth, that much was recognized!
He's just a small boy, yet he's almost as strong as I
am! He'll be one
of the strongest Saiyans ever by the time he's grown!"
"It's a good thing Shuji has taken more of a hand
in training the boy!" Echiko thought to herself as she
watched her young son spar with his father.
"His power and skill are equal to mine now, and it
would be pointless for me to waste the boy's time with
redundant lessons he already knows instinctively!
Pretty soon, even Shuji won't be able to train the boy!
What will happen to our son then?
Will Frieza have him taken away from us to train him
firsthand? Will
he leave us of his own volition to seek out greater
challenges? Should we have heaped more affection upon the boy?
He has been with us but four years, yet my heart mourns
the loss of time and the restraint of my affections from him!
We hardly ever held him!
I can't recall that we've ever displayed any affection
openly at all! Never
a kiss, never a hug! We
never played with him! We
just trained him to be a warrior, and that has been his only
experience in life! Shuji
would rip my tail off with his bare hands if I changed that
now, but I can't help but wonder ... what if?
What if we were wrong?"
A tear trinkled down her cheek, but she wasted no time
in wiping it away lest her husband or her son spied it.
As she looked, she saw Koji looking at her, and a lump
froze in her throat. She
could feel the hairs on her neck standing on end.
Could he have seen his mother's tear?
Did he somehow know the thoughts in her mind?
What did this mean?
The boy's countenance remained almost stoic and
determined for a moment, but then a slight smile crossed his
lips. It was in
that instant that the boy's father hammered him with a punch
to the face, knocking the boy across the traininig chamber and
to the floor. Shuji's
face contorted with aingst-filled shock at what he had done at
the same exact moment that Echiko's did, and he quickly made
his way over to his fallen child with paternal concern.
"Koji!" the terribly distressed and regretful
father called out to his son as he quickly closed the distance
to end his approach standing over his fallen son, who was
already sitting up and moving to a crawling position to stand.
"My son, are you alright?"
Upon getting to his feet, but still hunched over so
that his face was lowered to the floor and hidden from his
parents, Koji paused, not saying a word.
Echiko clasped her hands together in a praying
position, her heart pounding in her chest so hard she was
frightened that he could hear it even from that distance.
Shuji waited anxiously for the boy's response.
Suddenly, the boy raised himself up to full stature,
his bruised cheek, but the sly smile on his visage spoke
volumes of his hard toughness and his well-learned lessons.
The boy quickly extended the open palm of one hand
towards his father, and fired an energy blast into his
father's torso before his father could react.
Shuji was knocked all the way back to Echiko's
position, crashing to the floor at her feet stunned and caught
offguard as smoke wafted up from his chest - the result of the
boy's attack almost scorching the skin of his father's chest.
As Echiko knelt down beside her husband to check on
him, Shuji propped himself up on his elbows and lifted his
head up to look at the boy, drawing Echiko's attention there
as well. The
awestruck parents looked upon their child incredulously and
with utter disbelief.
Koji stood there, his arm still extended after
releasing his energy blast and that sly smile still on his
face. The boy
chuckled as he lowered his hand back down at his side and
looked at his parents with a proud visage.
"Always make use of surprise and misdirection
whenever possible," the boy proclaimed as he proudly
regurgitated verbally one of his father's many lessons before
seeming to disappear from the spot where he was standing and
seeming to just appear out of nowhere standing over his prone
father's position like a predator ready to pounce.
Shuji's eyes widened as he responded with surprise, and
Echiko fell back from a kneeling position to a seated
position, taken a-back by the sudden move by her son, as her
eyes also widened with surprise.
Koji smiled as he pointed his open-palmed hand once
more at his father from point-blank range, catching his
parents offguard.
"Take advantage of every moment of hesitation
because it is a signal of either indecisiveness or
weakness," Koji stated as he once again repeated a
teaching of his father verbatim to him.
"Bang!"
The boy laughed as he lowered his arm back down to his
side once more. For
a few brief moments, both of the boy's parents stared at the
child in bewilderment. Finally,
the boy's father began laughing boisterously, then his mother
began laughing jovially.
Shuji stood up on his feet once more, and Echiko
likewise made her way to her feet.
"You've learned well, my son!" Shuji declared
proudly, still laughing in glee over his son's handiworks.
"Bravo!"
"You're a fantastic fighter, Koji!" Echiko
proclaimed with beaming pride over her son's performance.
"I'm ready to go with you on a mission now, am I
not, Father?" the boy inquired with an intensely serious
look on his face, the driving desire of his heart revealed to
his shocked parents. "You
said when I learned my lessons well enough, I could join you
on your missions, Father.
I am already Mother's better in power and skill, and
I've proven my ability to handle myself in battle to you today
as well. Let me
come with you. I
want to fight alongside you and the rest of the team!"
Shuji and Echiko looked into each other's eyes as they
weighed heavilly the words of their young son.
The concern was evident, but the debated exchange was
in silence - their eyes speaking volumes to each other in a
private conversation between them.
"Why must you turn away from me and stare into
each other's eyes?" Koji inquired, getting his startled
parents' attention. "You are the leader of the battle team, Father.
Speak it. Declare
my place at your side, and it will be so.
You know that I am ready."
Shuji looked into his son's eyes seriously.
He saw the intensity there.
He saw the seriousness there.
He saw the building anxiousness there.
It was a day he knew would come, but he didn't think it
would come this soon. He
stood at the crossroads of a great decision.
Was this the right time?
The next day, Shuji and Echiko were in a mission
briefing room with the rest of the team, and all of them were
wearing their scouters. An unworn scouter lay on the table near them.
The other fighters stood awaiting their leader's decree
as he prepared to tell them of their mission.
"Today we will be going to the planet Tarovia,"
Shuji stated with the monotone delivery of a military commando
team leader, commanding the silence of the others with his
authoritative presense. "We
will also have another member joining the team."
This statement caused the three team members before him
to become visibly concerned and disappointed.
Haruki, Hamada, and Akemi weren't happy with the
announcement, and they prepared to make their feelings known.
"A new recruit?" Hamada muttered with
disgust. "Aw, come on! We
don't have time to bring some wet-behind-the-ears rookie in
and train him or her to fight, survive, and coordinate attacks
with us!"
"That's right!" Akemi said, slinking her arm
around Hamada's waist and glaring at Shuji and Echiko.
"Frieza and his crew should just stick this
newcomer into someone else's fold!"
"I don't like it!" Haruki roared, his face
twisted with the negativity of his passion.
"It's just the five of us!
That's the way it's always been!
Don't need no stinkin' rookie fighter to have to save
all the time!"
"Are you quite finished?" Shuji inquired with
more than a hint of disgust in both his voice and countenance,
prompting the others to get quiet.
"First of all, I'm bringing this new recruit into
the fold - not Frieza or any of his boys.
Secondly, this fighter needs no training for fighting
and survival. And
finally, this fighter won't be needing any of us to make a
save."
As Shuji picked the scouter up off the table in his
hand, his teammates looked at him, just a bit stunned at his
passionate stand for this new recruit.
Echiko wrapped her arms around Shuji's waist and looked
out at her friends with equally determined eyes but a gentler
countenance than her husband's.
Shuji was trembling with emotion, and his visage began
showing his fierce temper as his rage was building within him.
The others gasped in horror as they now understood his
passion.
"Not Koji!" Haruki scarcely was able to
protest with an audible voice.
"Not your son, Shuji!
Please!"
"He's just a small child!" Akemi begged with
all her heart and soul to her close friends.
"Echiko, don't tell me you're with Shuji on this
one!"
"No, Shuji!" Haruki growled in abject
disbelief as he clenched his fists in physical display of the
intensity of his emotions. "We can't take a child to a planet like Tarovia!
I won't let ya do it!
It ain't right!"
At that moment, Koji walked into the room through the
sliding door behind his parents, prompting the rest of the
team to be silent and watch him in bewilderment.
Koji walked over next to his father and took the unworn
scouter from his hand. The boy immediately a-fixed it to his face, and then he
removed the table from between him and the rest of the team by
destroying it with an energy blast, causing the scouters of
those team members to register the boy's exertion of energy.
"Unless any of you would like to fight me, I'm
going with you," Koji stated with ice cold resolve and
definitive finality in his voice.
"I am my father's son, and I am a mighty warrior!
I am a Saiyan, and I crave battle!
You think that just because I'm a child that I'm weak?
I challenge any of you to prove that, here and
now!"
The other members of the battle team look at the lad
incredulously, still not certain if they're actually hearing
this.
"What's the matter?
Are you scared?" the four-year-old fighter taunted
as he continued to address them.
"Then how about this?
Let's boost your morale with a change in the odds.
Instead of any of you fighting me to prove that I'm too
weak to be on the team, why don't all of you give me a try at
the same time?"
The entire room almost reverberated with the collective
shuddering at the pronouncement of the cocky young kid.
Even his father was a bit startled at the boy's
challenge, secretly amused at the boy's dominating presense
and openly surprised by his near-arrogant boldness.
Then Haruki began laughing as if at some great joke
he'd just heard, prompting Koji's eyes to narrow with his
displeasure and building rage at the reaction.
"Why are you laughing?" the brash youngster
asked, more than a bit irritated at the big brute's amused
reaction. "This
is no joke! I am
a Saiyan of royal roots, not some clown in a circus sideshow!
You'll take me seriously, or I'll teach you a painful
lesson in regret!"
That proclamation stirred a bit of animosity in
Haruki's soul, and it flared within his countenance and his
posture very quickly. Before
this situation could escalate any further, Shuji stepped in
between his son and the rest of the battle team.
"My son is more than capable of performing in the
battlefield," Shuji declared, captivating his teammates'
attention and defusing the tension that had already begun to
swell. "He's
going with us to Tarlovia, and that is final.
Now get to your space pods and prepare to move
out."
His crew stood dumbstruck at his pronouncement, and
that fact seemed to aggravate him, making it difficult to
retain his composure completely after such a tense moment. |
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