🌌 Saiyan of the Red Dawn
Chapter 3 – Awakening of Purpose
(Part 3 – Conclusion)
Varis lowered his hand.
"Strip off that armor," he ordered.
Kael hesitated only a heartbeat before complying. The gold-and-navy plates clattered to the courtyard stones, leaving him clad only in the dark under-suit.
"You will not wear royal colors again until you earn them," Varis said.
Kael nodded once.
The brute—Master Caldas—stepped closer. He loomed over Kael by nearly two heads, muscles corded with old battle scars. A faded burn twisted his lip into a permanent sneer.
"Look at him," Caldas growled, voice like grinding rock. "Barely a child, and he thinks he's ready."
"I am ready," Kael said quietly.
Caldas's massive hand snapped out and seized Kael by the throat. He lifted him into the air effortlessly, fingers crushing down on his windpipe.
"You are nothing," Caldas hissed. "Nothing until we make you something."
Kael didn't thrash. He didn't struggle.
Instead, he drew in what breath he could and locked eyes with Caldas, refusing to look away.
Long seconds passed.
At last, Mistress Seris—who had been silent—tilted her head in faint amusement.
"He does not beg," she observed.
Caldas's lip curled. He dropped Kael onto the dust.
Kael landed on one knee, coughing hard, but he did not collapse.
Varis inclined his head. "Perhaps you are not completely worthless," he said. "We will see."
They began that same hour.
First was combat conditioning: repeated sparring rounds against all three instructors.
Kael soon learned their strengths and styles.
Caldas was pure, brutal force. His strikes landed like meteor impacts, and he seemed to take personal satisfaction in inflicting pain.
Seris was precision incarnate—fast, silent, and surgical. She never wasted a movement.
Varis was something else entirely.
He moved with an almost inhuman fluidity, appearing in Kael's blind spots again and again. His palm strikes disrupted Kael's balance, redirected his power, turned his own aggression against him.
Again and again, Kael was knocked down.
And again and again, he rose.
On the second day, they introduced mental discipline drills.
Kael was bound to a training pillar, subjected to sustained ki suppressor fields. The energy dampened every cell in his body, leaving him nauseous and trembling.
"You will learn to maintain clarity under deprivation," Varis explained coolly.
Hours passed.
His thoughts blurred, the chamber walls pulsing like a heartbeat.
But through the pain, he held onto the image from his dream:
The woman's gentle touch. The red-haired child watching him with wide, trusting eyes.
A family. A future.
He bit down on the scream rising in his throat.
By the fifth day, his training moved to the upper terraces—high platforms that overlooked the cliffs. Here, the gravity fields were thinner, and the winds fierce enough to fling an unprepared fighter to his death.
Seris waited for him there.
"Balance," she said simply.
She gestured to the narrow walkway between platforms—a flat span barely wider than a palm.
"You will cross. Then you will return."
Kael's gaze flicked to the sheer drop below.
Hundreds of meters.
He took a slow breath, centering himself.
And he stepped out.
Each movement had to be exact—one foot placed ahead of the other, every shift of his tail counterbalancing the gusts that tried to tear him into open sky.
Halfway across, a sudden downdraft struck.
He flung his arms out, fighting for purchase as the walkway swayed. For an instant, his body hovered in perfect, impossible stillness.
Then—inch by inch—he brought his weight forward and regained his balance.
When he reached the far platform, Seris offered no praise.
"Again," she said.
He did it again. And again.
Each repetition drove the lesson deeper into muscle and bone.
When dusk finally bled across the cliffs, he returned to the courtyard on unsteady legs. His body was raw, battered, but something inside him had crystallized.
Control.
That night, he lay staring up at the stars.
Caldas passed by, a jug of water in one hand.
"You are stubborn, I'll give you that," the massive Saiyan grunted. "Most brats would be crying for their mothers."
Kael said nothing.
Caldas smirked faintly. "Enjoy your rest, whelp. Tomorrow, the real training begins."
He moved on, leaving Kael alone with the darkness and the wind.
Kael closed his eyes.
In the darkness behind his eyelids, he no longer saw only empty space.
He saw possibility.
Strength.
A future.
His heart beat faster.
And deep inside, a voice whispered:
No one will control me again.
End of Chapter 3