"Tch. I can't believe I gave birth to a kid with a power level this pathetic."
The woman with the spiky hedgehog hair and tail looked down at the baby in her arms with open disgust.
"If it's really that low, just dump her here," said the flat-haired man beside her after glancing at the scouter on the woman's face. He looked just as disgusted. "Better than dragging her back and embarrassing yourself. A mid-class warrior's child turning out like this? Better not to have one at all."
"Oh, shut up. Don't you have your own scouter? Why do you always have to grab mine?"
She shot him an irritated glare.
The man only shrugged, completely unconcerned. His had been damaged in the last battle. The woman clicked her tongue and gave him another annoyed look.
"All right, enough," the man said. "We should be heading back to Planet Vegeta. We've been out here too long already. If we don't report in soon, King Vegeta and Lord Frieza are going to start asking questions. This campaign dragged on longer than expected."
He motioned for her to follow and started walking away.
The woman scowled, crouched down, and set the baby on a flat stone slab. Then she picked up the scouter, hesitated for a moment, and tossed it down beside the child before turning to leave after the man.
She only made it a few steps.
Then she stopped, looked back at the baby, and let out a long breath.
"If your power level had at least hit five, maybe. But this? You don't even qualify as low-class warrior material..." She paused, then muttered, "Fine. Whatever. Mother and daughter, I guess. I'll feed you one last time."
A few minutes later...
In the end, she left anyway, a trace of reluctance still clinging to her face. Before she walked off for good, she said one final sentence.
"Whether you live or die is up to fate now. Your name is Aeris. That's the last thing I can give you as your mother."
Then she turned and left without looking back.
The baby girl burst into tears the moment her mother walked away, crying as if she were begging her not to leave, not to abandon her. But a child's crying couldn't hold back a mother who had already made up her mind.
Not long after, two streaks of light shot across the sky and vanished into the distance.
That was the final proof. Her mother had truly abandoned her.
"Waaah... waaah..."
The little girl's cries grew louder and louder.
Then the ground began to shake violently.
Beside her, the discarded scouter's numbers started climbing.
1...
10...
100...
1000...
10000...
The digits kept rising.
Higher.
Higher.
Still higher.
It didn't slow down until it passed forty thousand. Then the numbers started flickering, hovering between 44444 and 44445, as if the two values were locked in a stubborn tug-of-war, neither one willing to give in.
While the numbers fought it out, white smoke began curling from the scouter.
Right before the thing finally died, the display settled on 44445.
Not the lucky 44444.
What a tragedy.
What a fucking tragedy.
If that woman had walked just a few minutes slower, maybe that expression on her face would've looked very different. On one hand, she despised the girl's supposedly weak power level. On the other, there had been just a little reluctance in her eyes.
Very little.
Like, technically there was some maternal love in there.
Just... not much.
Maybe that was just how survival worked for their race.
Power came first. Everything else came second.
Anyway, enough of that. Let's get the camera back on our protagonist.
Director.
Director!
Quit staring and move the damn shot back already. What's so interesting about a girl with a tail? Is she more important than the protagonist?
Good. Story's back on track.
As the little girl cried with all the force her tiny lungs could manage, the planet itself could no longer withstand the overflowing energy erupting from her body. Cracks spread across the surface like fractures on a glass marble.
And then...
Yeah.
It exploded.
Just like that.
Ridiculous, right?
The author thinks so too.
Before the planet was completely destroyed, the energy around the little girl had already wrapped itself around her and sealed her safely inside. Maybe it was some kind of subconscious self-preservation instinct. Whatever it was, that power carried her straight out into space.
Where was she flying to?
Hell if I know.
She was just flying blind. Somewhere nearby. Somewhere with life. Somewhere she might luck into a new babysitter. A milk dad. A milk mom. Anybody, really.
After who knew how long, she finally came crashing down like a meteor onto an unknown planet.
A little while later, someone weird-looking came by to check out the impact site out of curiosity, and that was how she got picked up.
Emmmm...
Let's call him a person for now.
I mean, that face...
Actually, it was more like his body and head had been designed by two completely different people who never spoke to each other. The body was mostly humanoid.
But the head...
Emmmm...
Very... distinctive.
Anyway, the little girl had successfully found someone to feed her.
Applause, everybody.
By the time he picked her up, she had already gone limp with hunger. The strange-looking man rummaged through the basket on his back and pulled out a fruit she didn't recognize.
He looked at the girl, then at the fruit, scratched his head, and dug around again until he found a ceramic container shaped like a small vase. He dropped the fruit inside and gave it a few gentle shakes.
Then he took out a bowl and spoon, poured out the liquid he'd just mashed into juice, and set it in front of her.
Huh.
It was purple.
The man fed her slowly, spoonful by spoonful. The little girl drank obediently.
She was genuinely starving.
After drifting through space for so long, she had been half-dead from exhaustion and hunger. At that point, she wasn't about to get picky. Food was food.
Once she was full, her energy came roaring back. She started babbling and flailing around, full of life all over again. The man watched her for a moment, then sighed and tucked the hyperactive little thing into the basket on his back.
Wait.
Hold on a second.
Why does this plot feel weirdly familiar?
Ah, whatever.
Let's pretend I don't remember.
The little girl was carried home that way.
Along the road, they passed several others who looked almost exactly like the man carrying her. They all stopped to stare at her, one after another, like she was some kind of circus monkey on display.
Ahem.
In a certain sense...
Maybe...
Possibly...
There wasn't that much difference.
She did have a tail, after all.
Well, whatever. The point is, she got stared at the whole way back like some rare little zoo exhibit. Good thing she was still too young to understand it. Otherwise she probably would've jumped up and kicked them right in the kneecaps.
After surviving that entire public monkey-inspection session, sorry, public display of loving community concern, she was finally brought back to the man's home and set down downstairs.
The little girl looked around curiously.
She was so focused on taking everything in that she didn't even realize she had started floating off the ground.
Then again, even if she had noticed, what exactly was she supposed to do about it? She was a baby.
The man looked at her in surprise, watching as the little thing drifted around the room babbling to herself. He didn't interfere. As long as she didn't hurt herself, it was fine.
Then he remembered that she had literally fallen from the sky and survived the landing without a scratch.
At that point, he stopped worrying about her.
He had his own problems.
Like gathering food.
Because no matter what planet you live on, eating comes first.
And just like that, the little girl spent five years living on that world.
"Anaga, I'm hungry... Do we have anything to eat?"
A little girl about four feet tall poked her head out from inside the house. She looked weak and wilted, like if she didn't eat in the next five minutes her soul was about to leave her body.
"It'll be ready soon, little Aeris," the strange man replied without turning around.
"Okay, okay... I..."
Before she could finish, her chest suddenly tightened.
It felt like something had just been torn away from her.
She didn't know why.
Tears started spilling from her eyes for no reason she could understand.
"W... what's going on...?" Aeris wiped at her face, confused. "This is weird... Why do I suddenly feel so awful? Why do I want to cry...?"
At that moment, Anaga came in from outside and frowned.
"What's wrong, Aeris? Why are you crying?"
"I... I don't know..." she said between sniffles, rubbing at her eyes. "It just... happened all of a sudden. I feel horrible. I want to cry, but I don't even know why..."
Anaga went quiet.
He seemed to understand at least part of it.
"Then cry," he said at last. "This might be your only chance."
Aeris stared at him. "W... what does that mean?"
"It could be a bloodline connection," Anaga said carefully. "If you're feeling something like this... then maybe..."
He didn't finish the sentence.
He didn't need to.
She understood what he meant.
The parents who had abandoned her...
Maybe they were gone now.
Not gone as in they had left her.
Gone as in dead.
If you asked whether she hated them, then yes, she did.
She hated them for leaving her behind.
And yes, she had wanted to find them one day, stand in front of them, and ask why. Why had they thrown her away like she meant nothing?
But where was she supposed to even begin?
The universe was vast beyond imagination, and she was still tiny within it.
Trying to find her biological parents in a universe that large was almost impossible.
And now, on this day, she was being told they might already be gone.
Who the hell was she supposed to complain to about that?
So she did the only thing she could.
She found a place and cried until she had nothing left.
When she finally calmed down, she looked up at Anaga.
"Anaga... I... I want to go find them. Even if..."
She trailed off, unsure how to continue.
This man had raised her for five years. He had taught her for five years too.
Granted, the things he taught her were kind of bizarre. Instant Transmission, cloning, healing, and other strange abilities like that. She hadn't even managed to learn most of the rest.
Still, he had raised her.
And now she wanted to leave.
Didn't that make her kind of ungrateful?
Anaga smiled and shook his head.
"You," he said, sounding both amused and helpless. "No matter what happened, they're still your parents. If you need to go looking for them, then go. Don't stand around hesitating like an idiot."
"Yeah, I know, but..." Aeris scratched her head awkwardly. "How exactly am I supposed to leave?"
Anaga pointed toward a small building in the distance.
"There's a ship in there. It's old, but it still works fine for carrying a person."
Then he turned and went back inside to pack for her.
About an hour later, he came back out carrying a ridiculous amount of stuff.
"Go on," he said. "And don't worry about rushing back."
With that, he turned and went back into the house.
Aeris was deeply moved.
She was sure he had gone inside so quickly because he didn't want her to see how sad he was.
Watching his back disappear through the doorway, she silently swore that she would come back as soon as she could.
Then she gathered up the bags and headed toward the building Anaga had pointed out.
The ship slowly rose from the ground with a deep rumble.
Then it lifted into the sky and vanished beyond the clouds.
Inside the house, Anaga watched the girl leave and muttered under his breath, barely able to contain the joy bubbling out of him.
"Good. Don't come back, you violent little monster. Big-eating menace. Holy shit, you eat way too much. I can't afford to keep feeding you. Goodbye. No, scratch that. Let it be forever. I'm finally freeeeee!"
If Aeris had known that the man she thought was too heartbroken to watch her leave was actually celebrating like this, she probably would've beaten him within an inch of his life.
She'd personally guarantee it.
Using Anaga's own life as collateral.
Inside the ship, Aeris stared out into space.
"So beautiful..."
The stars glittered like countless gemstones scattered across black velvet.
And so she drifted through space for who knew how long.
The girl looked out the window.
"..."
She kept looking.
"..."
Then she frowned.
"Why does that asteroid look familiar? And not just a little familiar either."
Three thousand years later...
"AAAAAAAH! Haven't I been here before?! Why does everything look the goddamn same?!"
Aeris was officially losing her mind.
The ship wasn't very big. It had a control room, a bedroom that barely had space for a bed, a small cabinet, and a bathroom, plus one storage room.
That was it.
The largest area was the control room, and even that wasn't exactly spacious.
At some point she had set up a punching bag in there.
Why?
For emotional regulation, obviously.
By which I mean beating the hell out of it whenever she got pissed off.
Grrrrowl.
Aeris froze and grabbed her stomach.
"Ah... I'm starving. Okay, no. I need to land on a planet and find food."
And because she was exactly the kind of person who acted first and thought later, that was what she did.
She started scanning for nearby planets.
Then she'd land.
Find food.
Pick fights with people to vent her frustration.
Sometimes steal a spaceship.
And then do it all over again.
That became her routine.
And so she continued drifting through the universe.
Why did she keep living like that, you ask?
Come on.
Wasn't it kind of fun?
It wasn't because she was completely, hopelessly, absolutely lost.
Definitely not.
Aeris would stake Anaga's life on that.
Far away on another world, Anaga suddenly shivered.
"Ah-choo... Wait. No. That's killing intent."