Day Four: Early Morning

[Raditzu]

The breaths came heavy and slow. As his body swelled with air, a pain ran through the warrior's body. The body of the warrior was sprawled on the mossy dirt, a shotgun laying inches away from his fingers. He tried to sit up, but stopped almost immediatly. Aggravating his injury was not something he needed to do at the moment. In a motion that took more effort than he wanted to expend, Rad flipped onto his stomach and hoisted himself onto his hands and knees. Blood flowed from all his open wounds, puddling beneath him. Had he been able to manifest it, the saiyan would have given a roar of pain as he pushed himself to his feet, defying the pain that willed him to do otherwise. All-in-all, the past few hours had not been ones he would look back on warmly. Fuck this game and fuck everyone in it is what ran through Rad's head. Throwing his body against the remains of a tree, Rad stopped to steady himself. He could feel the dizzyness of bloodloss creeping up on him. What came next was something the warrior abhorred. Unfortunately, he had done it enough time to know what to expect.

Extending an open palm, Rad conjured forth a ball of ki. His face contourted into a grimace of pain as he slowly pushed the ball of ki into one of the open gun wounds. The smell of burning flesh filled the air as the warrior withdrew the ball of energy. He took a moment to brace himself, then forced the searing ki lightly into another wound. The third time his body spasmed and he ended up making the injury slightly worse than it had been. The fourth time he almost collapsed from the pain that wracked his body. The hand of the saiya-jin fell limp at his side and the ball of ki whithered away. Once again drawing in heavy breaths, Rad's eyes darted about the ground, looking for something he knew should be there. After several minutes of looking about (the movements of his eyes becoming increasingly frantic) Rad's body dropped in a sort of physical sigh and he pushed himself upright, having drooped against the tree. That's when he heard the dull clunk of his boot against metal. He would have laughed if he could. At his feet, as though it knew it would be needed, lay the Medical Kit Bardock had liberated from Selipa.

Bending over and picking up the small metal box turned out to be far more of a chore than it should have been. It was quiet ironic, actually. Here stood a warrior capable of destroying planets and conjuring forth powers that would make a legion of grown men tremble in fear... and he couldn't even pick up a box. The battle-hardened soldier within Raditzu couldn't help but grin through the pain, having experienced this exact same scene several times before, but that didn't make it any less painful. Rad had managed to open the small kit, but was unable to do anything without assistance, and he had just blown the head off of the only assistance he would have been likely to get. In frustration, Raditzu let his body fall backwards, clutching the kit to his chest, as though afraid he might loose sight of it. Though his various injuries did not appreciate the inmpact upon the ground, Rad told himself to get over it as he pulled a small suture kit from the metal box. To his dismay, there was not enough thread to adequately close all his wounds, so he settled on half-hearted stitching up those in his abdomen. Aside from that, all that was left in the kit were a few bandages and some pieces of cotton. After wrapping his midsection, Rad was still left with the wound in his neck and naught but some cotton to do anything about it.

The small clearing Rad had been playing doctor in had been quiet up to this point, filled with only the sounds of Rad's light movements and the occasional gasp he could must. That was soon brought to an abrupt halt as the noisy whirr of a chainsaw sprang to life. With a snap of his neck (which produced a rather neat spurt of blood) Rad's hair came flying over his shoulder. In a very practiced motion, the saiya-jin grabbed ahold of his long mane and lowered it towards the buzzing saw. The theory of the chainsaw-hair-cut ended up being far less painful than the practice of it. While several strands of the hair did cut, most of what Rad held in his hand was simply torn by the spinning chain. Rad was left with a mass of long, black, and surprisingly silky hair; his trademark locks were now missing a large chunk on his right. Wanting to waste very little time, Rad broke the mass of cut hair into several chunks and began weaving them together tightly. When he was done, he had produced a long rope of hair. With a patience that most saiyans would have abdandoned, Rad fixed the cotton against his neck wound, holding it awkwardly in place with his chin, and fastened it in place with his hair. The choker of jet black locks, while supremely sub-par, worked well enough. The make-shift bandage would do little more than help stem the bleeding.

That's when the rain began. As if someone had just flipped the comsic 'rain' switch Raditzu was drenched. It was entirely possible that it had been raining the whole time and he just hadn't noticed, but Rad prefered to think otherwise. It made what was left of this tournament more interesting. Karl's voice blarred through the speakers near Rad's clearing and the bulky warrior had to restrain himself with every fiber of his being to not obliterate the stupid squawk-boxes. Raditzu knew, better than anyone, who had died, and he didn't care who was left. With the knowledge that he would be safe on the top of the mountain he had climbed earlier, Rad approahced his father's body. With a violet kick, Rad tore his father's head from his body completely, though not in anger. Had his father known, he would have understood. Rad rolled the head onto the top of his boot, then flicked it straight up into the air, not wanting to bend over in hopes of preventing reinjury. Rad caught the head and turned it so its eyes faced down, then removed Bardock's scouter. Throwing his own aside, the saiya-jin afixed his father's device to his ear and brought up the digital map he had seen Bardock referencing. He dropped Bar's head and moved back into the clearing.

Rad grabbed collected four items that had been strewn about the ground as a result of the recent battling. The first was his own nail gun. The weapon he had started with had served him well and he knew he could count on it. Second was the ki shotgun Android Eighteen had wielded throughout the tournament. There was little doubt that it was an effective weapon, Rad thought as he looked over to Bardock's headless body. The third and fourth were gathered for less-than-practical reasons. Rad had pulled the stuffed Teddy Bear from Eighteen's bag, which had been stuck under her lifeless body, and he had picked up the medkit. Unceremoniously dumping out the leftovers and garbage from the medkit, Rad stuffed the Teddy Bear into it and weaved his tail through the handle. As the fuzzy appendage returned to its rightful place at his waist, the small metal box was pulled to his side, fastened rather securely. With nothing less to be done, Rad started the slow march to the final battleground.