Dragon Ball Roshi

"Roar…"

The massive ball of energy in the Ozaru's mouth could no longer be stopped—it blasted out toward the distance.

But a white giant claw appeared in midair and slapped it right back. The explosion blew up in the ape's own face, leaving it pitch black and smoking.

The Ozaru crashed to the ground again, shaking the earth with its fall.

Taro walked toward it, eyes narrowed slightly. Looking at the ape struggling to get up, he said slowly, "I won't say it a third time. Right now, get back in there. Don't take advantage of the chaos of the transformation to suppress Goku's consciousness… Otherwise, you know what will happen if you really piss me off, don't you?"

"Roar…"

The Ozaru stared at Taro on the ground. It let out a low growl—for some reason, its voice wasn't as loud this time.

"Speak human language," Taro said coldly, frowning.

"I… I… Why should I?!" Kakarot gritted his teeth, his voice booming like muffled thunder through the transformed ape's throat. "Why… does only he matter?! He's a fake! He's not a real Saiyan! I'm the Saiyan! I am Kakarot! He's just a fake!"

The ape's eyes were blood-red, but not completely crazed—there was still reason in them.

His tone was defiant, full of resentment and fury. He couldn't understand—nor did he care to—why Taro had rejected him from the very beginning. He was the original, the rightful "owner" of this Saiyan body. So why did he have to stay hidden, surrender his "freedom"?

Why give it up to a pretender?

Taro didn't respond. He simply raised three fingers and said calmly, "I'll count to three… One. Two…"

Kakarot was so angry he almost coughed blood. Furious and indignant as he was, his fear of Taro ultimately won out. Gritting his teeth, he roared one last time: "You old bastard!!" Then, though his eyes remained red, the reason in them faded. What remained was the primal aggression born of bloodline instinct.

---

"I see now…"

Hathaway suddenly understood, a smile appearing on her face. She had watched everything that had just happened.

With Jarvis assisting, she had clearly heard the conversation between Taro and the Ozaru. Being sharp and insightful, she quickly pieced together what had taken place.

During the Ozaru transformation, Goku's primary personality would get drowned in a surge of bloodline-induced chaos, entering a brief period of "confusion." It was in that window that the consciousness of Kakarot—normally buried deep in his mind—would seize the opportunity, using the turbulence in the spiritual world caused by the transformation to suppress Goku's primary self and take control of the body, all while retaining conscious awareness.

But this time, Taro saw through him almost immediately. Though Kakarot was unwilling—finally getting a rare chance to come to the surface—he had no choice but to retreat. The dominant Goku personality, suppressed by the mental chaos, was released once again. Silently, Kakarot returned to the corner of Goku's mind—specifically, to the "seal" that Taro had specially created for him.

In a sense, although it was called a "seal," it was also a kind of protection for Kakarot's personality.

If Taro truly hadn't cared about Kakarot, he could have sealed away all the violent impulses in Goku's heart when the boy first crashed on Earth—or even when he first saw him on Planet Vegeta. At that time, Kakarot's personality hadn't even fully formed. Sealing it away then would've left nothing more than a chaotic spiritual residue in Goku's mind, not a complete "evil personality."

Back then, Taro had deliberately let Gohan bring Kakarot to Mount Paozu to raise for a year. Saiyan infants matured rapidly and had long physical prime periods due to their biology. After letting Kakarot exist for a year, Taro had gone to Mount Paozu to seal him—only then did Goku as we know him come into being.

Hathaway fell into thought, a bit puzzled, murmuring, "I always thought Taro kept Kakarot around to temper Goku and help him grow. But now it seems…" She smiled. "Goku… Kakarot… Heh… I wonder how far they'll go? Will they really catch up to Taro, the way he hopes?"

---

After Kakarot's consciousness sank back down, Taro waited a while.

"Roar!" The Ozaru fully lost control, descending into pure mindless destruction. But Taro stopped it every time—it would not escape, nor would it be allowed to wreak havoc elsewhere. The area had been specially prepared by Feibeli and wasn't easy to damage—an ideal testing ground.

Each time the Ozaru resisted, Taro would knock it down again.

And each time, he called out to Goku's buried consciousness, hoping he could hear him—hoping he would wake up.

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"Goku, wake up…"

Boom! Roar!!

"Wake up! Remember who you really are!"

Boom!

Boom!

"Wake up…"

---

After hours of struggle, Son Goku still failed to break free from the primal mental chaos of his Ozaru form. He couldn't regain his clarity or reason.

Even the power-multiplied Ozaru was now exhausted, gasping heavily, its resistance weakening.

"That's enough for today…" Taro's breathing remained calm, as though nothing had happened. He slowly levitated into the air, stopping before the Ozaru's enormous red eyes. His voice was calm, imbued with a hypnotic spiritual force. "Dawn has arrived. The full moon is gone…"

As for why he didn't just use psychic magic to directly help Goku escape the chaos—

First of all, Goku couldn't rely on him forever. Taro wasn't going to be by Goku's side all the time. He trained disciples, but not to raise someone who only knew how to depend on him. That would betray the original intent of his interest in Goku. He wanted Goku to truly rely on his own strength to rediscover his "self."

And today's training would be greatly beneficial to Goku in the future, especially in refining the Full Power Super Saiyan state.

Overcoming the chaotic mental turmoil of the Ozaru transformation had something in common with mastering the extreme agitation of the Super Saiyan form.

There was another important point: once Goku transformed into a Ozaru, his mind was completely swept up in the chaos stirred up by his bloodline, unable to separate his self-awareness from the madness. That's why regaining consciousness was so difficult. Even for Taro, waking up Goku alone without damaging his psyche would have been incredibly difficult in this state.

However, hypnotizing both Goku and the chaotic mental current as a whole was far easier—he simply needed to plant the suggestion that the full moon had vanished. There was no need to distinguish between the two.

And so, the Ozaru's entire body went rigid, breathing heavily. The crimson in its eyes faded, and its mountain-sized body rapidly shrank, transforming back into the naked young Son Goku. His eyes rolled back as he collapsed to the ground. Just like that day outside the Stew Castle, Taro conjured a set of clothes with magic and dressed Goku, then took him away.