Chapter 105: Chapter 105 – Unblockable, Undodgeable, Undefendable
In the slowed-down world of the Zone, Ajax's eyes sharpened as he absorbed every minute detail—the subtle shifts in Ginyu's posture, the minor changes in his expression.
Something about Ginyu's demeanor deeply unsettled Ajax. Despite his dire circumstances, Ginyu was confident. It wasn't the look of a cornered man but of someone holding a hidden ace up his sleeve.
Ajax was all too familiar with the old adage about a cornered rat, an age-old warning that someone with no options left is the most dangerous. This made Ginyu's current calm all the more alarming.
"All of us will die? Oh yeah? You and what army?!" Nappa shouted from the side. The comment was brash and filled with false bravado, an open challenge that echoed across the battlefield.
Ajax only picked up the outburst peripherally, as his attention was still wholly fixed on Ginyu.
"I don't need an army," Ginyu replied softly but chillingly. Slowly, he straightened up and raised his arms, extending them outward on either side.
Ajax's gaze narrowed even more as he recognized Ginyu's stance.
The way Ginyu had his arms outstretched was unmistakably the stance for the Body Change technique. But something was off. Ginyu didn't seem like he was targeting anyone in particular. His aim was vague, only loosely pointed in Goku's direction.
It was almost as if Ginyu intended to miss.
Ajax struggled to piece together the meaning behind Ginyu's strange aim, but with so little information to go on, he couldn't reach any meaningful conclusions. Only one thing was certain: the Body Change, as it was, was set to miss its target by a wide margin.
A deep sense of unease crept over Ajax.
Then, Ginyu's shout reached everyone across the battlefield: "CHANGE!!"
Ajax's eyes widened in disbelief. Ginyu actually went for it?! But it's going to miss! What is he thinking?!
But the Body Change beam indeed shot forth, clearly on course to miss its target.
Vegeta, Goku, and Nappa quickly adjusted their positions—Vegeta and Nappa shifting to the right, Goku moving left—all effortlessly moving out of the beam's path.
But then, as the Body Change beam traveled halfway, something completely unexpected happened. Goku, who had already moved out of the way, suddenly reappeared directly in front of the beam. His appearance was so swift and abrupt that it seemed as if he had teleported into position.
He was mere centimeters away from the beam.
Goku's eyes widened in shock. He let out a startled yell, but the beam struck him almost immediately after, leaving no time for any further response.
The blinding light from the beam dissipated, and it seemed like nothing had changed at all. But just a second later, before anyone could remotely process what had happened, Goku's hand shot up. A small, razor-thin energy blade materialized on his hand, its edge glowing with an eerie purple light.
Without hesitation, Goku plunged the glowing blade deep into his own abdomen. His face remained disturbingly calm, as if the pain didn't even register. Then, with a sharp jerk, he dragged the blade through his stomach, slicing cleanly across in a jagged line, the blade emerging from the other side in a gruesome spray of blood and entrails.
Goku had just performed seppuku right before everyone's eyes.
Ajax's jaw dropped in disbelief, mirroring the shock ripping through everyone else. His mind raced, trying to make sense of what he was witnessing. What just happened? How could—?!
From a distance, Ginyu's voice rang out, equally baffled.
"What in the world is going on?!"
And then, as if the situation couldn't get any more chaotic, Goku called out, "CHANGE!"
As Goku spoke, he flung his arms wide, perfectly mimicking the technique Ginyu had just used moments ago. Once again, a brilliant yellow beam erupted from Goku's mouth, but its trajectory was so tragic that no one even needed to move—it was just that wildly off.
As the beam traveled, Vegeta suddenly teleported directly into its path.
The moment the beam made contact with the Saiyan Prince, Goku's face twisted in agony, a gut-wrenching scream escaping him as he clutched at his stomach.
At that same moment, Vegeta pressed his hand against his abdomen with a dark, unnerving smile. Without warning, a violent explosion of energy erupted from his hand, blasting straight through his own stomach. Blood sprayed from Vegeta's mouth morbidly as his body convulsed from the self-inflicted attack.
The entire sequence of events, from the release of Ginyu's initial Body Change beam to Vegeta's self-destructive act, transpired in just five seconds. The rapid succession of events left everyone incapable of processing the sheer absurdity of what they saw.
After all, how could they? It had only been five seconds.
However, Ajax's heightened perception in the Zone, combined with his meta-knowledge of the canon, allowed him to unravel Ginyu's strategy—and it was nothing short of brilliant.
Ajax was already familiar with the Body Change technique, but the critical detail lay in Guldo's Ki signature. Even though Guldo had remained out of sight, his Ki signature was bright and distinct as ever to Ajax's Ki sense. This allowed Ajax to keep track of Guldo's presence.
Interestingly, after each Body Change attempt, Guldo's Ki would inexplicably reappear in a different location.
The realization came quickly after: Ginyu and Guldo had synergized their abilities. Ginyu's role was to fire the Body Change beam with a deliberate dubious aim, intentionally missing the target to create a false sense of security.
Meanwhile, Guldo would use his time-freezing ability to reposition the targets—Goku and Vegeta, in this case—just inches away from the beam's path or even directly into it. This ensured the Body Change beam would hit its mark with absolute certainty.
Together, Ginyu and Guldo made the Body Change technique effectively unblockable.
Ingenious; literally a masterstroke of tactical ingenuity.
Vegeta's eyes flicked toward Ajax, their gazes locking for an infinitesimal moment. The Saiyan Prince grinned, his teeth stained with blood.
Oh shit, I'm next, Ajax realized grimly. He did not appreciate that.
Needless to say, even though Ajax had already figured out Ginyu's strategy, devising an effective countermeasure was an entirely different challenge altogether. Ajax glanced at everyone else. There was no way to warn the others—they had far too little context to understand the situation in time.
He was on his own.
Oh, double shit.
"CHANGE!" Vegeta's voice roared.
The shout reverberated in Ajax's ears, and he immediately sank deeper into the Zone, slowing the world down even more to buy some time. The yellow beam had just left Vegeta's mouth, aimed roughly in his direction. With the greater distance, Ajax estimated he had maybe two seconds—probably less.
First things first, running was pointless. This attack cannot be dodged. Ajax discarded that option instantly. Next!
His next idea was to use his Ki control to scatter the beam, a tactic that had worked splendidly against Jeice. However, unfortunately, Body Change was apparently not a Ki-based attack because he realized he could not influence its trajectory whatsoever.
The beam was now a quarter of the way toward him.
Damn it!
If the Body Change hit him, then it was over. No one else would be able to react in time, and Ginyu's promise that they would all die would come true. Ajax couldn't let that happen—but what on God's green earth could he even do?!
What could he do? What could he do? Think, think, think!
…Ah!
Ajax's perception of time snapped back to normal.
He stood still but alert, eyes locked on the Body Change beam as it hurtled toward him. Same as before, its aim was horrendous, veering wide.
Then, midway to him, Nappa suddenly appeared in front of the beam. It struck him squarely.
Ajax's attention quickly shifted to Vegeta, who collapsed to the ground, clutching his stomach with a cry of pain. Then, he immediately refocused on "Nappa."
For just a split second, "Nappa" stared at him, his face slack with surprise and confusion.
That was all the confirmation Ajax needed.
A moment later, "Nappa" raised his hand, forming it into a straight karate chop. His hand crackled with electricity as he suddenly plunged it into his own stomach with a grunt. Blood sprayed out, staining everything near it crimson, but "Nappa" only grinned darkly through it all.
The entire time, his cold eyes never left Ajax.
Then, with arms outstretched, "Nappa" turned toward Ajax's direction once more, his voice booming: "CHANGE!"
The familiar glow of the Change Beam shot forth with blinding speed. Instantly, the others scattered, leaping away and diving to safety, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the attack. No one fully understood what the beam really did yet, but after witnessing it in action three times, no one wanted to be struck by it.
But unlike the others, Ajax did not move an inch. He stood still, his posture relaxed, as the beam sped straight toward him.
To everyone's surprise, the beam shot past Ajax and into the distance, missing by a mere foot.
The others froze, exchanging confused glances. Their expressions revealed their thoughts clearly: How did the beam miss? Why hadn't Ajax been teleported into its path?
The answer was as simple as it was shocking:
Guldo was dead.
Without lifting a finger or launching a single attack, Ajax had already killed him.
Unfazed by the attention on him, Ajax quietly activated his telekinetic abilities, reaching out with his mind to drag the struggling frog from Mushin's grip. It landed in his open palm with a sad, pitiful croak.
Ajax turned his head slightly, his eyes following the Body Change Beam as it streaked away like a comet. His expression was unreadable—stoic, calculating, yet underneath that calm exterior, a deep well of conflicting emotions swirled.
For a brief second, a flicker of regret passed through Ajax. He felt horrible for forcing such a grim fate upon Guldo—a fate he took no pleasure in delivering to Guldo or anyone else.
But it was necessary.
Ajax blinked slowly. With a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed the frog into the air, sending the helpless creature soaring toward the beam.
As the frog sailed through the air, Ajax fine-tuned his aim with telekinesis. The outcome was as expected: the Body Change Beam engulfed the frog, swallowing it whole in a flash of light.
And just like that, the battle was over.
Ajax let out a sigh as the others shot him questioning looks. The solution he had come up with wasn't all that complicated.
He recognized that Guldo was the key to the strategy, so, as the Body Change beam closed in, Ajax used the few seconds he had left to activate his Aerospace Domain on himself. Using it, he created a barrier of high-density air extending ten meters in every direction around himself, effectively trapping himself within.
It might've seemed counterintuitive, but what kept Ajax in also kept Guldo out.
As expected, Guldo's relatively weak physical strength—especially when holding his breath—was insufficient to breach the Aerospace Domain. Unable to penetrate or move the dense barrier, Guldo was unable to target Ajax directly and was forced to shift his focus elsewhere.
The unfortunate result was that Nappa became Guldo's new objective. After that, Ginyu's surprise at the sudden change in targets was the final nail in the coffin, the irrefutable evidence that Guldo was forced to improvise after failing to target Ajax.
It was at this point that Guldo's fate was sealed.
Thanks to the Dragon Ball anime, Ajax knew that Guldo's Time Stop ability was activated when he held his breath. Understanding this, Ajax used his Aerospace Domain to lock Guldo in a perfect mold of himself, encasing him with meters of air as dense as metal. Within those tight confines, Guldo's chest could no longer expand—could no longer draw in air.
Guldo's breath was crucial to his power, so Ajax eliminated his capacity to breathe. And he already knew Guldo lacked the physical strength to break through the Aerospace Domain.
The result was a cruel end.
With his air supply severed, Guldo's Time Stop ability was forcibly activated against him, locking him in a single moment of time, unable to move or call for help. Ironically, the Time Stop ability, the very power that had been his greatest strength, became his greatest prison as he slowly suffocated.
No one to help him, no way to escape, just utterly alone in that one frozen fragment of time, slowly succumbing to oxygen deprivation.
No one present on the battlefield had any inkling that Guldo had died. They couldn't have possibly known. To them, Guldo's desperate struggle to survive might as well have not happened at all. As far as anyone knew, one moment Guldo had been alive, and the next, he was dead.
But Ajax knew.
And the knowledge of Guldo's slow, lonely death weighed heavily on him. Guldo's despair and isolation while trapped in that frozen moment, staring at everyone helplessly for someone—anyone—to save him, must've been haunting.
The torturous nature of Guldo's death left Ajax feeling uneasy—no, it actually made him slightly sick.
Yet Ajax knew the choice had been necessary. It was either Guldo or everyone else, and if forced to decide again, he would make the same choice over and over, no matter how many times he had to.
With that realization, Ajax pushed aside the unease and forced himself to move on. If he would always make the same decision, then it was no decision at all—it was just something he had to do.
He suddenly blinked, shaking himself out of his dark thoughts.
Down below, Nappa collapsed onto all fours, croaking strangely as blood dripped from his severe abdominal wound. His body convulsed, likely from the pain.
Meanwhile, the Ginyu-Frog was suspended in mid-air by Ajax's telekinesis. It was frozen in a bizarre position with its mouth clamped shut as it was helplessly dragged closer. Ajax's gaze shifted downward, taking in the utter chaos below.
Goku was in Ginyu's body, Vegeta was in Goku's body, Nappa was in Vegeta's body, and now some poor frog was in Nappa's body. Three said bodies were on the brink of death. Well, shit. If there were no Senzu beans left, then it's safe to say that everyone—and the Namek campaign—was screwed.
Dear God, what a mess, what a setback!
The voice of a bewildered Krillin reached Ajax, "So... what just happened?"
His question captured the sentiment of everyone present.
"Ditto!" Mushin chimed in, raising his hand like a student eager to speak up in class.
Ajax didn't blame them for their confusion. The entire sequence of events up to this point had unfolded in under fifteen seconds, during which three of their strongest fighters had been incapacitated without a chance to react.
Moreover, for the first ten seconds, everyone except Piccolo had essentially been screaming in either horror or pain.
Before Ajax could respond, Gohan interjected with a more pressing question: "What should we do now?"
"We make sure no one dies."
Everyone turned their attention to Ajax, who spoke.
The electricity flashing from Ajax's eyes began to subside as he released the Zone. He glanced back at the group with a raised eyebrow. Stabilizing the situation and preventing further casualties was clearly the immediate priority.
Did the shock lower everyone's IQ or something?
"He's right," Piccolo said, his face scrunching up in a sour look as if Ajax had beaten him to the punch and stolen his thunder.
"Hey guys, what about me? What should I do?!" Ginyu yelled from below, cupping his hands around his mouth. He was awkwardly fumbling with his own body, poking at his biceps and hesitantly rubbing his horns with a look of utter bafflement.
Krillin and Gohan tensed, instantly moving into their combat stances. But before they could do anything, Piccolo, with his characteristic no-nonsense attitude, gave Gohan a light smack on the back of the head. The young Saiyan winced, his hand instinctively reaching to rub the spot Piccolo had struck.
"That's Goku in Ginyu's body," Piccolo said gruffly, his tone brooking no argument. "Ginyu used some kind of body-swapping technique. You should have figured that out by now."
Krillin, though not physically reprimanded like Gohan was, understood the message. He looked enlightened as he wrapped his head around the situation.
"Yes, yes, great; everyone's caught up now. Let's search Goku's body for Senzu beans so no one dies, yeah?" Ajax said impatiently, floating down towards the body that had once been Goku's.
Ajax landed next to Goku's unconscious body, now occupied by Vegeta's mind, and began searching through his pockets. He quickly found the familiar pouch and located three Senzu beans within. He retrieved them with a sense of relief.
Ajax couldn't help but feel a bit of satisfaction. The situation was better than it had been in the canon timeline, Senzu beans-wise. They had none then, he thinks. Clearly, his discussions with Goku in the hospital about the importance of resource management had paid off.
Meanwhile, behind Ajax, Gohan and Goku exchanged awkward looks. Gohan appeared lost, unsure of what to do with his father trapped in the body of someone who had nearly killed him. Goku, too, seemed stumped, unsure of how to appropriately express affection when Gohan was so uncomfortable with Ginyu's body. In the end, they ended up just standing there, awkwardly making small talk about their recent experiences.
But Ajax was unaware of that, so focused he was on finding the Senzu beans as fast as possible. He did, however, notice someone approaching from behind.
It was Piccolo; his eyes narrowed with suspicion as he watched Ajax's actions.
"So, who gets to live and who gets to die this time, tactician?"
Ajax shot Piccolo an annoyed look and flicked a Senzu bean towards him. The small green bean sailed through the air and landed in Piccolo's outstretched hand with a soft plop.
"Congrats, you do, asshole," Ajax muttered, brushing the dirt off his Gi as he stood up. "Don't eat it now—save it for yourself, and don't lose it."
Piccolo let out an amused scoff, but his eyes remained fixed on Ajax as he carefully divided another Senzu bean into four precise pieces.
Ajax grunted as he knelt beside Goku, Vegeta, and Nappa's original bodies, feeding each of them their share of the bean. Each fragment was small, barely enough to cover a fingernail, but Ajax knew that every little bit mattered when it came to Senzu beans.
He observed as Goku, Vegeta, and Nappa's original bodies began to recover from their injuries, their breathing becoming steadier and their expressions less painful. Of the three, Goku's condition was by far the most severe, as the scalpel had almost completely bisected him. The other two were comparatively in better shape, but not by much.
The quarter-sized bean fragments didn't heal them fully, but it was enough to pull them back from the brink of death.
"Their bodies are stabilized, but..." Piccolo's voice trailed off as he looked down at the unconscious forms.
Ajax straightened up.
"Yeah, they're not out of the woods yet, but at least they're not on the verge of death. That's about the best we can manage right now."
Since none of the Saiyans were in their proper bodies, Ajax couldn't afford to fully heal any of them, especially when the Frieza Force was graciously offering "free" med-tanks elsewhere. Senzu beans were valuable resources, not to be wasted frivolously.
"Eat that and recover." Ajax tossed the last quarter of the Senzu bean to Piccolo, who caught it easily.
Piccolo grunted in acknowledgment. His injuries were much less severe compared to the Saiyan trios', so his wounds healed more effectively when the bean worked its magic.
"And then?" Piccolo asked, his face relaxing as the pain subsided.
Ajax shot him a look, mistakenly thinking Piccolo was questioning him about the remaining Senzu bean.
"Is this not good enough for you? Sheesh, half a year of training together didn't mean shit to you, huh?"
"Tch. About our next course of action, not about the damn Senzu bean. And sucking up to me won't help; it just makes me more suspicious of your intentions."
"That training was for actual training, not for sucking up." Ajax muttered to himself under his breath, feeling a bit affronted by Piccolo's misunderstanding of his intention.
Piccolo's ears twitched, but he remained silent.
"We're getting in contact with Bulma and making the wish as soon as Guru gives us the okay. After that, fighting Frieza is almost inevitable," Ajax said after a brief pause, his eyes shifting to the three injured bodies on the ground.
He scanned Goku's battered form, noting the severe damage from the successful seppuku. The deep gash that ran nearly the entire width of Goku's torso was particularly gruesome.
"But for now," Ajax added firmly. "We need to get them healed."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone