Ch. 122: Free Hit

"Five."

I wasn't about to move. None of the attacks in my current repertoire would so much as tickle Frieza as he was now. Not without more of his own energy behind them. I needed Frieza to move. Then and only then would I be able to use the power that he wasted with every breath against him.

"Four."

"You can do this, Hanna! Charge up all of the power you can, and condense it into a single point!" Krillin advised me from a distance. I subtly shook my head, barely perceptibly. I'd never learned those types of moves. Condensing Ki to a small point, in theory, sounded easy. I'd been able to do it since the day that my dad had taught me the Kamehameha, after all. 

But the fact was, it was hard. Without perfect control and concentration, knowing the limits of how much energy you can safely force together at once, and keeping that energy from going out of control and simply exploding, that energy would inevitably just be a huge pain, and I meant that literally. I'd set off explosions in my own face more times than I could possibly count teaching myself those techniques. 

"Three."

If I were in my normal form, I would've pretended to teach myself how to do it in the heat of the moment, and nobody would have been any the wiser, but I wasn't. I was in Grey Mode Times Ten, which already required intense concentration to use, or it'd literally and entirely destroy my body. I'd pretty much instantly turn into dust, in fact. The current Kaio-Ken limit of my body without the added control of Grey Mode was just six or seven, after all.

A genius capable of fine control over their energy in a way they'd never done before while using such a difficult technique? Raditz was already shaking his head, having silently buffed himself to Kaio-ken times six so that he could react instantly when Frieza inevitably attempted to crush me into itty bitty pieces. 

"Two."

"Ouuuuuu....." I couldn't just give up. Cupping my hands outward in front of my body, I slowly gathered energy into them. I'd shown this energy technique to Piccolo back during our flight to Namek. It was my own modified energy blast, the Supreme Wave. Anyone who could sense energy could probably tell that it was unstable, but it was strong and easy to gather energy for.

"Finally. Now that you're done trembling in fear, hit me with everything you've got!" Frieza shouted, spreading his arms to take my energy blast head-on.

"Fine! TAKE THIS! HAAAA!!!" I shouted, forcing the energy out of my palms directly at Frieza. 

The thing about my Supreme Wave was, the mechanisms behind it were far different from those of the Kamehameha, or other energy-based wave attacks. It was the absolute peak of energy waves, created from decades of trial and error. It combined energy efficiency, easy control, and pure penetrating power in a way that made it far more terrifying than any of its predecessors, though most of that was because of the balance that it struck. It wasn't as energy-efficient as the Dodon Ray, nor as penetrating as the Special Beam Cannon, and it was slightly more difficult to control than the other generic waves like the Galick Gun and Kamehameha. 

But it was still a masterpiece. The concept behind the technique took inspiration from bullets and planets. You'd think the two would have nothing in common, but the concepts came together for a terrifying attack. 

First, I'd create a dense core of energy. In the case of this specific Supreme Wave, that core was slightly smaller than an orange, but normally it was about the size of a grape. This core would contain roughly one-third of the energy for the attack. Then, I'd draw the rest of the energy into the core gradually, using the core's own 'gravity' to keep the attack together. This created a fairly dense ball of energy, spinning at fairly high speeds like a bullet that'd just left the chamber. The spinning would increase the penetrating power and the accuracy of the blast quite a bit, creating a powerful attack at a 'reasonable price.' It actually had a composition similar to that of an atom.

That was the attack that hit Frieza right in the chest, powered by quite a bit of my current 500,000 power level, with a little bit of Frieza's own energy sprinkled in. Even I figured that it'd have some effect on Frieza.

"That tickled a bit, but I suppose I was wrong to worry about you so much. It seems that you just got lucky when you pulled that little trick or when you dodged my tail." Frieza emerged from the dust cloud completely unharmed, causing us all to gawk unintentionally. "I suppose it's now time to keep up my end of the bet!" With an almost imperceptible swish of his hips, Frieza's elongated tail was attacking me once again. But unlike last time, he didn't simply give up after I dodged the first blow. There was a second, and a third, and so on in rapid succession. 

"HANNA!" I could distantly hear Raditz shout, but my brain was too busy to even bother fully processing it.

Frieza's tail came as a rain of blows, far too fast for even my own senses to follow, bogged down by my current body's capabilities. He was pushing his current transformation to the limit, trying for all he was worth to hit me with a fatal blow.

But for all of his trying, he couldn't do it.

"Why. Aren't. You. Dying?" Frieza asked, not letting up his storm for a moment. But even as I dodged his attacks, I didn't answer. Honestly, I couldn't. In fact, I couldn't even breathe, I was moving so fast, pushing past my limits and then pushing past those. 

Frieza was leagues faster than me, no matter how hard I pushed my body, but I could instinctively read his thoughts and see his next actions. It was my trump card against him. It meant that I could tell exactly where his tail was going to land next just as he decided on it subconsciously. That was the only thing keeping me alive, but for how long, I had no idea.