Black said, his voice carrying that casual tone that somehow made everything worse - "You know, I should probably confess something. Until now, I've been holding back considerably."
Future Trunks felt his blood turn to ice - "What?"
Black continued, his smile widening as he watched their expressions change - "Oh yes. I've been lowering my power significantly. You see, I wanted to have some fun torturing you all. It's quite amusing, really—even as a Kai, I've developed quite the taste for the thrill of battle. But now..."
His aura began to shift, the rose color deepening to something that looked like spilled blood - "Now I think it's time you experienced the same power that launched your precious Future Gohan aside with such delightful ease."
The transformation was instantaneous and terrifying.
Black's power didn't gradually build like a normal Saiyan transformation.
It just... was. One moment he was floating there with his casual smirk, the next he was radiating energy that made their previous encounter look like a gentle breeze. The air around him didn't just heat up—it began to break down at the molecular level, reality itself struggling to contain the sheer magnitude of his true strength.
Goku stared in awe, his Super Saiyan 3 form flickering in the face of such overwhelming presence - "That's... that's his real power?"
Future Trunks could barely speak, sweat beading on his forehead as the pressure hit him like a physical wall - "How is that even possible?"
But even as despair began to creep into their hearts, something else was happening about two kilometers away. A familiar golden light was building in intensity, growing brighter.
Future Gohan stood alone in a crater of his own making, his Perfect Super Saiyan 2 form blazing like a miniature star. But he wasn't stopping there.
The energy continued to build, compress, refine itself until it reached that perfect balance between raw power and absolute control.
Perfect Super Saiyan 3.
Then, impossibly, he began to compress it further. His mystic potential, dormant for so long, began to merge with the Perfect transformation. The golden aura took on new depths, new colors that had no names in any mortal language.
Black put his hand casually behind his back, his head tilted at an almost curious angle - "Oh? So that is your ace card?
Sweat ran down both Goku and Future Trunks' foreheads as the implications hit them. They were caught between two impossible forces—Black's overwhelming divine might and Future Gohan's desperate gamble with power that might tear him apart from the inside out.
Goku made the decision in a heartbeat, his voice tight with determination - "We need to buy him at least two minutes. Trunks, I need you to launch me with everything you've got."
Future Trunks looked at him like he'd lost his mind - "What? Goku, that's—"
Goku leaped into the air, his body positioning itself directly above Future Trunks - "Just do it! Now!"
Future Trunks didn't hesitate. His hands came together, energy building between his palms as he aimed upward at Goku's feet - "FINAL FLASH!"
The massive beam of yellow energy erupted from his hands and caught Goku squarely in the soles of his boots. But instead of being incinerated by the attack, Goku did something that defied every law of physics and common sense—he began absorbing the Final Flash into his body.
The pain was indescribable. Every cell in his body screamed as Vegeta's signature technique merged with his own ki, the conflicting energy signatures threatening to tear him apart from the inside. But somehow, impossibly, he held it together through sheer force of will.
Goku roared, his body surrounded by a golden dragon made of pure energy - "DRAGON FIST!"
But this wasn't the usual Dragon Fist. This was the technique enhanced by Future Trunks' Final Flash, creating something that had never existed before in any timeline.
Black's smile widened with genuine anticipation - "Too slo—"
He never finished the word.
Goku didn't fly toward him. He didn't charge or rush or do any of the things Black expected. Instead, he simply appeared inside Black's personal space, the Dragon Fist already connecting with the false god's chest before he could even register the movement.
At the exact moment of impact, Goku silently activated Kaioken times one hundred.
His body became a conduit for power that should have vaporized him instantly. The Kaioken enhancement, combined with the Dragon Fist technique and the absorbed Final Flash energy, created a perfect storm of destruction that caught even Black completely off guard.
The impact launched both fighters away from Earth at speeds that made light seem sluggish. They tore through the atmosphere in seconds, past the Moon in heartbeats, through the asteroid belt like it was made of tissue paper.
Mars flashed by in a red blur. Jupiter's massive form couldn't even slow them down. They finally reached Saturn, the beautiful ringed planet that had inspired poets and dreamers for millennia.
Goku's fist, still connected to Black's chest, punched through Saturn's iconic rings like they were made of paper. The ice and rock particles scattered in every direction, creating a cosmic light show that would have been beautiful if anyone had been alive to see it.
But they didn't stop there. The momentum carried them directly into Saturn's gaseous atmosphere, the planet's hydrogen and helium composition providing no resistance to their incredible speed.
Goku screamed, pouring everything he had into the attack - "This ends now!"
The Dragon Fist energy, the Final Flash power, the Kaioken enhancement—all of it focused into a single point of absolute destruction.
The explosion, when it came, was beyond anything the universe had witnessed since the Big Bang itself.
Saturn didn't just explode—it imploded first, all of its mass compressing into a point smaller than a grain of sand before rebounding outward in a supernova that briefly outshone the Sun. The shockwave rippled across the solar system, sending asteroids flying and creating aurora displays on every planet with an atmosphere.
Vegeta, still shaking off the dust from his crater, looked to the sky.
"Has Kakarot done it? I can't feel their ki."
"Me neither," Gohan answered, his voice rough.
Future Trunks remained frozen in the posture of his Final Flash, breath shallow, his Perfect Super Saiyan 2 aura flickering before vanishing. He dropped to base form, knees buckling, landing beside the scattered, unconscious Z Warriors. Vegeta caught him before he could collapse completely.
They almost allowed themselves a smile—until a sudden, crushing surge of ki tore through their senses. Two signatures. Goku's—faint, barely holding. Gohan Black's—towering.
"They're… coming back to Earth," Vegeta muttered, his tone flat. "So damn fast."
A shape tore through the clouds—Goku, hurled down like a meteor. He slammed into Gohan, the shockwave ripping open the ground. Above, Gohan Black hovered, rage in his eyes, a deep cut slashed across his chest—the mark of Goku's Dragon Fist.
"How dare you, mortal," Gohan Black's voice boomed. "No punishment in existence will be enough for you." His ki roared upward, shaking the air.
For a moment, there was no sign of Future Gohan. His ki was gone. Silence. Then—boom—he appeared, three meters from Gohan Black, eyes locked forward. He wasn't in Perfect Super Saiyan form. He was… Mystic.
No—something beyond it. The gathered fighters felt it. He was condensing Mystic into Mystic, his power rising like a chain reaction.
The air fell silent for a heartbeat. Future Gohan floated just three meters from Gohan Black, his eyes locked onto the false god's, his aura calm but radiating something terrifying. It wasn't just Mystic anymore. Not Perfect Super Saiyan 3, not even the exponential flare of his previous transformations. This… this was something entirely new.
He had condensed his Mystic potential into Mystic—a process that defied the normal rules of ki. Normally, Mystic amplified a Saiyan's base power linearly, tapping into dormant potential that had been unlocked. But Gohan had taken that latent force and restructured it, compressing it into a singular, pure core of energy, while still maintaining the limitless adaptability of his Super Saiyan enhancements.
The result was a ki that was simultaneously dense and infinitely expansive. It flowed around him like molten gold, but inside that glow, there were flashes of violet and white light, mathematical spirals of energy folding into themselves, multiplying his output exponentially with every microsecond. Each heartbeat, each breath, was measured, precise… and yet capable of detonating like a supernova.
Gohan Black felt it too but didn't retreat. He struck first, moving faster than thought, a punch aimed at Future Gohan's head.
Future Gohan matched him. The blows connected, and both fighters vanished.
Then came the storm—billions upon billions of punches, each meeting its twin. They fought across the ground, in the sky, even out beyond Earth's edge. Each second, their speed climbed higher.
The air above Earth quivered, not with the faint tremors of ordinary combat, but with a pressure that made every nerve and muscle in the Z Warriors' bodies scream in protest. The sky, once a canvas of pale blue, had become a roiling sea of violet and gold, crackling with the furious energy of two forces that dwarfed planets, that bent reality itself under their will.
Future Gohan hovered, barely three meters above the scorched crater that had once been a battlefield for mere mortals. His golden aura flickered, a steady yet volatile blaze, as he inhaled slowly, drawing on every scrap of his mystic power. It had condensed within him, fused with his Perfect Super Saiyan strength, but it was no longer merely a state of heightened energy. It was something new. Something that had a pulse, a heartbeat of its own.
Across the sky, Gohan Black—Super Saiyan Rosé, a god-twisted mockery of the Saiyan ideal—appeared like a slash of violent light. His hair shimmered in impossible shades, like blood and rose fused into a living flame, while his eyes glimmered with the cruel clarity of someone who had tasted the thrill of absolute dominance and desired it again.
"You dare stand before me," Black's voice rolled across the void, serene yet laced with fury, "and think your fragile mortal strength can touch a god?"
Gohan's eyes narrowed, not with fear but with the cold calculus of survival. His mind raced, cataloging every detail of Black's stance, every quiver of his ki. The golden-black aura that surrounded him hinted at the rifts he could summon, the shadows that could multiply his will a thousandfold. But Gohan had learned something in the vacuum of his isolation, in the crucible of a ruined future: power alone did not determine victory. Precision, speed, and unyielding resolve did.
The first move after they Clash of punchs came without warning. A crack of sound, a pulse of energy so sudden that even the very atmosphere seemed to fracture. Gohan Black thrust his hand forward, unleashing a Divine Retribution , the golden-black sphere streaking across the distance at nearly unthinkable velocity. Gohan's reflexes responded before thought; his body shifted, leaning into a Tenma Defense barrier that flared white against the dark sphere, fragments of energy vaporizing in sparks as the blast collided with the shield.
The force shoved him back, grinding his aura against itself. But he didn't falter. He rose into the sky again, spinning with supernatural fluidity, releasing a Ki Explosion beneath him to clear the residual energy fragments and create distance. The ground below, scarred from previous battles, exploded in jagged rock and dust, yet the spectacle barely registered in the face of what was about to unfold.
Black's laughter rang out, cold and exquisite, as shadows erupted around him—clones, imperfect yet terrifyingly strong, each echoing a scream of battle-lust. **Mass Replication**. They fanned out like a storm of darkness and light, each one simultaneously attacking, forming blades, jabs, and ki spheres that seemed to intersect at impossible angles.
Gohan's gaze sharpened. The first wave of clones came at him, fists and blades moving faster than the eye could trace. His body moved on instinct alone, weaving through the storm with Sonic Rush, each strike precise, each counter calculated. He launched one clone into orbit with a spinning kick, crushed another with a Fierce Combination maneuver that sent the enemy tumbling into the atmosphere. Yet, for every clone destroyed, two more seemed to take its place, shimmering with the same cruel energy as the original.
Black's voice, calm yet seething, punctuated the chaos. "Do you feel it, mortal? Your power grows… and yet it is meaningless against eternity!"
Gohan gritted his teeth, summoning his ki. Down Burst, Masenko followed in quick succession, each blast flaring with light, clashing against the shadows and the rift-bound attacks Black wove through the air. The Holy Light Grenade erupted suddenly from a distance, a massive sun-like sphere that tore through the sky, but Gohan twisted midair, Energy Charge flaring behind him, and with a precise One-Handed Kamehameha , he sliced the meteor in half before it could strike.
The battlefield became a blur of speed and light. The Z Warriors, watching from Earth, could no longer detect their ki as Gohan and Black's energies intertwined, feeding off one another. Every punch, every ki blast, every slash seemed to elevate both fighters beyond their previous limits. Gohan felt it first—a tingle deep in his cells, like the universe itself was whispering secrets of greater potential. His Mystic aura deepened, flowing outward in shimmering gold threads that danced along the edges of reality.
Black, sensing it immediately, flared with the full might. Every minor cut, every residual pain from the battle, accelerated his strength. He streaked through the void, rifting open the sky with Sickle of Sorrow, slicing across space with violent violet arcs. Shadows surged from the tear, each a perfect facsimile of his movements, doubling his assault.
Gohan clenched his fists. He understood now—the only way to survive was to grow *beyond* even his Perfect Mystic form. His ki surged, not just outward, but inward. He drew upon the residual mystic energy within, compressing it, layering it, until the golden aura became a solid construct, a living weapon of energy.
He lashed out with Another Hope, striking multiple clones at once, the force radiating like a shockwave through the rift-strewn battlefield. Black snarled, spinning backward with Instant Transmission, launching a Sudden Death Beam directly at Gohan's chest. Gohan countered with Full Power Energy Wave, meeting the beam with an explosion that ripped open the sky and shook the land below.
And yet, it was close. Too close. Each had adapted to the other's tactics with near-perfect timing. Every Spirit Blade, every God Split Cut, every ki-infused strike Black threw was met with Gohan's Intercept, Fierce Combination, and Spirit Explosion. The clash of abilities became a symphony of destruction. Mountains cracked, oceans surged, and the clouds above twisted into spirals of violent color.
Then came the Dimensional Assault. Black's rift grew, opening a window to nowhere, to *everywhere*, as he flung Violent Fierce God Slicer blades through the portal. They struck with terrifying unpredictability, each slash moving faster than thought, each strike threatening to rend Gohan's body into atoms. Gohan's Tenma Defense flared like white fire, holding against the assault, yet the effort drained him, each second pulling him closer to his limit.
Gohan's eyes narrowed. He remembered, from the first days of isolation in his timeline, that power alone would not suffice. Technique, control, and adaptation would decide the battle. With a thought, he unleashed Super Ki Explosion, Hyper Masenko, and Kamehameha in rapid succession, weaving them together into a lattice of light and energy. It intersected with the shadows, the rift blades, the Godly Black Kamehameha, and for a moment, the entire field was a network of radiant, violent energy.
Black's grin widened as he sensed Gohan's growth. "Ah… so you can evolve. How… delightful." His aura expanded, the Rosé flames licking outward, warping the surrounding void. He **split his soul**, each shadow acting with independent thought, moving with uncanny synchronization. **Mass Replication** surged anew, the battlefield now filled with dozens of Blacks, each identical yet uniquely dangerous.
Gohan, in response, surged beyond mere reaction. His **Wild Sense** flared, his perception stretching to encompass every clone, every incoming strike, every ki pulse. He moved, not as a single body, but as a living network of energy, DUAL One-Handed Kamehameha blasting the closest shadows into oblivion, **Spirit Explosion** detonating the rest in cascading chains of light.
And still, Black adapted. **Divine Retribution**, **Black Kamehameha**, **God Binding Light Bullet**, every attack now layered atop one another with insane precision, cutting the air with the sound of tearing cosmos. Each strike against Gohan forced him to evolve in turn—his aura thickening, the mystic energy merging with every attack, every defensive move, until he felt a tremor in his soul: he was no longer *just* Perfect Mystic.
He was something… *beyond*.
The first close-range clash arrived suddenly. Both fighters collided midair, fists meeting in a storm of light and shadow. Super Explosive Wave rippled outward in all directions. Gohan's legs snapped outward with Fierce God Kick, sending Black staggering. But in response, Black teleported, leaving a shadow in place and striking from a new angle with Azure Dragon Sword Model Energy Blade.
Time dilated, expanded, then collapsed as both fighters exchanged blow after blow, ki-enhanced strikes slicing the atmosphere, tearing open pockets of the void, warping gravity and space. They moved so fast that the billions of ki clashes were felt rather than seen, each impact an echo of cosmic-scale energy.
Gohan gritted his teeth, summoning the last reserves of his mystic energy. Spirit Explosion,Hyper Masenko, One-Handed Kamehameha, all in tandem. Black responded with Sudden Storm, Violent Fierce God Slicer, and Darkness Twin Star, his clones scattering and reforming in near-infinite complexity.
And yet, the fight was balanced. Neither giving quarter. Neither yielding. The energy between them was alive, as if the universe itself had become the medium for their duel. Each strike elevated them, honed them, forced them to grow beyond their former limits.
Above the Earth, the sun glared down, yet its light seemed weak, inadequate, as if even it feared being overshadowed by the incandescent fury of a Saiyan's will, and a god's wrath twisted into human form.