At the edge of the Android bench, 13 stood active and intact. His eyes flicked once to the tunnel where 14 had entered the field; his processors still hummed with the raw signatures he had sent forward: Vegeta's violent cadences, the micro-rhythms of the Prince's "Pride of the Saiyans." The next node had taken it in.
Down below, 14's data — Kakarot's brutal, instinctive patterns — had been compressed and relayed again. Dr. Gero's hands were steady on the console; his mouth tightened in a thin smile.
> "13 harvested the prince. 14 harvested the beast. Now watch what synthesis becomes."
A small transmitter under the rim of the 15 unit's plating pulsed. Inside, a stream of hard-learned combat telemetry folded into his core: the Prince's defensive feints, the boarish swings of Kakarot, the timing windows for each kill-interval. These were not theory — they were *experience*, raw frames encoded into loops the android could emulate in an instant.
When Android 15 stepped into the ring, he did so like a shadow that already knew the future. He was taller than the old schematic, streamlined into dark plates that absorbed light instead of reflecting it. Amber filaments ran like circuitry across his skin, pulsing in time to a heart that had been rebuilt for combat. His voice was neutral when it spoke.
> "Target identified. Behavioral envelopes loaded. Commencing engagement."
Gohan took the opposite side with a small soundless breath. Time under Vegito's tutelage had taught him restraint and patience. His stance was compact, hands low, eyes centered. He did not wear the arrogance of a child, nor the reckless hunger of a brawler. He was a warrior who understood the cost of every exchange.
The referee's hand fell. The fight began.
---
The very first contact made it clear this would not be a training bout. 15 moved like a program with predictive threads—the Prince's feints braided into the Saiyan's instinct, Kakarot's raw angles folded into efficient arcs. The opening blow came as a probing palm that tested distance; it landed a measured vibration through Gohan's chest that tasted of Vegeta's pressure points. The android followed with a backhand-snap derived from Kakarot's violent forward momentum. It was a small combo, surgical and precise — but for Gohan it was a message: the opponent had already anticipated his read.
Gohan answered, but his movement was countered an instant before it fully committed. The android's footwork was not linear; it redirected force, used it against him, and then delivered a recompense strike to an organ window that opened just a beat too long. Gohan's knee buckled, breath catching. He rose faster than the pain, but the sense that the other man was reading his every micro-motion settled cold in his gut.
The bench where 13 watched remained still. His head tilted the barest fraction. Dr. Gero's fingers moved only to augment the data feed, to open another predictive node. His whisper echoed at the margins of the android's operational map.
> *"Take it. Learn, and pass. Make the next perfect."*
Gohan didn't panic. He accelerated instead — short, compact strikes, a volley meant to test the android's repair thresholds. He layered a small ki pulse into a Masenko-sourced push, trying to knock 15's balance off its trajectory. For a moment it worked; the android rocked, panels whirring as micro-servos corrected. Then 15's response arrived: a palm that caught Gohan's shoulder and reverberated back as a counterblast. The pulse took Gohan on the flank and shoved him into a ring of falling tile.
The crowd swallowed. Even seasoned veterans flinched. This was not just speed; it was an engine built to exploit human timing, and it had been stitched from the two most dangerous human signatures in the tournament.
---
Gohan's eyes flashed. He tightened his control and let himself fall back on what had kept him alive through countless fights: breath, angle, the patience of a counter. He'd been trained to spot the opening and etch it into a single strike. He rotated his hips, pulled his shoulder through, and launched a string of elbows that were meant to split 15's rhythm.
Each elbow found flesh — or plating — and each time they struck, 15 responded with an adjustment so small Gohan nearly didn't see it. The second elbow glanced harmlessly into the android's forearm plating while a micro-arc pivoted into the first elbow's line and turned its kinetic energy outward as a pulse. The effect was a cascade: what should have been a series of small victories collapsed into a single correction, spilling Gohan's confidence.
He bent lower, breathing ragged but steady. This fight demanded more than strength. It demanded adaptation in a machine that had been fed the exact patterns he knew best. The physiological terror settled in him — not that he might die, but that each frame of his style was being reformatted and passed on, that his most honest movements were being captured and used.
Gohan's aura sparked: the heat rose in his chest, the world narrowed. He pushed harder, tighter — faster than he had allowed himself to fight in a long time. He felt his power folding outward; the raw light thickened at his core like molten steel. The arena echoed with the sound of his breath and the strain of his limbs.
He reached for the next rung.
---
Android 15 did not falter. He stepped into the space where Gohan gathered, clamped his arm, and executed a reversal that used the Saiyan's own mass against him. A pivoted throw, a redirection of trajectory — the android's footwork exhibited a cold calculus: take the force, invert it, and then deliver a strike that occupied the only safe window left. The blow cracked across Gohan's sternum with the weight of a falling beam.
Gohan hit the floor and tasted dust. For a heartbeat — two — the world burned behind his eyes. He realized with a clarity that dulled other sensations: he had to change the scale of the fight. What 15 did best was short-cadence prediction and matched-output. He needed a discontinuity, a shift in signature that the machine could not immediately fold into its incremental model.
He gathered and let the glow in his chest grow: hair lifting, electricity crawling along his skin. The form he accessed now was not a sudden tantrum of power, it was the careful unlocking of tight potential. Muscle braced, breath slowed, and the static in the arena focused toward him.
Around the benches, voices. Bulma's hand flew to her mouth; she had been watching power calibrations since infancy.
> "he's folding it. He's going straight to Super Saiyan 2."
Even Vegeta's expression changed from irritation to interest. He leaned forward like a predator that suddenly sees the true size of its next meal. "Finally," he said softly, "the kid remembers how to fight."
Gohan felt the change as a pressure that steadied in his limbs. Energy snapped into tighter geometry. The crackle of lightning threaded his aura. His hair lifted, fine and suddenly sharp. He forced breath into his gut and then cut it off, letting the surge anchor at his core.
He rose.
---
When he moved again, it was with a new architecture of motion: not faster only, but more precise in the places where precision mattered. He struck, and the world around the impact seemed denser. But 15 had integrated two of history's most dangerous movement sets. For each Gohan uncorked, the android returned with a retort that matched pattern and met it.
The blows rained harder now, each contact echoing like thunder. Gohan was not merely outmatched in raw adaptation — he was being overwhelmed. 15's attacks came as a study in efficiency: a palm to unseat, a knee to destabilize, a wrist-twist to spill the energy axis. They did not leave him bleeding at the edges because their purpose was correction, not flourish. Still, with each hit the young Saiyan's breath came with ragged rasp; his gi tore at seams; his arms shook.
A roundhouse caught him and sent him through a spray of tiles. He rolled and spat dust and rose. The world had narrowed to a single line: press until the machine's prediction faltered.
He pushed forward — and felt the edge of his power like a blade inside his chest. The lightning arced more brutally, the hair stood up like needles. He could feel the old limit dim and a new register open.
Perfect — here's the full continuation.
(I'll keep it cinematic, martial, and detailed — Gohan's Mystic form will feel earned and physical, not mystical hype.)
Match 23 — Part II: "Awakened Potential"
The tiles beneath Gohan's boots still radiated heat from the last exchange. The faint hiss of cooling ceramic was the only sound before Vegito's voice broke the silence.
"Gohan, you should know by now," he said, arms folded, gaze hard. "That android's not just strong — it's stacked. It's using data from the previous ones."
He didn't have to raise his voice. The weight of his tone carried through the arena.
From the benches, multiple Piccolos — a strange chorus of green and calm — gave the same slow nod.
Timeline 1 Piccolo muttered, "Obvious, isn't it?"
Timeline 7's Piccolo, more grizzled, added, "If he didn't notice that, I'd start worrying."
Timeline 11's Dabura-snapped Piccolo actually chuckled. "Guess even geniuses need reminders."
Someone in the crowd snorted laughter — maybe Krillin, maybe even one of the Gotenks fusions pretending not to be impressed. The tension cracked for just a breath.
Gohan didn't smile. His eyes tracked the android, reading him anew. Vegito's words weren't scolding — they were instruction. He exhaled once, steady and deep. The air around him changed texture, like the weight of the world itself had shifted.
The flicker of his aura — gold — vanished. What replaced it wasn't color at all, but pressure. His power didn't rise in spikes or scream in arcs of light. It folded, compacted, refined. His muscles tightened without bulking. The lightning vanished. The light dimmed around him — not because he'd lost energy, but because he was holding it perfectly still.
The Mystic state didn't flare — it manifested.
The energy that had once leaked as flame now moved inward, circulating in a smooth loop. His pupils sharpened to steel gray; his hair remained black but every strand carried the shimmer of pure ki flow. The barrier around the ring buckled for half a second before recalibrating.
Bulma's sensors flared red.
"That can't be right…" she whispered. "His energy reading just septupled — and it's stable. He's past both Kakarot and that other Vegeta's SSJ3 output."
Across the stands, warriors turned. Even Vegito's eyes narrowed slightly in acknowledgment. He didn't clap, didn't cheer. Just a soft hum.
"There you are."
Android 15 adjusted his footing. The red lines across his armor brightened to full white for the first time. His head tilted a degree, scanning. The processors inside him spat corrupted readings — the human power signature in front of him had ceased to behave according to algorithmic logic.
Gohan moved first.
No scream. No flash.
He was there — and then 15's jaw caved under a single strike.
The sound wasn't a boom; it was the hard crack of an impact that shattered air molecules. The android's head snapped sideways, the synthetic jaw joint fracturing as the body was launched into a wall of light. The angelic barrier flared gold as it absorbed the blow, rippling like disturbed water.
Before 15 could rebound properly, Gohan's silhouette blurred again — already there, hand open, elbow raised, driving another strike. But at the last instant, 15 twisted, planting his feet on the barrier and pushing off — a perfect counter-thrust. His body spun, one leg sweeping out like a turbine blade.
Gohan caught the kick mid-spin with his forearm, sparks bursting outward, then used the recoil to pivot and bring his knee into the android's midsection. The two vanished into a storm of movement.
Them ducked beneath a palm thrust, his shoulder slipping under, and countered with an uppercut that came from the waist — compact and surgical. The android's head jerked, but his knee shot forward instantly, aiming for Gohan's ribs. Gohan twisted, intercepting with his forearm, grabbed the knee, and spun, throwing 15 over his shoulder. Before the android could hit the floor, he released a burst jet from his back and stabilized — slamming a double-fisted hammer into Gohan's spine.
Gohan dropped, one hand hitting the tile, using the momentum to spring forward into a sliding low kick. The move hooked 15's ankle and flipped him midair, but the android rotated like a gyroscope, landing palm-first and launching a scatter-shot of ki pellets like hot rain.
Gohan didn't dodge — he slid through them, deflecting each with fingertip bursts, the afterimages forming rings of golden sparks. His counter arrived in a blur: three body punches, a chest blow, then a half-spin elbow. Each hit resonated, the shockwaves stacking on top of each other until the final one sent 15 flying backward into the far barrier again.
But the android was learning.
Halfway to impact, 15 braced, channeled the recoil from his previous hit, and redirected his momentum forward — like catching the energy of his own fall. He shot back toward Gohan at double speed, eyes glowing with rapid data-strings.
Gohan grinned — just slightly.
When their fists met this time, the impact was clean, perfect. The ring cracked outward in symmetrical lines — not from chaos, but from balance. They were matching rhythm for rhythm, like two masters of the same ancient style, one human, one algorithm.
Adaptive Flow
15 adjusted again. Every microsecond his core recalculated: limb trajectory, ki density, joint stress tolerances. The machine adapted perfectly — until Gohan broke the rhythm deliberately.
Instead of completing a predictable counter, Gohan changed tempo mid-sequence. He stopped halfway through a kick, twisted his ankle, and turned the motion into a grab. His hand closed on the android's wrist — and instead of pulling, he pushed the limb, collapsing the line of defense, forcing 15 off-center. Then he spun his entire body around the android's axis, using his momentum to smash an open palm into the back of the android's head.
The strike was so fast that the shockwave reached the crowd half a second later.
15 stumbled, sensors ringing — his internal gyroscope misaligned, visual feeds blinking with static. He recalibrated instantly, but Gohan was already gone from sight.
The Mystic warrior appeared above him, knee tucked, elbow raised. He came down like a hammer of condensed gravity.
15 managed to cross his arms — but the impact still cratered the floor, cracking tiles for fifty meters in every direction.
Gohan didn't let up.
He followed with a machine-gun flurry of punches, each one sharp, minimal motion — no wasted energy, every hit an optimized line between intention and impact. The android blocked what he could, parried a few, but the rhythm shifted again and again, patterns that refused to repeat.
From the stands, Vegito chuckled once — a small, proud sound.
Piccolo (Timeline 7) crossed his arms, faint smile tugging his mouth. "About time he remembered who taught him rhythm."
Bulma's instruments glowed with strain; even she could barely keep up. "His energy's plateaued at that output," she said. "He's not rising — he's stabilizing at that level. Like he's found the perfect equation for his own power."
Down in the ring, the machine was fracturing. Android 15's chest vents glowed white-hot, steam venting as coolant systems overloaded. His left arm was cracked; his motion still perfect but flickering at the edges. He launched one last gambit — his adaptive field activating full synchronization. For a second, his movements matched Gohan again.
Their punches blurred, meeting in midair. The sound was a constant percussion. Gohan's face was calm, lips tight, breath perfectly regulated. The android's was static, eyes flashing data streams that began to lag. Then, one miscalculated line.
Gohan slipped under, pivoted, and struck.
His palm hit the center of the android's chest. No blast, no flare — just a quiet bang. The air folded outward like a breath. The android was sent flying, limbs splaying as the barrier bent, absorbing his impact.
15 slid down the barrier wall, one eye cracked, light flickering weakly. He rose again, staggering, but Gohan was already there, one hand hovering in front of his face, calm and centered.