Gazing at the seven Super Dragon Balls — each one the size of a small planet, suspended in the void of cosmic space, lined up in sequence, blazing with a brilliant golden radiance that filled every corner of her vision — Ino let out a long, quiet breath.
Finally. This moment had finally come.
To forge her own closed loop. To seize control of her own fate — and the fate of her family. Everything now hinged on the wish she was about to make.
She had unearthed the activation phrase from an ancient text long ago. She cleared her throat, and in an ancient divine tongue so archaic and convoluted that even Supreme Kais had long since stopped using it, she addressed the Super Dragon Balls.
"Come forth, Dragon God. Grant my wish... I want to be rich!"
She had no idea what that bizarre closing phrase was actually supposed to mean. Ino was seriously starting to wonder whether the Dragon God who had created the Super Dragon Balls all those ages ago had been entirely lucid — whoever it was had apparently seen fit to embed a completely nonsensical word into the activation chant. But whatever. She'd said the words. That was good enough.
Ino waited in silence for a few seconds. Then the seven Super Dragon Balls erupted, each one unleashing wave after wave of blinding golden light. The glare was so intense she instinctively turned her head away — and then Super Shenron appeared.
"Whoa..."
Even with mental preparation, when the space directly before her twisted into something incomprehensibly distorted, Ino took several involuntary steps backward. A moment later she caught herself, smiled, and held her ground. There was no practical point in retreating.
Enormous.
That was the first and only impression Super Shenron made on anyone who summoned it.
Each Super Dragon Ball measured over thirty thousand kilometers in diameter. Seven of them arrayed side by side should have blotted out everything — nothing but an immense wall of blazing golden spheres filling her entire field of view.
In reality, the moment Super Shenron emerged, the surrounding space folded in on itself. Ino was neither shrunk nor enlarged. The Super Dragon Balls themselves underwent no physical change whatsoever.
Yet in that instant, Super Shenron had adjusted both the wisher and the surrounding Super Dragon Balls on a spatial level.
Ino looked up — and what she saw was not the golden-glowing Super Dragon Balls. What she saw was a colossal beast of unimaginable scale, its body vast enough to contain an entire universe within itself, countless planets embedded in its hide like ornaments, whole star systems capable of being swallowed whole. It had a triangular skull, crimson eyes, golden scales covering every inch of its form, and a pair of great wings. Its silhouette was reminiscent of the feathered serpent gods she had read about from a past life — the Quetzalcoatl of ancient Mesoamerica.
Compared to Super Shenron's sheer volume, the seven Super Dragon Balls were like glass marbles next to a giant.
Ino tried to speak, then realized her voice would never carry across such a vacuum. She reached for her Telepathy ability instead.
But with a single great roar from Super Shenron, it swallowed her — along with the surrounding star systems and herself as the wisher — straight into its belly.
Inside Super Shenron's body, which formed a universe unto itself, Ino stopped moving. She looked left, looked right, and waited.
At last, she came face to face with the consciousness-form that Super Shenron had sculpted within its own interior.
"State your wish."
The divine tongue Super Shenron used was even more archaic than anything Ino had studied under the King Kai or the Supreme Kais. Many of its words sounded deeply strange. But at the end of the day it was still a language — still comprehensible, if only just.
She composed herself. Carefully, methodically, she turned her wish over in her mind.
Ino wanted to become the Supreme Kai of Time.
Only the Supreme Kai of Time could truly forge a closed loop — a domain of time entirely her own. I don't leave. You don't enter. In Ino's estimation, once she had built that closed loop, not even Grand Zeno could erase her.
Whether that made her strong was a separate question. But she would absolutely be ungodly safe.
She hesitated, her expression exactly like a student waiting for the teacher to hand back a test.
If I studied well, there's nothing to worry about — whatever score I earned, that's what I get. The problem is, my academic record has quite a few debatable points.
Supreme Kai of Time — by definition, the prerequisite was being a Supreme Kai in the first place. Only then could one become the dedicated Supreme Kai who governed time. But was Ino actually a Supreme Kai right now?
The Z Sword had sensed the aura of the West Supreme Kai upon her and decided she qualified. The Potara Earrings, the Sacred World of the Kai — these things also acknowledged her Supreme Kai status. The question was: would Super Shenron consider her one?
Did Ino herself know, in her heart, whether she truly was one? Of course she did — and of course she wasn't. Not really.
She had none of the bloodline of a Kai or a Supreme Kai.
Under normal circumstances, fulfilling the wish of becoming the Supreme Kai of Time would need to be split into two separate steps. First: become a genuine Supreme Kai. Second, and only then: become the Supreme Kai of Time.
Super Shenron could grant any wish — with one condition: only one wish per summoning.
Zamasu had wished to swap bodies with Son Goku. Beerus had wished to restore Earth in the Sixth Universe. Leaving aside the wish made by the Grand Minister, the other uses of the Super Dragon Balls had honestly been remarkably modest — even underwhelming. Wishes that could have been granted by ordinary Dragon Balls. Using the Super Dragon Balls for those things was like firing a cannon at a mosquito.
There had to be a reason for that.
Their own standing, the weight of karma, or perhaps something else entirely.
Ino likewise didn't dare wish for too much. The fear of unintended consequences kept her cautious.
She thought hard, turning the precise modern-language phrasing over in her mind twice, scrutinizing it for any flaw or ambiguity.
Satisfied there were none, she finally spoke.
"I wish to obtain the qualification to compete for the position of Supreme Kai of Time."
Super Shenron nodded. This wish could be granted.
"It won't make any drastic changes to my body, will it?" Ino pressed. "I'll stay as I am, right?"
Super Shenron nodded once more — and with that, a divine power beyond all description was set into motion. The transformation began.
Endless golden light enveloped Ino. There was no tearing, no blood — nothing so crude. It was like dozing off in warm sunlight. A gentle current, warm as bathwater, wrapped around her from head to toe, and when she opened her eyes again, she found that she had changed — and yet, in a way, hadn't changed at all.
The "hadn't changed" part: she was still herself. The Rinnegan. The golden-dyed fringe. The ponytail. Two arms, two legs. Height, weight, age — all untouched.
Her battle power on the status panel hadn't moved a single point. It had been 4 billion before. It was still 4 billion now.
The "had changed" part: she genuinely had changed.
She was now a proper Supreme Kai — in every legitimate sense of the word. Through some inexplicable resonance, a segment of memory had materialized inside her mind from nothing.
A bit sorry about this, Inoichi. And you too, Rino. But as it now appeared on the thread of causality — she had been born from the World Tree.
Before she had ever awakened, she had been a golden fruit, a hundred times rarer than any Kai or Grand Kai that had ever existed.
Before, she had been a temp. A secondment. On loan.
Whether Shin recognized her as a Supreme Kai had depended entirely on his mood — say yes, and she was; say no, and she wasn't.
Now, Super Shenron had forcibly filled in her origins. A history of birth had been hard-written into the fabric of existence. What hadn't been real — was now real.
One unmistakable sign of this: ever since she had absorbed the West Supreme Kai's remnant soul, her status panel had contained a skill to summon an audience at Grand Zeno's Palace. That skill had always been displayed in black — unpointable, unusable, locked away.
Now, it was available.
As a Supreme Kai, she finally had the standing to seek an audience with Grand Zeno.
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