The kick landed with devastating force, sending Son Goku crashing down.
"Hmph!" Kale wrinkled her nose. This Uncle Goku looked composed enough on the surface, but he was still a bit of a showboat underneath.
Your speed can't touch mine, and your strength isn't even close — so what exactly were you jumping around for?
Kale surged forward. Her left hand seized Son Goku by his Super Saiyan 3 hair — that wild, hedgehog-Sonic mane — and physically dragged him across the arena floor, carving a deep furrow through the stone. Her right hand didn't stop for a second. All martial virtue thrown straight out the window, she locked onto Goku's face and unleashed a relentless, torrential barrage.
Faced with the sudden eruption of a Legendary Super Saiyan God, Son Goku looked for all the world like a helpless little girl. He searched for Son Gohan's ki signature, intending to use Instant Transmission to break free from Kale's grip — but there were two Son Gohans on the battlefield right now, and their signatures were nearly identical. That split second of hesitation was all it took. Kale's hand clamped down on his arm, and his body shot forward against his will. A flash of green light — two full seconds passed before he even registered that he'd taken another punch.
He spat blood. His nose was broken, his eyes already swelling shut. Forcing his eyes open through sheer will, he poured every last scrap of focus into tracking the enemy's movements. He predicted ahead of time, extending his left arm in an attempt to catch Kale's incoming fist.
But he had catastrophically underestimated a Legendary Super Saiyan God.
The instant they made contact, his palm exploded with pain. The force cascaded through his wrist, his arm, his shoulder — numbing everything to the bone.
He couldn't stop it.
Thunderous as a lightning strike — Kale converted the straight punch into a horizontal elbow, throwing her entire body weight behind the blow. Son Goku's chest caved in completely. No telling how many ribs snapped. The sheer violence of the impact drove him straight into the ground, and the world went black.
"She truly is a once-in-a-millennium Legendary Super Saiyan — a genuine combat prodigy," Kuronoa remarked, teleporting Son Goku out of the ring before signaling Xiaofang to feed him a Senzu Bean.
The current Supreme Kai of Time shot Ino a sideways glance, privately concluding that keeping a Legendary Super Saiyan God hidden as a trump card and only deploying her at this critical juncture was, frankly, underhanded.
Underhanded? Ino gave a completely unbothered whistle.
"Careful — they might gang up and beat you up together in a minute!" Sakura whispered urgently.
Ino shook her head. "They won't. The friction between those two runs a lot deeper than anything either of them has with me. That kind of grudge doesn't dissolve in three words. Still, can't afford to be careless."
To prepare for the coming Supreme Kai of Time showdown, she drew the bulk of her attention back from the arena floor. The young ones had already slain the dragon — no need to worry about them. Victory was locked in. It was her turn now.
And indeed, that was more or less how it played out.
Kale defeating Son Goku first effectively sealed the final outcome.
In the current configuration of the fight, a thirty-percent power advantage was enough to roll right over an opponent. And now they weren't just thirty percent ahead in strength — they were going two-on-one on top of it. What was left was simple: clean up and enjoy it.
Kale and Future Gohan combined forces to defeat Black-clothed Son Gohan, eliminating Aeos's team from the tournament entirely.
The Time Patrol's Trunks fought with true ferocity. He defeated Ino's Future Trunks — but at enormous cost to his own stamina. Facing the combined assault of Kale and Future Gohan, he showed not a shred of fear. He broke his limits once more and took them both on alone. After an agonizing, grinding battle, he managed to bring down Future Gohan — at which point his reserves were completely spent. Against a true Legendary Super Saiyan God, his own Super Saiyan God had no real path to victory.
Kuronoa raised her right hand and conceded on behalf of the Time Patrol's captain.
And with that, the second round of the Super Space-Time Championship officially came to a close.
The last warrior standing was Kale.
Ino handed out one Senzu Bean each to all three of them. Future Trunks and Future Gohan could rest — Kale could not. Two Supreme Kais of Time were watching her like hawks, and there would be no rest now.
Using her telepathy, Ino quietly passed instructions to her daughter. "The battle ahead is nothing like the Saiyan brawl you just had. It'll be... very hard to follow. In the early stage of the fight, you have exactly one job: survive. Survive, and survive again. Stay hidden. Don't throw yourself in recklessly. When I call for you, that's when you come out."
"Got it! I'll remember!"
"Good girl." Ino ruffled Kale's hair, then turned to face her two opponents.
"Then, esteemed Supreme Kais of Time," she said, "let us begin the final battle."
Aeos let out a cold laugh. "Finally, the tedious little warm-up act is over. Utterly boring — I nearly fell asleep. You two wastes of space can both come at me at once; save me the trouble."
Kuronoa said nothing. She spread her arms wide. Behind her, a golden gear-shaped halo materialized, and as the gears turned in steady rhythm, her body rapidly transformed from that of an eight-year-old girl into a vibrant, beautiful young woman of eighteen.
With Kuronoa's transformation as the signal, Aeos and Ino both entered their own "Liberation" states.
Strike with one fist and invite a hundred in return — that trap had to be avoided. They each had their hidden aces, but this was not the moment to play timid. By unspoken agreement, all three of them were now flexing their muscles.
The temporal gear halo behind Aeos radiated a pale blue light.
The temporal gear halo behind Ino had once been golden as well — but through her continuous cultivation of Ultra Instinct, the light it cast had gradually shifted to a silver-white.
The Time Power within them was released. Across countless timelines, every parallel self was forcibly recalled in that instant, converging back into the original body.
Their "Liberation" was, in a sense, an act of borrowing — borrowing from their past selves, borrowing from their future selves, even borrowing from temporal clones belonging to timelines that weren't their own.
Borrow what you can. What you can't borrow, you take by force.
Over in Konoha, the Ino Yamanaka belonging to the Sixth Universe let out a startled yelp as her chakra was yanked away into nothingness, and she crumpled to the ground mid-sentence. The Root ninja standing nearby stared in bewildered confusion, completely at a loss as to why she'd been talking one moment and faceplanting the next.
The Sixth Universe's Ino Yamanaka was only one reflection among many across countless timelines.
The three Supreme Kais of Time completed their Liberation, one after another.
Ino returned to the body she'd had before she first competed for the title of Supreme Kai of Time. Aeos looked a few years older than either of them — long hair flowing freely, cold as frost, every inch the composed and imperious older-sister type.
The change in appearance was secondary. What mattered was that their combat power had each received a hundredfold amplification alongside the Liberation.
Ino's battle power spiked from a baseline of ten billion to a full one trillion.
Kale stared open-mouthed at her father, then at the other two Supreme Kais of Time. Dad had gotten this strong?
The most powerful person the girl had ever witnessed was Vegetto — the warrior born from Son Goku and Vegeta fusing with the Potara Earrings. But even Vegetto after transforming into Super Saiyan barely scraped half of what Ino was putting out right now.
Kuronoa looked at the two challengers. "Let's take this to the end of time to fight. Saves the scenery here — I'd hate to spend energy repairing the damage afterward."
____
________________________________________
🌸 Help Love Bloom!
Our girls need a little push... and you can help!
💖 Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 50 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter to warm your hearts.
🚀 Community Reward: If we reach 20 supporting members, we'll have a +5 chapter marathon across all stories! The romance won't stop.
👻 Come to our secret corner: Search for GirlsLove on (P). You know that's where the magic happens... 😉