Future Trunks leveled his sword tip at Towa. "I know who you are — Demon Realm King Dabura's little sister. The Demon Clan has committed every evil imaginable. No matter how low I've sunk, I would never sacrifice my soul to side with demons."
"That's right! You're all very, very bad people!" Son Goku declared with absolute conviction, staff in hand.
Trunks, and both versions of Son Gohan, dropped into fighting stances.
As for the contest over the title of Supreme Kai of Time — no matter how fiercely Ino and the others fought each other, they were still Supreme Kais. Defecting to the Demon Realm was simply out of the question. It would be unforgivably stupid.
Trunks spoke on everyone's behalf. "Saiyans don't surrender. Give it up."
Sakura hunched her shoulders and curled herself completely behind No. 16, making herself as small as possible. Saiyan this, Saiyan that — she had no idea what any of that meant. All she knew was that she was absolutely, definitely not a Saiyan.
No. 16 had a genuinely fearless relationship with death. His two-and-a-half-meter frame sat there like a solid wall, steady as a mountain — more than capable of shielding one helpless young woman from whatever was coming.
Soon enough, she gained another companion in her little sanctuary.
Black-clothed Piccolo.
As the only Namekian in a room full of Saiyans, he'd already been feeling awkward. And now — of all things — the Demon Clan had shown up too.
His unofficial title had just upgraded from "the only Namekian present" to "the only Namekian present who betrayed the Demon Clan."
Foreigner and traitor — he'd managed to tick both boxes at once. The Demon Clan was not exactly famous for its magnanimity; anyone with half a brain could figure out what was coming for him next. He quietly slipped over to No. 16's side and shot Sakura a look that said: beauty, scoot over a little — let me hide here too.
Future Trunks, Future Gohan, Trunks, Son Goku, Xiaofang, and Black-clothed Son Gohan formed a living wall, blocking the path of the Demon Realm army.
"Most of these people are half-bloods. They don't understand the glory that once belonged to the Saiyans. Your Majesty, your sincerity is wasted on them — they simply cannot feel it." Broly's father, Paragus from a separate timeline, strolled forward out of the shadows.
He too had been quietly rescued by the Demon Realm King, and through demonic sorcery, a large portion of Broly's latent potential had been siphoned into him. He was now a formidable Saiyan warrior in his own right.
Black-clothed Bardock, King Vegeta, and Paragus — three veteran Saiyan warriors from the age of Planet Vegeta — stood flanked by Towa, a host of Celestial Mages, and a vast sea of Demon Clan soldiers, and advanced to meet the united super warriors of three factions.
The Celestial Mages, just as they had against Ino before, raised their wands in unison. A storm of multicolored magic came crashing down.
...
The end of time.
Countless dazzling shards of starlight collided and exploded. Shattered timelines congealed into liquid, which the three Supreme Kais of Time snatched up casually and sent hurtling at each other as prismatic columns of light.
None of the three had formed any alliance. There was zero trust between them, and each was effectively fighting two opponents at once.
Kuronoa's silhouette suddenly blurred. Even in Liberation, she could still use something akin to temporal cloning. She spread her five fingers and clawed at Ino's face.
A flash of golden light — Ino reached back to catch her wrist and grabbed nothing. Her opponent's fingers seemed to exist simultaneously across several different temporal dimensions at once; the technique was ferociously sharp.
Ino kept her expression blank. She stopped relying on her mind to analyze, stopped tracing the enemy's temporal anchors, and surrendered entirely to physical instinct.
She ducked, twisted sideways, arched back — slipping past Kuronoa's assault with ease.
An opening! The older-sister-type Aeos spotted Kuronoa's back turned toward her, and drove both palms into the current Supreme Kai of Time with full force. Countless crystallized time-remnants surged outward in a rapid wave, and by the time Kuronoa turned around, half her body had been crystallized.
"Time Domain!" Within her own unique domain, the crystals were rapidly stripped from Kuronoa's body. A self-satisfied smile spread across her face — and then she turned the tables, unleashing her Time Domain upon Aeos like mercury pouring into her, heavy and suffocating.
An instant later, Aeos and Ino both activated their own Time Domains. All three forces began to contest one another in a direct clash of temporal comprehension.
Ino was the first to be overwhelmed. Her understanding of time — of all things — was simply too shallow when measured against a Supreme Kai of Time who had lived 75 million years in the main timeline alone. Losing that contest was only natural.
Ino's first instinct was to play dead: collapse to the side, pretend to be a corpse, wait for the other two to finish each other off, then swoop in for the kill. Unfortunately, neither of the others was an idiot. The moment she coughed up blood — before she'd even gotten the line out — both of them attacked.
She had no choice but to grit her teeth and fight on, enduring the corrosive pressure of both their Time Domains eating at her own timeline while battling them head-on.
The three-way battle left the end of time more shattered than ever. When Aeos got sent flying by one of Kuronoa's kicks, Ino spotted an opening from the opposite side and drove her fist into the current Supreme Kai of Time's chest.
She'd channeled the technique Champa had taught her — a power that belonged to the Destroyers.
Kuronoa had only thrown up a ring-shaped barrier of temporal quicksand in front of her; she hadn't anticipated this at all. The destructive force didn't just shatter the barrier — it sent shockwaves tearing through her body.
"Pfft!" A jet of golden blood sprayed out.
That blood seemed to act as some kind of signal. Space and time trembled faintly around them, and the end of time — that place where all things cease — underwent a strange and sudden transformation.
"Hm? What's going on?" Ino caught something off in the scent of the blood. The instincts that had surged to new heights after she'd begun training in Ultra Instinct screamed a warning. She hesitated half a step on reflex — and it was Aeos who, spotting the opportunity, threw herself at Kuronoa in a desperate all-out assault.
"Hold on! Stop, you idiot! Stop — do you hear me?! What the hell!" Ino tried to make Aeos stand down. Something bad was happening, she was sure of it.
Aeos wasn't listening. Her mind was made up: finish Kuronoa first, deal with Ino after.
The current Supreme Kai of Time's condition had become deeply strange. Her movements abruptly slowed to a crawl. Aeos pressed the advantage mercilessly, pouring everything she had into her greatest enemy.
Like a ragdoll, Kuronoa had no defense left. She took hit after hit, and death was clearly closing in.
Ino backpedaled quickly.
She scanned left and right — and finally, she saw it.
The end of time, which had always existed in black and white like an old photograph, now held something new: a splash of color that had no business being there.
A blood moon hung in the sky, growing more vivid and unsettling with every mouthful of blood Kuronoa spat up.
The world, which had been vast and empty, suddenly felt full. The moonlight seemed to carry some strange power. Phantom shapes of earth and ocean materialized from nothing — and behind all of it, the wordless howling of countless massive beasts rose up from nowhere, their terror and panic converging into one, pouring through that eerie moonlight, flooding into Kuronoa's body. The Supreme Kai of Time raised her head. Her eyes blazed with a deep, blood-red light.
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