"Did not expect to see it again at the very end. What a climb."
Whis finally let that familiar smile show. "Goku, you really know how to keep us on edge."
"Kakarot, you idiot, if you still lose like this, I will make sure you remember it."
The stands exploded with raw relief and fury, every throat aimed at the arena. "Go, Goku!"
On the broken stage, Jiren stared at the transformed Goku, shock flickering and then fading as he steadied his breath. He probed first, a string of testing jabs.
Goku's body drifted a hair's breadth to either side. Jiren did not so much as brush Goku's sleeve.
Goku's left fist rose without warning.
Crack.
The sudden clean shot rocked Jiren. That punch carried every shard of his opponents' belief. It felt heavier than anything he had taken. Acid stung his tongue. His eyes bulged. He staggered back, face hardening.
At this level Goku could match him.
"Then drop with no regrets."
Jiren's aura erupted. The tiles under his boots softened and ran. "Show me your full power."
He charged. The fist that came for Goku would have broken mountains. Goku turned his shoulder, caught Jiren's knuckles in his palm, and answered in kind.
Blow met blow. Pressure pealed across the void.
Jiren seized a window and packed a sphere with killing heat. "Get off my stage."
It detonated and swallowed Goku whole.
A heartbeat later, Goku stood high above him. He tore away the ragged upper half of his gi, eyes like winter over half-lit stone.
He moved. Speed alone carved welts across Jiren's cheek. The wind of his passage had cut him.
"So fast. Perfected Ultra Instinct," someone breathed, awed and stricken. In Belmod's ears it sounded like mockery aimed at Universe 11. "Ultra Instinct is nothing special. Jiren will never lose."
Jiren shut out the noise. His world narrowed to the silver figure in front of him. He lunged.
"Do not think a little power makes you untouchable."
Stone burst under his heel. He broke past light. Even Dyspo could no longer track them.
Goku flowed backward and met him in motion. Instinct fought instinct. Without thought, Goku's body parried everything Jiren threw.
They traded straight rights. Goku's landed first. He used the recoil to whip a kick into Jiren's shoulder.
Jiren rode the blow skyward, palms spinning scarlet energy to the size of a boulder. He hurled it down.
Goku lifted his left hand. A short blue lance snapped from his palm, a blade no longer than a forearm, and speared the sphere. The explosion blossomed well short of him and rattled the field to gravel.
"You canceled it."
Jiren dropped, scanning the ashes of divinity burning in the air, the same holy edge that haloed Goku's skin. He reset and went again.
They crashed together, elbow to elbow. Jiren snatched for Goku's scapula. Goku's knee hammered his gut. A left hook kissed Jiren's jaw. A high kick hurled him like a comet.
He pinwheeled through stone, righted himself, and glared. "I cannot let this continue."
A storm of orbs flooded from his hands.
Goku's outline flickered and slipped each one. He vaulted, spinning in a clean arc, and landed into a sprint.
Jiren threw up a scarlet wall, attacks jetting from its face like quills. Goku wove through the lattice and closed.
A straight thrust.
Jiren did not dare take it bare. He crossed his forearms and absorbed it, then faced a barrage that drove him a step, then another. He grimaced, slipping each follow-up by less and less.
Goku blurred, reappeared at Jiren's back, and drilled him. Jiren's frame warped around the hit and skipped across the arena, pulverizing rocks until his aura blasted the rubble away.
"Impossible. I do not lose."
He swept his arm, panting, eyes locked on Goku. "If I lose, I lose everything. If I lose, there is nothing."
For a moment his gaze dulled. Then fire caught in it again. "I will never be that helpless again."
Scarlet flame tore out of him, rushing across the World of Void. The stands braced as a gale of ki painted the emptiness blood-red.
Jiren walked out of the fire. Red faced silver-blue. Their eyes met. Jiren's were feral. Goku's were calm, almost cool.
Their auras touched and snarled.
The next collision began.
----------------------------------------------------
The deeper he goes, the more the truth unravels. Don't wait read ahead and witness Vincent's rise before the world catches up!
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