"Let's go take a look," Broly said, and flew off with Ai at full speed.
They landed near the man in no time.
He was sitting on the ground, telling jokes to the Violet Star natives around him with animated flair.
It was almost like watching a stand-up routine.
Every few moments, the people around him burst into laughter.
The man himself was smiling too, laughing right along with them.
Though when he laughed, he really let himself go.
"Something feels off, Broly..." Ai said, studying the man's face. "His hair is black, and his voice doesn't sound like Ken's."
"Let's get closer," Broly said, and started walking toward him.
The man quickly noticed Broly and Ai.
So did everyone else there.
After all, one glance was enough to tell these two clearly were not natives of this planet.
"Ken... is that you?" Broly asked, looking at the man.
The man looked back at him, shook his head lightly, and answered with a smile, "You've got the wrong person."
Broly studied the man's face again, more carefully this time.
Ai used her smart eyes to run a basic scan on him as well.
Of course, she did not do anything too detailed. That would have been rude.
After the quick scan, Ai lowered her voice and said to Broly, "Broly... I don't think he's Ken."
"He doesn't have a tail," Broly said with a nod.
"That's right," Ai replied, her body flashing softly.
"Sorry. We mistook you for someone else," Broly said apologetically before turning to leave.
The man said nothing else. He only glanced after Broly for a moment in thought, then went right back to performing.
Soon, the people around him were laughing again.
He looked like he was having the time of his life.
Broly and Ai moved farther away, to a quieter area with fewer people around.
"Why is there someone who looks exactly like Ken?" Ai asked.
"I don't know," Broly admitted. He had no idea what to make of it either.
"Should we contact Ken? Maybe it's some long-lost brother of his," Ai suggested.
"Ken's never mentioned having any siblings," Broly said, shaking his head. Then he thought about it and added, "Still, we should contact him. Whatever this is, it's better to ask first."
"All right. I'll get in touch with him now," Ai said, immediately opening a line through her internal communications system.
She had a built-in communicator and could reach Ken at any time.
...
Universe 6, Earth.
Capsule Corporation Headquarters, Bulma's house.
By now, Ken had already returned to Earth in Universe 6 and was back at Bulma's place, enjoying a proper meal.
"Seriously... you disappear for a whole year without a trace!" Bulma huffed, puffing out her cheeks in annoyance.
"I was training the whole time. I didn't have time to come back," Ken replied.
At the same time, he let Amarella out so she could sit on the table and enjoy the food too.
"An angel's life really is easy," Bulma said with a sigh. "You never age, and you live forever... so basically you can waste as much time as you want, right?"
"That's not wrong," Ken said, shaking his head, "but if you don't keep pushing yourself, and a stronger enemy shows up later, who knows what might happen?"
To Ken, wasting time was never something to be proud of, even with eternal life.
Only by getting stronger could he deal with whatever strange threat might come next.
Right now, all he had really done was surpass the Right Guard.
That was it.
He still had not challenged the Left Guard.
And beyond the Left Guard, there was still the Grand Priest... and Zeno-sama.
What pressed on him most was something else entirely: outside all these universes, there was still a Space-Time God of Destruction.
A god at level 100.
If Ken let himself slack off and that god one day decided this timeline was unpleasant to look at, one casual wave of a hand could erase the entire thing.
By then, no one would even know how they died.
That was why Ken had to stay prepared for danger, even in peace.
Even angels had their own worries.
"So stronger enemies really are going to appear?" Bulma asked.
"They will. Definitely," Ken said with a nod. "It's just that sometimes you don't know about them until they're already there."
"Oh my... Ken's back?" Bulma's mother, Bikini, came over carrying some tea and sweets, her smile as unchanged as ever.
"Hello, Aunt Bikini," Ken greeted her warmly.
"You're getting more handsome every time I see you," Bikini said with a grin. "Want to be Auntie's boyfriend?"
Bulma: "..."
Bulma's face darkened on the spot.
"Mom, that's way too much!" she shouted. "What do you think Dad's supposed to feel if he hears that?"
"He won't hear it," Bikini said with a giggle.
"I heard it..." Dr. Brief said as he pedaled over on a bicycle, pushing up his reading glasses. He seemed completely unbothered and said seriously, "Ken, next time you come back, bring me a few cute alien girls. I want to experience some exotic charm."
"Ken, I want alien handsome boys," Bikini added.
"Got it. Leave it to me," Ken said without hesitation.
Of course, he knew perfectly well Bulma's parents were joking.
That was part of why he liked the atmosphere in Bulma's home so much.
The place was huge, but it still felt warm.
That was one of the main reasons Ken liked staying there.
After chatting with Bulma's parents for a bit, Dr. Brief and Bikini went off to do their own things.
Then Ken asked Bulma how she had been.
"The same as always. What else am I supposed to do besides research?" Bulma said, still annoyed that he had been gone for a year.
"What about Goku and the others?" Ken asked.
Over the past year, he had not used his staff to check on Goku or the rest even once.
It was not because he was unwilling to teach them.
He had already said everything he needed to say. Letting Goku and the others develop on their own was the better choice.
Everyone had their own way of training. If Ken had to guide each of them personally...
Then he would have no time left to train himself.
And for now, raising his own strength still came first.
As for that competition with Merus, Ken had always treated it more like a game than anything serious.
Just a small side episode on his path forward.
Besides, if he left Merus too far behind, Merus's mindset would completely collapse.
Truthfully, it was already starting to crack.
So in the end, Ken had decided to let Goku and the others grow more or less on their own.
And even if he did nothing, Goku and Vegeta would still reach absurd heights eventually.
"I haven't seen Goku in a long time either..." Bulma said, shaking her head. "Are all Saiyans like this? Do none of you ever visit anyone?"
Ken did not answer that.
"Oh, right. Did you know Android 21 is living with Krillin now?" Bulma suddenly remembered and brought it up.
"Oh? Really?" Ken said thoughtfully. "What about 16? Is he fixed?"
"Shenron gave him a brand-new body," Bulma said. "Now he lives there too, with Krillin and 21. They're all crammed into that old geezer Master Roshi's place."
Ken suddenly felt a little sorry for Master Roshi.
Poor old guy. He was probably hearing all kinds of strange noises from upstairs every day.
Who knew what that was doing to him.
And as for 16...
So you finally sorted yourself out?
Ken did not comment further.
Everyone had their own life to live. It was not like they had to change everything just for him.
Just then, while Ken was chatting with Bulma, the staff he had set aside flashed a few times.
Ken turned toward it and realized it was an incoming call from Ai.
"Ai, what is it?" he asked.
"Ken, we found someone on Violet Star in Universe 3 who looks almost exactly like you," Ai said, immediately reporting what she and Broly had discovered.
"Oh?" Ken said, mildly surprised.
Someone who looked exactly like him?
Through the crystal on his staff, Ken immediately started searching for the man on Violet Star.
Once he had a precise location, the search became much easier.
It was like having a keyword.
Finding one specific unknown person in the vastness of the universe was difficult.
But with a clear target, it became simple.
For example, if Ken wanted to locate the strongest mortal in an entire universe, that would take a lot of angel power and a lot of time.
That was one of the reasons the strength of different universes varied so much during the Tournament of Power.
Some universes ended up fielding mortals who were surprisingly weak.
Mostly because angels could not always locate the most suitable fighters in a short time.
And angels, generally speaking, were lazy. Combined with their detached temperament, many of them just handed problems like that to the God of Destruction and let them deal with it.
But once Ken had a "keyword," the search was easy.
It did not take long for him to lock onto the man on Violet Star and display his face in the crystal.
He really does look exactly like me.
The only obvious differences were that his hair was black and he had no tail.
"All right. I see him," Ken said to Ai. "How are you and Broly doing?"
"We're fine. We're still traveling through the universes," Ai answered. "Though Broly's growth is coming very slowly. At least it's still increasing a little."
"As long as it's still increasing, that's something," Ken said thoughtfully. "My angel power is almost completely stalled right now."
"Do you know who that person is, Ken?" Ai asked.
"Not yet," Ken admitted with a nod. "But he definitely looks exactly like me. Leave it with me. I'll investigate further."
"All right," Ai said, and ended the call.
Ken immediately grabbed Amarella, who was still eating, and lifted her up.
Amarella: "..."
"Could you maybe be gentler?" she said, truly speechless. "You've messed up my clothes again."
"Forget the clothes for a second. Come look at this," Ken said, carrying her over to the crystal on his staff.
"What happened?" Bulma asked curiously.
Bulma had seen Amarella plenty of times by now, so none of that surprised her anymore.
"...Is he some long-lost brother of yours?" Amarella asked in astonishment after comparing Ken's face to the man in the crystal.
"I don't have any siblings," Ken said, shaking his head.
"He really does look exactly like you... This is strange," Amarella muttered.
"What is it?" Bulma asked, leaning over, but she could not see anything.
Ken projected the image outward so Bulma could see it too.
"He really does look just like you..." Bulma said in surprise. "If his hair were white, he'd look like he came from the exact same mold. Are you really sure you don't have any brothers or sisters?"
"I'm sure," Ken said.
He knew very well whether he had siblings.
And if he really did, Vegeta would have said something long ago.
Besides, Saiyans almost never had twins.
"You can use the staff to check his origins," Amarella suggested. She clearly felt something about this was very wrong too.
Ken had no objection. He immediately used the staff to run a detailed analysis on the man who looked exactly like him, even across the boundary between universes.
The results only left him more confused.
The man's name was Rohl.
A Saiyan from Planet Vegeta.
Born in Age 732.
His battle power was average.
At age three, he had been sent off to an unknown planet and disappeared without a trace.
So far, all of that sounded normal enough.
But when Ken used the staff to identify Rohl's biological parents, he was genuinely stunned.
Rohl's parents were his own biological parents.
Ken almost did not know what to say.
What is this supposed to mean?
And based on Rohl's birth date, the two of them had been born on the exact same year, month, and day.
So were they twins?
Because he had never once heard that he had a twin brother.
The whole thing was absurd.
Rohl's story after being sent away was simpler. His spaceship had been caught in a massive vortex, which carried him into Universe 3 and dropped him onto Violet Star.
He had been adopted by the natives there and had grown up on the planet ever since.
Violet Star was fairly advanced technologically, and aliens appeared there often enough.
So when Rohl had arrived, no one had thought much of it.
That was his whole life story.
Simple.
And yet the problem remained: he and Ken had the exact same birthday.
Looks like I'll have to ask Vegeta or Bardock. Maybe one of them knows something about my parents.
Ken used the crystal on his staff to contact Bardock first.
But no voice came through.
He looked more closely and quickly realized Bardock had fainted.
If he's out cold, then I'll ask him later.
So Ken contacted Vegeta instead.
Not because he could not investigate this himself.
He just figured it was worth asking anyway.
It cost nothing to ask.
...
Universe 6, deep space.
Goku and Vegeta were traveling slowly through the stars in Frost's spaceship.
"Have you found Bardock yet?" Vegeta asked.
"No... I still can't sense my dad's ki," Goku said, shaking his head.
"You have Ken's communicator, don't you?" Vegeta asked, his face darkening.
"I left it at home," Goku answered. "Why would I carry that thing around all the time if I wasn't using it?"
"We'll have to find Bardock first, then... Start searching from where we separated," Vegeta said, stepping over to take control of the ship and turning it in an arc through space.
Fortunately, the controls on a Sadala ship were not too different from those on ships from Planet Vegeta, so Vegeta had little trouble handling it.
Still, the universe was enormous.
This was essentially trying to fish a needle out of the ocean.
And both Bardock and Champa were unconscious at the moment, which meant the traces of their ki were incredibly faint.
That was why Goku could not sense them.
Just as the two of them were starting to feel a little lost, Ken's voice suddenly came through all the way from Earth.
"Ken? You're actually contacting me first?" Vegeta said, visibly surprised.
"Huh? Ken called you on his own? That's great," Goku said, finally relaxing a little.
"Hmph. Kakarot, looks like I'm still the more popular one," Vegeta said smugly.
"Vegeta, answer me this. Do I have any siblings?" Ken asked directly.
"I can tell you for certain: no," Vegeta replied.
But the moment he finished saying that, he stopped short and quickly asked, "Wait... why are you asking that? Don't tell me you already found out about Temat?"
Ken: "..."
"Temat?" Ken repeated, slightly taken aback.
Wasn't that man called Rohl?
How did he become Temat?
"That guy who looks exactly like you is named Temat!" Vegeta said bitterly.
"Tell me everything," Ken said, while using his staff to search for Temat at the same time.
This time, the search quickly revealed another man who looked almost exactly like Rohl.
He was currently in Universe 6.
Meanwhile, Vegeta gave Ken a full account of everything that had happened with Temat.
As he listened, Ken fell into thought.
That transformation...
Isn't that the Beast transformation Gohan would use years later?
So how does Temat have it?
And what exactly is the connection between Temat and Rohl?
"We've been looking all over for you, me and Kakarot both, just to tell you about this," Vegeta said.
Ken smiled faintly. "You had Temat pinned to the ground and beat the hell out of him. Felt good, didn't it?"
A bad feeling instantly crept over Vegeta.
"You were treating him like he was me, right?" Ken asked, his tone full of amusement.
"No..." Vegeta answered, not daring to admit it.
"I'll remember your disrespect for now," Ken said. "Since you at least brought me useful information, I'll settle the score with you after I deal with Temat."
The call ended immediately.
Vegeta: "..."
This is bad.
Now Ken's got it on his mind.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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