Zamasu's soul, Son Goku's body.
Without Goku's characteristic dazed and carefree air, he carried a certain brooding menace, edged with madness.
Goku Black hadn't expected "Mai" to appear before him so suddenly. A frail human — and yet she gave him a distinctly dangerous feeling he couldn't quite place.
"Who are you? Your presence feels somehow familiar… could it be?" Goku Black had his suspicions, but wasn't certain.
Ino spoke. "This is our third meeting, Zamasu. You've changed quite a bit. Slaughtering the gods — I never would have imagined it. As a Supreme Kai of the lawful alignment, to do something this insane… the you standing here now is more wicked than any demon clan member ever was."
The Zamasu occupying Son Goku's body radiated pure mania. His absolute sense of justice had dragged him into a quagmire, and the contradictions were written all over him — self-confidence, obsession, narcissism, and cruelty all twisted together into something deeply paradoxical.
And indeed, Zamasu was now simply a man. A standard Saiyan. To carry out the ideal in his heart, he had abandoned even his Supreme Kai body and identity. No longer a god — he had chosen to be mortal.
This was a man who had cast everything aside for the sake of his ideals, for the sake of justice.
Ino said, with genuine sincerity, "Zamasu — think back to what you first believed in. Come back to the main timeline with me. I can write off this timeline entirely. Everything you've done here can be treated as though it never happened. Go apologize to your teacher Gowasu and return to being his Apprentice Supreme Kai. What do you say?"
Goku Black let out a cold laugh. "Supreme Kai of Time? In my eyes, you're still as naive as a child. Don't you think your little speech lacks any real weight? And besides… how much power can you actually bring to bear here? This is not your jurisdiction."
Ino nodded. "You're right — I have very little power here. And I didn't come here to fight you. I'm just… sad. Sad to see someone of your caliber come to this."
Goku Black tilted his chin upward. "The Supreme Kais I've already killed said similar things. Sounded quite reasonable on the surface — but in practice? Their reason never went beyond words. The universe has no need for useless creatures who can only talk."
"So that's it? So you slaughter all the gods? Kill the Earthlings too? Kill every last intelligent life form? You've stolen Son Goku's body — even with all that immense power, it's still a mortal's body. How many years do you have left? A hundred? After a hundred years, you leave behind a universe with no life in it, empty and hollow. What does any of that even mean?"
Goku Black had his own answer ready. "The World Tree still stands. New Kais and Supreme Kais will be born. I am one of the old gods as well — I tear everything down and let this chaotic world end alongside my own end. The new gods will learn from it. They'll build a healthier, more orderly universe."
Ino let out a sigh. The battle of words had failed.
There was no point raising arguments about how light must always be balanced by darkness. The man before her had thought it all through. He had come to this slaughter of gods with the mindset of a martyr.
"Your thinking is wrong. Since you won't listen to reason, I have no choice but to end this here." Obito — a worthless scrap by comparison — had been able to send Kakashi his Mangekyo Sharingan across space. Channeling a small portion of her own body's visual prowess to this side was naturally no problem for her at all.
"Rinnegan: Pressure!"
An enormous crushing force slammed Goku Black back over ten meters. The golden Susanoo materialized from thin air — this time taking the form of a modern female soldier, dressed in a bulletproof vest, shotgun in hand, golden hair pulled into a ponytail.
Click — a round chambered. A heartbeat later, a projectile the size of a house fired in a straight line directly at Goku Black.
"You dare fight me using that feeble Earthling body?!" Goku Black was furious, certain Ino was looking down on him.
He slammed both feet into the ground, arresting his momentum, then roared and charged back in.
Zamasu had originally been a Supreme Kai — he had no need to gather the heart-power of six Saiyans. In an instant, he reached and surpassed the Super Saiyan God state.
Flame-like spiritual energy blazed around Goku Black's body. From the outside in, the flames shifted in color — deep crimson, pale red, then violet — and his hair transformed instantly to a vivid rose.
This transformation was a tier above even Kale's Legendary Super Saiyan God, on the same level as the Super Saiyan Blue form that Goku and Vegeta were currently grinding away to master.
"Ha! Let me show you my Super Saiyan Rosé form!" Goku Black laughed with wild abandon.
He had long coveted Son Goku's body. In his mind, such boundless power in the hands of a "mortal" was nothing short of a sin.
Constrained by Mai's body, the golden Susanoo lacked close-range combat ability. Without a word it opened fire again and again in rapid succession.
The energy blade technique that Zamasu had once excelled at underwent a significant mutation now that he inhabited Son Goku's body. His arm tensed — what had once been a roughly one-foot energy blade stretched into a three-foot pink scythe.
The scythe's edge hummed with razor-sharp force, seemingly capable of cutting through any material. With a flash like a streak of rainbow light, it sliced cleanly through the projectile fired at him. The residual energy condensed into a blade wave that swept diagonally toward the golden Susanoo.
Bang bang bang — the golden Susanoo fired continuously, shattering the blade wave, then kept accelerating until over ten streaks of golden light converged to seal off every escape route Goku Black had.
Goku Black met it head-on with savage courage. He let the golden light punch two holes clean through his body, then swung the great scythe with full force, cleaving a pink spatial rift open from nothing.
The rift yawned open like the maw of some great beast. The suction from within warped and tore at the golden Susanoo's armor — composed as it was of spiritual power — and in an instant, several deep, blood-weeping gashes opened across Mai's arms and shoulders.
This body could not sustain too much of Ino's power. She had to finish this fast.
Mai's right hand opened. "Super Shinra Tensei!"
Not even the Super Saiyan God Rosé form could withstand this visual prowess technique, amplified by Ino to a degree she had long since lost count of.
The spatial rift shattered. Repulsive force sent Goku Black hurtling backward by several hundred meters.
Mai's left and right hands, perfectly in sync with the golden Susanoo's left and right hands, both pressed together in a prayer gesture.
"Time Deletion!"
Streaks of golden light closed in like the bars of a cage, trapping Goku Black. Out of the corner of her eye, Ino could already see the Zamasu of this timeline flying toward them from a great distance — but in the end, he was too late.
Goku Black had abandoned his Supreme Kai body. On the surface, his Super Saiyan, Super Saiyan God, and Super Saiyan Rosé transformations seemed devastating — granting him power that would have been utterly unimaginable during his time as a Supreme Kai. But what he had surrendered in return was equally immense. Gone was the abnormal status resistance that came with being a Supreme Kai — what people commonly called "magic resistance." Son Goku's body simply didn't carry that. Nor did he possess Goku's iron will, forged through countless battles and hardships.
Against Ino's time-based abilities, he was nearly powerless to resist. In the span of a single instant, he was swallowed by a roaring temporal current and swept away into an unknown timeline.
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