His fist was already moving before he understood what had happened.
One moment Mangūsu was speaking. The next, his arm was swung in a powerful blow out of nowhere.
BAM
Mangūsu's transformed arm caught the fist between his open palm and the ground, absorbing the impact effortlessly, fur bristling along his forearm from wrist to elbow. Dust kicked up around his feet.
He hadn't moved back an inch.
"Now, now," Mangūsu said. "Let's not do things we'd regret."
Bankei was looking up at the fist. Then at Merun. His voice came out controlled and clear.
"Merun?"
The tremor started in the chest and worked outward. Merun pulled the fist back slowly.
Focus.
Suppress.
Now!
He brought his free hand up and slapped himself across the face.
SMACK
The sound rang out across the empty arena.
His head snapped sideways. He breathed out a long column of steam and when he turned back, something behind the eyes had settled.
"...Sorry." The words came out slowly. "Got. Mad. Lost. Control."
Bankei exhaled.
Mangūsu's arm returned to normal. He straightened his robes as if nothing had happened.
Bankei didn't give him the chance to speak.
"What do you want, Mangūsu?"
But Mangūsu wasn't looking at him.
He was looking up.
Bankei knew Mangūsu for decades... something about him was off.
He looked desperate.
"I wanted to make sure of something," Mangūsu said. He tilted his head upward toward the Great Ape. "So... Merun. Who is Master Roshi?"
Merun said nothing.
Suppressing this form demanded everything. Every thread of focus he had was occupied with keeping himself afloat in the red ocean, constantly battling the waves that wanted control, resisting the urge to give up and drown. He thought he was fine until a little rage had tipped him over.
He had almost killed his friend and master in that strike.
Unacceptable.
In this state, somehow, his mind had simplified. He had become more honest for his own good.
Who was Master Roshi?
Well.
His true name was Muten Roshi right?
"Alias. Strongest." The word came out before he'd decided to say it. "Lives. Alone. Very. Powerful. Knows. Things. Others. Don't."
Mangūsu went very still.
Merun was surprised he actually said that. In the back of whatever thinking he had access to right now, the reasoning was simple enough—Muten Roshi had lived alone on Kame House for decades... well, if you don't count the sea turtle. He was the strongest human alive before the Saiyans arrived. The Turtle School's techniques had formed the foundation of everything Goku became.
All of that was true. He'd just said what was true. Maybe too true for his own good?
But Mangūsu's face had changed.
"...Why were you sent you here?" he asked, quiet and careful.
Merun's red eye drifted across the arena. It didn't show, but he looked at the old man he presumed to be the Beggar Sage.
The old man in the stands had not moved. He was still seated in the emptied rows, hands folded, a mild expression on his face.
Merun stared at him for a long moment.
The pause stretched. Mangūsu's jaw tightened.
Merun looked back down at him.
"Sent. Here." A breath of steam seeping out the sides of his mouth. "Final. Test."
He said it before he'd finished deciding to. The words arrived from somewhere that wasn't fully under his control right now.
And then he wondered if that was a mistake.
Why am I speaking before deciding to speak?! I can't control it!
But it was simply the truth. The Beggar Sage had sent him here. This had been some kind of final test—of what exactly, Merun still wasn't entirely sure. But the words had come out and they were sitting in the arena now and he couldn't take them back.
Something in Mangūsu's face collapsed.
His posture had faltered. His eyes moved rapidly—recalculating, panicking, overthinking. His complexion, beneath the mask, had gone pale.
Shit, Mangūsu thought. I was right. It was Sage Kai's. And he sent him here to test the experiment.
He bowed stiffly.
"I see."
Merun stared at him, confused.
He'd expected a fight. More negotiation at minimum. Maybe some version of Mangūsu being Mangūsu—cold, calculating, three steps ahead. Instead the man in front of him had just bowed and said two words and was now standing very still. He seemed to have misunderstood somewhere?
Merun looked at the Beggar Sage again.
Why this prison specifically? The Beggar Sage had known Bankei was here. Had he known about Merun's latent ki? Did he know Bankei would teach him—or had at least calculated it as likely? And if the Masters hadn't been present, if Mangūsu hadn't been here running his personal project, plotting to break down Bankei, this would have been straightforward: Get in, learn, get Bankei out.
But Mangūsu was here. Had been here the whole time. Had engineered the entire imprisonment. Had killed and tortured countless innocent people all for reasons he didn't know.
Mangūsu had hindered the plan. Merun had some of his rage slip past him.
"YOU." Merun's eye settled on him. "HINDER. PLAN."
Mangūsu's composure broke completely.
His worst fears seemed to have come true.
"W-what? No! I did not! S-sorry, that was never my intention! I didn't know—" He stopped himself and swallowed. "T-tell me. What's next? What do you need?"
"FREE. BANKEI." A pause. "WE. LEAVE."
Merun spoke honestly. That was the plan, after all.
Mangūsu bowed again, lower this time. He didn't know why the Patriarch wanted to free Bankei this way, nor why he even cared. Something about this was suspicious, but he followed along. "Of course. Of course, that's... yes. Please."
"Put in a good word with the Patriarch when you report back. If you could—I would appreciate—"
Merun looked at him.
Why was he asking Merun to deliver a message? The Beggar Sage was right there. In the stands. Merun could see him from here.
"No. Need. He. Here."
The silence that followed was total.
Mangūsu's eyes trembled. The calculation behind his eyes ran fast, and his mind was scrambled.
He stopped responding entirely.
As if something world-ending had dawned on him.
He stood in the middle of the ruined arena, said nothing and didn't move at all.
Was he arrogant enough to think he could sense it if Sage Kai was nearby?
...Would he take offense to that?
He definitely would.
Merun watched the paranoid man for a moment, then looked away.
He reached down and lifted Bankei carefully into one palm. Bankei, for his part, had gone very quiet. He had gone through the same train of thought as Mangūsu.
"He was sent here by Sage Kai...," Bankei said, half to himself. "To rescue me. But — why? It doesn't—"
Merun's legs bent.
BOOOOOM
They launched, going far from the city.
The arena fell away beneath—the cracked floor, the injured Seniors, the frozen Masters, Mangūsu standing in the center of it all like a statue of himself.
The moon was still up.
———
Back in the arena, the two Masters landed on either side of Mangūsu.
Hiraku looked at the empty space where the Great Ape had been. Then at the old man still seated calmly in the upper rows, who rose without hurry and descended the stairs.
He spoke cautiously to Mangūsu, unsure what he was going through.
"Lord Mangūsu... the special guest is about to leave."
Mangūsu simply nodded, but his dumbfounded, despaired body language was still there.
Guzo had less restraint. He looked annoyed, even.
"Master." He looked at Mangūsu's back. "Why did you let them go? I wanted a go at that! Looks like I could still catch u—"
Mangūsu's head turned slightly.
Mangūsu's arm instantly transformed, claws out, and the strike connected with Guzo's jaw.
CRACK.
Guzo was flung to the side, hit the wall and stayed there, embedded in it, eyes wide and not entirely understanding what had just happened.
Mangūsu looked at him with deep killing intent.
"How dare you," he said quietly, "even consider raising your hand against the patriarch's experiment?"
He removed his robes as body transformed into something sinister.
Hopefully, he could redirect some of the patriarch's anger to this dumb oaf.
"Prepare yourself."
Hiraku stared at Mangūsu. He opened his mouth and closed it again and decided, wisely, that this was not the moment.
The arena was silent, but the air was heavy.
The old man's footsteps were the only sound as he reached the floor and walked unhurriedly toward the exit.