The Katchin block struck Fused Zamasu square in the face with a metallic crash that left his head ringing and his balance shot.
Goku burst out laughing.
"You got hit by the same Katchin you summoned yourself! That's what happens when your own trick comes back to bite you."
Fused Zamasu staggered sideways, barely catching himself before he fell. Humiliation quickly turned to fury, and he charged Goku with enough anger to abandon any pretense of divine composure.
Goku met him head-on.
Their exchange carried them from the shattered streets into the sky, where Zamasu gradually forced Goku onto the defensive. After several rapid clashes, a kick broke through Goku's guard and sent him crashing back to Earth.
He hit headfirst, rolled through the rubble, and finally pushed himself upright with a pained grimace. The blue aura around him had already vanished.
"I'm almost empty…" Goku pulled out the last Senzu Bean and stared at it. "Maybe I should just eat this."
"Hey, Kakarot!"
Vegeta landed beside him before he could decide.
Goku instinctively closed his hand around the bean.
"What? I'm not finished fighting yet."
"Give it to me."
"You want the last Senzu Bean? I haven't even eaten it myself." Goku looked him over. "I could heal you instead. You wouldn't recover all your energy, and I'd lose some of mine, but—"
"I'm talking about the Potara!"
Goku's confusion vanished.
"Wait. You actually want to fuse?"
Vegeta answered with a glare that served perfectly well as confirmation.
Goku immediately brightened.
"I was thinking about it earlier, but after everything you said about never fusing with me again, I figured I shouldn't ask."
Vegeta looked ready to reconsider the entire idea.
Before he could, Goku removed one Potara earring and handed it over.
"One thing, Vegeta. Once we fuse, we probably shouldn't combine Ultra Instinct and Ultra Ego again. Last time, using both states burned through the fusion way too quickly."
"We'll worry about that after we fuse."
Vegeta put on the earring.
"Wait, I'm not ready y—"
The Potara activated before Goku finished.
Across the battlefield, Fused Zamasu noticed the sudden surge of energy between them.
"What are you two plotting?"
A crimson sphere formed over his raised palm.
"I'll erase you both right now. This time, you won't escape back to Ken's timeline. Once Son Goku is dead, none of you can travel home, can you? Then I'll kill the rest of your little group, Trunks included, and this timeline will finally be silent."
His speech trailed off when Goku and Vegeta were abruptly pulled toward each other.
Their bodies merged in a burst of light.
By the time Fused Zamasu understood what was happening, only one Saiyan stood where two had been.
Vegito rolled his shoulders and regarded him with a confident smile.
Fused Zamasu stared for half a second before bursting into laughter.
"You used the Potara too? How pathetic! You think copying my fusion will—"
Vegito flicked one hand.
A blast crossed the distance instantly and swallowed half of Fused Zamasu's body.
His laughter ended with it.
Everything from one side of his torso through the arm and shoulder had vanished, leaving him staring at the missing half of himself with horror.
A strangled scream followed as immortality forced his body to rebuild. Flesh, clothing, and even the destroyed arm regenerated until he appeared whole again.
Vegito watched him flex the newly restored limb.
"So even losing half your body isn't enough. You really can grow back from almost anything."
Fused Zamasu descended until they were level.
"You mortals dare use a divine treasure like the Potara? The arrogance is laughable!"
"Keep laughing while you can." Vegito's expression carried none of Goku's usual friendliness. "You won't be doing much of it soon."
Gohan could barely contain his excitement at seeing the fusion again.
"Dad and Vegeta fused into Vegito!"
"Last time, they separated before they could really fight Buu," Piccolo said. "We never got to see what their full combined power could do."
"With how strong they are now, Vegito might already be at the level of a God of Destruction."
"Possibly."
Kale remained focused on the battlefield. Until Vegito actually demonstrated what he could do, guessing his exact level meant little.
Future Trunks was still trying to process the sight.
"So Dad and Goku really became one person…"
Mai's curiosity took her somewhere else entirely.
"Does anyone who wears those earrings fuse?"
"In principle, yes," Piccolo explained. "One person wears an earring on the left ear, the other on the right, and the Potara combine them."
Mai glanced at Trunks.
"Then Trunks and I could fuse too?"
Piccolo and Gohan immediately found themselves regretting where the conversation was going, while Kale answered without hesitation.
"You could."
Mai considered that possibility with complete seriousness.
"Then when we went to the bathroom… would we stand or squat?"
Kale understood the concern immediately.
"I wondered the same thing when I first heard about fusion."
Gohan chose silence.
Trunks wiped a little sweat from his forehead and decided that some mysteries were better left unexplored.
On the battlefield, Vegito pointed a thumb toward himself.
"The name's Vegito. From here on, things get very unpleasant for you."
"Don't get arrogant!" Fused Zamasu snarled. "I'll tear that smile off your face!"
Vegito casually popped the final Senzu Bean into his mouth.
Power exploded around him.
Red fur covered his upper body as he transformed into Super Saiyan 4, but he did not stop there. Blue God ki ignited over the form, flooding the battlefield with an aura far denser than anything Goku or Vegeta had produced separately.
Fused Zamasu's confidence finally wavered.
"This is Super Saiyan Blue stacked on top of Super Saiyan 4," Vegito said. "Now I'm going to beat you so thoroughly that even immortality won't save you."
"You think you can threaten a god?"
Vegito answered by raising one hand.
Invisible force slammed into Fused Zamasu and sent him flying backward before he understood what had happened.
Vegito appeared behind him almost simultaneously and drove a kick into his side.
Fused Zamasu plummeted headfirst into the distant ground, his skull buried deep beneath the rubble.
Trunks stared at the crater.
"That power is insane…"
"This is what happens when Goku and Vegeta fuse," Piccolo explained. "Their combined strength can reach the realm of the Gods of Destruction."
Gohan studied Vegito's mixed transformation more carefully.
"I wonder if the difference between Dad and Vegeta's transformations makes the fusion even stronger."
"Not necessarily." Piccolo shook his head. "If both of them used Super Saiyan Blue, or both used Super Saiyan 4, the result could actually be stronger. Or weaker. There are too many variables to know without testing it."
Gohan decided not to pursue that answer.
Piccolo had somehow explained everything and nothing at the same time.
Fused Zamasu ripped his head free from the ground, blood pouring from his nose.
"This is impossible… How can your power be this high?"
A streak of blue was already coming toward him.
Zamasu threw barrage after barrage into Vegito's path, but Vegito slapped the blasts aside with one hand, sending them scattering harmlessly across the wasteland.
His fist then crashed into Zamasu's face.
Before the immortal fusion could recover, Vegito was on him again. Punches and kicks tore through every attempt at defense, turning what had begun as a battle into a one-sided beating.
A knee drove into Fused Zamasu's torso and launched him straight down.
He struck with enough force to open a pit so deep its bottom vanished into darkness.
Vegito remained above the crater and formed a sphere of blue energy in his palm.
"Come on, Zamasu. Don't tell me you're staying down already."
He dropped the attack.
The explosion roared up from the crater, throwing dust and shattered rock high into the air.
Vegito waited above the smoke.
"And since you seem confused about the Potara, here's something useful. When people who aren't Supreme Kais use them, the fusion lasts about an hour at most. So eventually you're going to split apart again."
A grin spread across his face.
"Hiding underground only makes your situation worse."
Two green hands suddenly burst through the ground beneath him and locked around his ankles.
Fused Zamasu's laughter echoed from below.
"You let your guard down!"
He erupted from the earth and pulled with all his strength, intending to slam Vegito onto his back.
Nothing happened.
The grip around Vegito's ankles disappeared so suddenly that Zamasu nearly lost his balance. He looked down at his arms and found both hands missing cleanly at the wrists.
For a moment, he could only stare at the empty ends.
Vegito stood nearby with a blue energy blade extending from one hand.
"Looking for these? Seems you forgot to bring your hands with you."
"You bastard!"
Fused Zamasu's face twisted with rage.
Vegito looked at the bared teeth and decided the lesson had not gone far enough.
"Still making that face?"
The blue blade flashed repeatedly.
Each thrust punched another hole through Zamasu's body, leaving his torso riddled with wounds faster than his immortality could close them. His screams carried across the ruined city as Vegito continued until even the fused god's arrogance gave way to panic.
A final kick launched him into the sky.
Fused Zamasu forced himself to stop in midair and regenerated once more, restoring his hands and sealing every hole through his body.
"This cannot happen! I will not allow it!"
"Then I'd better erase you before you complain any more." Vegito raised his palm and formed a sphere of destruction energy. "This time, I'll go after the soul too. Immortality won't help if there's nothing left of you to regenerate."
"Defying a god is itself a sin!"
Fused Zamasu raised one hand and summoned another block of Katchin.
Vegito almost looked disappointed.
"You really didn't learn anything."
He snapped his fingers.
Zamasu immediately lost control of the Katchin, and the enormous block dropped toward his own head.
He darted away instead of trying to seize it again.
Abandoning the trick, Fused Zamasu poured his energy upward. A massive sphere rapidly formed over him, swelling until it loomed above the battlefield.
"You think that little destruction technique can overcome this?"
Vegito held his attack ready.
"There's one way to find out."
He was about to throw it when something inside the fusion suddenly shifted.
The sensation was unmistakably wrong.
Before Vegito could react, the Potara connection collapsed.
His body split apart in a flash, leaving Goku and Vegeta standing side by side.
They looked at each other with matching confusion.
"Dad! Look out!"
"Goku!"
Gohan and Trunks shouted at the same time.
Goku and Vegeta looked up.
Fused Zamasu's enormous attack was already descending.
Neither had enough time to escape.
The sphere crashed down and engulfed them in a tremendous explosion. A towering mushroom cloud rose over the ruins as the shockwave rolled across the battlefield.
When the smoke thinned, both Saiyans were still alive, though their clothes and bodies had taken another brutal beating.
Goku winced as he straightened.
"What happened, Vegeta? We should've had way more time."
"How the hell should I know?" Vegeta snapped. "They were your Potara!"
"Maybe the fusion ended early because you didn't really want to fuse with me."
Vegeta turned on him so violently that spit sprayed across Goku's face.
"STOP BLAMING EVERYTHING ON ME! Those two fused ages ago and they're still together!"
Goku wiped his cheek.
"Yeah… that is strange. We'll ask Ken when he gets here."
Fused Zamasu descended until he hovered above them, looking down with renewed superiority.
"So your fusion already ended."
His smile returned.
"Of course it did. One of you is merely a God of Destruction apprentice and the other a Supreme Kai apprentice. Neither of you is a true god."
He spread his arms as though the failed fusion itself proved his philosophy.
"Divine treasures belong in the hands of gods. Mortals who profane them should know their place."
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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