Goku closed the distance while Fused Zamasu was still trying to understand how his own attack had been kicked back at him. One punch drove him into the ground, but immortality gave him no reason to stay there for long. He tore free of the crater and shot into the sky with murder in his eyes.
"Don't get arrogant, Saiyan! Your blind faith in your own strength has always been your greatest weakness!"
"You healed again?" Goku groaned. "How long are we supposed to keep doing this?"
"I told you from the beginning. I cannot die."
"Then I'll keep hitting you until being immortal stops feeling like a good thing."
Goku surged forward and kicked through Zamasu's guard hard enough to twist one arm into an unnatural angle. The fused god screamed, then retaliated with a massive burst of energy and caught Goku before he could evade.
The blast hurled him backward, but Goku vanished midway through the flight and reappeared directly in front of Zamasu. His heel buried itself in the fused god's chest and sent him crashing toward the ground again.
Goku followed immediately.
Zamasu raised both hands and wrapped him in divine power before he could reach striking distance. Goku's balance vanished in midair, and the invisible force slammed him flat against the earth.
"Fine! I can do that too!"
Goku thrust both hands forward.
The same kind of pressure seized Zamasu and planted him face-first into the ground several meters away.
For a few absurd seconds, both of them lay pinned to the earth while trying to crush the other with divine power.
"I told you already," Goku said through a grin. "I'm a Supreme Kai apprentice too. Anything you learned there, I can probably do as well."
"Stop copying me!"
"Okay. I'll use something else."
Energy flared between Goku's hands.
Zamasu immediately regretted asking.
The blast swallowed him whole and tore his body apart until almost nothing recognizable remained. Immortality rebuilt him anyway, flesh and clothing knitting back together until the fused god once again stood intact.
Goku was already moving.
The instant Zamasu finished regenerating, a boot smashed into his face and left a deep imprint across his cheek. Another barrage followed before he could recover, with Goku hammering him back into the ground again and again.
"I told you this is useless!" Zamasu shouted as he forced himself upright. "No injury lasts! My body will always restore itself!"
He had barely begun regenerating the latest damage when Goku appeared behind him and kicked him squarely in the lower back.
Zamasu pitched forward and buried his face in the dirt.
"I'm not going to stand around politely while you heal."
Rage and humiliation finally overwhelmed whatever remained of Zamasu's composure. He ripped himself out of the ground and turned toward Goku, only to find purple-red energy gathering around the Saiyan's right hand.
Trunks recognized the nature of that power immediately.
Vegeta did too, and he hated what it implied.
Kakarot was a Supreme Kai apprentice.
Why the hell did a Supreme Kai apprentice know a God of Destruction's technique?
"Enough!" Fused Zamasu roared as his own power exploded around him. "I'll kill you, every Saiyan here, and this entire planet with you!"
He charged.
Goku rushed forward to meet him, slipped around the incoming punch at the last instant, and appeared directly above his head with destruction energy already spreading from his palm.
"Let's see how you handle my dad's technique."
"Hakai!"
The purple-red energy engulfed Zamasu.
His body began disintegrating immediately.
There was no wound to regenerate and no flesh to repair; everything touched by the destruction energy simply ceased to exist. Within seconds, half of Fused Zamasu had already vanished.
Panic finally overrode his pride.
With his remaining hand, Zamasu opened one of the scarlet portals.
Another vortex appeared around Mai.
Nobody had time to react before divine power dragged her through it. By the time Trunks understood what was happening, most of her body had already disappeared into the spiral, leaving only her legs kicking desperately outside.
"Mai!"
Zamasu yanked her the rest of the way through and pulled her against himself as a shield.
Goku immediately killed the Hakai.
"What are you doing? Using Mai as a hostage? That's pathetic!"
Zamasu exploited the hesitation without shame. His foot drove into Goku's stomach and knocked him away before he shoved Mai aside and regenerated the half of his body that had survived the Hakai. Even his damaged clothes restored themselves with him.
Mai struck the ground hard enough to lose consciousness.
Goku's disgust deepened.
"You really are shameless."
"A god standing above all creation should never have needed such a disgraceful method to win," Zamasu admitted bitterly. The humiliation only gave him another target for his anger, and he extended one hand toward Mai. "Then I'll erase the mortal woman first. Her death will remind me forever of this humiliation."
That was enough.
Goku drew a slow breath, and starlike silver light began gathering around his body.
His presence changed with it.
Ultra Instinct -Sign-.
"So you finally decided to use Ultra Instinct?" Zamasu scoffed. "It changes nothing."
"Zamasu!"
Trunks's roar tore across the battlefield.
Blue and golden light twisted around him as lightning crackled over his body. Sword in hand, he launched himself at the fused god with everything he had.
Zamasu dismissed him with a glance.
An invisible blow caught Trunks in mid-charge and hurled him away. He tumbled through the air before smashing into the ground near Mai.
"You think you can challenge me, Trunks?"
"Your opponent is over here."
Goku was already on him.
The speed of Ultra Instinct -Sign- turned the next exchange into a one-sided assault. Fused Zamasu could do little more than absorb the punches crashing into his body until Goku finally kicked him across the head and buried him in the ground.
Zamasu forced himself up.
Goku's foot came down before he could fully stand and drove him flat again.
Blood spilled from Zamasu's mouth as despair began creeping beneath the rage.
"This time I'm erasing you properly."
Purple-red destruction energy formed over Goku's palm once more.
Before he could release it, something strange happened to Fused Zamasu's body.
The fusion began pulling apart.
Goku stopped, confused by the grotesque sight unfolding beneath him. Unlike Vegito, who had separated cleanly into Goku and Vegeta in an instant, Fused Zamasu stretched and tore as Goku Black and Zamasu emerged from the same body while strands of flesh still connected them.
"What's happening? Are they splitting apart?"
Piccolo had been watching the timing since the fusion began.
"It's been about an hour."
The two Zamasus struggled onto their feet, still partially fused together and screaming as their bodies fought between separation and reunion.
Goku relaxed slightly.
"Then you're done. Whether you stay fused or split apart, neither version of you can turn this around now."
"We are the one true god!" Goku Black and Zamasu shouted together. "There is no need for more than one! We are a single being!"
Instead of allowing the Potara to finish separating them, they forced themselves back together, flesh merging until Fused Zamasu's shape began returning.
Goku could only shake his head at the desperation.
"Why keep fighting it? Fused or separated, you already lost." His gaze briefly moved toward the sky. "Ken still hasn't arrived, either. Once he gets here, this really will be over."
"We will never lose to mortals!"
The declaration had barely left Fused Zamasu's mouth when Trunks came down from above.
His sword cleaved straight through the fused body from head to groin.
Goku had no response ready for that.
The two halves collapsed in opposite directions, and the forced fusion finally broke apart completely, leaving Goku Black and Zamasu sprawled on the ground before either had fully understood what had happened.
Trunks did not give them time.
He rushed Goku Black, drove the sword through his chest, and buried the blade through his heart.
For a moment, Trunks could only stand over him and breathe.
Months of fear, loss, and rage finally broke through at once, filling his eyes with tears.
"Let's see you recover from that, Goku Black."
Piccolo allowed himself a satisfied smile.
"Trunks knows how to take an opening when he sees one. Whatever else happens, at least Goku Black is finally dead."
Gohan could think of no better ending for him.
"After everything he did to this timeline, I'm glad Trunks was the one who finished him."
Kale looked toward the remaining Zamasu.
"And the immortal one alone isn't much of a threat anymore."
Vegeta remained silent, but Goku was far more openly pleased.
"Nice work, Trunks! You protected Earth."
Trunks looked back at him with exhausted relief.
"Goku…"
He had barely begun pulling himself away from the body when Goku Black moved.
An energy blast erupted from his hand and struck Trunks at point-blank range.
Trunks was thrown across the ground.
Goku Black rose with the sword still buried through his chest.
Nobody had expected movement from a man whose heart had just been pierced, especially when immortality had belonged to the other Zamasu.
"You shouldn't be immortal," Goku said, unable to make sense of what he was seeing.
Goku Black calmly pulled the sword from his chest and crushed the hilt in one hand.
Then his body changed.
Flesh shifted, hair turned white, and the familiar shape of Fused Zamasu emerged again.
Goku instinctively backed away from the transformation until his shoulder bumped into someone behind him.
He glanced back.
Another Fused Zamasu stood there.
For once, even Goku's mind had trouble finding a simple explanation.
"There are two of you now?"
Both Fused Zamasus answered with the same ugly smile.
Vegeta looked from one to the other, his anger briefly overtaken by disbelief.
"How the hell did one fusion become two?"
Piccolo could see only one certainty in the mess before them.
"This has gone far beyond what we expected. Maybe that's why Ken insisted on coming here himself."
One Fused Zamasu attacked Goku from the front.
Goku slipped over the kick with Ultra Instinct -Sign- still active, only for the second to strike from behind. His body reacted automatically, catching the incoming fist and guiding it past him while he moved clear of both enemies.
"Enough! What happened to you?" Goku demanded. "At least explain why there are suddenly two!"
Neither Zamasu showed any interest in answering.
Their silence ended when Vegeta looked toward Trunks and Mai lying injured on the ground.
Fury ignited through him.
Super Saiyan 4 surged back to full strength, and Super Saiyan God power layered itself over the transformation once more.
Vegeta launched himself into the pair before either could turn.
His first kick sent one Fused Zamasu tumbling across the battlefield. A punch caught the second and drove him away in the opposite direction.
"Die!"
Energy flooded from both of Vegeta's hands.
The blast swallowed the two Fused Zamasus and ripped their bodies apart, scattering pieces across the ruined city before the smoke slowly began to clear.
Gohan watched fragments of both enemies fall through the air.
"Vegeta blew them to pieces."
"When it actually matters, he knows how to stop fooling around," Piccolo said.
Goku looked toward Vegeta with mild surprise.
"Why'd you suddenly jump in?"
Vegeta rounded on him.
"Because you refuse to finish anything! Stop dragging this out and erase them already!"
"Oh. That." Goku scratched his cheek. "Ken told me to take it slowly."
Vegeta's anger stalled.
"He said I should wait until all the Zamasus showed up before we 'closed the net.'" Goku looked toward the scattered remains, still not entirely sure what Ken had meant. "I didn't really understand the last part, though."
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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