Merun was falling.
Or perhaps he was standing still, and the cosmos was collapsing around him.
In the weightless darkness of his mind, he stood beneath a sky he thought he knew.
But as he looked closer, the stars weren't celestial bodies at all; they were glowing drops of dew clinging to the incomprehensibly vast branches of a transparent, luminous, almost alien tree.
The branches curved downward, wrapping around the entire world, weaving through the Great Nam Ocean like a cage of living light.
It was a beautiful canopy.
A perfect, protective shell.
A prison?
The realization struck him not as a thought, but as a suffocating weight in his chest.
The sky wasn't infinite.
It was a glass dome, and they were all insects scurrying across a single leaf trapped inside a jar.
Suddenly, the roots of the great tree began to writhe.
A horrific, shifting monstrosity fused with the very bark of the universe began clawing its way out from the center of the world. It roared—a sound that reached Merun's very soul, demanding subservience.
His Saiyan blood boiled. His fists clenched as he prepared to defeat it.
But he was too late.
From the void above the canopy, a pitch-black spot of nothingness opened and violently imploded, swallowing the otherworldly beast and the luminous tree whole.
Then came the shattering.
The curved dome of the sky cracked.
A deafening, cosmic pop echoed as the fabric of space-time unbent itself. The horizon, which had always stopped at the edge of the sea, suddenly sprinted away from him at an impossible velocity, flattening into a terrifying, endless plane.
The familiar day-and-night cycle fractured. The sun and moon drifted aimlessly across a sky that had grown too massive to hold them.
The cage was gone.
The leaf had been tossed into the true forest.
Merun spun around in the dream, his boots slamming onto a shoreline that stretched into infinity.
The ocean was no longer empty.
Across the newly flattened world, distant, massive landmasses ground into view, as if the planet itself were violently expanding.
And from those distant shores...
Eyes were watching.
He couldn't see their faces, but their silhouettes and auras were strangely familiar.
Phantoms with skin of cold, polished silver and eyes that blinked with mechanical, mathematical precision.
Shifting shadows of biology that dissolved and remolded their own flesh, adapting to the very air around them.
Hulking humanoids so massive their knees brushed mountaintops, walking with the weight of hunger.
Figures cloaked in dark leaves, moving in perfect, terrifying synchronicity with the natural world.
Humanoid beasts riding atop roaring, primordial calamities.
Stout, iron-clad creators piloting walking fortresses of thunder and fire.
Merun's breath hitched.
Every single one of them possessed a presence that threatened to devour him.
Each had walked a different path, yet every path was powerful enough to make the blood in his veins turn to ice.
He took a step forward and screamed into the empty void, his body overflowing in strength as his power grew leaps and bounds as his hair turned gold.
But as he tracked their distant, ethereal eyes, he realized with a jolt of pure horror that none of them were looking at him.
They weren't even looking at each other.
Slowly, in perfect unison, the six distant civilizations turned their heads toward the open cosmos.
High above the uncurved world, in the deep, freezing void of the true stars, giant, ancient eyes blinked open.
A cold, predatory hunger locked onto their world—a cosmic sense of impending doom washed upon their entire planet. As though it were nothing more than a rich pasture waiting to be harvested.
A heavy, golden chain of light—a bridge forged from countless united souls—attempted to stitch the fracturing continents together into a shield, but the darkness descending from the stars was far too vast.
If not for a single individual, the darkness would have reached them and ended their combined existence.
The tiny speck of light single-handedly pushed back the impending doom—but not without a price.
The man began to slowly disappear, as though the world itself were erasing him for such a feat.
To Merun's surprise, before the man vanished completely, he looked back and with his pitch-black eyes, gazed upon his, and spoke in a voice that shook Merun's very soul.
"G̶̺̥̎̄͌͑͂̔̏̓̂́̈́͜͝͝͝͝ͅr̵̡͕͈͚͍͍̼͕̍̀̈́̽̎̍͗̍́̏̚͜͠ŏ̸̡̼̺̫̥̻͈̞̍͆̏̓́͜͝ͅẃ̸̝̝̰͋͒ s̴̹̀̎̇͗̍͗̾̋̏̈͐͒̕͠͠ͅt̸̫̫̤͕̳̻̰̣̭́̌̉͝ͅr̵̡͕͈͚͍͍̼͕̍̀̈́̽̎̍͗̍́̏̚͜͠ŏ̸̡̼̺̫̥̻͈̞̍͆̏̓́͜͝ͅǹ̷̨͍̮̥̹̘͙̗̻̬̬̜̥̮̃̒̈́̽͗̿̍̄̂̏͆͠͝ǧ̷̡̟̲̹̩̱͉̮̭͇͚̮̖̟̽̓͊̔̓̕ë̸͓̮͉͈͇͍̖͎́́́̋̇̾͋̈́̾͆͑͘͘͜͠͝r̵̡͕͈͚͍͍̼͕̍̀̈́̽̎̍͗̍́̏̚͜͠."
GASP.
Merun shot upright, his eyes snapping wide open as he violently tore himself free from the nightmare.
Cold sweat drenched his neck, dripping onto the sheets. His heart hammered against his ribs like a drum. His entire body was locked into Sanchin, and his furred tail stood completely on end, bristling with a panic he had never experienced before.
He threw his legs over the side of the bed, his chest heaving as he stared down at his trembling, calloused hands.
"What the fuck? What the fuck did I dream about? Why am I so afraid?"
It took him a full minute to calm down.
The morning sun was just beginning to peek through the elegant paper screens of the Iaiashin estate, casting peaceful golden rays across the room.
Outside, he could hear the faint, comforting sounds of servants moving about and the distant, rhythmic thuds of his sisters already beginning their morning training in the courtyard.
Everything was peaceful.
Everything was exactly as it should be.
Yet as Merun wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, the lingering weight of the dream—though he could no longer remember it—refused to leave him.
Stepping out of his quarters, Merun took a deep breath to clear the residual fog of the nightmare. He followed the scent of roasted meat and tea into the engawa, where Budo and Nashi were already sitting together.
"Morning, Mother. Father," Merun managed with a smile, his voice still a little raspy.
Nashi immediately looked up, her eyes crinkling with warmth.
"Good morning, my boy. You look like you barely slept. Sit. Eat something."
"I'm fine. Just restless."
Merun gave his mother a reassuring pat on the shoulder before sharing a brief, respectful nod with his father.
Budo looked healthier than he had in years. The heavy burden he'd carried for so long had finally been lifted, even allowing him to train with his sword once more.
Seeing them like this anchored Merun, pulling him farther from the chilling void of his dream.
"I've got some things to take care of with Master," he said. "I'll catch up with you both at lunch."
With a roll of Onigiri clamped between his teeth, Merun stepped down and strode toward the main training yard.
Watching Ichigo, Ringo, Mikan, and Inyen diligently spar in the crisp morning air filled his heart with profound happiness.
But it was almost instantly overshadowed by a sharp, creeping anxiety.
The unknown threat from that morning's nightmare weighed heavily on his soul, reminding him of the dream he'd had long ago.
When the inevitable day came and Sekigahara laid siege to Kandria...
Would his sisters truly possess the strength to survive?
Or would they perish at the hands of Rui and Kane just as they had in his dream?
He needed to train them.
He needed to teach them about ki.
As he stood lost in thought, the sudden, silent touch of a palm against his shoulder broke his trance.
He turned to find Master Iaiashin standing seamlessly beside him, her calm gaze studying him before she gestured toward the interior corridor.
"Come with me."
Iaiashin led Merun down a winding series of heavy stone staircases, descending deeper as the air grew cool, heavy, and thick with the ancient scent of damp stone.
Deep underground, they finally stopped before a pair of colossal doors reinforced with an unfamiliar, faintly glowing steel.
With a casual push, the massive doors groaned open.
Step by step, Merun entered a cavernous subterranean arena that stretched across the length of several football fields. The floor, walls, and ceiling were forged entirely from a dark, incredibly dense metallic bedrock that seemed to absorb the light itself.
"This is the estate's Master-level training hall," Iaiashin explained, her voice echoing slightly through the vast chamber. "It was created centuries ago during the peak of the Kinzoku Clan, when Sage Oda still walked this world. It was forged from reinforced Master-grade Kinzoku steel."
She stopped in the center of the hall, looking across the pristine, untouched expanse as Merun froze.
"...But Hideyoshi told me there wasn't any Master-level steel left. We have an entire arena made of it?"
Iaiashin ignored the question.
"Today, facilities of this caliber are completely unheard of," she continued. "Mostly because they have become entirely obsolete. I have been the sole Martial Master of this clan for centuries, and no one has reached a realm where this place is required."
She turned toward him.
"But today... we require its unique properties."
At those words, the restless heat simmering inside Merun's chest flared into excitement, burning away the fear and anxiety that had haunted him since waking.
His Saiyan blood thrummed, demanding that he push everything to its absolute limit.
Still, as he looked around at the steel walls, a flicker of genuine concern crossed his mind.
"Master."
His tail swished sharply behind him.
"Are you absolutely sure this place can survive my full power? I don't want to accidentally bring the entire estate down on my family's heads."
Iaiashin let out a rare, booming laugh, a brilliant, dangerous spark igniting within her beautiful eyes.
"Hah! Bold words, boy!"
She stepped back, her immaculate white kimono rustling softly as a suffocating, mountain-crushing pressure seeped from her body. Slowly, she rested a hand upon the hilt of her blade.
"Even I cannot leave a scratch on these walls unless I strike with everything I have."
A fierce grin spread across her face.
"Enough talk."
"Come."
A wild smile split across Merun's sharp jawline.
"Alright," he muttered, his voice dropping an octave as every muscle in his body locked into place.
He stepped forward, slammed his boots into the star-iron floor, and sank into a rock-solid, impossibly deep horse stance.
He felt his body humming with newly gained power.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"