"You're starting to get a handle over your godly power, you say?" inquired Beerus, grinning toothily. Not only moments ago, his adversary could barely handle his own speed, but now he was beginning to match Beerus' current speed. Even if Beerus didn't want to admit it, this boy was showing rare talent that he hadn't seen in thousands of years — if at all. For a mortal to embrace godly ki in this manner...was it an anomaly, or the strength of these Saiyans? "How do you feel now, then? If you can control the godly power coursing through body?"
"I feel...amazing..." Gohan practically exhaled the last word. Clenching his fist, the preternatural flames his body exuded were clearly visible within his eyes. "I can't describe it beyond that...I've been fighting for years, and I've never felt like this before. It's so different from the Super Saiyan forms my father and I worked hard to master...unlike the anger and rage I feel the more I use them, this power makes me feel at peace." Flexing his digits, Gohan tried to gauge his own strength. Father...Goten...Pen...Trunks...Grandmother... "I can sense the purity of my family and friends' hearts within this strength, Lord Beerus. But that's not all..." Closing his eyes, Gohan breathed in deeply. "I feel so detached from this world right now...like I've been reborn, and entered a new dimension entirely."
"Very good," replied the Hakaishin. "You're beginning to feel like a deity! Now let's not dawdle, boy. If you're going to be any rival of mine, I want you to prove it to me! Your planet depends on it, after all."
Gohan had almost forgotten about that. It wasn't negligence on his part. Fighting Beerus was truly enjoyable. It reminded him of his training in the Room of Spirit and Time with his father. He and Gokū had spent an entire year training, and Gohan had learned valuable skills as a fighter under the guidance of his father. But that was the past. Reminiscing while he was in the middle of a battle would get him killed, even if he thought the sensation was similar. The two deities began to walk towards each other, the gap between them negligible to begin with. At a fair distance, far beyond their willingness to pay attention, the roar of the ocean was coming back.
Red eyes met gold.
It was an instance of an exchange, followed by the sound of clapping thunder. Gohan and Beerus struck simultaneously, their fists colliding with the face of the other, causing the entire planet to quiver beneath their feet as the ground cracked and crumbled, lifting large chunks of rock — some drenched with water — into the air. Their shockwave impacted the water yet again, punishing the very planet they fought in a variety of ways for simply existing. The deities pulled back, and with their other arms, clashed once more; fist met fist, knuckle crashed against knuckle, and calamity spilled forth from the clashing gods.
A parried knee strike. A deflected elbow blow. The seafloor seemed doomed to become the new battlefield between Beerus and Gohan, the two barely budging. Beerus, however, disrupted the flow of the battle easily, ducking below the incoming forward strike from Gohan. His tail snaked along the ground, twisting around Gohan's ankles like a boa constrictor. Yanking Gohan off of his feet, Beerus dragged him close, releasing his hold on the man's ankle...
...only to slug him with a crushing blow in the stomach. Gohan's eyes whited out, air bursting from his lung in a gasp, and his body indented with the force. He found himself flying backwards at impossible speeds, crashing into one of the high walls of water before fading away into the deep, dark blue. Shaking his hand, Beerus kept an eye on the location where Gohan had disappeared, finding no hint of movement aside from the rushing water, which was, for the umpteenth time, coming back to regain a sense of completion.
"Don't play me, Saiyan!" called out Beerus. "I can feel your ki clearly, I know you're not going to be put down by a love-tap!"
A veritable explosion caused the ground beneath Beerus' feet to quake. The Hakaishin's golden eyes widened, his ears twitching at the deafening noise. He saw a white sphere bursting forth from the ocean, which had once again split in off once more in another direction at the moment of launch. It rushed along the ground, barreling down towards Beerus until the deity realised the sphere was the size of a large Earthling building. With the backside of his hand, Beerus lifted the sphere easily above his head, flinging it high into the sky.
"Child's pla—"
His sentence was cut short as a powerful uppercut to the chin, slamming his mouth shut and stopping him mid-sentence. Gohan had completely blocked Beerus' senses by distracting him, even momentarily, with a gigantic kikōha, and launching his own strike from behind it. The feline deity's feet lifted off the ground, Gohan bending back, bringing the flat of his white boots to meet the Hakaishin's face. The blow was the clincher, and launched the Hakaishin high into the air. Wrapped in his burning aura, Gohan pursued, leaving the seafloor behind.
Tenkaichi Budōkai, Papaya Island
"Darn..." Gokū grumbled. "I can't sense anythin', and we don't even know where they went...I wanted to see this fight!" He had to admit, he was torn between his drive as a martial artist — the desire to watch the battle of two fighters that exceeded him, to see what he could learn from it — and his fatherly feelings for his son. "I want to see it — Gohan's moment!"
Piccolo could understand. While the idea of fighting Beerus was terrifying, and he hated to admit there was a part of him that was glad it wasn't him engaging the God any further, to witness someone like the Hakaishin fight at full strength was a treat that not many martial artists could say they were able to enjoy. But even more, Gohan was his student, and he'd achieved a level that was truly beyond all of them. Gohan was out of their reach...but Piccolo wanted to watch him soar to those heights.
"Would the rest of you like to watch as well?" inquired Whis, looking at the group as a whole. There was a collective nod from the whole of the Dragon Team. Whis' purple eyes scanned the stadium, and realising that there were still quite a lot of Earthlings and extraterrestrials in the stands, decided to display the battle for the fate of the planet for everyone to behold. Pointing his wand towards the air, Whis created a projection from it into the sky, resulting in a giant, holographic sphere, large enough for everyone to see.
Within the sphere, the battle between Gohan and Beerus was played at a speed comprehensible to everyone; Whis' magical abilities allowed for such a trick. The battle was fiercely raging on, explaining the continued shaking of the Earth. Within the sphere, Beerus was seen deflecting Gohan's incoming knee strike in the middle of a forest. The shockwaves leveled trees for miles around, resulting in a blinding dust cloud that blocked the battle from view — but only for moments. The force of Gohan and Beerus' quick ascent blew the cloud away, even as they were draped in a trail of dust. Breaching high into the sky, Beerus slugged Gohan in the jaw, stunning him briefly. Gohan retaliated, but his strike was dodged by Beerus easily, the Hakaishin ducking beneath Gohan's arm and jabbing him in the stomach.
The force of the blow caused the locale of the battle to shift again, Gohan flying across the globe from that single strike. Beerus pursued him, shifting from a forested location to frigid mountains, just as Gohan came to an abrupt halt over the Northern Capital. Without skipping a beat, Beerus' arm cocked back, and a punch was sent flying lose. Gohan's eyes widened, surprised, as he raising both arms in front of his face to block the incoming blow. By consequence, another sudden, strong wave pulsed throughout the planet. It was by a miracle that the Northern Capital wasn't impacted.
The strength and ferocity on display was what surprised the commons spectators. Throughout the Tenkaichi Budōkai, and for the extraterrestrials, even on their home planets, they'd never seen a battle fought on this level. The power behind each blow, the speed, everything seemed to be at the highest possible level. To Gohan's friends and family, however, they saw something different, and it was something strange.
"Gohan...is smiling...!" Piccolo gasped. Gohan smiling while battling wasn't unusual, but his smiles were typically sneers backed by immense arrogance. The bulk of the Dragon Team had seen Gohan fight at least once, with Piccolo and Gokū having seen Gohan at his worst. The terrible cruelty Gohan was capable of had shocked them both. But this smile was different. There wasn't a hint of malice behind Gohan's eyes. He was smiling out of legitimate enjoyment of the battle.
"He—He really is...!" gasped Erasa. "Doesn't he know what sort of situation he's in right now?"
"It's because we're Saiyans," Gokū watched the fight with his arms folded, a proud smile on his face. "I've always loved fightin', it's been my whole life and I live for it. Vegeta was the same, even if he carried himself diff'rently. Gohan...he's never been one to embrace his Saiyan side, and when he did...it didn't go well for us. But..." His eyes narrowed, observing his oldest son carefully. The smile Gohan was wearing now made the deified Saiyan resemble Gokū even more than Goten...and Gokū recognised some of the movements Gohan was executing as his specific style. "This 'Super Saiyan God' power may be takin' Gohan up to new heights, and he can't help but feel that exhilaration we do when we fight!" It was a twisted sort of pride Gokū was feeling now. He wanted Gohan to be happy no matter what he was doing...but the side of him that had always wanted Gohan to be a stronger fighter was roaring its approval at the same moment.
"Go! Gohan!"
BOOM!
The battle of gods shook the sky above the Northern Capital, Gohan and Beerus continuing their fierce battle in the air. Beneath them, the Northern Capital had erected a barrier — admittedly standard issue for the Cardinal Capitals of Earth now — in an effort to diffuse the force of the combating deities. The two rushed forward, crashing together, their hands interlocked as one tried to get the better of the other. Gohan's aura blazed brightly, the otherworldly flames of his Super Saiyan God strength taking on a different texture, matching the halfling's desperation to maintain the flow of battle. Lightning crackled around the two, their hands generating this crackling electric current seemingly from nowhere.
The first to break the stalemate was Beerus, slamming his forehead into Gohan's. Bursting forward as his adversary was sent reeling, Beerus reared his right leg backwards, blasting Gohan through one of the frigid northern mountains with a single blow. On impact, the mountain shattered through a massive explosion of debris, yet Gohan kept flying, the force of the blow placing immense pressure on his body. With great effort, Gohan pulled his knees inward, hugging them as he forced himself to spiral through the air, covering an immense amount of 'ground' whilst trying to right himself. In spite of how far Beerus had sent Gohan, he was still high up north; while Gohan couldn't place it himself, the battle had moved to the Yunzabit Heights, perhaps one of the only uninhabited places left on the planet proper.
"I have to give you credit," said Beerus, arriving alongside a gust of chilled air. "You've done very well, adapting to the power of a deity. But I'll be quite frank: no one in this Universe has ever been able to match me in the past several millennia. Do really you think you'll be the first?"
Frigid air blew around the two of them, Gohan's Potara earrings and vivid red air ruffling in the wind. Gohan smiled broadly. "To be honest, I don't know. But I've always come through when my family and friends needed my power!" The faces of both Cell and Majin Bū flashed strikingly within Gohan's mind. Where Beerus floated, ever so briefly, Gohan could see Cell in his place, the horrific bio-menace that had terrorised his home. Cell shifted to Majin Bū, the demon that had killed his mother, had killed Kuririn, and had attempted to take away his younger brother and then-girlfriend. These fleeting reminisces took him out of the moment, and he pulled himself back just as quickly. "For ten years, I've honed the power that my loved ones relied upon, so I could protect them once the time comes. And now, because of them, I've ascended to a world like this. I can't afford to let them down!"
The Hakaishin couldn't help but beam, his teeth on full display. "So it isn't a matter of whether you can win, you feel like you have no choice. Now the question is...can you back it up?"
Round One has concluded. Round Two was about to begin. Gohan cocked his arm backwards, feeling the immense power of the Super Saiyan God transformation flood through his limbs. Swiping the air powerfully with his arm, Gohan released a powerful slice of air — a gargantuan current that traveled through the sky at a ludicrous speed. The blade of wind cut through a multitude of jagged rock formations, creating artificial rock slides in the process...and giving Beerus more than a clue as to where the incoming blast of air was coming from. The Hakaishin withstood the torrential gust with ease, bursting it apart in a simple flex of his arms. Gohan, trailing a vibrant red flame behind him, sped across the crumbling landscape.
The single right jab shook the Earth as Gohan thrust his arm forward into Beerus' two-armed parry. The Hakaishin, pushing Gohan back, responded with a similar blow in kind; Gohan grabbed Beerus blow, pulling him inward and turning his own body in an effort to land a solid kick on the deity. Beerus deflected the blow with his legs, and the two were pushed apart, the Hakaishin somersaulting in the air, his heel plummeting downward towards the half-Saiyan. With each successive blow, shockwave bursts blasted outward in all directions. The rock formations that dotted the Yunzabit Heights burst into a torrent of collapsing rocks.
With a movement resembling the grace of a pirouette, minus the heel pivot, Beerus executed a spinning roundhouse kick, which Gohan buffered with the broad side of his arm. He couldn't disperse all of the force, however, and Beerus' explosive kick sent the deified Saiyan-half rocketing towards the Earth. Gohan tried frantically to stop his descent, but all attempts were thwarted just as Beerus seemed to materialise by his side, and gave Gohan the final shove with a powerful kiai. The force of Gohan's collision with the ground, followed by the invisible bundle that was the kiai caused the ground to crack apart, exploding with a mass of rock shooting in every directionion before crashing down. A gigantic crater had swallowed the debris which crashed down, obscuring Gohan from sight.
Graceful like a cat, Beerus touched down onto the frosty desert, his yellow eyes staring dispassionately towards the sealed-away crater. His arms resting behind his back, far from even being winded, the Hakaishin called into the rubble. "Come on out, Super Saiyan God! I expected more from your warrior's race! Where'd all that bluster go?!"
A palpable silence was followed by an icy squall, leaving Beerus to observe what now only seemed to be a pile of rubbish. The Super Saiyan God couldn't be so fragile that something as simple as a kiai would do him in. Beerus refused to accept that his prophetic rival could be so weak. Refused to accept that he had woken up for such an unsatisfactory battle. As if reading his thoughts, the wreckage began to rumble, shifting and clattering under the influence of whatever was beneath it. Then, the light spilled out of it; the vibrant, glorious light of a Super Saiyan God, the rocks rushing away from the crater in every which direction. In the centre was Gohan, rising into the air, his arms clenched at his sides; rocks and boulders of various sizes floated around Gohan, repelled only slightly by his expanding ki. His Potara earrings were glowing with a light nearly as vibrant as the aura that engulfed him.
"There you are," said Beerus. "And here I was beginning to think you were growing tired, Super Saiyan God. Were you trying to come up with a plan? I hope you don't disappoint me."
Gohan was becoming noticeably scuffed now. His gi was tattered, with fresh wounds had begun to pepper his body in various areas, but the pain was accompanied by a notably numb feeling. It was so dull, and lacked the presence that he typically associated with battle. That's just fine...I can focus on what I have to do now! Gohan bent at the knee, cupping his hands. Dad would have tried this from the moment he acquired the god form. A sphere of ki began to form between his palms, different from a typical Kamehameha. The formation was slow, methodical, accompanied by the crackling of lightning.
"Ka...Me..." The blinding blue light of the Kamehameha bathed Gohan with its glow, drowning out the Super Saiyan God's ethereal flame and lighting the area for miles.
"I recognise that! This is the technique you used on the Kaiōshin's planet!" The Hakaishin recalled the blast, and its ineptitude, almost instantly. "But are you sure you want to release that technique to close to your planet's surface, boy? You're being reckless."
"Ha...Me..." The sphere between Gohan's palms began to condense itself, no longer spilling from his hands as it shrunk in size. Gohan completely disregarded Beerus' warnings, focusing only on the power he was amassing. He could feel it. This wasn't just enough strength to destroy the whole of Earth. No, this was a galaxy-wide blast that would destroy the Milky Way if he let it loose improperly. This was a far cry from the multiple-solar system destroying blast he'd released back at the Realm of the Kaiōshin. Holding this much power is...incredible! But one misstep and everything is obliterated. So this is a God's strength...? Gohan's hands, cupped at the sides, moved in a streak of motion to produce his fastest attack ever conceived. Clasped wrists thrust out, palms engulfed in a sea of blue outlined white, producing a narrow cylinder of howling ki that pierced the fabric of space to seek out its opponent. Beerus' eyes widened at the sheer speed of the technique. Like a flash of lightning, it'd only be seen in an instant before connecting in a vibrant blast of cerulean-white light.
Swirling at its central point, however, the blast began to spiral into a whirlpool before Beerus, who manipulated the flow of the ki using both of his hands. It encircled him like a roaring whirlwind of flame, before the Hakaishin brought his arms to rest, and the blast was extinguished completely. Gohan, watching this display of utter dominance over ki, could only gape. Beerus leered. "You have a lot to learn about the way gods fight, Super Saiyan God. I have the ability to void out ki techniques with ease. Though I commend you, regardless. That technique would have blown away far more than this planet if you hadn't controlled it the way you did."
Gohan was far too surprised to take the compliment of a god in stride. In truth, he'd been working on ki control for some time — the Earth as an omnipresent casualty did not lend well to the idea of sending out large scale attacks willy-nilly — and Gohan had discovered during this battle that godly ki flowed differently than his normal ki. It moved with his thoughts, and bent to his will, and this had made it easier to control the Kamehameha he'd released on Beerus. Gohan shook himself out of his trance; the battle wasn't over yet.
His white boots left the ground, Gohan lifting himself into the air easily. Beerus followed suit, and a physical melee resumed. Gohan dashed across the sky, inclining his body to the right, bringing his leg down on Beerus. The Hakaishin raised his left arm to block the blow, deflecting it as he caught an incoming uppercut from Gohan. Airborne and in a tight situation, Gohan side-swiped at Beerus from the right, only for the Hakaishin to release his left hand and duck the blow entirely. Gohan's best efforts notwithstanding, each and every strike was deflected with the ease of manhandling a child. Each blow was followed by a blast of concussive force that expanded outward. The shockwaves no longer simply resulted in the explosion of the rocky formations; they were beginning to crumble to dust from the sheer pressure, as Gohan and Beerus upped the ante of their powers.
Both combatants, God and God, were beginning to weave across the surface of the Earth. Passing briefly over the ocean, Gohan and Beerus continued to exchange blows. Even in mid-flight, the Hakaishin was able to avoid with ease Gohan's strikes, and half-Saiyan broke away from his combatant, passing directly overly another city and into an open desert. Beerus and Gohan's fists passed by each other, the strikes connecting with the face of the opposing target, kicking up a massive plume of sand, the two continuing to fly. Nearing an arid mountain range, Beerus slipped out of Gohan's grasp nimbly, grabbing him by his neck before spinning the Saiyan unnecessarily, kicking him with the force to shatter a multitude of mountains that Gohan found his body rocketing through.
Spiraling through the air, Gohan righted himself, his red eyes locked onto his opponent. I've never felt this sensation before... Beerus put on a burst of speed, truly becoming invisible to Gohan, seeming to form out of thin air behind Gohan. It took all of the Super Saiyan God's effort to pivot, using both hands to catch the incoming right hook from Beerus. Despite how they were above the ground, the mountains began to disassemble beneath the force of their clash, resulting in an detritus detonation. Battling this man...this planet is too restricted... Without missing a beat, the feline-deity grabbed Gohan by the face, bursting through the remainder of the mountain range using Gohan as a buffer, before he released another kiai to send the man flying. The scenery changed rapidly, Gohan finding himself shrouded in a dense, humid rainforest. Beerus had not let up the pressure, breaking through the trees at the same time that Gohan was skidding along the earthen, damp ground of the rainforest. The Hakaishin landed a crushing revolving kick to the back of Gohan's head, sending him crashing into the ground immediately. The earth underneath them ruptured, and several trees were almost immediately uprooted from the force of the blow. I can't keep up...and my body itself is an handicap...
Forcing himself to stand, Gohan's right boot connected with Beerus' jaw, the Hakaishin blasting through multiple trees, rending them from the ground. Facing the earthen ground as he moved, Beerus placed a palm to the land and flipped himself right side, kicking off from the ground in a soaring rush. Attempting to intercept, Gohan struck forward, the Hakaishin himself parrying the blow with his palm. With his free left arm, Beerus lunged forward with an elbow strike that collided with Gohan's chest. Winded, this left the deified Saiyan-half vulnerable to a chop to the neck that felt as if it would crush his throat. In a flash, Beerus next blow caught Gohan around the waist, forcing him to stagger.
Everything...feels as if its attempting to drag me down...fighting against something like this...this man...unbound by weakness...my very existence becomes the essence of weakness... Gohan's next attack was parried easily, Beerus using the flat of his palm to disperse the blow and redirect Gohan's arm towards the ground. Flickering between visibility and invisibility for the second time, Beerus vanished from Gohan's sight; Gohan could only feel the blows impact his body, realising only too late that Beerus now stood behind him. His piercing yellow eyes conveyed something even worse than hatred to an opponent: disappointment. Beerus wasn't saying a word, but his eyes spoke for him. Turning to face Beerus, Gohan saw that the God was making his next move...and in a vain attempt to end the battle, rushed forward and slammed his fist into Beerus' face. The crash was astonishing, the Earth quaking beneath their feet, and the trees and ground around them ruptured almost instantly.
This display of force aside, Gohan's eyes widened in shock, seeing that Beerus hadn't budged an inch. His face was staring directly at Gohan, the feline deity seemingly immovable now. Beerus spoke, and his voice lacked any of its former playfulness and candor. Instead, he spoke in a harsh, cold tone; even more so than when he had fought Gohan at the Realm of the Kaiōshin. "So this is where you reach your limit, is it, Saiyan? I was excited at first. You were showing so much promise, and with each dial I pushed my power up to, you seemed like you could keep up...you had a fire in your eyes, but even that's gone." His golden orbs flashed mercilessly, and he brought his arm down in a powerful swipe, stressing his claws against Gohan's torso; blood burst from the wound, which stretched from his shoulder to his side, coating the ground in a crude sort of paint. "I'm bored now. I almost look like a fool, thinking that the 'Super Saiyan God' might have amounted to something. You're as weak as the rest."
He couldn't form words. He couldn't speak. His gi drenched in his blood, Gohan fell backwards to the ground, and his vision filled with the sky. He didn't see Beerus lifting off until the man was hovering above him at a height that only increased, but he heard the Hakaishin's next cruel words.
"A worthless world with an equally worthless protector. You tried to put on a good show, Saiyan. So I'll reward you by letting you die with your planet."
Is...is he right? Do I actually come to a halt right here? Gohan could only lie with his thoughts, watching Beerus rise into the air, his vision beginning to blur. The Hakaishin's form was glowing, finally exuding an aura. He was serious about destroying the planet. Ten years...and the help of my friends and family...but does everything come crashing to a halt? Am I really so weak? Gohan knew he'd come far in these last ten years, but he'd been shown by Beerus that his strength was lacking in so many respects. The divide between humans and gods was as great at that of the land and the sky. But Gohan was a god himself now. He was standing ever closer to Beerus, and it was up to him to use his new strength to bridge the gap between them. But it was more than just proving these last ten years had improved him. That's just how it is...I can't lie down and sleep just yet. Erasa...Pen...you're counting on me to come back from this. I can't waste away here...not when I have to share so many more good years with you two. And you wouldn't give up either...would you, Father?
Gohan's wounds were flooded with a kind of warmth he'd never experienced before, and to his surprise, the deep slash was exuding not blood, but the flames of the Super Saiyan God. He could feel his body patching itself up, reworking itself as it tried to bring him to a higher level as a deity. His body, of its own accord, began to lift himself from the ground, his aura making physical contact with the ruined earth as it forced him to his feet. Gohan looked towards the sky, and wordlessly took off, rushing high into the heavens. He broke through the clouds in moments, to find Beerus floating there. Immersed in a deep purple aura, the Hakaishin saw Gohan return with some measurement of surprise.
"What's this now? You still have the energy to fight?"
"Tenacity is something I inherited from my father," replied Gohan brazenly. "He would use all of his chances to the fullest; so I'll do the same!"
"...Chance, is it?" Beerus repeated, visibly grinning with gritty ardor that broadly showed bared teeth, enhancing his slanted narrow eyes. "But a mistaken chance is no chance at all."
A/N: Oh holy shit I made it, I actually made it! So, I wanted this chapter to be out before I went to go buy Let's Go Pikachu, and I just barely made the day. It is 2 AM, so I'll keep this brief. I absolutely loved this chapter, and had a lot of fun writing this battle. I can't wait for the next one. But now, lemme use this section to get a little P.S.A. out to my audience. To everyone asking that I bring back Gokū and Vegeta permanently...it isn't happening. It simply isn't in the cards. I brought back Gokū for this arc because he was conveniently needed and he worked out: Gokū is a righteous Saiyan, and his ki lent to the Super Saiyan God transformation. Vegeta, when he died in my story, had not had the same amount of development that Vegeta had in the canon series, and would not meet the qualifications. Gokū won't be seen after this, guys. Vegeta is long dead. If you want a story that heavily features them, I hear Dragon Ball Super's manga is still running. But for my story, this story is about Gohan and Erasa. Gokū and Vegeta have their own story. I doubt this'll stop the endless comments, but I seriously cannot and will not bring them back. Thank you for your time, your continued readership, and I will see you all in the next exciting chapter of the Erased Chronicles. Also, as always, thanks to Demod20 for proofing.