--- Disturbance, Book 3: Endurance ---

Chapter E16 - Hell

Disclaimer: The fun about this sentence is that by the time you realise it doesn't say anything, it's too late to stop reading it. Also: See first chapter.

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-Burning now I bring you hell-

Trying to dodge attacks from six different sources at once, Buu was discovering, was an effort in futility, especially when over half of those sources were smaller than he was. He had only been in combat with the pint-sized brats and the sword-wielding twins for about twenty seconds, and already he had been hit more times than he could count, simply because he couldn't block everything at one. Needless to say, this was very quickly becoming frustrating, and when Buu got frustrated, people got hurt; this time proved to be no exception.

When the next person attacked him, Buu lashed out with his newly regrown head-tentacle, wrapping it around the neck of whichever brat it was, he didn't stop to look; it turned out to be Lime. Brat secured, Buu swung it around wildly, forcing the others to back away lest they injure one of their own. In the second of time it granted him before the attack resumed again, Buu threw his head back, simultaneously releasing and throwing the child, as a pink light began to grow in his throat; a fair distance behind him, Pi caught the haphazardly through child, messing her hair up before the two moved to rejoin the melee

However, before Buu could release the growing blast, the air before him was suddenly filled by irate, smirking teenager, one hand drawn back as a golden light began to consume him. Copying Kellre's trick from earlier, Kaen harnessed all the excess energy burnt off through transforming not just into the first level of Super Saiyan, but jumping straight into the second level. Unlike Kellre, though, Kaen didn't use this for mere concussive force: he focused all of it into a single baseball-sized golden ki blast. A blast he proceeded to force down Buu's throat with a shouted, "Surprise asshole!"

-Oh, burning now I bring you hell-

Eyes bugging out comically, even more so as the teen followed the motion with an uppercut to close his jaw, there was nothing Majin Buu could do to prevent the coming disaster. The blast was too far gone to simply reabsorb the ki once more. The end result was somewhat similar to firing a bullet down the barrel of another gun just as that gun had been fired - the two powerful blasts met in Buu's throat, and detonated each other. The golden ball of ki seemed to ignite as soon as it came in contact with the pink blast, swiftly torching Buu's throat before consuming his head entirely from the inside out in golden flames, before gutting out rapidly, leaving a headless body behind, and ashes on the wind.

Giving him a wry grin, the Kellre holding the white sword called out, "You stealing my techniques now boy?"

"Hardly," Kaen shot back, "I made it better."

A timely intervention by Gohan and the Z Sword prevented one of Buu's extended arms from taking Kaen's head off. "How about we save the pointless banter for after we've killed the insane homicidal bubblegum monster?" The half-Saiyan commented, a hint of a grin on his face.

"Spoilsport." Gohan met Kaen's reply with an eye roll.

Majin Buu, head newly regrown, let out a shriek of, "BUU MAKE YOU ALL DEAD!"

"Looks like you just made his mouth bigger," Vegeta commented from his left.

-Leave me tonight, when the warnings said leave a shudder upon you-
-Running from all that you've feared in your life-

The Saiyans gathered in front of Buu scattered, an intense pink beam carving through the airspace they'd occupied, as Buu once again belched out raw pink ki. Deciding the one that had so recently taken his head off was more important, Buu turned his head to track Kaen, the stream of ki trailing as Buu constantly re-aimed the attack. All his efforts got him, however, was a Masenko to the back, followed swiftly by a dog pile of beam attacks from the others.

They kept this pattern up for a time, one of them being a running decoy while the others chipped away at Buu with their attacks, but all too soon their attacks were doing less and less. "This isn't working," Kellre commented, floating up beside Kaen. "We might need you to employ that new planet-killer technique of yours."

A grin coming to his face, Kaen asked, "What makes you think I've got a new technique in the works?"

"Because you're you," Kellre replied swiftly, before adding, "Besides, what self-respecting Saiyan doesn't have a new super technique 'just in case'?"

"Touché. On both counts." Shaking his head, he commented, "I'm going to need a distraction."

He got his distraction soon enough. Unfortunately, it was in a way none of them could have predicted. Buu's anger had reached critical levels once more, and as always when that happened, Buu broke rank. Buu lashed out with his head tentacle, this time sharpened to a point, and before anyone could react, Trunks, his current target, had been run clean through.

-Soul of the night, will a son mislead paint a horror upon you-
-Marking the moment, displaying in my ghost of a life-

"NOOO!" It wasn't entirely certain who cried out first, nor who reacted first, because everything seemed to happen at once. Lime's Guardian roared as she charged the monster, the black shadow batting Buu aside with one hand, and gently catching Trunks with the other. Before Buu could recover from the assault, a torpedo by the name of Goten slammed into him, the Son Headbutt engaging with maximum speed and power, so much so the youngest Saiyan actually left a massive dent in Buu's forehead from his impact.

Fire burned in Lime's veins, and her blood sung with the desire to rip Buu to shreds, but she knew she had to protect Trunks first, and that her current abilities were based around defence, so she did what she knew she had to do, blasting towards her Neechan at high speed, knowing, praying, that Pi could make everything better. Oran, however, had no such compunctions against attacking, and as her twin, he could feel her white-hot rage, mixing with his own, and taking him to a level of pain and anger rivalled only by his brother watching Pi die.

Eyes glowing with raw energy, Oran gave a roar of power, the skies above darkening with thick storm clouds, and from these clouds descended seven tornadoes; one for each of his lances, and the last, enveloping himself. The superstorm raged towards the dazed Buu, the razor-sharp winds stripping away pink flesh whenever they got close enough, and the monster was forced to dodge between them or get torn to shreds.

With a sudden flash of light, like a bolt of lightning, Oran dashed out of the middle tornado, fist impacting Buu's centre mass and knocking him closer to another funnel, as Oran dived into one of the whirlwinds containing a lance. He shot out of the twister moments later, spear in hand flashing as he threw it through Buu's torso and caught it on the other side, slipping into the centre of another twister to fetch another spear.

Again Oran lashed out, before collecting another spear, and again, and again, until he had recollected and attacked with all six of his weapons. Then, for his final play, he dove back into the centre squall, drawing the other six towards him, and dragging Majin Buu into the heart of the largest and most violent windstorm history had seen in at least a generation. As the storm died down, a battered, beaten Buu was revealed, impaled and crucified by six lances, and held aloft for retribution. Retribution that was swift in coming as Goten, coming around for another pass, used the Son Headbutt like his brother had before him in punching a hole straight through his target.

And through this all, Vegeta remained frozen in horror.

-That I can't condone the way you left me out in the open-
-To leave me to die-

The sight of his only child impaled on the pink tendril had sent Vegeta's mind back in time seven years, to the horror that had been the Cell Games, when he had been forced to watch as the future version of his son was impaled through the chest by a pink beam of energy. The boy who had wanted nothing more than to make his father proud, had died on the battlefield from a chance encounter; Cell hadn't even been aiming for him. He remembered, seeing his future son dying, going into a rage and attacking Cell, only to be as useless as that fool Satan. Worse, in fact, as in saving his life, Gohan had gotten severely injured, and their only hope of stopping Cell had almost lost his left arm.

When the fight was done, Vegeta had made a silent vow to himself that he would take care of his family, so that his son didn't meet the same fate as his future son had: to die fighting a war that wasn't even his. To that end Vegeta had pushed his son into training, had forced Trunks to his limit, and beyond; had made him get stronger than he himself had ever dreamed of being at that age. He shouldn't have been all that surprised that his son ascended into the ranks of the Super Saiyan.

Watching his son fighting Kaka- No, Cellotto's brother, in the tournament, had been one of the proudest moments in his life. It had been his chance to show the world that his son was strong, that he had matched Kakarott's blood in fair combat, and that he would never have to suffer the fate his future self had. Then came the arrival of Babidi and Majin Buu. Vegeta was ashamed that he had let his pride get the best of him, and not only robbed his child of his father, but forced his son to take his place in a war he should never have been involved in.

Still his son had survived, and once more, Vegeta was incredibly proud of him. But now, seeing his son repeating the fate of his future self, the Saiyan prince's greatest wish was that he had taken more time to tell his son just how proud of him he was. Vegeta loved his son, of that he had no doubt, but not once in the boy's life had he ever told him that. And now, this monster was going to take his son away from him, and he was just as helpless to prevent it as he had been seven years ago.

Deep inside Vegeta, something snapped.

-So how can I, forget the way you led me through the path into heaven-
-To leave me behind-

Vegeta gave a roar to the heavens, as all his fear, all his rage, and all his pain, boiled to the surface. Just as the tempest spawned by Oran was dying out, a new storm was forming around the Saiyan prince. The storm clouds drawn in by Oran now swirled around the air above Vegeta, as a massive golden pyre exploded around his form. As the roar continued, the swirl of energy dragged the clouds from the sky into his own personal tornado, hiding him from view.

Kaen felt a smile come to his face, as he felt Vegeta's power begin to skyrocket. "He's done it," he remarked with pride.

More power burned through Vegeta's body than he had ever dared dream of, but he noticed none of this. His only thoughts were that the monster before him was going to kill his son, and then his mate, and then his entire people, if he didn't stop the creature here and now, and with this thought came a rage unlike any he had experienced before. With this rage came power, and with this power, came pain, which only fuelled his rage.

His eyes burning white, Vegeta could actually feel the bones in his face shift, could feel his skull reshaping, his eyebrows receding into solid bone. With the rush of energy and wind around him, the massive length of golden hair was actually held aloft for a good few moments, before the dying winds, coupled with the sheer weight of it all, left the mass of hair trailing down his back past his thick, golden tail. With one final explosion of power, the storm was blown away, revealing the new Vegeta.

Sitting up, a look of awe on his face, the newly healed Trunks whispered reverently, "Dad... He's..."

Beside him, Lime grinned. "He's a Super Saiyan Three."

-Now I can't stay behind-
-Save me, from wreaking my vengeance upon you-
-To killing more than I can tell-
-Burning now I bring you hell-

A cold smirk came to Vegeta's face as he observed the fear on Buu's face; as powerful as the monster was now, it remembered what happened the last time it faced a newly ascended Super Saiyan Three; and it knew, deep inside, that newly ascended Saiyans were always more powerful than someone who had done it before. In the back of his mind, he noticed that his son was alive and well, restored by the healing touch of Kaen's mate, and resolved to thank Pi personally when all this was over. Turning to Majin Buu, he remarked coldly, "You're afraid of me aren't you?"

Twitching visibly, Buu shrieked, "Buu fear nothing!"

"But you do," Vegeta continued. "You fear me, fear us, because you fear your own death. You fear your own death so much, you will mete out death to everyone and everything, until all that remains alive is you, leaving nothing that can kill you. But mark my words: You will die this day."

Still twitching, Buu growled, "You think you kill Buu?"

"Me? No," Vegeta shook his head. "I know I will never be able to kill you." He smirked. "But that doesn't stop me from trying!" Throwing his arms out to either side, Vegeta readied an attack he had prepared for just such a situation, similar in many ways to his now-trademark technique, but infinitely more powerful. "Final Shine!"

Unlike the raw power of Vegeta's Final Flash, the green beam than lanced from his joined hands was focused to laser precision, containing the energy of at least a dozen thermonuclear warheads, all within a radius of roughly a hand span. All of this left only a single conclusion: the entirety of Buu's head, as well as a good portion of his chest, was instantly vaporised by the ionised beam of raw death.

-Oh, burning now I bring you hell-

Vegeta exhaled slowly, putting the increasingly annoyed regenerating monster out of his mind, and focusing on the power going through his system. At any other time, on any other day, there was no doubt in Vegeta's mind that all this power would have gone to his head. On any other day, Vegeta would have unleashed every ounce of his power that he could in what would have been a futile effort to destroy a monster that defied the rules of life and death. On any other day, this power would have been proof, in his mind, that victory was his by right.

On any other day, Vegeta would not have witnessed his opponent almost kill his son.

Today, Vegeta was not fighting for his pride, his ego, or his right to be the best. Today, Vegeta was fighting for the survival of his family, and for the survival of those he called 'friend', though never to their face. Cracking his neck to either side, the Saiyan prince turned to the Saiyans behind him, rolling his shoulders as he remarked, "I'll keep the creature busy. I leave it to you to slow it down."

Kaen nodded, giving a half-hearted bow. "As you say." Both men understood that the gesture was about as much respect as the younger-but-older Saiyan would ever show the prince, his deal with Gohan not-with-standing.

Turning back to Buu, Vegeta stated regally, "Today, I reclaim my birth right. Today, I am Prince Vegeta once more." With a roar of power, the prince threw himself into the fight.

-Free me tonight, lest the animal caged free a terror upon you-
-Caught in the moment, engaging in my bloodlust tonight-

"Whatever you're going to do boy, do it now," Kellre commented gravely, keeping his eyes on Buu, "The prince has got the power, I'll give him that, but he hasn't got the find control or the stamina to be anything more than a moving target for too long."

With a nod, Kaen dropped down to the ground, remarking, "Just... cover me, okay. It's the first time I've ever actually done this, so I'll need all my concentration to get it right."

Intrigued slightly, the older Saiyan asked, "What are you going to do, exactly?"

Kaen grinned, his eyes sliding shut. "I'm going to combine everything I know into a single attack."

Before the older man could comment further, Kaen held a hand out before him, fingers splayed, as he focused his power. With a grunt and a violent facial twitch, Kaen forced himself to the third level once more, grunting in effort as he wrestled with the excess power and forcing it to adhere to his will, pooling in his extended hand. Sweat began dotting his brow as a golden ball, roughly the size of a softball, formed above his palm, before shrinking and splitting into five smaller balls, each the size of a jawbreaker.

The five balls of ki began to drift around his hand lazily, each bleeding different colours; one red, one blue, one green, one black, and one darkening from gold to yellow. The ki balls finally stopped drifting in a rough pentagonal shape, with the red and blue level at the top, green and yellow in the middle, and the black at the bottom. Tendrils of energy extended out away from each ball, reaching out first to their adjacent ball, then opposites, forming a perfect, inverted pentagram.

It was then, with the rune 'drawn', that Majin Buu noticed the high concentration of energy over the massive level the Saiyan prince was emitting, but by then, it was far too late. A sixth ball began to form in the very centre of the pentagram, siphoning energy away from the other five. Within seconds, the centre ball was a swirling mass of colour. The final few seconds had been long enough for Buu to knock Vegeta away, but not nearly long enough for the monster to have a chance to react to the incoming attack.

A smirk coming to his face, Kaen's eyes snapped open, as he announced his new technique's name. "ULTIMA CANNON!"

-Now I can't control my venom's flow-
-Get back from me demon, or be exorcised-

A technicolour beam as wide as Kaen's torso lanced out of the ball before him, warping the light around it as it carved a path through the sky. With a shriek of terror, Buu attempted to dodge the beam, and managed to reduce it from a direct headshot, to a glancing chest wound, a neat hole carving away the entire left side of Buu's chest below the arm. The faux flesh around the wound began to fester and rot, decay setting in at a rapid pace, before Buu grit his teeth and forced the decay to halt.

Buu's regeneration did not kick in, at least not in the usual rapid fashion.

"Shit!" Kaen hissed through his teeth, panting heavily from the effort of forming the blast, "All that and I missed!"

"He's having trouble regenerating," Avarrdo noticed, somewhat detached; he always was more of a scientist than a warrior. Buu, it seemed, realised instantly just how dangerous that attack could have been, and glared balefully at Kaen, focusing energy in his hands to hopefully eliminate the pest once and for all. However, at the edge of his senses, he noticed a second power build-up: Pi.

The girl had not been idle while her mate prepared his new attack. She knew that, even if Buu did manage to sense anything past the roaring inferno that was Vegeta, all he would be able to pick up would be Kaen. So, she had taken it upon herself to prepare her own new planet-killer technique.

Closing her eyes, Pi focused all her energy, almost like a prayer, and willed into existence a massive halo of pure white ki, roughly three feet above her head. Raising a hand beneath the halo, she dragged the ring down as if to aim through it towards Buu, focusing more energy to the ring. It was then, as she completed her attack, moments after Kaen had fired, that Buu noticed her.

Pi had to admit, the look of horror on Buu's face when he saw her attack was a memory she would remember fondly forever. "Die, monster!" The girl shouted. "Broken Halo!" The entire ring filled with a blinding light, seconds before firing a massive wave of pure white energy, easily able to rival Final Flash in size. A second shriek of terror escaped Buu, moments before morphing into a shriek of pain, as his legs were completely consumed by the pearl blast.

-Now I can't stay behind-
-Save me, from wreaking my vengeance upon you-
-To killing more than I can tell-
-Burning now I bring you hell-

Kellre's eyebrows rose as he watched the burnt hole in Buu's side, from Kaen's blast, seemed to ignite from 'sparks' coming off Pi's beam. The flames, if they could be called that, seemed to boost Buu's regenerative abilities into overdrive, but at a cost; Majin Buu's power level took a nosedive. Granted, he was still comparatively stronger than anyone on the planet save the newly ascended Vegeta, but a dive was a dive.

Dropping to one knee as she watched Vegeta re-engage Buu, Pi muttered, "Damn, it didn't... it didn't do any damage! I actually healed him!"

"No, you didn't," her father replied swiftly, resting a hand on her shoulder. "The body may be fixed, yes, but with a toll paid by the soul." Looking between the couple, he asked, "Think you two can do that again?"

Pi looked at her mate worriedly, waiting for him to reply, and he did so unsteadily. "I think... I think so. I'm pretty sure I've got enough in me for one more, but after that, I'll be completely out of energy." Pi nodded back almost sadly; if she was reading her own energy reserves right, they were both in the same boat, and this time they wouldn't be able to get a planetary recharge.

"Then we had best make it count," Kellre remarked with an air of finality. "Even with his power drop, Buu's too fast for either of you to hit in this state. You're going to need to aim for each other's attacks - make them converge near Buu. Violently so." Turning to the others, he outlined the rest of his plan. "Kids, it's up to you to keep the heat off Kaen and Pi. Gohan, once they've fired, it's up to you and I to get everyone away from the danger zone, which I'm fairly certain is going to be big."

"Crossing the streams, huh?" Kaen quipped, giving his mate a quick, reassuring smile. "Sounds like a blast."

It was a tense handful of minutes as the two lovers prepared their attacks, with Oran setting up a spear-wall before Kaen, and Lime and the other boys keeping any stray blasts away from Pi. Finally, though, the two attacks were complete, and as one, the two Saiyans shouted, "Everybody hit the deck! Fire in the hole!"

"Ultima Cannon!"

"Broken Halo!"

-All my emotion and all my integrity-
-All that you've taken from me-

Gohan and Kellre worked fast, rapidly utilizing Instant Transmission to gather up everyone, leaving three until last: Kaen, Pi, and Vegeta. The Saiyan prince actually took the time to give Buu a grin that seemed to scream, 'you're dead now, bitch' moments before Gohan appeared behind him, placing one hand on his shoulder, and vanishing with a slight whistle. It was then that Buu noticed the two powerful blasts tearing towards him, and threw up a shield to deflect them.

But they weren't aimed to hit him.

Less than a foot from the edge of Buu's shield, the two blasts collided, a massive dome of pale white light expanding rapidly from the juncture, covering a space easily equal to Satan City, and stopping just shy of the Spirit Bomb. The dome of light, however, was harmless, causing Buu to make the mistake of lowering his shield in confusion; what followed the dome's expansion was anything but harmless.

Everything inside the dome began to twist and warp, degenerating quickly from stable reality to a constantly shifting state, then further, until all within the dome could only be described as pure possibility, everything that ever was or could be, and yet, at the same time, nothing at all. By Saiyan science, Kaen and Pi had created a localised zone of pure Wyld. The stable reality outside the dome seemed to yank a few 'threads' of chance free, as if to maintain the stability outside the dome, as everything inside degraded into a massive snarl that promptly collapsed in on itself, leaving, for one brief moment, a dome of absolute Nothing, before reality rushed in to fill the gaps.

In the space of ten seconds, all that remained of everything under the dome, now revealed to be a perfect sphere, was a massive crater.

Avarrdo stared wide-eyed at the two teens, their Super Saiyan forms seeming to shatter back to their default state, before remarking, "You... You actually managed to unmake a portion of reality!"

Kaen hissed through his teeth, collapsing to the ground as he panted out, "That sounds bad. Do you think we got 'im?"

Pi shook her head tiredly, before resting it against her mate's shoulder. "Honey, he survived being burnt back in time. I don't really think being unmade at a metaphysical level is going to do more than slow him down and make him very angry."

-All my emotion and all my integrity!-
-All that you've taken from me!-

Pi's words proved themselves true all too soon, by a scream of, "BUU MAKE YOU DEAD!"

"Thirty seconds," Kaen groaned tiredly, "I think that's a new record."

"He's weaker," Kellre noted with a grin; Majin Buu's power level had dropped drastically. Where once the pink monster was just shy of a thrice-ascended Saiyan in power, now he would have had trouble going toe-to-toe with a Super Saiyan Two. Unfortunately, the only people left with a higher power level than Buu were Gohan, Vegeta, and Kellre, all of whom had already burned through a lot of their energy. It was still going to be close, but things were looking up. Glancing over at the others, the elder Saiyan shouted, "Hit 'im with everything you've got!"

"You heard the man brats!" Vegeta cried out, "Hold nothing back!"

As the younger Saiyans began unleashing their strongest abilities, Avarrdo glanced over at his old friend, asking simply, "Shall we?"

Kellre grinned back. "You do realise that this planet won't likely survive for too long if we do this?"

Avarrdo just gave him a wry look. "My son is here. This planet was doomed anyway." With a nod, the two Saiyans began gathering energy between them, a midnight black mass of ki collecting, before the two chanted as one, "Hyperspace Cannon!" The massive beam of raw void energy tore through the skies, lancing just past Majin Buu, but the two Saiyans had never intended it to hit. The very second he could stop concentrating on the Hyperspace Cannon, Avarrdo had already begun preparing his next attack, hands held above his head, with purple lightning lancing between his fingers. "Time to ride the lightning Buu! Doomsday Catalyst!"

Dark waves of plasma streamed out from between Avarrdo's hands, but they weren't aimed at Buu; they were aimed everywhere. The lightning bolts spread out across the sky, igniting the ki left in the air from all the energy attacks used thus far, until the sky was awash with fire, consuming Buu completely. The creature let out a cry of pain, plummeting from the cloud of flame, and Kellre was waiting. "Destiny's End!"

There was no visible attack that anyone could see. However, one second Buu was normal, though recovering from the cloud, and the next, screaming in pain, as his very body seemed to be shaking itself apart at the molecular level.

Suddenly, a cry arose that changed the course of the battle entirely. "The Spirit Bomb is ready!"

-Now I can't stay behind-
-Save me, from wreaking my vengeance upon you-
-To killing more than I can tell-

Watching all the combat going on around him, and not being able to help, had been torture to Goku. His friends and family were risking their lives to protect Earth, and the rest of the universe, but all he could do was stand there, willing the Spirit Bomb into readiness. The greatest battle in the known universe, and Goku had been forced to sit it out, but now, that was about to end. The Spirit Bomb was ready, with the combined strength of every living soul on Earth, as well as a good portion of his own energy to speed things up, and it was past time to destroy Majin Buu with it.

"It's time Buu," Goku remarked coldly. "Time to die."

"Everyone clear out!" Kellre shouted, he and Avarrdo grabbing Kaen and Pi to evacuate them.

"The people of Earth have a good-bye present for you Buu!" Goku shouted, rearing back. "Have it! Spirit Bomb!"

The massive bright blue ball of energy crashed down towards the weakened Buu, almost dwarfing the Earth's moon in size, and with it's own gravitational field dragging up broken trees and loosened soil. Crying out in terror, Majin Buu threw up his arms to try and catch the deadly attack.

The attack stopped in its tracks.

"What?" Goku exclaimed in shock, forcing all his remaining energy into trying to push the Spirit Bomb forward. "I... I can't move it! Buu's too strong!"

The cackle of insane laughter mocked them, as Buu began slowly forcing the Spirit Bomb back.

-Soul of the night, I know now I can't stay behind-
-Save me, from wreaking my vengeance upon you-
-To killing more than I can tell-
-Burning now I bring you hell-

"Dad's too low on power," Gohan remarked, turning to the younglings and shouting, "Kids, we've got to give him a hand! We're the only ones pure of heart enough to touch the Spirit Bomb!" Oran and Lime dropped back to their original forms, and the four pint-sized Saiyans darted into the air to push the Spirit Bomb, with Gohan joining them. However, all they managed to do was stop the attack coming back; even with all their strength behind them, they couldn't push it forward.

Gritting it's teeth, Majin Buu began gathering all the energy it could without having to withdraw attention from pushing the Spirit Bomb, using every scrap of it to try and overpower his enemies, and crying out, "YOU NO KILL BUU! BUU MAKE YOU DEAD!"

"It doesn't look good," Kat remarked a touch defeatedly.

Vegeta grunted. "All that energy, and it will be for nothing if they can't hit Buu with it."

"And we can't do anything to help them," Pi added remorsefully.

With a grunt of effort, Kaen forced himself to his feet, shooting a meaningful glance at Kellre as he did, before stating, "Oh yes we can." Clenching his fists, Kaen forced himself into Super Saiyan, nodding once at Kellre, before the older Saiyan raised two fingers to his forehead and disappeared.

"What are you going to do Kaen?" Pi asked, confident in his abilities, but still with a touch of fear; she had no problems with sacrificing her own life to protect him, but deep inside her, she didn't want Kaen to do the same for her.

With a flare of fire, Kaen's sword materialised in his hand, as he intoned, "What I can." Then, with a burst of flame, he was gone.

High above the Spirit Bomb, Kellre gathered all the energy he could for the only attack he had that could be called 'pure' enough to touch the Spirit Bomb, aiming the gathered blue-white ki beneath him and declaring, "Wrath of the Dragon Kings!" The beam struck the Spirit Bomb with concussive force, and slowly, the death ball began inching down.

In a burst of flame, Kaen phased in behind Buu, his sword wreathed in black fire. "End of the road," he panted out, swinging his sword in an arc to neatly slice through both of Buu's wrists, noticing in the back of his mind that the monster had ki gathered in his hands. The Spirit Bomb suddenly began descending much more rapidly, but Kaen knew Buu would try to escape, so he did the only thing he could; the flames around his sword switching to blue, Kaen stabbed Buu through the back, pinning the creature to the ground. Kaen felt a grin come to his face as the massive ball crashed down towards them. "I'll see you in Hell."

-Oh, burning now I bring you hell-

The sky was rocked by a massive explosion, the very planet shaking right down to the core, as every Saiyan on the planet was momentarily blinded by the brilliant light. When the explosion faded, all that was left where Majin Buu and Kaen had sword was the latter's sword, still half-buried in the ground. Collapsing to the ground, Oran and Lime moaned out slowly, "Oniichan... no..."

Part of Pi was instinctually starting to join them in grief, when a fact occurred to her. 'Wait a minute,' she frowned slightly, 'If Kaen were dead, I would've felt something. I felt something when I died, and I saw what that did to Kaen, so if I'm not feeling anything, then he can't be dead!' Glancing up at her descending father, she noticed him grinning at her, moments before a sharp whistling sound drew her attention; one that terminated abruptly into a shower of dirt, as something solid slammed into the ground a little ways behind them. Rushing over, Pi felt a tired smile come to her face when sure enough, she found her singed mate lying in the crater.

"Ugh... Remind me never to do that again..." Kaen remarked painfully, trying to sit up, moments before the twins tackled him back to the ground.

Pi just sighed. "You really are trying to get on my nerves aren't you?"

Kaen couldn't help but grin at her. "You had two deaths to your name. It seemed only fair to even the scoreboard."

Giving him a confused glance, Goku asked, "How did the Spirit Bomb hurt you? It only affects evil people."

Pi just sighed dramatically again. "He does try to be good, but... I guess that bad boy nature is too hard to break."

"No, dad's right," Gohan added worriedly. "Kaen should be good now - I personally killed his evil half. There's no way he could have done enough 'bad' since leaving the tank for the Spirit Bomb to hurt him."

Eyes widening in fear, Goku continued, "If the Spirit Bomb was able to hurt someone good, then that means-"

"BUUUUUUUUUUUU!" The cry echoed across the face of the planet, driving a cold wedge of fear in their spines, as their nightmare continued. The Buu that emerged from the smoke looked like some unholy amalgamation of every Buu they had seen so far: grey in colour like Evil Buu, about Kid Buu's size, wearing Fat Buu's vest and yellow, and Super Buu's pants and black wrist-guards. This Buu was no where near as strong as Kid Buu, hovering around the level of Fat Buu, but in the end, Buu's level was a moot point; every Saiyan on the planet was completely out of energy.

"W-whadda we d-do now Niich-chan?" Goten asked fearfully.

"I don't know Goten," Gohan replied sombrely. "I just... don't know."

-Oh, burning now I bring you hell!-

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Author's notes:

All that effort, and the Spirit Bomb didn't even work. Yes, I will be explaining why it didn't work soon enough. For all those wondering why I went with this ending, let's just say I was given a much better idea for how to kill Majin Buu than Goku's 'golden bullet'; I never liked the whole 'Spirit Bomb' ending anyway. It just gave me a convenient excuse to remove Goku from the fight for a while, and to set the stage for the next chapter.

Stay tuned. You won't want to miss it.

Now, I'll be the first person to admit that I don't particularly like how the last half-dozen or so chapters have been going. I know they've been dragging on too long, and I accept the blame for it. However, there's not much I could do to fix it save of either cutting out entire chapters, or re-writing a not-insignificant portion of Endurance.

The basic problem is that, before I started writing this story, I made a skeletal plot, outlining 60 individual chapters, the songs they would be set to, and what basic events would happen in each. It was a scheme that had worked remarkably well with When World's Collide, and I felt I would need it in order to undertake this epic.

It worked too, for a time. There were some events that slipped through the cracks and had to be pushed into the next chapter, but all in all, everything was on track. However, when we come to the back end of the story, I severely over-estimated just how many chapters I wanted this final fight to go for. If I ever do decide to re-write this, I will be trimming 2 chapters, as a minimum, from the fight, but in my current mindset, I just want to see this story end, problems and all.

If nothing else, though, I have managed to make the fight very DBZ-ish, in that 5 minutes of real life covers about 5 separate 'episodes'...