Chapter 90: Hope of the Universe

(Couldn't think of a title to do with fighting the final battle alone that was different enough from the DBZ episode title "True Saiyans Fight Alone"…)

I expect that this chapter will be late (EDIT: It isn't!)…I've got enough money for a new screen, but ordering it has been a hassle. I'll get it done, don't worry. Once that's done, I should be getting all (or most, at least) chapters out on time again.

…Huh. I didn't realise how long the Buu saga has been. A reviewer pointed out that it's already longer than the Cell saga, and yeah, it is. I hadn't noticed. Guess that puts to rest my fears about it being too short. Anyway, chapter 91 or 92 will probably be the climax of the Buu saga, and the denouement shouldn't take more than a couple of chapters. The post-Buu saga stuff, though, will undoubtedly take several chapters, with the various things I'm planning to cover. You know, I'm tempted to call it the Postgame Saga...

This new Buu seemed less threatening, at first, but it quickly became apparent to Goku that it was terrifying enough in its own right. It alternated between sullen silence, raging childlike tantrums, and eerie fits of laughter. It moved in a jerky, twitchy manner which belied its speed, and furthermore gave it the appearance of a shambling, half-dead thing that was only partly aware of its surroundings; though aware it certainly was—aware enough to fight with all the ferocity of a cornered snake.

Goku made the first move in one of its quieter moments, aiming a punch at its face. However, just before he made contact, a stream of information stabbed its way into his mind, momentarily disorientating him—

alien Buu fear hate defend Super Dabura Babidi fusion defuse Saiyan Two Three Four? Majin Majin Buu M defeat Buu fear

—when his vision returned, he'd wavered slightly, and Buu was grinning. It snapped into motion, and each of their fists collided with the other's face at once. Buu's head and torso rocked backwards, but its legs stayed rooted to the spot. Goku, meanwhile, was flung back, world spinning, until he came crashing to the blank white 'ground'. He clambered back up, rubbing where a bruise would soon form on his cheek. He's much stronger than he should've been…I guess he did retain the energy he absorbed from Piccolo. He looked up, seeing that Buu was gone, and heard the hiss of high-speed movement. Damn…guess I'll have to use more power, even if it reduces my endurance…! "…TIMES THREE!" The Kaioken fired up, and his boosted reaction speed and senses let him see Buu incoming, above and to the left, face contorted in a twisted snarl.

Moving quickly to react, muscle memory firing fibres down his arm faster than his conscious mind could assess the situation, Goku caught Buu's incoming fist, stepping back and pulling Buu over his head, pitching it away and subsequently drawing his hands back to the ever-reliable energy-gathering pose. "Times-Ten…" Buu began to flail in the air, and Goku knew his window of opportunity to hit with this attack was shrinking. Too late to change my mind—I've already gathered too much energy! "…KAMEHAMEHA!" The beam roared forward, blasting straight through one of the giant hourglasses flanking the Time Chamber's entrance. Goku took a couple of staggering steps back, lowering his steaming hands and inhaling. A tap on the ground in front of him brought dismay to his heart—Buu, the left half of its body completely blown away, crumpled to the ground. However, with a pop, it regenerated fully and stood, stretching. Goku threw a kiai, flinging it away before it could take the initiative.

Again, Buu recovered extremely quickly, the dent in its skin filling out and yawning as it stretched its neck. A string of drool hung from its mouth. What's up with this? Goku wondered. This regeneration is even crazier than Buu's other forms—he's not even losing any energy when he heals! Buu sprung at him, and he span around the attack, turning the movement into a back-kick, but Buu's claw-like nails raked across his back as it was hurled into the air again, kicking and screaming.

Goku charged into the air after it, elbowing it in the stomach, then bringing both fists down on its head and smashing it back to the floor. He descended, facing the growling beast as it rose again. Again…no matter how much damage I do, I'm getting nowhere—

technique Shift Transmission travel Instant Kai Movement Buu? Buu Majin Buu defeat how how how how regenerate impossible defeat overcome blast too powerful?

—again, a strange stream of consciousness, of thoughts not his own. But he thought he recognised the voice. …Gohan? Why am I hearing Gohan's jumbled thoughts? Before he could puzzle this out, though, Buu was running at him.

"Gaaaaaa!" Buu shrieked, arms held out to the side, sprinting like a manic child. Goku frowned. If I don't boost it, I can charge quicker… "KAMEHAMEHAAA!" He hurriedly fired the two-handed blast, intercepting Buu's charge. Though less powerful, the beam still knocked Buu back a considerable distance, leaving its front side scorched black for a few seconds. Shaking its head as the burns faded, Buu's frown faded into a grin. Tapping its head once, it lowered its hands to one side, then brought them forwards, launching a lance-like pink beam.

Is that— Goku managed, before Buu's Kamehameha hit him head-on. He crossed his arms over his face, pushed forcefully back by the attack, feet scrabbling for purpose on the smooth 'ground'. "That's…ENOUGH!" He yelled, throwing his arms out and scattering the beam, 'shards' of energy raining down around him. He copied my technique just by observing it…this thing just gets more dangerous the longer it fights!

Since his thoughts were already on Buu's borrowed techniques, when Buu vanished completely, he instantly settled on Instant Transmission. Only…he's never been here before, and his ki's become so faint…to move that distance from the nearest ki signal in unknown territory…it can't just be Instant Transmission. Could it be the Kais' version? They can just teleport anywhere…though I suppose they, and he, can't cross dimensions, at least.

Then something even stranger happened. Part of Buu's ki began to move closer, while most of it stayed distant. What could this mean? What's he doing now? The answer became clear a few short moments—Buu's hand, on the end of its grotesquely-elongated arm, appeared in Goku's peripheral vision, speeding towards him. Crazy! He must be stretching for miles! Quickly forming a plan, he vaulted onto the wrist, powering up to a Kaioken times two and racing down Buu's writhing arm. Keeping his balance was a struggle, but keeping his momentum up was a huge help.

Eventually, Buu's small, pink and white body became visible. Goku's eyes narrowed with determination, and he sped up, leaping the last few dozen metres and jump-kicking Buu across the face. It spat purplish blood, retaliating with a rising knee to his jaw that shook his vision, but he powered up to a three-times boost and brought his fists together with its head between, crushing it between his hands. "Hyaaaah!" As it was Buu, its head shortly sprang back to normal, but it was staggered and confused. It turned, fixing its gaze on the Time Chamber's entrance—the only landmark of any kind in the whole vast, infinite emptiness. As its arm finally retracted to normal length, Goku grabbed ahold of its shoulder. Don't want to lose your bearings, I see. You're not totally stupid, then. But you're not getting away from me!

The world dissolved into a crazy spiral of colours, as it sometimes did when he'd hitched a ride with someone's teleportation before (other times it was an empty black expanse). He'd never been in transit with an enemy before, though—still in the Instant Movement dimension, Goku hammered Buu with a series of close-range elbow smashes, keeping his grip on the creature with his other hand. As they reappeared in the material world, near the entrance again, he swayed backwards and swung a punch, but Buu ducked inside it, its head dodging away from Goku's hand and carrying on to strike him in the chest. They landed opposite each other again, coming to a halt and glaring across the empty landscape.

"Huh…huh…this is gonna drag on too long…" Goku's breathing was already too fast for his liking. "All right…let's do this."

"Eeeeeehehehe…" Buu giggled, shoulders shaking. Then it flung its head back and began to beat on its chest in the manner of an aggressive gorilla. "Oo! Oo! Oo! Oo!" Every hit drew a puff of steam out of his 'vents', until he was surrounded in a cloud of the stuff.

"What's that, a challenge?" Goku asked aloud. "Or just showing off? Well…" His muscles bunched up, and a rippled passed down his mighty frame as ki welled to the surface. A red aura sprung to life, and a focused intensity snapped into his eyes. "Threefold Kaioken!" Buu barely had time to lower its head to face him before he tore into it.

The survivors of Earth were gathered around the Hyperbolic Time Chamber door, waiting in anxious, pained silence.

"It's been too long…!" Raditz hissed.

"Time's not compressed there anymore," Eighteen reminded him. "It's only been a few minutes."

"Yeah, you guys can make a fight last a long time sometimes," Dende joked. "Don't worry about it." He looked idly up into the sky. "I wish we could do something, though. What if Goku comes back to ask for help? Or Buu beats him and gets out before he can destroy the door?" No-one replied at first.

"I'm not sure what to tell you…" Gohan said. "Dad's plan is about the best we've got."

"Is that so?" A smug voice in their heads asked. "What if you had three wishes from Namek on speed-dial?"

Tien was the first to reply. "King Kai! You talked to the Namekians?"

"Sure, they were happy to help. You guys did sort of save their race from extinction—you get a few favours for that." The Kai waited for someone to respond. "What? C'mon, guys, any ideas?"

"Hmm…well, there is…no, that wouldn't…" Tien sighed, shaking his head. "Never mind."

"What?" Goten demanded, tugging on Tien's arm. "What was it?"

Tien shrugged. "Well, if you must know…I was going to try a Spirit Bomb, see if the dragon could restore Earth and its people so I could use their energy…but the Namekian dragon can't restore more than one person's life with one wish…it wouldn't work."

"Well, I'm still here," Dende pointed out. "You could just use Porunga to wish Earth's Dragon Balls to this location, and then use them for the resurrection. Although…all the people we've brought back before wouldn't be able to come back again, only Porunga can resurrect someone more than once…"

"Oh, quit worrying, will ya?" King Kai laughed, smugness increasing yet further. "The Namekians know you guys and the insane situations you get into by now! After last time, they powered up Porunga—he can bring back groups now too!" Frankly, Shenron must be feeling kind of inadequate now…

"Excellent!" Tien beamed. "All right, tell the Nameks we have two wishes. Fix all the damage done to the Earth—"

"About time, too," Gohan muttered. "I swear if the ground keeps shaking, I'm going to go insane…"

"And whose fault is that, huh?" Raditz quipped.

"—and with the second, bring everyone who's died during Babidi and Buu's rampages back to life. Uh, except Babidi and Buu (on the off-chance he's already dead) and their lot, obviously."

"All right, I'll tell 'em. You'll see the results soon. See ya, guys!" The 'connection' cut out, leaving the group more anxious than ever before as they waited for the restoration of Earth.

The battle with Cell had been the ultimate test of skill; a bioengineered creation designed to be superior to them, with a hyper-advanced mind—the perfect warrior. Majin Buu, though, was the ultimate elemental clash of power, one being's might directly opposed to the other, hundreds upon hundreds of thundering blows, each with the might to shake worlds apart, blurring together into one continuous struggle between these two, warrior and monster, their powers far too massive for their physical bodies to contain, spilling out for miles around in dizzying coronas of cosmic energy.

At Kaioken x3, Goku had the upper hand, but not by much, and it took everything he had to maintain his offensive. He hammered uncountable thousands of punches into Buu's indestructible body, until his hands went numb. He kicked until his legs seized up. Exhausted but keeping his power burning, he grabbed Buu and brought the battle to close quarters, ramming his knees and elbows into Buu until blood ran down his aching limbs, and in tight moments ended up keeping Buu off-balance with headbutts so often that his vision blurred and his ears rang, more streams of blood seeping down his face and matting his hair.

Body all but spent, he fell away, unleashing a barrage of kiai's that crushed Buu down into a misshapen blob, but it simply sprang back to normal size, mildly irked but no worse off. Goku fired off a huge volley of energy beams, cutting Buu to ribbons and blasting every piece to shreds. The specks of dust that remained organised themselves into a Buu-like shape, and then filled in the gaps in a matter of seconds. This Buu, as he suspected, possessed even more potent powers of regeneration than the others—it never lost any energy reforming, and was constantly at 100%. Goku's minor advantage was simply not enough to wear Buu down to the point where it could be destroyed faster than it could heal the damage he was doing to it.

Finally, the great offensive ground to a halt. Every cell in Goku's body groaned, and he looked with increasing weariness over at Buu, who was spinning in idle circles and giggling, completely fine. "Damn…what do I do now?" Goku took a slow step back, closing his eyes for a minute. He emptied his mind, and waited for a decision to make itself known. His subconscious whirred over the situation, decades of battle experience analysing possible routes of attack. Finally, he arrived at a conclusion:

I can't beat him.

He opened his eyes, sighing. Buu was lazily approaching. Guess I have to blow the door—

No solution solve Buu problem defeat kill living? destroy remove energy energy heal regenerate counter? stop? different form higher form energy pure

—He shook his head. Not now! Majin Buu was only a few steps away. It craned its neck up towards him, pointed one stubby finger, and—for the first and last time—spoke.

"Me Buu," it gargled. "Kill you!"

Goku gulped. "Yeah…probably…"

Shortish chapter, mainly so I can split the fight up into two chapters, and have both contain an even amount of it—if this was longer, it'd be nearly three-quarters of the fight and much less of it would go into the next chapter.

Anyhow, moving on quickly.

Goku—2

Goku (Kaioken x3)—6

Canon Kid Buu—3

Kid Buu (Piccolo's energy absorbed)—5

Q: Well i like this story, a diferent path from the canon story and Raditz becoming the hero. But the thing i dont like, the abismal character development of Yamcha (yes i know about the sacrifice and the miss romance of 18 with him when you state in the preview of a few chapters ago). The parts of Piccolo, Vegeta and Buu was change to Raditz, Zarbon and Baby it was interesting and to say the truth i hate GT, it was a mess

A: If your only complaint is the treatment of Yamcha…well, I can live with that.

Q: Nice chapter, looks like Kid Buu is now back, he may no longer have MPiccolo's power or intelligence but he is a monster now, Goku I hope you can beat him. Hey one quick question, If Goku trained his body enough to stand the strain of Kaioken, could he eventually reach higher mutipliers?

A: Yes, he could. And probably will.

Q: What's Nail's situation in the afterlife?

Q: I would like to know; what has happened to Nail in the afterlife? Did he separate from Piccolo, since I'm guessing they're each a separate soul at this point, or are they still merged? And will we ever see either of them again, in the living world or otherwise?

A: He's Piccolo, unfortunately.

Q: Good chapter, but I've got a question. How did Raditz use Instant Transmission to get to the destroyed Lookout if no one was there? Doesn't there have to be someone physically there so he can get to desired location?

A: Okay, so me and this person never reached an agreement on this, but my argument was that he knows exactly where it is, since he's been there so often, so he can use the power levels around him as a reference to pinpoint his current location relative to it, and travel there.

Q: As for the ongoing debate over Son Goku's name meaning...I only told you what my native Japanese friend told me, so that's straight from the horse's mouth. I am not aware of any Chinese kanji for monkey that got bastardized to mean "grandchild"; the two do not share any etymology or stroke families when you write them.

A: The next chapter in the ever-fascinating Goku's-name debate.

Q: It's interesting that in your story, Buu learning Tenshinhan's Multiform technique allowed him to make multiple miniature internal clones, but in canon, he did the same, didn't he? Or was it just one?

A: Anime filler added a bunch. The manga just had one.

Q: I just realized that scenarios where the villains are pushovers to the main characters can actually be an EXTREMELY useful character development tool. In such cases your backbenchers can step up and show their stuff like you've masterfully done with Kuriza in this chapter. You've made him hilarious as befitting a character from a gag manga. I also enjoyed the fight with Cacao, you really let Zarbon pull his frilly stockings, tighten his thong, and stop being such a PANSY. Oh wait, he's had a wardrobe change, so he doesn't look so much like a Freaky Alien Genotype (although he's still wearing a pink shirt…)

A: I really enjoyed writing Zarbon's fight with Cacao, so I'm glad somebody finally liked it as much as I did, it seems!

Q: I know you haven't been big on power levels, and I don't blame you, but I was wondering about some of the characters who power levels don't become ridiculous (Crane School Launch, Videl, Zarbon, Hercule's Kamehameha, that kind of stuff)

A: Well, this was a chapter 51 review, so of course you didn't know that by now Launch's power is pretty substantial, but as for the others…Zarbon's probably in the millions somewhere, PL-wise…Hercule's at low to mid Dragon Ball (pre-Z) levels, I should think…and Videl's significantly stronger than him, though by how much I'm not sure.

Q: Not judging either route, but where did you put this Buu power wise?

A: Answers above!

Q: I've been following this story for a while now and have enjoyed it thus far, though this is the first time I'm actually posting a review. Its regarding the mention of a Red King and 13 "somethings". By any chance, could this be a reference to the Crimson king and the 13 bends in rainbow from the Dark Tower series by Stephen King?

A: Wow, I keep accidentally referencing the Dark Tower, it seems. But no. It's not that.

Q: so im guess kid buu still has piccolo power?

A: Yup.

Q: what happen to goku power pole go ?

A: Er…he dropped it somewhere?

Q: Speaking of Vegeta, what the heck happened to him in the future timeline?

A: Vegeta and Meta-Frieza killed each other in the future.

Q: I've also been wondering; where would the Legendary Super Saiyan form rank on your power scale? I'd probably put it at about a 1, since it's between Super Saiyan and Super Saiyan 2, but I'd like your opinion.

A: Dabura was compared to Perfect Cell, who LSSJ is stronger than, but it's less than SSJ2 (NOTE: Both of those are just my opinions in BTtL…some people have LSSJ below Perfect Cell or above SSJ2, whatever, equally valid)…so between 1 and 1.5.

Q: I think this version of Kid Buu will be at a 5.5 on your scale. Here's my reasoning; in the canon series, Kid Buu is at a 3, while Super Buu (without anyone absorbed) is at a 4.5. In this case, Super Buu still had Piccolo's energy in addition to his own, so he was at a 7 when Fat Buu was removed from him. I'm assuming that the loss in power when Super Buu reverted to Kid Buu was the same as it was in canon, meaning that the new power level would be Kid Buu's power level of 3 plus Piccolo's power (2.5) for a total of 5.5. So he should be able to fight evenly with Mystic Goku using Kaioken x3, although Goku will probably have the advantage.

A: Good guess. If I was trying to be super-accurate that's what it would be, but 5 is a nice round number and the scale isn't meant to be proportional (except when it is).

Q: Also, I was wondering; could Goku fire a regular Kamehameha at someone, have them catch it (like Cell did during his final clash with SSJ2 Goku) or engage in a beam struggle, and then power it up to a x10 and overpower them? Just an idea I had.

A: Yes, he absolutely could. Similar to his canon fight vs Vegeta, firing at x3 and then powering up to x4.

Q: I'd like to correct you a bit when you say Goku was inspired by Superman. Akira Toriyama is perfectly clear that Goku was inspired by Journey to the West, his name is just the Japanese pronunciation/translation/rendering of Sun Wukong. Goku had been out for years before his Saiyan heritage was revealed… Eh? Oh, right. Piccolo reminded me no-one watched Dragonball.

A: I was more talking about his saiyan retconned origins. I know Journey to the West inspired the original DB story. Which I have watched…some of…I've watched from the beginning up to partway through the Red Ribbon Army bit, then I've read from the start of Goku's fight with Tien up to the end of the King Piccolo arc, and I've watched the Piccolo Jr. bit…so I'm just missing the bit in the middle, really, which I'll eventually get around to.

Interestingly, I haven't quite watched the entirety of DBZ either…since I was a few years late to the fandom, I watched most of it on DVD, and by the android saga I was getting pretty good at spotting filler episodes, so I'd just skip them (the episode with that girl Lime, the bit with Tao coming back, the one where Gohan had to save some dinosaurs or something as the Great Saiyaman).

Q: Eh...how to say this, you messed up your PL scale with the kaioken thing, you have a non linear scale so PLx3 (e.g Goku (2), Goku Kx3 (6) ) makes no sense

A: Well, it's non-linear except when it isn't.

Basically…okay, put it like this. It's less non-linear and more nonsensical. The only thing you can get out of it is X is stronger than Y…sometimes the numbers will happen to be linear, like Goku's Kaioken numbers…or additive, like some of Buu's absorptions…that's just me being lazy. It's not meant to be taken too seriously; in all honesty, the story tells you what you need to know about the characters' strength, the numbers are just sort of to settle people's minds about who would beat who between characters who've never fought.

Q: Wasn't SUPER Eighteen FULLY robotic as you said. If yes, then dende even healing her BIOLOGICAL part would not be true.

A: The future Super 17 and 18 were fully robotic. The present Eighteen got an upgrade that gave her equivalent power to the future one by adding more mechanical parts (Future Bulma reverse-engineered the important bits from the original's design), but she's still based on a human. Maybe she was, like, 50% robotic before, and now it's 75%.

Q: Nice with the plot twist with cell helping him, however you kind of gave it away by saying the perfect plan or solution (whatever im bad at remembering stuff but nice with giving raditz dragon fist explosion and the whispers)

A: You'd think so, wouldn't you? But a lot of people didn't get it.

Q: It seems like Kid Buu is stronger than canon, given how a percentage of his power was enough to strike fear into 2 SSJ's.
Mystic Goku should be able to win. Kid Buu can't be stronger than Super Buu...right?

A: Not canon Kid Buu, no. (Buzz Lightyear voice) But we're not in your canon…are we?

Dr. Space, PhD (Pharaonic Dancemaster)

So it's been a while since I've done any sort of special thing, and I probably shouldn't even now, seeing how it's Sunday already. But, damn it, there are things I want to talk about.

So a while back somebody fell into the English Dub Dialogue Trap…and this is quite a serious problem among the DBZ fandom.

Disclaimer: I love the Funimation dub. I do. It's really fun, there are some talented voice actors there, and the one I don't like are usually laughably bad rather than groan-worthy. Not to mention that the music is incredible (even if Bruce Falcouner legally screwed over Mike Morgan and the couple other people who don't get any credit nowadays…they're still all talented people). I wouldn't say it has my favourite track, seeing as there are pieces of music I adore from the Japanese, the English and from Kai, but in terms of overall background music, Funimation is my preferred choice.

But. The dialogue. Oh Kami, the dialogue.

Now, I'm not going to go into the way the characters talk, because sometimes (well, often) their speech is groan-worthy…but occasionally there are some lines that I really like. Generally they nail the more dramatic moments in the series.

What I'm talking about is the misconceptions. The Funimation dub (and the Ocean dub, come to that, but I haven't seen most of the Ocean dub and have no wish to, frankly, so I can't really speak with any authority on the subject) contains a lot of lines that are just, well, wrong. Like, genuinely wrong and contradictory of stuff that happens in the manga or the Japanese anime. (Hey, it only took me five paragraphs to get to the point! That's gotta be a record of some kind.)

Here are some things the dub screws up:

"Raditz moved faster than light by dodging the Special Beam Cannon!"

Ehh, I think you're misconstruing the Special Beam Cannon's name in Japanese, which means something like "Light of Death". I think. Could be wrong. Either way, no he did not, and that line isn't present anywhere else. I mean, I don't want to debate whether or not DBZ characters are FTL or not, that's a whole different can of worms…but suffice to say that line is not evidence.

"Frieza was only using 1% of his power against Goku!"

Not much to say here…this wasn't present in the manga. He just was using a lot less than 50% until he, well, used 50%.

"Instant Transmission is moving at the speed of light!"

No-ooo, it's instant. Again, line present nowhere but the Funimation dub and also makes no sense—if Goku was moving at lightspeed while using IT, it would take him quite a while to get to other star systems. Like, years. Literally years. It's instant.

"Kid Buu is the strongest Buu!"

Again, this is based on some dub-only lines, but it's also patently not the case, because SSJ3 Goku fought Kid Buu for a long time without the battle going decisively either way, whereas he was afraid to go out and fight Super Buu before Vegeta pulled Fat Buu out of him. Hold on, what's that you say? You think that—

"SSJ3 Goku is stronger than, like, everything!"

Because he fought Kid Buu and said he could beat Buucollo? Er…again, Kid Buu, not stronger than Super Buu…and Goku in the manga didn't say he could beat Buuccollo…but he said that Gohan could beat him. Sorry. Goku was weaker than Super Buu, mystic Gohan and everyone above that.

There are other misconceptions in the fandom, but since they're not based on the dub but rather the anime vs the manga, or GT, or whatever, I'll talk about them some other time.

Or maybe I won't, because I'm probably going to get a lot of backlash over this when it turns out I'm wrong, and this was all in the manga and I just wasn't looking hard enough, or something.