As the old saying goes, the real work happens off the stage — no success is ever accidental. It demands effort multiplied many times over, poured in quietly behind the scenes.
Saiyans seem to pull off miraculous underdog victories on the battlefield all the time, and yes, it looks incredibly cool — but Son Goku and the others spent decades grinding without pause, climbing from Super Saiyan all the way to Super Saiyan Blue. Every flash of golden light was soaked in sweat and stubborn effort.
Even as the Tenth Universe launched its all-out offensive against the Demon Realm, Ino was still busy looking for ways to further weaken the Demon Realm Supreme Kai.
If she wasn't sure of winning, she wasn't going to move.
Charging in right now would most likely end in a draw. And if her opponent had some ace up his sleeve, she might actually lose.
She had never once broken through mid-battle, and she had no intention of starting now. The risk was too high. She preferred to think things through thoroughly before the fight and stack her hand with as many trump cards as possible.
It had to be said — the Aburame clan's chakra insects were genuinely useful, and Aburame Shino's nanobugs were even better: perfect tools for concealment, infiltration, and intelligence gathering.
The Demon Realm Supreme Kai was an old schemer — careful, experienced, his mind honed by ages of survival. Those were his strengths. But his thought patterns had calcified, and his methods had grown rigid. Those were his weaknesses.
When Ino had used the Mind Transfer Rope Technique, she had quietly planted a contingency. Now, with the Tenth Universe's assault blazing at full force, she activated it.
...
Deep in the Demon Realm, Mechikabura had re-summoned his temple from the place where he'd once been sealed.
It had become the Demon Clan's seat of power — their holy city, their sanctuary.
A faint hissing sound. The nanobugs quietly carved a tunnel at an upward angle, and a moment later, Tonton's head popped out of the opening.
Tonton glanced left and right with obvious anxiety.
My life is genuinely too hard. She'd been dragged here to rescue some former Supreme Kai of Time, of all things. Think about it — was this really the sort of job a pet pig should be doing?
Ino's voice reached her through the nanobugs: "Don't worry, I've got everything under control. I'm too conspicuous to move myself, and the nanobugs are too tiny on their own — but your size? Perfect. Now — go! Run, Tonton! Run!"
As two Demon Clan patrol squads passed each other, Tonton pumped her four little stubby legs into motion, kept her head low, channeled every ounce of do-or-die courage she had, pressed herself against the wall, and scurried past.
Ino's earlier rampage had put the Demon Clan on high alert. The temple, especially, had been fitted with barrier arrays specifically designed to keep insects out — but those arrays blocked insects, not pigs. Ino had tucked the nanobugs inside Tonton's ears, invisible to the naked eye, and the arrays had no way of detecting them.
The Demon Realm Supreme Kai had lost more than half of his Time Power. His temporal authority had been comprehensively suppressed by Ino, the current Supreme Kai of Time — so when he peered at the main timeline, all he saw was a wall of dense fog.
He couldn't see anything, but he couldn't afford to relax either. What if the enemy made a big move and he happened to catch it? So he kept meditating with one eye fixed on the timeline.
It had to be said — his mastery of magic was genuinely extraordinary. Through the thick fog, he glimpsed a blurry phantom: the silhouette of a pig. He assumed it was a fragment of some future moment — himself eating pork. He was the Demon Realm Supreme Kai, for goodness' sake. What could possibly be suspicious about eating a pig? He didn't give it a second thought.
He had absolutely no idea that Ino, having blanketed the timeline with wide-ranging interference, had once again snuck in riding a pig.
"Over there."
"Turn left."
"Stop, stop — wait, let those soldiers pass. Good. Now — go!"
Ino directed Tonton through the vast and opulent temple, searching methodically from room to room.
Towa, who had served as the temple's grand steward, was dead. During Mechikabura and Frieza's earlier battle, several more oblivious Celestial Mages had been caught in the crossfire and killed as well. The temple's coordination and logistics were measurably weaker than before.
Step by step, Ino crept closer to the cell where Kuronoa was being held.
...
"I have to escape. I absolutely cannot keep sinking any further!"
"No — I want power. More power. Stronger power!"
"I won't give in. I can't."
Kuronoa knelt on the floor of her cell, her better and darker impulses locked in endless war inside her. She muttered to herself like someone on the verge of a breakdown.
She was fully aware of her condition. She had tried, repeatedly, to purge the Dark Power from her body — and every attempt had failed.
The Demon Realm's chaotic energy pressed in on her at every moment. On top of that, the Dark Power within her kept devouring her own energy to feed itself. Lately, things had been getting worse. She could stay lucid for only about ten minutes a day.
Tokitoki, as her companion bird, shared an extraordinary life-bond with her — it had followed her into the Demon Realm when she was taken.
The plump, owl-like bird stood at the window, watching its master suffer, utterly powerless to stop it.
Nobody bothered guarding Tokitoki, because Mechikabura knew exactly how tightly it was bound to Kuronoa. It had nowhere to run — and even if it tried, it couldn't get far.
"Oink, oink." Tonton gave two soft calls at the window.
Tokitoki's wide owl-like eyes swept back sharply. It looked left and right — nobody. Looked up — nothing above either. Looked down — and there, waving at it, was a pig.
Ino had Tonton communicate with Tokitoki, hoping to bring the bird back to the Time Nest.
Meanwhile, she directed the nanobugs to observe Kuronoa up close.
Two seconds of observation was enough to give her a headache. Finding a way to break the Dark Power shackles on this "deposed empress" without alerting the Demon Realm Supreme Kai was going to be extraordinarily difficult.
"Do you have any ideas for rescuing Kuronoa?" she asked Tokitoki. "To truly defeat and eliminate the Demon Realm Supreme Kai, I'm going to need to fight alongside her."
Tokitoki shook its head. All of its power was derived from Kuronoa. Right now it was a slow death — the moment the last trace of goodness in Kuronoa's heart was fully consumed by the Dark Power, Tokitoki would fall alongside her.
Tonton flinched, shooting Ino a worried look — as if afraid that Ino herself might suddenly undergo a personality shift.
With Tokitoki offering no useful solution, Ino had no choice but to wait.
The nanobugs emerged once more, tunneling a passage underground not far away. Ino had Tonton hide inside it to wait.
The next morning, accompanied by Tokitoki's soft calls of "toki-toki, toki-toki," Kuronoa finally surfaced into clarity for those precious ten-odd minutes. Ino appeared and asked the "deposed empress" whether she had any way to save herself.
Kuronoa smiled — a bitter, tired smile. "Ino, so you've inherited the title of Supreme Kai of Time? I suppose that makes sense. Look at the state of me — I've already become the laughingstock of the multiverses. I was never fit to hold the position. You made the right call. What about Senior Aeos?"
Ino recounted the events of that day. In her telling, she had clung to the last thread of her sanity and barely managed to break free from that labyrinth of shattered futures — and it had nothing at all to do with her being shortsighted or washing her hands of things that didn't concern her.
She herself had made it out of the labyrinth. The Blue-haired Big cute girl, on the other hand, was still lost in it.
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