A few hours had passed since the beginning of the Cell Games...
During their clash, Goku realized that, no matter how hard he tried, he would never be able to defeat Cell with his current power level.
Tired, with barely any energy left and panting heavily after the intense exchange of blows, Goku stood still, observing him with a deeply thoughtful expression.
Cell was letting him catch his breath and had even suggested he eat a Senzu Bean... But would he really have a chance of winning even if he did and recovered all his strength?
Goku's gaze instinctively shifted toward his friends, stopping specifically on Gohan, who was watching the fight with concern next to Piccolo, before returning his attention to Cell.
After thinking about it a lot and weighing all his options, Goku took a breath and came to a conclusion.
"I give up!"
Silence spread among everyone as they held their breath, hoping they had heard wrong.
"I have no choice but to give up, Cell, you are much stronger than me," Goku admitted with total frankness, lowering his guard and relaxing his combat stance.
"W-what did you say...?!" Cell stammered, completely losing his smile and calm, looking at him in absolute surprise.
Everyone watching the fight, both the reporters in the distance and the Z Fighters themselves, looked at Goku in shock.
It was the first time in his entire life that the Earth-raised Saiyan quit in the middle of a fight like that.
Vegeta, on the other hand, just grunted.
His blood boiled with indignation, filling with rage and clenching his fists so hard that his knuckles cracked.
"You're a coward, Kakarot! How can you abandon a fight like that?! Fight to the death if necessary, you insect!" Vegeta yelled at him, completely beside himself.
Despite the Saiyan Prince's insults, Goku shook his head, without backing down or flinching.
He had already made a decision.
Cell, slowly regaining his composure, narrowed his eyes coldly.
"Think carefully about the decision you've made," he warned him with a serious tone. "If all of you lose in my tournament, I will make the Earth disappear along with all of you."
Goku, who barely had the strength left to stand, simply smiled.
"You are very wrong, Cell. That doesn't mean no one else will fight you."
Cell averted his gaze toward all the Z Fighters and snorted in amusement, a smug smile reappearing on his face.
None of them was strong enough to face him.
Even if everyone had increased their power significantly, they were still too weak compared to his perfect form.
For Cell, only Goku had been able to face him on equal terms.
Even if they all faced him at the same time, they would never have a chance of defeating him.
"I am sure the next fighter will finish you off, Cell," Goku continued, with unbreakable confidence in his voice. "But if he loses, our hopes will disappear. Luckily, through our fight, I proved that he does have a chance to beat you."
Cell simply observed Goku with a hint of surprise, which quickly transformed into curiosity.
A warrior stronger than Goku? Someone capable of defeating him, a perfect being?
Cell couldn't help it and let out a long, resonant laugh, thinking there was absolutely no one with those characteristics in the entire universe.
At that moment, ignoring his opponent's laughter, Goku turned to where all his friends were.
His gaze fixed directly on Gohan.
"It's your turn to fight, son..." Goku announced.
Gohan looked at his father with his eyes wide open in surprise, pointing at himself with his index finger.
Beside him, Piccolo gritted his teeth, genuinely thinking Goku had gone crazy for wanting to send Gohan to fight Cell, which was the same as sending him to his death.
But at that precise instant, before Gohan could react or take a step toward the arena, the sound of someone landing on the arena's tiles echoed clearly.
Another person had appeared out of nowhere, jumping right into the combat arena.
"Did you call me?" Zaiko asked.
He was standing a couple of meters away from Goku, looking directly at him with a broad smile on his face, his hair waving gently in the breeze, slowly crossing his arms with a smile on his face.
Goku reacted by raising his eyebrows, looking at him completely confused.
He had absolutely no idea who the guy who had just appeared in front of him was.
Piccolo, on the other hand, frowned upon seeing him.
«He has finally appeared», the Namekian thought to himself, immediately remembering the mysterious Saiyan couple he had met a few days ago.
But observing him closely, Piccolo noticed he looked very different from the last time.
«This must be his base form... whereas what I saw that day was undoubtedly a transformation», he deduced.
Only then did Piccolo realize that this man must be extremely powerful, possessing a transformation immensely superior to the Super Saiyan he was used to seeing in other Saiyans like Goku, Vegeta, Trunks, or Gohan.
Seeing how events were unfolding, Piccolo turned to Gohan, who was trembling with nerves at having to go out and face Cell, who had just defeated his father.
Piccolo didn't hesitate to place a firm and comforting hand on the boy's shoulder.
"You can relax, Gohan," he told him with complete certainty. "You won't have to fight anymore."
Gohan looked at Mister Piccolo, swallowing hard and stammering from surprise and tension, he asked him:
"A-are you sure? Is it really okay if I don't do it?"
Piccolo simply curved his lips upwards into a small smile.
That gesture made Gohan slowly calm down, relaxing his shoulders and stopping his trembling.
Piccolo crossed his arms again, turning his face to watch closely what was happening in the combat arena created by Cell.
There, in the center of the arena, Zaiko observed Cell for a second before turning his gaze directly back to Goku.
For an instant, he hesitated on what to say, weighing his words carefully before opening his mouth.
"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Zaiko, the most powerful warrior in the universe, the God-Saiyan... and your son."
Upon hearing the last part of his statement, Goku stumbled, almost tripping over his own feet, and exclaimed with his eyes bulging in surprise:
"H-huuuuuhhhh?!"
The Z Fighters, who were all gathered not far from the arena, reacted in a very similar way, with their jaws almost hitting the floor in disbelief.
Vegeta, who was still standing with his arms crossed and a serious face, still angry with Kakarot, raised an eyebrow.
His gaze traveled quickly between Kakarot and Zaiko a couple of times. «Wow... I didn't expect Kakarot to be that kind of man», he thought to himself.
Looking at Zaiko more closely, Vegeta confirmed that he was indeed a Saiyan, fixing his attention on the characteristic tail peeking out behind him.
However, observing the rest of his features closely, he thought that even if he had the blood of a Saiyan, he must be another hybrid, like Kakarot's brat or his own son, Trunks.
"T-that's impossible!" Krillin exclaimed, waving his hands and shaking his head. "Goku would never cheat on his wife!"
Gohan simply looked at Zaiko with a mixture of surprise and confusion.
"Do I... have an older brother?" he asked himself aloud.
For a moment he wondered if perhaps his father had started a second family, hiding it from the rest, but immediately thought that was impossible, since his father would never do something like that.
Trunks, on the other hand, frowned deeply, looking at Zaiko with distrust.
Piccolo turned to Trunks, thinking maybe he would know something about it, considering he came from the future and possessed knowledge about events that hadn't happened yet.
Slowly, as if sharing the same thought, everyone else looked away from the arena and looked at Trunks.
Feeling the weight of all their gazes on him, Trunks looked back at them somewhat nervously.
He scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably and let out a nervous laugh before apologizing.
"I... I'm sorry, but in my future I don't know anyone like him."
Piccolo and Vegeta clicked their tongues at the exact same time upon hearing his words, due to the lack of answers.
"Hmph. Then he must be a weakling who died at the hands of those androids from your time," Vegeta said. "Someone too weak to survive and too insignificant to be remembered."
But Piccolo rested his gaze on Zaiko again and slowly shook his head.
"You're wrong, Vegeta," he assured him, unable to hide the tension in his voice. "That man is anything but weak."
No one could sense Zaiko's Ki, but Piccolo felt a monstrous pressure just from his presence.
Vegeta simply looked at Zaiko, raising his chin with his usual arrogant tone.
"We'll see about that."
Meanwhile, in the arena, Goku composed himself, shaking his head and looking at Zaiko still with surprise written on his face.
"Are... are you really my son?" Goku asked him, looking up at the sky with a thoughtful expression, trying to search his memory in case he ever had another son and had forgotten him.
At that moment, a memory suddenly came to his mind.
He remembered how Dende had told him about a powerful Saiyan named Zaiko who visited New Namek and claimed to be his eldest son, just a few days ago.
After that, Goku had even dared to ask Chi-Chi directly if they perhaps had another son besides Gohan.
But she had simply blushed furiously, thinking he was asking to have another baby... That night ended up being just as weird as the night they got married, and in the end, his question went unanswered.
Seeing that Goku was really racking his brain to think if he had another son besides Gohan, Zaiko looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
Then, he averted his gaze toward Trunks in the distance and smiled briefly, before turning back to his supposed father.
He simply couldn't say that he had died and reincarnated, and that a ROB had turned him into who he was now.
For that very reason, over the last few days, he had been creating a whole backstory to tell.
Although, honestly, he didn't try that hard either...
"Just like Trunks, I come from the future," Zaiko explained calmly. "I come from an alternative timeline, specifically from the year 793 of the Earth calendar."
Hearing this, Goku looked at him in surprise, bringing a hand to his chest and letting out a long sigh of relief.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and muttered to himself:
"Phew... what a relief. I didn't want Chi-Chi to get mad at me for having forgotten the existence of one of our sons."
Zaiko simply rolled his eyes at him, thinking to himself that Goku was a much bigger idiot than he had ever thought.
Back with the others, everyone turned to Trunks to explain the situation in a way they could understand.
None of them could grasp how it was possible that, with both of them being from the future, they didn't know each other at all.
Trunks, feeling somewhat nervous again having all eyes fixed on him, decided to answer.
"I... I don't know much about it," Trunks began, scratching his cheek. "All my knowledge about time travel comes from my mother's explanations. But if Zaiko is telling the truth and comes from an alternative timeline, it's normal that we don't know each other."
"Don't waste time on useless explanations and get to the point!" Vegeta demanded of his son, crossing his arms impatiently.
Trunks let out a sigh and looked at his father before addressing everyone present.
"Alternative timelines are temporal branches that diverge from a main or original history due to changes, decisions, or temporal manipulation," Trunks explained seriously. "Unlike parallel universes, these alternative timelines share a common past until reaching a point of divergence, an event, often a critical decision, that separates a new timeline from the original one."
Trunks paused, analyzing the situation and looking toward the arena.
"I suppose that said point of divergence must be Zaiko himself. An alternative timeline where his birth changed everything, creating a new temporal branch."
Vegeta clicked his tongue, understanding the importance of the explanation, before returning his gaze toward the arena, focusing once again on Kakarot and Zaiko.
"Hey, Trunks..." Krillin intervened, trembling slightly and looking very worried. "Do you think maybe Zaiko used the Time Machine to return to the past because of a threat even greater than Cell?"
Trunks slowly shook his head.
"I have no idea, since he comes from an even more distant future than mine... but it's the most likely thing."
In that tense moment, everyone turned their gaze back toward Zaiko.
Everyone seemed to have completely forgotten Cell's existence, even though the bio-android was still standing right there, in the arena, a few meters from Goku and Zaiko.
But Cell himself, who had been listening to the entire conversation while being royally ignored, began to grow impatient.
A vein popped out on his forehead, threatening to burst at any moment.
"Have you forgotten that the fate of the Earth hangs by a thread?!" Cell yelled at them, finally losing his composure and clenching his fists. "Stop babbling about stupid things and fight already, you damn vermin!"
At that moment, Zaiko, who was in the middle of his chat with Goku, slowly turned and looked at Cell with a slight frown, visibly annoyed by his bothersome interruption.
"Keep quiet, insect," Zaiko ordered him.
His voice sounded with a completely cold and serious tone.
Without making the slightest effort, he raised a hand and pointed his index finger straight in Cell's direction.
Instantly, his ki began to concentrate, and the tip of his finger shone brightly with a dark purple hue.
Being called an "insect", Cell's pride as a perfect being was wounded, infuriating him because of it.
He let out a muffled roar and tensed every muscle in his body, preparing to lunge and finish off that insolent fool with a single blow.
But before Cell could even move, an extremely fast and monstrously huge beam of energy shot out from Zaiko's finger.
The beam was so wide it almost equaled the size of a Super Kamehameha, cutting through the air with a high-pitched whistle, reaching Cell in a fraction of a second, erasing any possibility of dodging or defending himself.
A roar shook the platform, kicking up a dense curtain of dust and smoke that covered the impact zone.
When the breeze cleared the smoke, the first to react, completely shocked, was Vegeta.
The Prince of all Saiyans immediately broke his posture, letting his arms fall to his sides while his face twisted into an expression of absolute surprise and disbelief.
There, in the center of the arena, Cell was standing... or at least, what was left of him.
The upper half of his body had completely disappeared, cleanly vaporized from the waist up by Zaiko's terrifying attack.
Not a single trace of his chest, arms, or head remained.
After a second of silence that seemed to last an eternity, Cell's legs—the only thing left intact of him—gave way, unable to stand on their own, collapsing heavily and hitting the ground with a dull thud.
Although everyone could sense that Cell hadn't died, and that he would soon recover, the way and speed with which Zaiko had defeated him had shocked everyone.
Even Goku couldn't help but look at Zaiko in surprise, though with a trace of excitement in his eyes.
As if he had done nothing more than swat a pesky mosquito, Zaiko lowered his hand, crossed his arms again, and turned with total calm toward Goku.
"Where did we leave off?" he asked him, with a small arrogant smile curving his lips.
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Finally! I've been wanting to write this chapter for ages!