A heavy silence fell over the arena, broken only by the sound of heavy breathing.
Cell was panting deeply, with barely any energy left.
Regenerating the upper half of his body from his legs had consumed an abysmal amount of his Ki reserves.
With his chest rising and falling erratically, he observed Zaiko with a mixture of absolute disbelief and terror, his mind racing as he thought how it was possible that he had been defeated and humiliated so easily.
Swallowing hard, Cell closed his eyes for a second and tried to concentrate.
He tried to compare his own strength with Zaiko's, seeking to measure the gap that separated them, but upon trying, he froze.
He felt absolutely nothing.
Cell snapped his eyes open and frowned in deep confusion.
He didn't sense that guy's Ki at all.
It was as if there was no one in front of him, as if Zaiko were a ghost.
«That should be impossible...», Cell thought to himself, gritting his teeth. «No one can hide their energy like this after launching an attack of such magnitude!»
While this was happening in the bio-android's mind, Goku stared at Cell for a few seconds.
Then he scratched the back of his neck with his typical carefree attitude, looking back and forth between Zaiko and Cell repeatedly, as if evaluating the situation.
Only then, Goku made a decision and turned to where his friends were and raised his voice.
"Krillin!" he yelled to him, waving a hand. "Please, throw me a Senzu Bean!"
Upon hearing the request, Krillin nodded immediately.
He quickly searched inside his training gi, taking out a small cloth bag.
He took out one of the beans, thinking Goku planned to heal the wounds he had accumulated during his fight against Cell...
"Here it comes! Catch it, Goku!" Krillin yelled, tossing the bean through the air with a quick flick of his arm.
Goku raised his hand and easily caught the bean mid-flight.
However, instead of popping it into his mouth as everyone expected, he made a fluid motion and tossed it right back to Cell.
Cell, out of pure instinct, raised his hand and caught it in the air, opening his palm to look at the small green bean with a frown, looking at Goku completely confused.
Panic erupted outside the combat arena at that very instant.
"A-are you crazy?!" Krillin yelled at Goku, looking at him with pure disbelief and bringing his hands to his head.
Yamcha took a step forward, also looking at him in disbelief.
"Goku, that was the best chance we had!" Yamcha reproached him. "We could have defeated him all together now that he was exhausted!"
Piccolo, who was also watching him in disbelief from his position, kept his arms crossed.
He simply closed his eyes and slowly shook his head, thinking to himself with resignation that Goku was still a hopeless idiot.
Ignoring his friends' complaints, Goku calmly turned toward Zaiko.
"You are too strong compared to Cell," Goku explained to him, resting his hands on his hips. "And now that he's almost out of energy from regenerating, it's too unfair for you to fight him in that state."
Goku tilted his head and smiled at him.
"You don't mind if Cell recovers first, right?"
Zaiko, who hadn't moved a single muscle and kept his arms crossed, simply shrugged, maintaining his expression of total indifference.
"You should have asked me before giving it to him," Zaiko replied. "But the truth is I don't mind at all, it won't change the outcome anyway."
Only then, while Cell was still observing the small bean in his hands with evident confusion, not knowing what kind of trick this was, Goku addressed him again to explain.
"That thing you have in your hand is a Senzu Bean," Goku told him in a friendly tone. "If you eat it, you'll recover completely instantly."
Cell narrowed his eyes, suspicious.
However, he knew Son Goku's personality perfectly thanks to the data Dr. Gero's computer had compiled over the years.
He knew Goku wouldn't trick him into ingesting poison or something similar that could kill him in a cowardly way.
Deciding to believe his words, Cell brought the Senzu Bean to his mouth, chewed it quickly, and swallowed it.
The effect was instantaneous.
Immediately, Cell opened his eyes wide as he felt his body completely recover all its lost energy.
His breathing stabilized at once, and an unparalleled sensation of vitality coursed through every fiber of his being.
But that wasn't all.
With his rapid recovery after having been on the verge of death from Zaiko's attack, Cell also obtained a monstrous power boost, courtesy of the latent Zenkai in his Saiyan cells.
A violent, golden aura erupted around him, kicking up debris and shaking the ground with sporadic tremors.
Blue lightning began to crackle wildly around his body, manifesting the peak of his power.
Before, Cell's power level was 4,500,000,000 (four billion, five hundred million).
Now, with the overwhelming boost he had obtained from the Zenkai, his power level had skyrocketed drastically, reaching the same strength as his Super Perfect Cell version: 8,000,000,000 (eight billion).
Zaiko simply smiled, amused to notice what, to him, was a small power increase in Cell.
In contrast, all the other Z Fighters looked at the bio-android with absolute terror, paralyzed by the monstrous pressure now emanating from his body.
The Zenkai is a biological trait unique to Saiyans that allows a warrior to substantially increase their base power after recovering from a severe injury or having been on the verge of death.
Now, seeing it in person, Zaiko understood it perfectly.
He remembered that in his previous life there were many theories circulating on the internet about how the famous Zenkai Power actually worked.
Basically, the Zenkai was something like an extreme genetic adaptation of the Saiyan body designed to prevent a similar future threat from proving fatal.
The closer the Saiyan is to death, the greater the power boost upon recovering, and the boost one received was directly proportional to the threat they faced.
But the Zenkai had logical limits.
It wasn't an omnipotent and magical power that could make you overcome any obstacle in the universe in a single bound.
For Cell, it was biologically impossible to obtain a boost large enough to be able to face Zaiko on equal terms.
And being completely unable to sense Zaiko's Divine Ki, Cell's body didn't register it as a power parameter.
Therefore, the Zenkai Power simply did its job based on his surroundings, taking him to a level far superior to the threats he could perceive around him, that is, the combined power level of all the Z Fighters.
Goku scratched his head awkwardly, and a large drop of sweat slid down his forehead.
"Oops..." he muttered, laughing nervously. "It seems Cell's power level has increased much more than I imagined..."
Vegeta sharply turned his face toward Kakarot.
"You are an absolute idiot!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, although he didn't dare look away from Cell, gritting his teeth so hard that his jaw threatened to fracture.
The Prince of Saiyans felt like he was going to go crazy.
Every time he thought he had gotten stronger and finally reached the top, someone much more powerful than him always appeared out of nowhere.
Whenever he thought he had finally surpassed Kakarot, this bastard also managed to get stronger, dragging him into an eternal stalemate where he never seemed to be able to surpass him definitively.
He was starting to get tired of this damn situation... an endless cycle where, no matter how much effort, sweat, and blood he put into training, it never yielded the results he expected.
And now, this insect Cell, who was already an invincible monster he couldn't beat no matter how hard he tried, had doubled his power level in the blink of an eye, doing absolutely nothing more than swallowing a stupid bean.
Vegeta felt anger, helplessness, and frustration begin to completely cloud his judgment.
Only then, both Goku and Vegeta were snapped out of their thoughts when they saw a figure moving out of the corner of their eyes.
It was Zaiko, who had just taken a step forward calmly and confidently, walking directly toward Cell.
In front of him, Cell continued observing himself in surprise.
He clenched his right fist tightly, listening to his knuckles crack, adapting to his new and monstrous strength with a broad, sickeningly arrogant smile on his face.
Cell looked up, fixing his eyes directly on Goku.
"You have made a grave mistake, Son Goku," he spoke, with a deep and resonant voice denoting his new and overwhelming superiority. "Because of your stupid arrogance, each and every one of you will die today. And as for your beloved son from the future..." he added, directing a look laden with absolute contempt at Zaiko. "He no longer has even the slightest chance against me. I am absolute perfection!"
Hearing Cell's pathetic delusions of grandeur, Zaiko let out a heavy sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers.
He decided he had heard enough stupidity for one day...
Zaiko slowly turned toward Goku and Vegeta, turning his back on Cell.
"The truth is I didn't plan on showing my new transformation so soon," he confessed to them, with an almost casual tone. "My power in my base form was more than enough to finish off Cell..."
Both Goku and Vegeta looked at each other instantly, eyes wide, and the exact same thought crossed their minds at the same time:
«New transformation?!»
Piccolo, who was listening, immediately thought of the form Zaiko showed when they first met.
But... was he really referring to that transformation?
Goku and Vegeta realized that Zaiko hadn't transformed into a Super Saiyan at any point since he arrived.
Everything he had done, he had done in his base form.
Goku couldn't help but get excited, clenching his fists tightly.
All his hard training with Gohan in the Time Chamber had focused exclusively on breaking the Super Saiyan power barrier.
He highly doubted Zaiko was referring to the ordinary Super Saiyan they all already knew... So it could only be the next level!
Heh...
If Zaiko could have heard their thoughts at that moment, he would have laughed out loud.
The next step of the Super Saiyan?
His new transformation went at least several steps beyond what Goku could even imagine!
"But what can you do? I like to show off."
Suddenly, the atmosphere changed completely.
Zaiko's aura erupted around him, completely surrounding his body with a dense, dark purple and black energy.
[Image]
Only then, with a smile of pure anticipation on his face, Zaiko's aura began to change.
Countless small rocks began to float around him, defying gravity, as the entire arena floor began to tremble violently.
If before none of them could sense his Ki, with only Piccolo being the exception capable of perceiving the overwhelming pressure of the divine ki, now... now everyone could feel it clearly.
The immensity of his power hit them suddenly.
If a few moments ago they considered Cell an insurmountable monster, now they knew how wrong they were.
The real monster had always been Zaiko.
Now they perfectly understood why that man had introduced himself, without a single drop of doubt, as the most powerful warrior in the entire universe.
And Vegeta... feeling the air leave his lungs, finally understood what Zaiko meant by calling himself a God-Saiyan.
For a few moments, the same feeling as when he met the God of Destruction, Beerus, when he was a child, enveloped him, making him step back.
The crushing pressure that fell upon their shoulders was so overwhelming that it made Krillin, Tien Shinhan, and Yamcha instantly fall to their knees on the ground.
All three gritted their teeth tightly, panting, desperately trying to resist so as not to be crushed against the ground.
Gohan, Piccolo, and even Trunks had to make an immense and painful effort, digging their feet into the dirt, to keep from falling.
Meanwhile, Goku and Vegeta were forced to transform into Super Saiyans the exact instant the pressure pushed them down, solely to be able to stay on their feet.
The dark aura surrounding Zaiko broke like an eggshell, revealing a dazzling flaming aura of intense pink, magenta, and violet, full of bright particles floating toward the sky like embers.
His previously white hair had spiked up slightly and turned completely a pastel pink color with faint white highlights.
Flashes of white light erupted sporadically around him, snaking throughout his flaming aura.
This was the Super Saiyan Rosé.
[Image]
A truly divine form that equaled in strength and nature the Super Saiyan Blue that Goku and Vegeta would achieve in the future.
This transformation was the direct result of a god transforming into the first form of the Super Saiyan.
Zaiko's eyebrows now matched the pastel pink color of his hair, while his eyes had taken on a light gray, cold and piercing hue.
"Huh? Pink? Why is it pink?" Goku asked aloud, blinking in absolute surprise, breaking the tension of the moment for a second.
To all the Saiyans present, the form Zaiko was showing was identical to the standard Super Saiyan they knew so well... only hundreds of times more powerful, enveloped in an incomprehensible energy and of a completely different color.
Zaiko, who for days had not found the path to become stronger and someday fulfill his goal, had finally had this brilliant idea.
He had decided to combine the standard Super Saiyan form with his Divine Ki.
The result of said fusion had given birth to the Super Saiyan Rosé.
He hadn't fully mastered this form yet, as the first time he had used it was that very same day, first thing in the morning, while Broly was sleeping.
But the day would come when he would master it completely! And when he finally did, he would go even further!
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