"Grand Minister, Miss Ino — I don't feel very well," Grand Zeno murmured softly.
Ino swept her gaze across the spectators' area.
Who was it? Who could be moving against Grand Zeno, the Grand Minister, and herself all at once? Was there really someone that terrifyingly powerful loose in the current multiverses?
Ino herself felt awful. The divine power inside her was being siphoned away strand by strand. Compared to her total reserves, the amount drained so far was limited — but drop by drop fills the bucket, and if this kept up, even she couldn't endure it indefinitely.
After Champa had been erased, Vados had quietly moved over to sit on the Seventh Universe's side. Now she sensed something was wrong and rose to her feet alongside Whis.
Grand Zeno's safety outweighed this so-called Tournament of Power by about a hundred million to one. Seeing the situation deteriorating, Ino — in her role as referee — let her voice boom across the entire arena: "Stop — the match is suspended... I said STOP! Everyone stand down!"
When she shouted the first time, the three combatants on the stage heard absolutely nothing.
Son Gohan's elimination had triggered yet another eruption from Son Goku, even with his stamina running completely on empty.
At this moment Goku had both arms wrapped in a death-grip around Jiren's right arm, while Frieza — with absolutely zero Emperor-of-the-Universe dignity — was clinging to both of Jiren's legs. All three had pushed past their limits. Super Saiyan Blue, Golden Frieza — those forms were long gone. For the sake of the Seventh Universe's final survival, Frieza had joined forces with Son Goku for the very first time. Together, relying on nothing but sheer brute strength, they were trying to drag the equally exhausted Jiren toward the edge of the ring.
Jiren thrashed and struggled with everything he had, every shred of his earlier composure thrown to the wind. He hammered his fists and elbows down on the two dead weights clinging to him.
Son Goku and Frieza were coughing up blood with every blow — and still they dragged Jiren, inch by grinding inch, toward the boundary.
When Ino shouted the second time, the three of them were tangled together like wrestlers, locked in a bizarre, contorted knot of limbs.
Frieza: ???
Ino fired a beam of rainbow light from between her fingers. It struck the massive metal pillar at the center of the stage that served as the tournament's timer, and the match was forcibly suspended.
"Nobody move. There's a situation outside. I'll be back in a moment."
She left those words hanging in the air — and then stepped directly out of the main timeline.
Frieza and Son Goku were still tangled up with Jiren when they heard her. All three of them were hit by an inexplicably awkward silence.
Let go? That felt like throwing away every advantage they'd bled and broken themselves to build — and they were only two or three meters from the edge of the ring now. But keep holding on? With every eye in the arena watching, that was... also pretty weird.
"Let go!" Jiren's power truly was a cut above both of theirs. Even now he managed a sharp flex of both arms, flinging the two of them off him. He had no idea what had happened outside. He considered it for a moment, then didn't move — he simply sat down cross-legged right where he stood and began meditating to recover his strength.
Son Goku and Frieza were drowning in awkwardness. They looked at each other, then wordlessly sat down as well, keeping their distance from Jiren — the three of them forming a rough triangle.
Saiyans had no technique for meditating to recover stamina, but at this point there was genuinely nothing left in the tank. Sitting was still better than standing. Every little bit helped.
Ino left the World of Void and stepped outside — and there she finally found the source of the multiverses' crisis.
A tree. A colossal tree that defied all numerical measurement had suddenly erupted into existence. It had absorbed the vast majority of the energy from the universes previously erased, and was growing at an unstoppable pace, swiftly breaking through the outer limits of the current multiverses, its branches and roots sprawling outward in all directions without restraint.
The tree was unimaginably vast. The four civilized universes that still survived — the First, Twelfth, Fifth, and Eighth — along with the Seventh and Eleventh, which were still locked in their final battle, hung upon this inconceivable tree like fruit.
Normally, the multiverses grew by expanding from their own internal energy. Now, with this colossal tree added to the equation, that growth had accelerated — but forcing growth had never been a good thing. The tree's expansion continuously consumed the already-thin foundations of the multiverses. It cared nothing for them; it simply wanted to draw in more, ever greater energy for itself.
The six surviving universes might look like fruit hanging from its branches — but tracing the future timeline forward, this looked far more like a hunt.
The tree lacked Grand Zeno's power of erasure. Instead, it was rapidly draining the energy from the surviving universes.
Through the knowledge encoded in the timeline, Ino now learned the tree's name: the Universe Tree — an ancient relic capable of absorbing cosmic power and using that immense energy to birth entirely new universes. Its existence predated not only Ino and Kuronoa, but even Aeos's tenure as Supreme Kai of Time. The current multiverses were still in their infancy by cosmic standards — but even so, they had long since moved past needing the Universe Tree, a parasitic anomaly whose costs far outweighed its benefits.
"Zamasu? Broly? And who's the third one? So this is... aimed at Grand Zeno?" Ino watched as three distinct ki signatures drew enormous amounts of energy from the Universe Tree and then came charging toward the World of Void.
She didn't move to intercept immediately. Instead, she stopped and thought carefully.
If Grand Zeno died — what did she stand to gain? What did she stand to lose?
When she really thought it through... there didn't seem to be much to gain. What she needed right now was time. Given enough time, she could grow into her true potential. There was absolutely no reason to rush and lash herself to the entire multiverses before she was ready.
Grand Zeno's abilities were useful, sure — but they came with no freedom whatsoever.
Ino let out a long sigh. Fine. She'd go play royal bodyguard.
...
Inside the World of Void.
Frieza, Fusion Zamasu, and Broly came crashing in together, their combined might sending shockwaves through everything. The assembled gods fell into a panic.
"Zamasu from the Tenth Universe? Oh... no, this is Zamasu from the future timeline. What a headache — that lunatic still isn't dead?"
Beerus hadn't moved a muscle. The Universe Tree was steadily siphoning cosmic energy, and in the process it had drained away the vast majority of the gods' divine power as well. Grand Zeno, connected as he was to the multiverses at the deepest level, had been hit the hardest. Beerus's own divine power had been severely weakened too, and on top of that he was worried about being done in by his idiot Supreme Kai teammate — so for now, all he could do was stand there and think.
The First, Twelfth, Fifth, and Eighth Universes had been exempt from the Tournament of Power and hadn't bothered to recruit any warriors from within their ranks — but their Supreme Kais and Destroyers were all present in person.
Beerus looked toward them, hoping they'd step up.
What he got was a complicated look from Iwan, the Destroyer of the First Universe — the one Ino had jokingly dubbed "Uncle Beard" during their earlier chat. His expression said it all: Fighting? We are a super-civilized universe. Not picking up dropped items on the road, not locking doors at night — that's just standard operating procedure for us. You understand? We haven't fought in several hundred million years. You want us to fight?
Beerus read the faces of the assembled Destroyers and Supreme Kais and buried his head in his hands.
Civilized people were useless. Only savages would do.
Grand Zeno had no interest in surgical precision. Erasing things one by one was too much work — he always did it whole universe by whole universe.
The Seventh and Eleventh Universes hadn't yet decided their winner. Even those who'd been eliminated — Vegeta and the others — were still sitting in the spectators' area watching the match.
Beerus glanced around at the people beside him. No other choice. A powerful enemy had invaded, and as a Destroyer, he had to protect his feeble Supreme Kai. That meant the job now fell to these mortal warriors of theirs.
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