AN
Yo you guys are freakyÂ
stop it I am not writing smut đź’€
--------
Yuji opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was nothing.
 NOTHING. Where buildings used to be, there was flat earth. Where streets used to be, there was dust. Where people used to be — he couldn't finish the thought.
He looked at his hands.
Yuji grabbed his face.
The sound that came out of him wasn't a scream. It was something worse. He doubled over. Vomited. Fell to his knees. His fingers clawed at the ground, dragging through ash, leaving streaks in what used to be Shibuya.
"Die," Yuji whispered.
His nails scraped concrete.
"Only I should die."
His forehead hit the ground.
"Die. Die. Die."
Tears mixed with ash. The boy who'd eaten a cursed finger to save his friends was lying in the crater his body had made, begging himself to stop existing.
Sixty seconds passed.
Then his grandfather's words came back. The execution order. The fact that if he died here, his existence was nothing more than a weapon that went off.
If this continues... I'm nothing but a murderer.
His fingers stopped scraping.
I have to fight.
He stood up. Shaking. Eyes swollen. Face covered in ash and tears.
He looked forward.
And saw the single most dripped-out human being he had ever witnessed in his life.
Sebas was standing on a lamp post.
STANDING. One foot on the very top, perfectly balanced, arms crossed, chin raised, looking at absolutely nothing with the energy of a man who had been placed on this earth specifically to go hard at all times.
Hard?
He was wearing new clothes.
Long black coat — open, flowing, tailored to the point of absurdity. High-collared dark shirt. Black trousers. Actual boots. BOTH feet covered for the first time in thirteen chapters.
And the cape.
The CAPE.
Long. Dark. Moving in a wind that did not exist. There was no breeze in Shibuya. The air was dead. Every flag hung limp.
But Sebas's cape was FLOWING. Billowing. Doing the anime thing. The invisible wind thing. The universe had assigned this man a personal weather system and it only produced dramatic gusts.
He wasn't looking at Yuji.
Wasn't looking at anything.
He was simply existing on a lamp post in full drip doing absolutely nothing with more presence than most people bring to their entire lives.
Yuji stared.
His brain — broken, traumatised, running on grief — produced one thought that had no business being there:
...Why is this guy go so hard?
Behind a collapsed wall, two figures were watching.
One was seven feet tall. Bald. Pointed ears. White cape and turban. Arms crossed.
Piccolo.
The other was shorter. Bowl cut. Purple gi. Looking between Sebas and Piccolo with the wide eyes of a kid who'd been dragged to something he didn't fully understand.
Gohan.
"Etch this moment into your brain, Gohan," Piccolo said, not looking away from Sebas. "You might not witness a kid around your age with so much aura again."
"Okay," Gohan said. "Let's not turn this trip into some sort of lecture, right, Piccolo?"
Piccolo didn't respond because Piccolo was already deep into it.
Gohan looked at Sebas on the lamp post. The cape. The stance. The chin angle. The invisible wind.
"...Can I reach such heights?" Gohan whispered.
"Stop taking this seriously," Piccolo said, even though he was taking it more seriously than anything he'd taken seriously since the Cell Games.
The cape billowed.
Gohan leaned forward. "Is that really an aura farming technique?"
"What you're witnessing," Piccolo said, his voice dropping, "is Auradynamics."
"...Huh?"
"Auradynamics, Gohan."
"What's a—"
A third voice came from behind them. Low. Gravelly. Familiar.
"I didn't know you also attended these events."
Piccolo and Gohan turned. Vegeta was leaning against a piece of rubble. Arms crossed. Exactly the same pose as Piccolo. He'd been there for an unknown amount of time.
"You think I'll miss witnessing this?" Vegeta said.
Gohan looked between the two adults who were both staring at a man standing on a lamp post like it was the World Martial Arts Tournament.
"It's actually a thing," Piccolo continued, turning back to Sebas. "Aura dynamics. The ability to not lose aura while in motion."
"Commonly used while walking down a hill," Vegeta added, "trying to maintain your aura."
"Or better yet," Piccolo said, "when you're about to cross a road and a car decides to wait for you to pass."
Both of them nodded.
"You can then hit them with the auradynamics," Vegeta said, "instead of doing the awkward little jog people do."
Gohan's eyes went wide. Every time Chi-Chi sent him to the shops and a car waited at the crossing, he did the grateful half-run. The sorry wave. The hunched shoulders. Zero aura retained.
He looked at Sebas on the lamp post. The cape. The stillness. This man had never done the jog. This man had never even CONSIDERED the jog. Cars waited for him and he let them.
"A very effective technique," Piccolo said.
Sebas shifted his weight on the lamp post. Just enough for the cape to catch a new invisible current and billow in the opposite direction.
"He just changed his cape direction without wind," Gohan said.
"Mid-stance auradynamic adjustment," Piccolo said. "Only the highest level practitioners can do that."
Somewhere below, a piece of rubble finally gave way and a chunk of building fell from a damaged structure. It plummeted toward the ground directly beneath Sebas's lamp post.
Sebas didn't move.Â
The rubble hit the ground and shattered three feet from the lamp post's base.
The lamp post didn't wobble.
Sebas didn't blink.
The cape kept flowing.
"He could of died," Gohan said.
"What?" Piccolo said.
"No I mean — that rubble almost — he could've —"
"What's the saying, Gohan?" Piccolo said, turning to his student with the gravitas of a man passing down ancient wisdom.
Gohan looked at him.
"It's better to die with Aura," Piccolo said, "than to live without Aura."
Vegeta nodded. "Hn."
Gohan stared at both of them. Then at Sebas. Then back at them.
Then he pulled out a notepad and started writing.
"What are you doing?" Piccolo asked.
"Taking notes," Gohan said.
Yuji was still staring at Sebas.
He didn't know about auradynamics. He didn't see the three Dragon Ball characters analysing a man on a lamp post from behind a wall. He didn't know that the cape had a forty percent aura bonus or that the mid-stance directional adjustment was a high-level technique.
All he saw was a man who looked like he had never once in his life apologised for existing.
And somehow — that was enough to make Yuji take one more step forward.
Sebas still didn't look at him.
The cape billowed.
Yuji walked toward Shibuya Station. Toward whatever came next.
Behind the wall, Piccolo watched him go.
"The aura reached him," Piccolo said.
Vegeta uncrossed his arms. Crossed them again.Â
"Hn. Not bad."
Gohan was still writing.
---------
Hit that review and hit that power stone button FRÂ
And comment down below.