The Last Time

In the autumn of Year 3104 of Zeno's Calendar, the New Turtle Hermit completed its third cross-universe patrol mission and docked at a starport on the edge of Universe 7 in the Connection Sea for routine maintenance. On the bridge, Lonely One's pale golden sphere of light floated above the main node, its heartbeat pulses perfectly synchronized with the rhythm of the Star Topology. Over the past few months, it had become one of the bridge's most dependable presences—new young disciples were always startled by the floating orb when they first boarded, but they quickly got used to it. Whenever someone was on night watch, it would occasionally drift over and hover beside their shoulder, like a desk lamp that needed no power.

Talos's granddaughter wrote this in the patrol log: "Lonely One didn't find a home. It found people willing to let it rest on their shoulders."

Meanwhile, on Earth, at the Mount Paozu dojo.

Goku and Vegeta sat side by side in wicker chairs outside the dojo entrance. Their white hair stirred lightly in the sea breeze, and their orange battle uniforms had faded from countless washings, but their backs remained straight. Goku held a bowl of seafood congee—the Turtle Hermit House kitchen had never stopped serving it for breakfast over the past several decades—lowered his head for a sip, and slowly swayed his tail behind him.

"Vegeta, how long's it been since we fought?"

"Three months and seven days." Vegeta held his bowl without turning around.

"How do you remember that so clearly?"

"Because after you lost last time, you said your back hurt and you needed a week's rest. Then you rested for three months."

Goku grinned, set his bowl on the armrest, and rose to roll his shoulders. His joints cracked sharply, yet his movements remained as smooth as a young man's. Orange-gold flames slowly spilled from his body—the light of Super Saiyan fused with Kaioken. No longer wild and blazing as it had been in his youth, it burned quietly now, like a campfire that had endured a lifetime of sea winds without ever going out.

Vegeta set down his bowl, and the streak of gold within his deep-blue aura flickered faintly in the morning sunlight. They took their positions a few yards apart. The sea breeze swept in from the beach, rustling the coconut palms. Every disciple in the dojo stopped training and crowded around the doorway and windows. Nappa strode out of the training hall with a broken pillar over his shoulder, Lapis behind him. The two claimed the best viewing spot at the entrance, expertly shoving the front-row disciples back another half meter to leave enough room for them to be blown away by the shockwaves.

"Place your bets! Who's winning?" Nappa grinned.

"A draw." Lapis's expression did not change.

"You bet on a draw every time!"

"That's why I win every time."

They assumed their opening stances—the opening stance of the Turtle Hermit School's basic martial arts. They had each practiced it for decades, from their first clash on the beach outside Turtle Hermit House, to standing side by side against Frieza on Planet Namek, to joining forces against Jiren in the Tournament of Power, to separately pushing open those two golden rifts at the Night Watcher Observatory. Every sparring match began with this stance, and every one ended with both of them being blasted away by the same surge of qi.

Goku struck first. No Instant Transmission, no stacked Kaioken—just an ordinary straight punch. It was much slower than it had been in his prime, yet the air before his fist was still compressed into a faint white ring. Vegeta twisted aside and slapped at Goku's wrist with his backhand. Both of them slowed their movements at the same time, not because they lacked strength, but because they understood each other. They had exchanged this sequence thousands of times and both knew what came next—Goku would rotate his wrist to deflect the palm strike, Vegeta would turn with the momentum and sweep low; Goku would raise a knee to block, Vegeta would retract his leg and switch to an elbow strike. Every move was a basic Turtle Hermit School technique, each form slowed until the disciples could see every shift in the angles of their joints.

"Watch closely. The force point for the Crushing Fist isn't in the arm—it's in the dantian." Goku spoke as he punched, his fist moving as slowly as though he were pushing through water.

"Don't listen to him. His dantian force is unstable. He turns the Crushing Fist into a straight punch all the time. Watch me." Vegeta demonstrated the same motion during a block, deep-blue aura condensing into a point at the edge of his fist.

"My dantian's unstable, and I can still draw with you?"

"Because you cheat every time. Last time, we agreed not to use Kaioken, and halfway through you—"

"I didn't activate it! That time, my Super Saiyan form leaked out on its own! That doesn't count!"

Suppressed laughter rose from the dojo entrance. Nappa was laughing so hard that he nearly dropped the broken pillar. Lapis added flatly, "Every spar starts with fighting, then turns into arguing, and after the fight and argument, they drink congee together. This kind of training method only exists in the Turtle Hermit School."

At the end, they threw punches at the same time. Just before their fists collided, they simultaneously pulled their force with perfect understanding, their knuckles only lightly touching. A ring of qi swept outward from the point of contact, brushing over the wooden plaque bearing the words "Turtle Hermit School Dojo" and shaking loose several wild cherry petals that had landed on it.

"Another draw." Goku withdrew his fist.

"We never intended to decide a winner." Vegeta withdrew his as well.

The two sat back down in their wicker chairs. Nappa announced the gambling result: Lapis had won again. The disciples dispersed with laughter. Some ran back to the training ground to continue practicing, while others surrounded Goku and Vegeta to ask about the details of the Crushing Fist's force generation.

That evening, the setting sun dyed the entire South Sea gold and red. Goku sat alone on a reef at the edge of the beach, gazing at the sea he had watched all his life. Vegeta came over and sat beside him.

"You had something you didn't say today," Vegeta said.

Goku was silent for a while, then grinned—that smile was exactly the same as when he had first activated Kaioken at the Lookout decades ago, the same as when he had told Jiren, "I'm going in," at the Tournament of Power, and the same as every time he faced an enemy stronger than death itself.

"I was just thinking. We've fought for so many years, and every time it ends in a draw."

"You want to win once?"

"No." Goku looked down at his callused palms. "I was thinking—if one day we can't fight anymore, who will carry the memories of all these sparring matches?"

"They will." Vegeta tilted his head toward the young disciples chattering behind them in the dojo, debating who had copied the moves best. "Every punch you taught them, every stance I taught them, will remain with them."

Goku followed Vegeta's gaze. At the dojo entrance, the young disciples practiced generating force from the dantian for the Crushing Fist under the sunset. Talos's granddaughter crouched before the smallest child, correcting his movements hand over hand. Her tone was stern, but she never lost her temper. The way she taught was exactly like her grandfather's had been in his youth. Farther down the beach, Lazuli's granddaughter and a blue-skinned girl taught several new disciples how to weave their first qi threads, golden points of light flickering through the twilight.

"You're right." Goku stood and headed toward the dojo. After two steps, he stopped without looking back. "Vegeta, next time we spar—we should teach them a fusion technique."

"Your fusion pose is too stupid."

"You say that every time, but you cooperate every time!"

Vegeta did not answer. But he stood and followed Goku toward the dojo. The sunset stretched their shadows long, overlapping them on the sand, just like when they had first walked side by side out of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber at the Lookout many years ago.

That night, a bonfire burned on the beach outside Turtle Hermit House. The young disciples sat around it, listening to Nappa tell the story of "the time I held off the entire Frieza Force's flank firepower by myself on Planet Namek." Nappa had told this story countless times, and the details changed every time, but it always ended with, "Then Talos said, 'Nappa, you worked hard,' and I said, 'No problem. Let me take the vanguard next time.'" The young disciples laughed every time they heard it. Lapis sat beside Nappa and, whenever he reached that line, added expressionlessly, "What Talos actually said was, 'I'll save a big one for you next time,' not 'You worked hard.'" Nappa always replied, "Same thing!"

Bulma's granddaughter led a new generation of researchers in the dojo's underground laboratory, continuing to upgrade the cross-law scanner. Her hair was the same purple her grandmother had worn in her youth, tied in a neat ponytail. Behind her, Vegeta and Bulma's great-grandson—a boy who had inherited both Saiyan blood and the Brief Family's hair color—leaned over the workbench, helping pass her wrenches while gently swishing his tail. The cross-law scanner had now reached its tenth generation. It was only a fraction of the size of the original model, yet its detection range covered all known star fields across the twelve universes, along with every newly marked coordinate on the Guides' Star Map. Bulma's granddaughter looked up from the workbench and said to her great-grandson, "When your great-grandmother designed the first-generation scanner, she didn't even know what cross-universe signals looked like. She said it didn't matter if she didn't know. Build it first, then figure it out."

"What else did Great-Grandma say?"

"She also said— a scientist's mission isn't to provide answers. It's to leave better tools for those who come after. Just like how the Guides burned themselves into signposts—not so others would remember them, but so those who came later could go farther than they did."

Meanwhile, at the dojo entrance, Talos's granddaughter was weaving a brand-new Star Topology sub-node from qi threads. She was now the steadiest node among the Turtle Hermit School's fourth generation, but every time she wove a sub-node, she still slowed down without meaning to. This one was for the youngest child in the dojo, an orphan who had just arrived from Universe 6's Saiyan homeworld. He did not like to speak. Every day, he silently followed the others through morning laps, then crouched beside the reefs to watch the sea.

She placed the finished sub-node in his palm. "It's all right if you don't want to talk. This sub-node will keep shining—as long as there's still one Turtle Hermit School disciple training, it will shine. Wherever you go in the future, if you see it glowing, you'll know someone is waiting for you to come back."

The boy lowered his head to look at the pulsing golden point in his palm and remained silent for a long time. Then he pressed it to his chest—right over the spot where the character for "Turtle" was embroidered on the Turtle Hermit School uniform. He raised his head and opened his mouth. His voice was soft, but every word carried all his strength. "...I'm not leaving."

Late at night, Goku stood alone on the summit of Mount Paozu. Moonlight fell over his white hair, turning his faded orange battle uniform silver. Talos came up behind him, and the two stood shoulder to shoulder atop the old reef worn with footprints by generations of Turtle Hermit School disciples.

"Vegeta said you've been standing here alone a lot lately."

"I'm counting." Goku raised a finger and pointed at the young figures still training in the dojo halfway down the mountain. "That little one is Krillin's great-grandson. His Qi Net precision has already surpassed Krillin's record from his special training at the Lookout. That blue-skinned girl is from Universe 4. She can directly sense emotions in energy—when she helped Nappa disarm a bomb last time, she said, 'The bomb is afraid.' Nappa was so stunned he didn't dare press the detonator. Those two arguing over there are new students from Universe 6's Saiyan homeworld. One is the disciple of Vegeta's disciple, and one is my—my who-knows-how-many-times-great disciple. They had their first spar yesterday. They fought for an entire afternoon, and in the end, both of them were lying on the beach, unable to get back up."

He lowered his hand, looked at his callused palm, and grinned. "Talos, we taught them."

Talos followed Goku's gaze toward the beach. At the dojo entrance, the wild cherry petals blown down by the qi blast from Goku and Vegeta's spar earlier that day still lay scattered on the ground, gleaming faintly in the moonlight. On the mountainside, Lazuli's granddaughter led the youngest children through evening breathing exercises. Dozens of tiny golden qi threads flowed back and forth between her fingertips and the children, like a constellation slowly turning through the night sky. Farther away, the starlight of the Connection Sea shimmered with a pale golden glow along the horizon.

"Do you remember Mount Paozu, many years ago?" Goku suddenly said. "The first time you put your hand on my head and said, 'I'm your brother.' Back then, I didn't really understand what brother meant. Now I do—it's not fighting together. It's teaching others how to fight together. Then watching them teach others."

Talos reached out and placed his hand on Goku's graying hair. He had made that gesture countless times—the first time on Mount Paozu, later at The Lookout, on the Tournament of Power arena, and before the golden rift at the Night Watcher Observatory. Every time, it had been the same gesture, the same warmth.

"A brother is—no matter how many years pass, no matter how many generations of disciples you teach, you'll still stand alone on the mountaintop in the dead of night, counting those children. You're not counting how strong they are. You're counting how much they resemble us back then."

Goku did not answer. He merely pressed a hand to the "Turtle" character on his chest, feeling the heartbeat that had never stopped since decades ago. The rhythm of the two heartbeats was perfectly synchronized with the newly woven child node at the entrance of the distant dojo.

Moonlight spilled across the beach of Mount Paozu, and the wooden plaque at the dojo entrance swayed gently in the sea breeze. Wild cherry petals drifted down from the mountainside, settling on Puar, curled into a ball of fur beside the stove; into the steaming bubbles of the seafood porridge; onto the shoulders of every disciple undergoing morning training. Life went on, and the journey remained unfinished.