Their limbs blur in mid-exchange—
but both of them reach the same realization at the same moment:
Why stay here?
Why fight at this level?
They can go far higher.
They break apart—only a meter—hovering with their fists still half-raised.
Then Present Gohan inhales once, slowly, as if centering something deep inside himself.
His aura collapses inward—
then erupts white, radiant, clean, sharp.
Perfect Mystic.
Not a transformation of hair or electricity—
but a state of total release: everything unlocked, no restraints, no inefficiencies, no burden.
The ground beneath him vibrates as if his mere presence pushes the arena slightly downward.
Future Trunks stares for a split second.
Then grins.
And goes past his earlier limit.
His golden aura coils around him, spiraling like a drill—
hair extending downward, sharper than SSJ3, but denser, more controlled—
the flames turning a blistering gold-blue tint as his power spikes violently upward.
Perfect Super Saiyan 3.
The air tightens.
Spectators instinctively widen their stances so they don't slide from the pressure.
But even through the blinding light—
even through Trunks' massive surge—
the gap is immediate.
Gohan is stronger.
And everyone can feel it.
Trunks moves first—but Gohan intercepts before Trunks' thought even finishes forming.
He appears in front of him, palm already thrusting forward.
Trunks barely crosses his arms in time as a shockwave palm cannon detonates against him, launching him backwards in a spiraled arc.
Trunks flips mid-air, planting his foot on nothing—
air bending beneath it—
then uses the rebound to shoot forward like a spear.
Gohan rushes in to meet him, but Trunks feints—
phases sideways using afterimage displacement—
and appears above, chopping downward with a blazing hand-blade.
Gohan brings his forearm up, catching the chop, redirecting it past his ribs.
Then his other fist folds under and fires an upward punch toward Trunks' stomach.
Trunks sees it—
tightens his abs, twists his torso—
letting the punch scrape across his obliques instead of drilling through him.
He grabs Gohan's fist mid-motion, rotates his hips around it, and slams his knee toward Gohan's temple.
But Gohan had already predicted that angle—
he leans back so fiercely the wind peels backward across his face—
and counter-kicks Trunks' supporting leg.
Trunks stumbles for half a millisecond.
Gohan capitalizes instantly:
A rapid eight-hit chain:
Shoulder strike → elbow → rib punch → upward palm → downward fist → spinning crescent kick → back-elbow → knee-lift.
All within the span of a blink.
Trunks absorbs most with guarded deflections, but the crescent kick lands across his jaw, sending him spiraling downwards.
He stabilizes with a burst of ki, sliding across the arena, boots skidding and carving two molten lines across the tile.
He wipes a smear of blood from his lip.
Trunks (thinking):
He's adapting faster than I can escalate… good.
Good.
He breathes out slowly, lowering his stance.
Gohan charges again—
but Trunks doesn't meet him head-on this time.
He uses angles.
He drops his center of gravity, then pivots around Gohan's approach, sliding his back foot in a crescent arc around the arena tile.
His body becomes a spinning axis—arms close to the torso—
and his aura tightens like a vortex.
Gohan tries to track him—
but Trunks' movement is now based on delayed afterimages, deliberately mistimed, desynchronizing the visual cues from the real motion.
Gohan blocks left—wrong target.
Gohan punches right—another afterimage.
Gohan raises his guard overhead—Trunks isn't there.
Trunks appears behind him, thrusting both palms forward, firing a cyclone blast that wraps Gohan in a spiraling column of compressed air and ki.
It explodes upward like a drill breaking through a mountain.
Gohan is blown backward, spinning through the air—
but catches himself by digging both feet into the barrier wall, bending the transparent divine material inward before springing off it.
He comes in at a completely unpredictable angle—
not straight, not diagonal, but limb-first, dragging a whipping trail of air pressure behind him.
Trunks tries to dodge—
but Gohan's foot changes trajectory mid-flight with a microburst of ki, tapping Trunks' forearm and numbing it instantly.
Trunks snarls and retaliates with a rising kick—
but Gohan steps into the inside of the kick, letting it graze his hip while punching Trunks square in the sternum, forcing the air from his lungs.
Trunks skids back—
but smiles.
"Good."
Then he vanishes.
He reappears above Gohan with his fist raised—
But that's not the attack.
The attack is the gleam.
Trunks' hand reaches behind him—
pulls the sword from its sheath—
and for a moment the arena lights reflect off the blade in a thin, cold line.
The blade ignites with spiraling blue-gold ki.
"Flash Dimension Sever!"
He swings downward—
a cut so fast it bends the arena's visual field, warping the space between Trunks and Gohan.
Gohan crosses both arms in front of him—
The slash hits.
A slicing burst of force tears downward, carving a clean scar across the arena tile.
Gohan's arms get forced apart—
his chest receives a shallow but real cut—
and blood sprays into the air as he's thrown back.
He lands, skidding, touching his chest.
The wound stings sharply.
His eyes narrow.
This wasn't "pushing limits."
This was Trunks trying to finish the match early.
And that wasn't the deal.
Gohan looks up with a tightening jawline—
then vanishes.
Not a movement.
Not a blur.
A disappearance.
Trunks tries to sense him—
too slow.
A knee smashes into his spine.
Before he can recover, a punch slams into his side.
Then a kick blasts him upward.
Then a descending hammerfist spikes him downward again.
No time to breathe.
Not a fraction of a second.
Gohan is everywhere—
a storm of perfectly placed attacks, each one cutting off Trunks' escape route before he can form it.
Left hook.
Uppercut.
Back kick.
Palm thrust.
Roundhouse.
Elbow jam.
Knee ram.
Shoulder check.
Hip throw.
Aerial stomp.
Double-fist crater punch.
Each attack flows into the next like a chain with no weak link, no rest point, no hesitation.
Trunks tries to raise his sword again—
Gohan kicks the flat of the blade, sending it spinning into the air.
Trunks reaches for it—
Gohan drags him down by the wrist and knees him in the diaphragm.
Trunks coughs blood.
Gohan doesn't stop.
He's not angry—
he's asserting the rule they agreed on.
Grow stronger.
Trunks is thrown back—
rolling—
barely catching himself on one knee.
Gohan approaches slowly, aura rippling like a pressure wave.
The message is clear:
"We're not ending the fight.''
Trunks breathes heavily, sweat dripping, chest heaving, arms shaking—
But he stands.
And Gohan stops his advance—
Just for a moment.
Just enough for Trunks to rise fully.
Gohan's relentless assault leaves Trunks battered, breathless, and barely staying upright.
The arena floor is carved with deep scars from their movement.
Dust hangs suspended around them in a shimmering cloud.
Both warriors stare at each other—
One annoyed but focused.
One exhausted but determined.
From the stands, Bulma (T1) gasps, leaning forward as her hair flutters from the drafts of explosive ki.
"Their energy right now surpasses even Vegeta in Super Saiyan God… and it's still climbing. They're clearly aiming for those Vegitos!"
Vegeta's annoyed tchk is immediate. Arms crossed, jaw tight.
But his eyes?
Focused.
Sharp.
Proud—even if he'd rather die than say it.
Piccolo from all timelines nod to each other, sensing exactly the same thing.
Future Trunks stands with his knees slightly bent, shoulders shifting forward, Perfect Super Saiyan 3 hair whipping in coils of blue and gold light. His aura crackles with a sharp, slicing texture—lightning arcs snapping like violent camera flashes.
His irises glow with that cold, metallic SSJ3 intensity, but sharper—almost predatory as he studies Gohan.
Present Gohan, by contrast, is stillness within chaos.
Perfect Mystic doesn't erupt outward—it pulses.
Waves of invisible pressure radiate from him like gravity wells bending the ring. His pupils are wider, almost serene, but behind them—every neuron is firing like a supercomputer.
Both crack a smile at the same time
—not because they're confident,
but because they're about to push far past what even they thought possible.
And then—
They move.
Not like earlier clashes—no sprinting, no visible wind-up.
Their bodies simply vanish, leaving superheated footprints carved into the tiles.
A streak of silver-white (Gohan) and a jagged lightning line of sapphire (Trunks) twist through the arena in overlapping spirals. Each spiral intersects with a violent, bone-rattling impact—fists meeting wrists, elbows redirecting knees, shoulders crashing into shoulders hard enough to rupture air pockets with thunderclaps.
Gohan strikes first.
A palm heel aimed at Trunks' collarbone.
But he throws it with a tiny rotational fake—his fingers curl mid-motion, redirecting the palm to a spear-hand stabbing for a nerve cluster under Trunks' rib.
Trunks reacts impossibly fast—pivoting on one foot while the other lifts just enough to redirect Gohan's strike with a knee, compressing it sideways. Then he snaps his torso backward, forcing Gohan's wrist to overextend.
Gohan shifts to a grappling chain instantly—his other hand hooks behind Trunks' elbow while his foot sweeps inward for a reaping throw. But Trunks rolls with it, stepping inside the sweep rather than away, clamping Gohan's forearm between his bicep and ribs. With a twist of the hips he attempts a judo counter-throw—
—but Gohan doesn't fall for it.
He lets himself rotate, flipping mid-air, both legs scissoring forward to clamp around Trunks' neck.
A mid-air triangle choke—
but not to choke.
To anchor.
Using that anchor, Gohan's core snaps like a released spring, spinning his whole body around Trunks in a blurring helix. Trunks is dragged by the momentum—
—until he drives his sword arm DOWN against the ground mid-spin, blade still sheathed, using the scabbard like a grounding spike. The impact creates a friction-anchored pivot point that halts Gohan's rotation.
The air detonates from the sudden stop.
Gohan flips off Trunks with a backward somersault, landing low, left fist ready, right palm glowing.
Trunks pulls the sword free in a single unsheathing motion that sings like metal slicing lightning.
The energy between them spikes—
and then they crash again.
Trunks lunges in with the blade held reverse-grip—
unusual for him, but perfect for tight-range combat.
He leads not with the sword, but with a flurry of open-hand feints:
A left-hand jab toward Gohan's eye.
A right-hand chop toward the collarbone.
A shoulder-check powering through the centerline.
Gohan blocks the chop and counters the shoulder with a hip shift—
but the jab wasn't a jab.
Trunks flicks his fingers forward, releasing a point-blank ki needle burst—a tight cone of super condensed ki particles sharp enough to cut fabric.
Gohan tilts his head by millimeters—
three needles graze his cheek, the heat cauterizing the shallow cuts instantly.
He answers with a counter:
A downward elbow driving into Trunks' forearm—the sword arm—forcing it wide.
Trunks doesn't resist; he flows with it, letting the sword swing outward in a broad arc.
Gohan steps into the arc, compressing his body like a spring—
but Trunks wanted that.
He twists his wrist in a reverse corkscrew, flipping the blade above his forearm and snapping it downward like a guillotine.
Gohan has to abandon offense, raising both arms to cross-block.
The metal CLANGS against his ki-hardened skin with a shockwave.
Trunks immediately follows with a boot to Gohan's midsection—
but Gohan plants his hand on Trunks' shin mid-kick, stopping the strike dead, and using the trapped leg as a lever to yank Trunks toward him for a counter headbutt.
Trunks anticipates it—
he blinks.
A micro-skip in space, two feet backward.
His aura crackles—SSJ3 lightning swirling like electric vines around his arms.
Then Trunks goes for the kill-pressure attack.
To force his full power.
He raises the sword overhead with one arm, palm upward beneath the flat of the blade, feeding ki into it until the metal vibrates like a struck tuning fork.
Blue flames erupt along the edge, spiraling upward into a cyclone that charges the arena air with cutting pressure.
Then—
He swings.
But the swing isn't aimed at Gohan.
It carves open the air itself, ripping a rift-like arc of compressed ki that expands outward like a rotating crescent blade.
Gohan braces with both arms crossed.
The crescent hits him—
but it's not one crescent.
The attack splits mid-flight into dozens, each rotating at different angles.
Circular, diagonal, horizontal—
a three-dimensional buzzsaw storm.
Gohan is swallowed by it.
Dust erupts in a perfect sphere around him.
The tiles beneath crack in spiderweb patterns from the slicing pressure.
Silence.
Then—
WHOOOMPH—
Gohan steps forward out of the smoke.
Clothes torn.
Blood on his shoulder.
Breathing harder.
He wipes the blood with his thumb.
"Trunks…
We're supposed to climb higher.
Not finish each other."
Trunks smirks but says nothing—his chest rising and falling rapidly, sword humming.
Gohan drops into a low stance, aura flaring—
And then Gohan unleashes his own ultimate.
A glowing sigil expands beneath his feet—half white, half purple, rotating in opposite directions. His ki condenses inward like a collapsing star.
He extends his arm forward, palm open—
—but instead of firing a beam, he rushes forward, dragging the swirling sigil with him.
The technique is contact-based.
Trunks raises his sword—
but the moment Gohan's palm touches the flat of the blade—
A shockwave funnel blasts Trunks backward like he was launched from a railgun. His body smashes into the arena barrier, denting the magical surface.
He sinks to one knee, coughing.
Gohan appears in front of him instantly—
no teleport.
Just speed so absolute it bypasses perception.
And then—
Gohan stops holding back.
He grabs Trunks by the wrist before he can raise the sword again.
A twist—
a pull—
a shoulder shove—
Trunks is airborne, spinning uncontrollably.
Gohan vanishes and reappears above him, heel already descending.
A downward axe-kick that crashes Trunks into the tiles so hard the entire ring shudders.
Before Trunks can inhale, Gohan grabs him by the hair, dragging him upward through the air, kneeing him three times across the ribs with surgical accuracy:
Left rib—floating.
Right rib—intercostal nerve cluster.
Solar plexus—diaphragm shock.
Trunks chokes out a gasp.
Gohan's eyes narrow.
"You're trying to end it too fast, Trunks."
He whips Trunks aside—
but Trunks spins mid-air and slides on his boots across the arena surface, sword scraping behind him making sparks.
He lifts his head—
And he smiles.
His aura erupts upward, lightning arcs turning violet.
His pupils shrink—
his breathing changes—
and his stance sharpens like a blade being honed.
This is focus.
Trunks dashes—
but it's different now.
His movement isn't linear, not circular—
it's erratic, like fractal geometry.
Right angle teleport.
Half-step fade.
Ki decoy.
Speed misdirection.
Gohan's eyes track him—
but only barely.
Then Trunks reappears on Gohan's left—
—but the sword strike comes from the right.
A ki-constructed afterimage blade.
Gohan blocks the wrong one—
the real blade carves into his shoulder.
Blood sprays in a thin diagonal arc.
Gohan winces—
the injury deep enough to matter.
Before he can retaliate, Trunks spins low, sweeping Gohan's ankle with the back of the sword.
Gohan stumbles—
Trunks knee-drives his jaw, snapping his head back.
Gohan retaliates with a blind backfist—
but Trunks ducks under it and slams his elbow into Gohan's kidney region.
Gohan coughs—
air leaving his lungs.
Trunks grabs his hair this time—
drags him forward—
and smashes their foreheads together.
A brutal THUD.
Both skid back—
but Gohan is winded.
Trunks is not.
In the stands, the three Piccolos stand simultaneously.
"Trunks…"
"…just turned it around."
"…and Gohan felt that."
And Bulma shouts:
"HE'S WINNING!"