Months drifted by in relative peace, the universe settling into a comfortable rhythm after the chaos of the ruins incident. When the Grand Priest finally responded to Raditz's report about the negative world, his message was both reassuring and sobering: even someone of his immense power couldn't directly interfere with that cursed dimension. The strategy moving forward would be one of patience and vigilance.
The Grand Priest's plan was elegant in its simplicity. If the entities trapped within the ruins attempted to breach into the present world, the disturbance would trigger immediate detection—and he would be waiting to eliminate them completely. If they remained dormant, he would gradually reinforce the seal, layer upon layer, until their prison became truly inescapable.
Either way, Raditz's role in this particular crisis had come to an end. The responsibility now fell to beings who operated on an entirely different level—the highest echelon of divine authority.
After several weeks of well-deserved rest, something unprecedented happened: the Destroyer's Realm reached out to him. An invitation to train. Raditz stared at the telepathic message in genuine surprise. Usually, he was the one requesting permission to visit, practically begging for opportunities to spar. To be invited voluntarily? He couldn't help but feel a flush of pride.
"Someone's looking pleased with himself," Zangya observed from across their living quarters, a knowing smile playing at her lips.
"Can you blame me?" Raditz grinned, showing her the message. "Lord Beerus actually wants me there."
Zangya set down the data pad she'd been reading and walked over, her hips swaying with practiced confidence. Even after all these years together, after battles that had shaken galaxies and responsibilities that would crush lesser beings, she could still make his heart skip. "I'm betting there's an ulterior motive. When Kaioshin invites you somewhere, it's always because he needs something. But Beerus?" She tapped a finger against her chin thoughtfully. "Actually, you might be right. He probably just wants to fight."
"Exactly. No politics, no cosmic emergencies—just pure combat. I'll be back in half a day at most."
"Make sure you're home for dinner." Zangya rose on her toes and kissed his cheek, her voice dropping to a playful whisper. "And tonight, we're giving Rukon a little sister."
The sudden shift from battlefield goddess to coquettish wife never failed to catch Raditz off guard. This was a woman who could obliterate planets with a gesture, who had fought alongside him through countless life-or-death battles—yet here, in private, she showed this softer side to him alone.
Raditz felt warmth spread through his chest. He pulled her close for a proper kiss before releasing her reluctantly. "I'll hold you to that promise."
A moment later, he pressed two fingers to his forehead and vanished via Instant Transmission.
The Destroyer's Realm materialized around him in its usual spectacular fashion—an impossible landscape of floating islands, perpetual twilight, and architecture that defied the laws of physics. Raditz had been here countless times, but the sheer divine energy saturating the air never failed to make his Saiyan blood sing.
The familiar scene played out before him: Goku and Vegeta locked in intense training, their movements pushing the boundaries of mortal capability as Whis observed with that enigmatic smile of his. Meanwhile, Lord Beerus lounged near one of the ornamental ponds, apparently engaged in the serious business of fishing.
The instant Raditz appeared, everything stopped.
Goku and Vegeta froze mid-kata, their heads snapping toward him. Whis's smile widened fractionally. And Beerus—the God of Destruction launched himself from his seated position with such explosive speed that his fishing rod clattered to the ground, forgotten.
Before Raditz could even offer a greeting, Beerus was in front of him, golden eyes blazing with an intensity he'd rarely seen outside of actual combat. The God of Destruction's usually playful demeanor had vanished, replaced by something far more serious.
"Uh... Lord Beerus?" Raditz took an involuntary step back. "Is something wrong?"
"Fight me."
The words hung in the air, direct and unambiguous.
Raditz blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"
"You remember the precognitive dream I mentioned, don't you?" Beerus began pacing, his tail lashing behind him. "The one about the Super Saiyan God who would finally give me a proper challenge? I saw it so long ago that the details had started to blur, but the prophecy specified a time—a moment when this warrior would appear before me. When you interrupted my nap all those years ago and forced me to wake up early, I thought perhaps I'd misremembered. That maybe the prophecy was flawed."
He stopped pacing and locked eyes with Raditz again. "But then you achieved it. You actually reached the divine realm, broke through that barrier that stops nearly every mortal who attempts it. And I realized—the prophecy wasn't wrong. It was never wrong."
Beerus took several deliberate steps backward, settling into a loose combat stance. His expression carried none of his usual laziness, none of his trademark boredom. "You're the one, Raditz. The rival I foresaw. The Super Saiyan God from my dreams."
"Oh my," Whis interjected cheerfully, gliding over with his staff. "Lord Beerus has been quite obsessed with this particular prophecy. It's all he's talked about for weeks."
"Whis!" Beerus shot his attendant an annoyed glare before refocusing on Raditz. "The prophecy didn't specify Super Saiyan God as in the ritual transformation—it could just as easily mean 'a Super Saiyan who has reached godhood.' And that's exactly what you are now, isn't it?" His fighting spirit radiated outward like a physical force. "So come on, Raditz. Show me your strongest form. Fight me with everything you have!"
The challenge hung in the air, crackling with divine energy. Raditz felt his own blood beginning to heat in response, that primal Saiyan urge to test himself against the strongest opponent available.
Off to the side, Goku and Vegeta exchanged glances, both warriors swallowing hard. They'd witnessed Raditz spar with Beerus before, but this felt different. Fundamentally different.
"This is going to be incredible," Goku breathed, his eyes gleaming with barely contained excitement.
Vegeta's jaw clenched. "Raditz has finally reached Beerus's level. This won't be a sparring match—this will be a true battle between gods of destruction."
"I won't hold back," Beerus declared, assuming a formal fighting stance. His hands came up, positioned with the precision of someone who had mastered combat over millions of years. Golden eyes flared with power. "This is what I've been waiting for."
Raditz felt something shift inside him—that familiar sensation of his body preparing for maximum combat. He rolled his shoulders, took a centering breath, and let his fists clench at his sides. The Autonomous Ultra Instinct state flowed over him like a second skin, silver-white aura blazing to life around his body. His hair retained its natural color for now, pupils unchanged—he wouldn't jump straight to the perfected form. Not yet.
"Mr. Goku, Mr. Vegeta," Whis called out pleasantly, though his tone carried an edge of seriousness. "I strongly recommend you both come stand beside me. Otherwise, you may find yourselves in considerable danger."
The two Saiyans had been so entranced by the building tension between Raditz and Beerus that they'd almost forgotten their own vulnerability. Sweat already beaded on their foreheads, bodies unconsciously tensing in response to the divine pressure radiating from both fighters.
"Right, yeah," Goku said quickly, backing toward Whis without taking his eyes off the combatants. "Probably a good idea."
Vegeta followed suit, though his pride clearly chafed at the reminder of the gap between himself and these higher beings.
Once they were safely behind him, Whis tapped his staff against the crystalline ground. Divine energy rippled outward, forming a massive barrier that encapsulated the entire central area of the Destroyer's Realm. "There we are. Now they can fight to their hearts' content without accidentally obliterating everything."
Beerus's lips curled into a predatory grin. "Let's see if you're truly the adversary I've been waiting for."
Raditz met his gaze and smiled back, that same warrior's excitement burning in his chest.
The atmosphere changed in an instant.
The entire Destroyer's Realm seemed to hold its breath. An eerie, oppressive silence descended, so profound that even the perpetual cosmic winds fell still. The weight of divine power pressed down on everything, making even the act of breathing feel laborious. Behind Whis's barrier, both Kakarot and Vegeta gasped, their bodies instinctively reacting to the crushing spiritual pressure.
"It's started," Whis murmured, his eyes narrowing with genuine interest.
Started? Goku's mind reeled. But they haven't even—
Both fighters vanished.
The ground where they'd been standing erupted a fraction of a second later, delayed shockwaves carving a crater thousands of meters wide into the supposedly indestructible terrain of the Destroyer's Realm.
They were moving at speeds that transcended normal perception—approaching the theoretical limits of velocity itself. Beerus's fist, wreathed in purple destructive energy, materialized inches from Raditz's face. But the silver flames of Ultra Instinct allowed Raditz's body to react before conscious thought, slipping past the attack with millimeters to spare.
Raditz pivoted, his leg whipping around in a devastating roundhouse kick. The movement looked almost casual, but the power compressed into that single strike could shatter planets.
Beerus's instincts screamed warning. He brought both arms up in a cross-block, meeting the kick head-on.
The collision generated a shockwave that rippled through multiple dimensions. The very concept of space warped under the pressure of two god-level beings exerting their full might. Whis's barrier, constructed from the energy of an Angel, actually cracked from the impact of their first exchange.
BOOM!
The sound barrier shattered retrospectively, the delayed explosion finally catching up to their movements. They separated and clashed again within the same heartbeat, attacks intersecting and redirecting in patterns too complex for mortal eyes to follow.
Beerus felt something he hadn't experienced in countless millennia: genuine pressure. The kind of resistance that made his divine blood pump faster, that reminded him why he'd been chosen as a God of Destruction in the first place. Finally—finally—someone who could let him fight without restraint!
"HAAAAAAAAA!" Beerus's aura exploded outward, power multiplying as excitement overtook caution.
"AHHHHHHHHH!" Raditz answered with his own surge of energy. Behind him, the silver light of Ultra Instinct seemed to expand into something cosmic—as if entire galaxies were swirling in his aura, brilliant stellar radiance burning with the fury of creation itself.
CRASH!
Whis's barrier shattered completely. Half of the Destroyer's Realm—floating islands, impossible structures, and all—simply ceased to exist, atomized by the residual force of their clash.
"Oh dear." Whis sighed, though he didn't sound particularly upset. "Both of them have grown stronger since last time. This is going to require actual effort on my part." His staff was already moving, drawing upon vast reserves of angelic energy to reconstruct and reinforce the barrier. "Do try to pace yourselves, gentlemen."
The new barrier had barely solidified when another tremendous impact sent shockwaves across its surface, the protective shell rippling like disturbed water.
The battle escalated into something beyond conventional combat. Raditz unleashed a devastating barrage—Saturday Crash, perfected Kamehameha, Nova Radiance. Each technique carried enough destructive force to end civilizations, yet he threw them at Beerus with the casual intensity of a warmup routine.
Beerus weathered the assault like a force of nature given form. Some attacks he simply tanked, his God of Destruction durability allowing him to walk through energy blasts that would vaporize stars. Others he deflected with perfectly timed bursts of destructive energy, navigating through the apocalyptic display like someone taking a leisurely stroll through a light rain.
When Raditz paused to assess, Beerus responded in kind. Massive spheres of annihilation materialized around him, each one pulsing with the purple light of true destruction. They launched forward in a wave that would have sterilized entire galactic sectors.
Raditz's hands wove together, divine energy responding to his will. The Seal of Creation manifested—a complex mandala of power that represented the opposite of Beerus's destructive force. The techniques collided mid-space, creation and destruction attempting to cancel each other out in an explosion of pure physics-defying energy.
They traded these apocalyptic attacks back and forth as if they were children playing with toys, each devastating technique treated with almost casual indifference. The scale of power on display would have sent the Kaioshins into panic, yet both fighters seemed almost relaxed, testing each other's capabilities.
Finally, the energy barrage subsided. Both warriors hung in the air, auras still blazing but attacks temporarily halted.
Beerus settled into a neutral stance, hands on his hips, a satisfied smirk on his feline features. "Not bad, Raditz. Not bad at all."
"Thank you for the compliment, Lord Beerus."
"But..." Beerus's eyes narrowed, seeing through the facade immediately. "This isn't your limit. You're still holding back."
Without warning, he surged forward, knee driving toward Raditz's midsection with devastating force. The impact connected, sending Raditz hurtling backward through the air.
Beerus followed up immediately, preparing to press his advantage. But Raditz had already activated Instant Transmission mid-flight, his form disappearing and reappearing behind the God of Destruction in the span of a heartbeat.
A knife-hand strike caught Beerus in the back, sending him tumbling forward.
"Isn't Lord Beerus the same?" Raditz asked, his tone carrying a hint of challenge.
Both fighters stabilized, facing each other across the scarred battlefield of the Destroyer's Realm. The warmup was over. They'd tested each other, measured capabilities, confirmed that this truly would be a battle between equals.
Raditz's hands moved to his waist, fists clenching as he prepared to release the true depth of his power. The Ultra Instinct—the form that had allowed him to breach the divine realm itself—began gathering at his core, ready to be unleashed.