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Hoo—hoo—hoo—
Violent currents of air spiraled around Son Gohan, forming a raging vortex of energy.
Every breath he took seemed to swallow the space around him. The terrifying pressure pouring off his body kept rising… doubling again and again like a geometric explosion.
Whoosh!
Gohan vanished.
The next instant, Cell, who had just been blasted away and was still streaking across the sky, suddenly stopped dead in midair.
Someone had caught him.
It was Gohan.
He held Cell by the throat with one hand, like someone casually grabbing a fragile chicken.
Only now did Cell finally get a clear look at the transformation in Gohan's body.
That golden aura was so blinding it felt like it might burn his eyes out.
At this moment, Gohan looked less like a boy and more like a blazing sun walking the earth.
One Piece World
Marine Headquarters — Marineford
"That boy's power… it's already beyond comprehension!!"
Fleet Admiral Sengoku stared at the screen, watching the golden-haired boy single-handedly dominate the battlefield. A numb sense of despair washed over him.
That apocalyptic pressure they'd just felt had come from this child.
Sengoku himself had barely managed to stay upright through sheer iron will. But several of the top admirals in the meeting room, including Aokiji, had already suffered internal injuries. Blood trickled from the corners of their mouths.
In that moment, Sengoku understood something with painful clarity.
If they had to face the current Gohan…
Even if the entire Navy gathered every ounce of its strength, they wouldn't stand a chance.
Garp spat a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva onto the floor. The lazy grin and carefree attitude he usually wore had vanished completely.
What remained was only grim seriousness.
"Thank God… those monsters aren't from our world…"
Naruto World
"…This is terrifying."
Hiruzen Sarutobi wiped the blood from his lips with trembling fingers, his eyes dim with shock.
"Jiraiya…"
A low voice called from behind him.
Hiruzen turned and looked at his student.
"If someone like that appeared in the ninja world… what would happen?"
Jiraiya didn't hesitate.
His answer was calm and absolute.
"We'd cease to exist."
Hiruzen gave a bitter smile.
"…Yeah. Power like that has no counter. The ninja world would probably turn to dust in an instant."
Back in the scene—
Gohan held Cell by the neck with one hand, staring at him like a judge from hell passing final judgment on a murderer.
Then his fist moved.
BOOM!
A terrifying uppercut smashed straight into Cell's stomach.
Immediately after, Gohan's fist blurred into afterimages, raining down blow after blow with world-destroying force.
BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!
Every punch carried enough power to shatter a planet.
Those fists slammed again and again into Cell's so-called perfect body, the collisions exploding like a thousand cannons firing at once.
Cell's eyes bulged.
The pain flooding through his body was unbearable, tearing through every nerve he had.
"How… is this possible?!"
Endless agony drowned his thoughts.
Then the boy in front of him—his face cold and distant like a god—lashed out with a brutal spinning kick.
Cell was sent flying.
"PUAAAH!!!"
Blood mixed with shattered fragments of internal organs sprayed from his mouth.
His body traced a miserable arc through the air before crashing violently into the ground.
Gohan, the Super Saiyan who now controlled a raging ocean of fury, landed lightly.
A chilling glow flowed around him.
His eyes were so cold they felt capable of freezing atoms.
He didn't rush forward.
Didn't strike again.
He simply stood there, calmly watching Cell struggle to rise from the ground.
This was no longer anger running wild.
This was absolute control over power.
Every punch he threw carried the urge to rip his enemy apart.
But deep inside him, a faint thread of mercy held that destructive impulse tightly in check.
Cell trembled.
His face twisted with humiliation and rage. His pride had been crushed to dust.
His dignity was gone.
"You'll pay for that foolish mercy… in blood."
A savage grin spread across Cell's lips, filled with madness.
Suddenly—
A terrifying storm of energy, suppressed for so long, began roaring inside his body.
Far away, Goku and the others had just recovered their strength after eating Senzu Beans. They stood on a crumbling cliff wall.
Even from that distance, they instantly sensed the unbelievable energy rapidly swelling in the air.
"Open your eyes and look carefully, Son Gohan!"
"This is… the ultimate power!!"
As Cell roared, even warriors like Vegeta felt an overwhelming pressure crash down on them like a tidal wave.
What made it even more horrifying was the phenomenon that followed.
The ground beneath their feet—
No.
The entire planet—
began to groan under the unbearable weight of that power.
Gohan's icy gaze pierced through the violent currents of energy, locking onto the demon-like Cell.
His pale green eyes showed no ripple of emotion.
Only absolute killing intent.
Cold.
Silent.
Like ancient ice at the peak of Antarctica.
This version of Gohan looked nothing like the cheerful, innocent boy people knew.
At that moment, the way he looked at Cell…
was the way one might examine a corpse that hadn't decayed yet.
Facing a pressure that felt like the end of the world itself—
Gohan didn't step back.
Instead, he walked forward.
One step.
Then another.
Firm and unshaken.
"Cell… stop."
"There's still time."
His voice remained clear and gentle, the voice of a young boy.
Even in front of such a monstrous enemy…
Even when the killing intent inside him was already boiling over…
Gohan still offered a final trace of mercy.
One last chance.
A chance for Cell to turn back before it was too late.
"Ha!!! Cut the act already, you hypocritical brat!!"
To Cell, Gohan's calm, almost "gentle" attempt at persuasion sounded like the cruelest insult imaginable. Gohan hadn't meant to mock him at all, but to Cell's swollen ego, it felt like the ultimate humiliation.
A massive surge of energy erupted outward, turning into a tangible torrent that tore violently at Cell's body. The ground beneath his feet trembled violently.
Simply releasing the full extent of the ki inside his body was enough to trigger a catastrophe on the scale of a magnitude-ten earthquake.
The view suddenly pulled back.
It pierced through the atmosphere and stretched out into the vastness of space.
At the center of the frame floated a blue-and-white planet.
The countless powerful beings watching this battle from across the heavens were all stunned.
They could clearly see it.
The planet itself was visibly trembling.
"How… how is that possible?! Just Cell alone can shake the stability of an entire planet?!"
The perspective snapped back to the battlefield.
A massive vortex of energy raged through the air, carrying countless rocks and debris like a doomsday storm of flying sand and stone.
Sharp chunks of rock shot toward Gohan like artillery shells.
But the pale golden lightning surrounding his body suddenly flared. Before the stones could even reach him, they shattered into dust.
They couldn't get even an inch closer.
At that moment, Cell forced the ki within his body beyond its previous limits, pushing it to a level he had never reached before.
The true peak.
An absolute, ultimate limit.
Only then did everyone finally realize something terrifying.
During his earlier fight with Goku, Cell hadn't even used his full strength.
He had been holding back… even while fighting the strongest warrior everyone acknowledged.
Vegeta's eyes bulged wide like bells. The terrifying power Cell was releasing now was something completely beyond him. It wasn't just unreachable. He couldn't even comprehend it.
Meanwhile, Goku and the others who had been thrown into the air by the collapsing cliffs could only stare in shock.
"What kind of monstrous energy is this… It doesn't even feel like something mortal…"
Krillin swallowed hard. Fear threatened to drown him.
What kind of monster were they fighting for their lives against?
Piccolo felt a chill run across his forehead. Even high in the sky, his sharp senses could still feel it clearly. The oppressive force radiating from Cell was so overwhelming that the surrounding air felt frozen solid, like it might shatter into a vacuum at any moment.
"So Cell… has finally decided to go all out."
Goku's expression was extremely serious. There was even a hint of helplessness he couldn't hide.
He had always known Cell was holding back. But feeling this true limit of power firsthand filled even him with a deep sense of despair.
All his hopes and bets were now placed on one person.
His son.
The boy who had surpassed him.
Son Gohan.
Piccolo clenched his teeth. The pressure alone made it hard to breathe.
"This aura is way too violent! I feel like… the whole universe is shaking!"
Krillin's face turned red as he spoke, disbelief filling his voice.
"How can anyone possibly have power like this… It goes against all logic…"
Before he could even finish his sentence—
Cell moved.
This was the strike born from every ounce of power he possessed.
A vicious purple-glowing fist tore through the air and slammed directly into Gohan's chest.
The friction between his fist and the air exploded into blazing sparks, streaking upward like a roaring fire dragon.
The sky itself turned blood-red under the violent energy.
Gohan's body was blasted away.
The ground where he had been standing, along with every nearby mountain and boulder, instantly crumbled into dust from the shockwave of the impact. Countless fragments of stone were caught in Cell's aura, floating weightlessly in the air.
BOOM!!!
Gohan shot backward uncontrollably and crashed into a massive rock cliff.
The supposedly solid stone wall shattered like cheap paper the moment he hit it.
But then—
Within the cloud of flying debris and dust…
Gohan vanished.
Cell seemed to sense something and whipped around.
His eyes widened in shock as he stared at the boy floating calmly in midair.
Gohan looked down at him coldly.
That gaze held absolute superiority… mixed with a faint pity, like one might feel toward an insignificant insect.
Cell let out a mocking laugh.
He didn't care about meaningless looks like that. After all, he knew exactly how devastating the power of his previous attack had been.
"Well? That's my true terror!"
His tone was full of arrogant pride. In his mind, that last attack had already proven everything.
This kid was nothing special.
Gohan looked at him calmly, listening to his boastful words without the slightest change in expression.
Then he replied with only four words.
"So what?"
Cell froze.
The next instant, rage exploded through his entire body like a wildfire.
BOOM!!!
Cell vanished from his spot and appeared in front of Gohan faster than the eye could follow.
Roaring in fury, he threw a devastating punch straight at Gohan's face.
This strike was several times faster than the one that had just blasted Gohan away.
Gohan took the punch head-on.
Behind him, the ground was torn apart and exploded from the shockwave of the impact.
Cell's face twisted into a triumphant grin. In his mind, that punch would finally make the brat understand the insurmountable gap between them.
But in the next second…
The smile on his face froze.
After taking Cell's full-power punch directly, Gohan's body hadn't moved at all.
Not even a slight sway.
His hair hadn't even been disturbed.
He stood there like an ancient mountain, completely unmoved.
"Cell… you're beyond saving."
Floating in the air, Gohan spoke in a cold voice that sounded like a death sentence.
Fury completely shattered Cell's sanity.
He refused to believe it.
He couldn't accept that his full-force attack hadn't even pushed this kid back a single step.
If one punch didn't work, then he would throw another!
Cell raised his right fist high, preparing to teach this insolent brat a brutal lesson.
But—
Gohan moved.
His speed surpassed everything Cell could comprehend.
Compared to Cell's furious strike, Gohan's movement existed on an entirely different level.
Cell couldn't even track his trajectory.
All he felt was an unbearable explosion of pain from his abdomen.
His eyes widened in horror as he saw Gohan calmly pulling back his right hand, lightning still crackling around it.
"Th-this… that's impossible!?"
Clutching his stomach, Cell staggered backward. His face twisted from the overwhelming pain.
"PUAH!!"
Dark green blood sprayed from his mouth.
He couldn't believe it.
That seemingly casual punch had instantly inflicted severe damage on his perfect body.
It made no sense.
Whoosh!
Gohan attacked again.
This time he still wasn't using his full strength.
But it was already enough to decide Cell's fate.
His fist, wrapped in blue lightning, shot forward with unstoppable force and smashed cleanly into Cell's jaw.
Electric arcs crackled loudly in the air.
The punch was as fast as lightning, as powerful as a bolt of heavenly thunder.
Cell felt like his skull was about to be pierced straight through.
His body completely lost control and was sent flying straight into the sky.
BOOM!!!
A deafening explosion erupted high within the clouds.
"....."