"I don't give a damn. If Grand Zeno decide to hand out punishments, I'm pinning the whole thing on you," Beerus snapped, his temper rising.
"Lord Beerus, have you forgotten? I am merely your attendant. You are the official overseer of Universe 7. If there is a lapse in supervision, who do you think His Majesty will hold accountable?"
"You—!"
Beerus's neck stiffened, his chest heaving with indignation. He was completely powerless against Whis's logic.
"Now, now, Lord Beerus, don't get your tail in a knot," Whis chuckled. "As you know, the crime of tampering with time can be seen as heavy or light depending on the context. Besides, with Gran around, there's no way Grand Zeno would actually do anything to you."
"Hmph. True enough."
Beerus tilted his chin up with a smug expression. He recalled the recent battle between the Destroyer candidates; while other universes had faced penalties, his had emerged unscathed.
That was the kind of special treatment Gran had secured for him. As long as Gran was around, Universe 7 was essentially untouchable.
"Still, I have to admit, Bulma and her father are absolute freaks," Beerus remarked, reclining back into his lounge chair as if nothing had happened.
"Indeed," Whis agreed, settling back into his own chair and taking a sip of his drink. "Their Capsule technology is particularly impressive—compressing space to such a degree. It's no wonder they were able to reverse-engineer a Time Machine."
"Alright, enough about the Time Machine. Just hearing about it gives me a headache." Beerus sighed. "There are countless timelines out there. If Bulma gets lost, it's going to be a massive pain."
"No need to worry. If it comes to that, we'll just ask Chronoa to fetch her."
"I suppose. But then I'd owe that little brat another favor," Beerus grumbled.
"By the way, Lord Beerus," Whis said, pivoting the conversation with a smile. "Goku has returned from King Kai's. It seems he's quite busy preparing for Vegeta's invasion in six months."
"I'm aware. Honestly, it might be interesting to see if that kid can actually grow enough to stand a chance against Vegeta."
Unaware of the gods' nonchalant reaction, Bulma was currently hurtling through a shimmering space-time tunnel inside her machine.
"Hahaha! I did it! I'm a total genius!"
Bulma was ecstatic, pressing her face against the glass to take in the surroundings. The tunnel was a kaleidoscope of silver light, ethereal and magical. "This must be the gap between dimensions. Now, where is Lord Gran?"
She searched frantically, but after a while, there was still no sign of him. She tried to remain patient, but the fuel was burning at an alarming rate. In just a short time, the energy consumed was enough to jump between entire eras.
She was forced to jump into a random timeline just to recalibrate, then plunged back into the rift. By her third entry, the tension was reaching a breaking point. If she didn't find him now, she'd have to return home; she was down to her very last reserves.
"Lord Gran, where are you?!" she cried out. "Did you... Did you not make it?"
Panic began to set in. Little did she know that her machine was currently skimming the edge of a massive space-time vortex.
Deep within the heart of that very vortex, a figure sat in silent meditation. It was Gran. He had been here for an entire year, focused solely on mastering the power of space and time.
At that precise moment, something changed.
"It can be felt, but not described... so this is space-time energy?"
The silver-white light swirling around him underwent a strange distortion. The rays began to bend and warp as if influenced by a higher power. Gran's eyes snapped open. He held up a single index finger, and at the tip, a spark of silver-white radiance blossomed.
It wasn't just the power of time, nor was it just the power of space. It was a perfect fusion of the two.
He had succeeded.
Chronoa had predicted it would take him a decade to grasp this power, yet he had achieved it in a single year.
"Is this stuff really this hard to learn? It took me a whole year. I'm actually disgusted," Gran muttered, looking at his finger.
There was no joy on his face, only a hint of frustration. When he first mastered Destruction, it took him only three days. Taking a year felt like a personal failure.
It was lucky Chronoa wasn't there to hear him. If she were, she probably would have punched him. Even most Gods of Destruction couldn't use time-based powers, let alone a unified space-time energy.
Whether the Angels used it was a mystery to her, as she'd never seen them travel through time. But there was no doubt that space-time power was infinitely more complex than Destruction. If it weren't for Gran's freakish talent, a year wouldn't have been nearly enough.
"Even though it took forever, I have to admit... this power is terrifying," Gran whispered to himself.
He was still in the early stages of mastery. Much like his initial grasp of Destruction, it was a raw effect that needed to be honed into a true fundamental law. But even now, the power felt absolute.
Time stops, time skips, rewinds, spatial compression, teleportation... the knowledge of these techniques was already flooding into his mind. If he used these in a fight, even Beerus would struggle to keep up.
"Phew. Well, time to head back."
Mastering the energy further could wait. He needed to check on Broly, and besides, even the most dedicated warrior needs a breather. The urge to go home was becoming irresistible.
He stood up slowly. After a year of total stillness, his muscles popped and cracked like firecrackers with every movement. He stretched his limbs and held his hand out.
With a single thought, the Time Ring on his finger glowed, tearing a tunnel through the rift. He stepped through, leaving the vortex behind.
He looked back at the swirling chaos one last time, preparing to return to his own era, when his senses suddenly spiked. He whipped his head around.
In the distance, an octopus-shaped craft was streaking through the void.
"What? A Time Machine?"
Gran was stunned. In the original timeline, Future Trunks wasn't supposed to show up until Age 764. It was currently only Age 761—three years too early.
As he processed this, he caught a glimpse of the pilot through the canopy. It wasn't Trunks. It was a young, vibrant woman.
Bulma!
"No way..." Gran's eyes widened. What was she doing here?
Inside the machine, Bulma had spotted him too. A familiar figure hovering in the void—the handsome Lord Gran!
"Yes! I knew it! I knew you weren't dead!"
She waved her arms frantically, overcome with joy. She prepared to halt the machine to let him in, but her flight path had already reached its exit point.
"No! Lord Gran, get in here, quick!" she screamed.
But it was too late. The machine plunged into a sphere of light—a gateway to an unknown timeline—and vanished.
Gran frowned deeply. "Based on her expression, she definitely recognized me. That's my Bulma."
Despite his confusion, he couldn't just leave his "manager" stranded in a random era. He twisted his Time Ring, opened a new tunnel, and dove in after her.
Bulma's Time Machine touched down gently in a strange, unknown world. Inside, she was pressed against the glass, her eyes hollow with crushing despair. "How could this happen? I finally found him, and then..."
Then she remembered. "Wait! I still have one jump left!"
She scrambled to swap the fuel cells, her hope reignited. Suddenly, a rift opened right next to the machine, and a familiar voice drifted out.
"Bulma? What on earth are you doing here?"
Bulma froze. She turned her head and saw Gran stepping out of the void.
"AAAAAHHHH!!" she shrieked, jumping for joy. "Lord Gran! How did you get out?"
She tried to leap out of the craft, but forgot the canopy was still closed, resulting in a clumsy scramble to open the hatch. Gran watched her frantic movements, a smile tugging at his lips.
"Lord Gran, how did you escape the rift?" she asked again, her heart pounding.
Gran looked her over and raised an eyebrow. "From the sound of it, did you actually think I was trapped in there this whole time?"
"Well, yeah! Whis told me that after you beat the Universe 4 Destroyer, you got sucked into a space-time crack! I started working on the Time Machine the second I heard..."
She went on a mile-a-minute rant, explaining everything she'd done over the last year.
When she got to the part where she said, "Since Lord Gran was trapped, I didn't give a damn if tampering with time was a crime," Gran went stiff.
He stood there, stunned into silence. She had spent a year in a lab, risked the wrath of the gods, and plunged into the unknown void... just because she was worried about him?
This girl... was she suicidal? Or just incredibly brave?
After a long moment, the lump in his throat finally cleared enough for him to speak. "Bulma... how can you be so stupid?"
"I'm not stupid! I'm a genius!" Bulma snapped, completely missing the shift in his tone. She patted the side of her machine proudly.
"My dad and I built this in just one year. And look, it worked! I found you, didn't I? And you have the nerve to call me stupid!"
"You..." Gran let out a helpless laugh. "Fine, fine. Bulma, you are the most brilliant scientist in the world. Happy now?"
"Hehe. That's more like it." Her eyes sparkled at the praise.
"Just... don't ever do something that dangerous again. This is time travel we're talking about. With your level of strength..."
He was genuinely moved, though he tried to hide it. He didn't want anything to happen to her.
"Alright, alright, stop lecturing me," Bulma pouted, puffing out her cheeks.
To her, Gran was the protector of Universe 7; she couldn't just leave him adrift in the void. Besides, he was way too handsome to lose.
She quickly changed the subject. "But seriously, if you weren't trapped, how did you get out?"
"Did Whis really not tell you? I was pulled into the rift, but the Supreme Kai of Time showed up and took me to the Time Nest." He gave her a brief rundown of who Chronoa was and what her job entailed.
"What?" Bulma's jaw dropped. She had no idea.
She had spent the last year working herself to the bone, stressed to the point of exhaustion, all to save someone who had been safe the whole time. If she had known, she never would have bothered with the Time Machine.
"Whis definitely knew," Gran said, narrowing his eyes. "Why wouldn't he tell you?"
"Wait a second..." Bulma went quiet, her expression turning increasingly sheepish.
"What is it?"
"Well... I... I sort of..." She trailed off.
"Spit it out," Gran said. "After coming all this way to save me, you can ask for anything. If you've got a problem or a wish, I'll handle it."
"It's not a problem, and it's not a wish," Bulma whispered, swallowing hard. "When I asked Whis where you were, he told me you'd been sucked into a rift. He started to say something else, but I was so panicked I just turned around and sprinted into the lab to start building the machine."
Silence. Total, heavy silence.
The two of them stared at each other.
"Lord Gran... are you laughing at me?" Bulma asked. His eyes looked strange, like he was looking at a complete moron.
"No. I've had professional training. Under normal circumstances, I never laugh." Gran's lip began to twitch violently.
"Unless, of course... I can't help it!"
"Hahahahaha!"
Gran doubled over, clutching his stomach in a fit of laughter.
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