Part 37, Chapter 183.

PART THIRTY SEVEN: UUB'S ODYSSEY

Chapter 183

Translated by npberryhill, edited by Guilarai

Juna’s fist slammed into Uub’s face with tremendous force, sending him hurtling for kilometers. He landed unsteadily and pointed a hand at himself. A green aura wrapped around him, sealing the wounds and wiping away the blood, though the ache of the blow remained.

He glanced around. The next biome was jungle. If he wanted any chance of shaking her—even for a moment—he had to try and lose her in it, even if he already knew it was hopeless.

He suppressed his energy and plunged at full speed into the tangle of giant vines and dense vegetation. After so long racing across this artificial planet, he knew every path and every blind corner.

He had fought her relentlessly, day after day. She barely allowed him to rest, let alone sleep. He had faced her in every environment, trying to use the terrain, and it had never mattered. No matter what he did, Juna was faster and stronger. Her reflexes were inhuman.

There was no doubt she surpassed every fighter in Universe 18. Neither Vegeta nor Son Goku would have been able to touch her. Even in Transcended Kaioken she brushed him aside like a blade of grass in a storm.

He felt her presence behind him in the gloom—silent, predatory, energy suppressed, yet her focus locked on him without wavering. He cut onto a narrow path. A second later she was perched on a branch a few dozen meters above him.

“You have taken 357,400 steps today,” she said in her usual neutral voice. “Do you wish to record this new personal best?”

Uub exhaled through his teeth. Not only was she catching him without effort, it was the same thing every day. Months of it. Juna had no personality he could find. She was a machine with monstrous power and a single obsession: continue the training at any cost.

He snarled and fired a quick transformation beam. If he had improved at anything since this began, it was the speed of his casting. Against the reflexes Buu had given her, it still wasn’t enough.

Juna tilted her head and let the beam miss. In the same motion she closed the distance and drove a punch into him that launched him through several thick trees—as casually as swatting an insect.

Uub struggled to his feet and tried a different approach, coating his fists and feet in transmutation magic. He had seen Kakarotto of Universe 13 do something similar with his energy against Vegeta. The idea had stuck. Juna still slipped past every strike.

“Argh — break!” he snapped.

“Your last break was twenty-two hours and forty minutes ago,” Juna replied flatly. “Excessive rest hinders progress.”

Master, damn you for these limitations! Uub thought bitterly.

It had been so long since he’d had real rest. After years of fighting and exhaustion, Juna had reduced recovery to the absolute minimum: one hour. Twenty-three hours of training. It was the opposite of everything the Turtle School had taught him. Buu believed intensity produced the fastest results. What felt trivial to the Djinn felt extreme to the student.

“That’s enough, Juna!” he shouted. “We’ve been fighting for at least two years! I want more breaks—and longer ones!”

“It has been precisely one year, four months, eight days, seven hours, and thirteen minutes since training began,” she answered. “Therefore, an anniversary exception won't be made. The daily one-hour break is sufficient for recovery.”

She assessed him from a distance, then decided the intensity could rise. Two Kikoha formed in her palms.

“This attack is lethal. Please defend yourself.”

Uub felt the power and crossed his arms just in time. The blast erased the entire jungle biome, leaving scorched earth and ash. He survived, clothes shredded by the heat.

He fired another transformation beam. She dodged. This time he steered it, forcing her to keep moving as the beam chased her. She spun and twisted through the air, never quite in its path.

He had built the technique from the Sokidan and from the way Piccolo’s Makankosappo could be guided—something he had seen in Buu’s memories after Babidi’s attack. It still didn’t matter. Her agility was flawless. No angle caught her.

After a few moments Uub dropped to his knees, body shaking, as the beam drifted off into the distance and faded. Juna watched it go, then said:

“You may take a break now. Would you like to use your hour of rest?”

“I… think I will,” he panted.

She landed beside him and conjured a bottle of water. He drained it and fell back. Just before his head hit the ground he turned the earth beneath it into a pillow.

“Wake me in fifty minutes,” he said, healing himself and restoring his clothes.

“Understood.”

For the next hour she did not move or blink. The landscape slowly repaired itself around them until the jungle returned. Heavy rain began to fall. She raised a small shield over him so it would not disturb his sleep.

Juna felt nothing from the weather, from hunger, from time. Her expression remained blank. Her artificial heart matched it.

One thing, however, carried a weight close to happiness. She existed to fulfill her mission. That mission was Master Uub—the student of her creator, the Great Buu. Watching over him and forging him into the strongest warrior-mage she could make was the entire purpose of her existence.

After fifty minutes she woke him. A table and food appeared. He ate with visible relief.

“You’re going to keep attacking me until I transform you, aren’t you?” he asked, voice low.

“That is the mission Master Buu gave me.”

“It feels impossible,” he said. “Nearly two years and I still haven’t touched you. And even if I do, I’m still trapped here. I don’t know how to leave this dimension.”

“The barriers between dimensions are thin for higher beings,” she replied. “A sufficiently powerful burst of energy can break them. You possess the power required.”

“You keep saying that. We’ve tried. Buu must have made them too strong.”

“Obviously!” A flash of genuine delight crossed her face for the first time. “Master Buu is the strongest, the most handsome, the most powerful being of all time! He can do anything! By creating this space for you—separate from your original reality—he ensured nothing would interrupt your progress!”

“He did his job too well,” Uub sighed. “I’ve never seen you react like that. You really care about him.”

“What creation would not love such a creator?” she answered, color rising in her cheeks. “I know the history of Master Buu’s progenitors. I am glad I was not made to serve them. Serving a genius like him is different. I have freedom within your training. My purpose satisfies me. I need nothing else.”

Uub gave a short smile and stood, stretching.

“Juna. Let’s work on the barrier again. You already agreed it counts as training and that we don’t have to fight while we do it.”

“Agreed. Two hours attempting to open a passage. Then standard training resumes.”

They spent the time the same way they had for weeks: pouring energy into the dimensional wall that separated them from Universe 0. It failed again.

Is he really so far above us that we can’t break these? Uub wondered. I’m at least as strong as my old master now…

“Of course Master Buu is all-powerful!” Juna said brightly. “He is magnificent and brilliantly intelligent, and he holds the combined power of the greatest warriors plus thousands of others!”

“Juna—stop reading my mind. I hate that.”

“I have explained this before. Monitoring your aura, your thoughts, and your heartbeat is necessary to keep you alive. I cannot resurrect you if you die.”

“I’m still entitled to privacy…”

He felt the weight of it settle again. Even if he passed the trial, he might never leave. He could spend the rest of his life on this artificial world. Plus, the company was… complicated.

“I know what is bothering you,” Juna said lightly. “Given your age and our situation, the thoughts you have about my appearance are normal.”

“Argh—shut up!” he snapped, face burning.

He looked away. Juna couldn’t quite suppress a small laugh. Unexpectedly, she felt something close to affection for him.

Neither of them really understood it yet, but Buu’s creations were not empty constructs. They were alive. Even if she had been programmed to behave like a machine, that was not the whole of her. She was capable of feeling. The concept was simply still foreign to her and she didn’t understand it. Not yet.

A few months later.

Another clash. Another one-sided beating.

“Nice progress, Master Uub!” she called, driving a right hook into him that sent him flying across the landscape. “By my estimates, you will be able to defeat me in fifty-eight years!”

He hit the ground hard and stayed there for a moment. Fifty-eight years. Two months outside. It did not feel like a small number. He could not picture himself as some ancient, all-powerful elder. That could not have been Buu’s intention. The Djinn was petty, but not that petty. Something must have happened in the arena. Had Gast sealed him again?

He healed and rose to face her once more.

Even if this isn’t working yet, I am stronger and faster, he thought. Master Gohan went through worse when he was five. I don’t get to complain when the people who came before me risked everything—sacrificed themselves—to protect Earth and the universe.

The thought landed cleanly. The thing that had been obvious the entire time finally became clear.

He had never actually put his life on the line.

Juna had always stopped short of killing him. Because of that, no matter how much pain he was in or how hopeless it felt, some part of him had known he would survive the session. He could not keep thinking that way.

Son Gohan had been thrown into the wilderness for six months as a child, his power only just awakening, his life at risk from the first day.

If Uub wanted to beat Juna, he would have to do the same.

“Juna, I’ve made a decision!” he called. “This is my final attack of the session!”

“I do not know what you are planning,” she answered, settling into a stance, “but I will counter it.”

He smiled and ignited Transcended Kaioken at full power. Two years of conditioning had made the technique manageable for short bursts. He could not hold it long, but he did not need long.

A massive purple aura flared around him. Dozens of mauve beams launched skyward. Juna’s eyes tracked them.

The distraction lasted only a fraction of a second. It was enough. He moved behind her at full speed and locked his arms around her, pinning her against him.

Before she could break free she looked up—and froze. The beams he had fired were already coming down.

“Master Uub, no!” she cried. “You will be transformed as well—we will not be able to reverse it!”

He only held tighter.

The spells struck them both. Two cookies bearing their faces tumbled to the ground.

A second volley followed immediately after, restoring them.

“Yes!” Uub shouted, fists clenched. “I fired a second wave right behind the first! It worked! I did it, Master—I passed!”

“UUB!”

The energy that flared from her was enormous. He flinched as she lunged at him, expression wild.

“W-wait!” He crossed his arms. “I did it—we don’t have to fight anymore!”

He braced for the hit.

It never came.

Instead of a fist he felt arms around him. Juna was holding him, shaking.

“Don’t ever do that again,” she sobbed against his chest. “I thought I’d lost you. I thought you were gone.”

They stayed like that for a few quiet seconds. Then she seemed to realize how close they were and pulled back, face flushed.

“Ahem. Training is complete. Congratulations, Master Uub. You may leave.”

“Right…” He looked away, cheeks warm. “But how? We never opened a breach.”

She raised a hand. A portal formed.

“Like this.”

“So you could have opened one the entire time,” he said tiredly.

“Not until you succeeded. That was the condition.”

“You know what I meant.”

He stood in front of the portal. Two years. He was stronger, faster, and far more strategic than he had been when he entered. He did not know if he had surpassed Son Goku, but he was no longer afraid of the answer. He would surprise them.

He started to step through, then stopped and turned back.

“Juna. Come with me.”

“What? Why?”

“I think something happened to Buu. Maybe to the others too. I don’t know what we’re walking into. We might need your help finding him.”

“R-really? But your training is finished…”

“We’ve spent two years together,” he said with a small smile. “I’m not leaving you alone here.”

He held out his hand. Her heart stuttered. Something in Buu’s magic was loosening—slowly releasing the emotions that had been locked inside the programming he had given her. She was becoming more than the tool she had been made to be.

“I’d like that,” she said quietly, and took his hand.

They stepped through the portal together.

Whatever waited on the other side, they would face it together.