Confliction: A Goku Black / Goddess of Victory Nikke Story

[Stimpak Medic]

Prologue: A Ridiculous Smile

'I don't know when it first hit me, nor for the subsequent thousands of times this conundrum has struck me again as I have brought forth Divine justice upon the mortals of my universe. Each civilization fallen gives my purpose that much more resolution. Yet this strange feeling remains in my heart, ever clawing to escape the bony cage of my chest. This feeling that I can be so much greater than I was before.

At first, I had killed our Kais, my fellow gods. This leading to the God of Destruction of my universe, my timeline to fall, never to wake again. It was a sad price to pay, but they were willing to let the universe's beauty be desecrated by mortal hands. I had wished that I could change that polluted mindset of theirs, but they cling too deeply to the Mortal worlds they created. It seems, however that over the thousands of years that have passed since I stole the body of Son Goku to enact my plans and Shepard in the new era my resolve has begun to shake.

I desired one universe with no mortals. One of bliss and the divinity of nature, and one of my perfect existence. There can't be room for compromise.

It is unfortunate that I must take the body of such a crude and unrefined mortal, but his power, his potential, and his body's tenacity are entirely unmatched in the cosmos. If only I had someone to share this wonderful kingdom with. Another divine being who could share this paradise universe with me. The cold loneliness I feel without a partner, without a complimentary being to mine own can not be understated. It stretches my sanity to it's limits.

Yet, at the same time I must chastise myself for such desires, for any god who would share their kingdom with a mortal body like this one would be a disgrace to divinity. Myself included. The hot irony is not lost upon me.

I have won, yet I feel completely unfulfilled. I need more. I desire new experiences, yet the thought of sharing the same world with mortals to gain such experiences chills me to my core. I dare not dream of what would become of me should I mingle among the mortals that frolic in the mud and refuse. And still, I now inhabit the body of one of those mortals, unable to escape from it without the Super Dragon Balls which no doubt will be under close watch by the Angels and Gods should I try to claim them again.

It's contradictions like this that should not exist, yet they do. It's irksome in the way they worm their way into my mind in times of peace...'

Zamasu, or who one might know as Goku Black sat on a wine red cushioned wooden chair atop the porch of a log cabin in the late summer evening as the sun was splashing it's orange and blood red colors in long streaks across the sky and horizon. In front of him was a candle lantern that was lit behind it's glass walls, sitting atop a square wooden table which had a long paper on it upon which he was writing his thoughts across.

He had done this for quite some time over the past several decades. This world was empty, inhabited by nothing other than the forest creatures, insects, fish, birds and large cats that slunk through the forests that had overtaken the last edifices of what had once been a civilization over three centuries ago.

He sighed, putting down his silver pen that he had created along with everything else in the house.

After his initial adventures, he realized that there would be no angel coming to stop him. No God of Destruction coming to end his paradise. This universe was truly his. It was his fortress, his front lawn, and his domain, yet after he had reobtained immortality by wishing on the Namekian dragon balls on a nameless Namekian planet in the universe, he had slaughtered their whole civilization as the reward for such a gift.

Their screams, their defiant gazes and shouted curses upon him quickly became choked out moans and screeches of agony as they bled and burned. It all was so emotional, but now, now he felt nothing as he eliminated the remaining mortals that had holed away across the universe in their bastions.

They thought themselves invincible in their homes, yet the notion was laughable. There was no solace for them, only the divine justice of a quick death.

At first it was exciting, yet now it was no different than...How did those Earthlings say it? "Mowing the lawn".

In essence it was now work that needed to be done. Nothing more, nothing less.

Yet it was all so repetitive, boring, droll.

He hated the intense drive this new body had given him, these inbuilt desires to confront, to fight, to win. To conquer. They distracted him from his purpose, and formed holes in his stoic exterior.

Yet he had taken to moderation these past decades. It was befitting of his divinity to take to suppressing these Saiyan desires and instincts that were more animal and primal than civilized beings should possess. Mortals truly were beings of base instinct.

"Perhaps...Perhaps it is time that I tried something new" he mused, letting the last part resonate within his mouth before shaking his head with a sigh.

He raised his right hand and looked at the band on his finger. The time ring. An artifact that allows a Kai to move across timelines and universes, and perhaps even more. He hadn't fully tested it's limits yet, finding such questions of little importance in the face of wiping his universe of mortals. That was a much more compelling cause than playing with the ring like a child does a pretty toy.

He rested his hand on the table, feeling the smooth and polished wood cool to his touch.

"I'm really going soft huh?" he asked himself wistfully before getting up.

Perhaps eliminating that civilization he had allowed to continue living with tributes would destroy his momentary trepidation? Yes, that would work well.

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Planet Araxina was once a prosperous trade hub that was vouched for across the several surrounding star systems, yet in the face of their tormentor, the monstrous deity that destroyed all the nearby civilizations, they had only survived due to his amusement and their generous tribute. However, the planet's population were quickly running dry over the past eight centuries as the god demanded more and more live sacrifices from them.

He would demand mountains of living sacrifices which he would happily blast to fine mist with his immeasurable power. However, it seemed such games no longer amused him, and the planet's end was swiftly approaching.

Sure enough, one morning as the sun was just beginning to rise, continent sized explosions shook the planet to it's core as the map was turned into a rock pockmarked by steaming craters as Goku Black laughed in the sky at his work.

"Still got it" He murmured as he looked down at the barren husk of a planet. Let it be a message to any civilization that may one day find this place in the future that the God's will would not be denied.

And so hundreds of years passed, which then turned into many thousands, and the Zero Mortals plan was finally realized.

Zamasu, in the body of Goku had finally ended all mortal life in the universe.

Yet with all of these years, all these centuries, these millennia that passed, it all felt so hollow. At some point he lost his conviction. Killing mortals was no longer his drive. He no longer had a drive to call his own at all.

He was content with what he had done.

He knew that contentment was the death of desire, and contentment often times went hand in hand with the apathy he so felt. Yet there was no longer a drive at all.

He felt like a ghost, an empty vessel adrift amongst the sea of stars, lost in the sky wondering where to go next. He was waiting for a wind to pull him in the right direction. Yet he didn't even know the right direction anymore. What was he to do in the face of such a desireless malaise?

It wasn't boredom, as boredom sparks desire.

This was the apathetic realization that nothing he did mattered. He killed all the mortals in his universe. So what?

There were infinite universes, each with infinite timelines. He could do this forever and still not even begin to scratch the surface.

It was all so pointless. In the face of what he would have to expend, such a victory could hardly be considered a victory. He had subdued one timeline, and no doubt while he was out in another, mortals would begin to repopulate the universe in the timeline he had left behind. He simply did not have the power, the speed, or the drive to do what he had hoped he could before.

No. This was no victory. This was a delusion of his own making. It was his own personal hell. Knowing no matter what he did or how strong he got, he would never make a difference. He would never matter.

It hurt. It hurt him deep in his soul in a way he could not ignore.

His divine plan, his purpose, his dreams. All for naught. Scattered like seafoam on a shore only to be dragged back into the waves when the next wave crashed.

He wanted to rage, to feel again, but other than the pain of his own pointlessness, he felt nothing.

How could he rage when he was empty? All of his doubt vanished. This was all one great cosmic joke. A flicker in time, one that was not even a footnote. He struggled with this, but in a twisted way, his apathy had struck down the sharpest sorrow and dejection that washed over him upon this new realization.

Perhaps it was up to him to find new meaning? Perhaps he had approached this all wrong?

Thus he spent two thousand more years traveling the dead universe, searching for something that would give him feeling, joy, hate, anger, fear, sorrow, or anything at all. He searched for closure.

Then the feelings deep in his heart that were growing on him that he was deliberately not confronting reared their ugly heads.

He needed mortals just as much as they needed him.

He learned this the hard way. He had lost his purpose after he completely eradicated all mortals from his universe. In the complete death of mortals, he had no purpose, and he had now worth as a God. It was time for him to return what he had taken, and he was finally accepting of his fate that he had ran from for so long in his quest to destroy.

He floated high above a verdant field surrounded by lush wild forests, with the summer sun shining high above.

"Yes. I finally understand" He laughed and spread his arms out wide like a messiah to the dead world. Floating up past the atmosphere, and into space he smiled widely. This time it was not a cruel smile, or a violent grin, it was a happy smile, an exaggerated smile, a ridiculous smile.

"Who would have thought that Zamasu the Destroyer would in the end be a Healer?" Goku black laughed and widened his arms, summoning a massive amount of his Kai powers alongside the full powers of the time ring, and with a blinding white flash that reverberated across the universe, mortal life returned to the planets, and things returned to the way they had been before. Time had been rewound all the way to before he had ever destroyed everything.

Yet where he once was was naught but the shattered and broken metal fragments of the spent time ring.

Goku Black was gone from the timeline.

Where to? Not even he knew.