Moro's severed arm regenerated almost instantly, but Merus no longer looked interested in maintaining his disguise. Holding his Angel staff in one hand, he studied the crystals that had appeared on Moro's body and quickly identified the real problem.
"His Copy Ability is the most dangerous thing right now. I should seal it before he gets another chance to use it."
Moro lunged at him before he could do anything else, but Merus moved aside with effortless precision.
"I was born an Angel, neither good nor evil," Merus said quietly as Moro attacked again. "We exist as neutral beings."
Goku watched him closely, sensing that Merus wasn't merely explaining the rules governing Angels. There was something personal behind every word.
Moro closed in, but Merus slipped past his strike, rose above him, and swept one hand downward. Angel power pressed Moro against the ground so suddenly that his body locked in place. Before Moro could break free, Merus descended and tapped the crystal embedded in his palm with the tip of his staff.
The crystal shattered with a sharp crack.
Moro immediately fought against the restraint, but Merus had already returned to Goku's side.
"No matter how chaotic the universe becomes, we Angels are supposed to watch without interfering," Merus continued. "Even if everything disappeared before our eyes, we would still be expected to remain neutral."
Moro regained his footing and stared at his damaged hand. He tried to regenerate the crystal, only to discover that nothing happened. The flesh around it had healed, but the crystal itself remained broken, as though some far greater power had sealed away its ability to return.
Merus glanced toward the Galactic Patrol officers gathered nearby. "But after joining the Galactic Patrol and working alongside them, something changed. Somewhere along the way, I began to understand what it meant to care about justice."
Moro attacked again, irritated by both Merus's words and the casual way he had disabled one of his copied abilities. Merus met him head-on, turning aside every punch and kick with his staff while continuing to speak as calmly as before.
"The Galactic Patrol may have elite fighters by the standards of their home planets, but compared to the strongest beings in the universe, most of them are incredibly weak."
Jaco's face twitched. "Weak?"
Merus continued without acknowledging him. "There are countless criminals who violate Galactic Law and possess far more power than the officers pursuing them. But the Patrol still goes after them. They risk their lives because they believe the galaxy is worth protecting."
He caught Moro's next strike on the shaft of his staff and flicked the weapon upward, launching the wizard high into the sky. Merus then leveled the staff like a rifle.
A burst of Angel power fired from its tip.
The shot struck the crystal in Moro's other palm and shattered it as well. Moro stared at the ruined crystal in disbelief as he felt another part of the Copy Ability disappear beyond his reach.
Merus lowered the staff and gave Goku a gentle smile. "Watching them struggle so hard made me realize something. I don't want this peaceful galaxy to disappear."
As he spoke, the edges of his body began to fade.
Jaco noticed first. "H-Hey, Merus! You're turning transparent!"
Goku's eyes widened. Until now, Merus had remained within the boundary of what he could justify as Galactic Patrol techniques. But the power he had just used was unmistakably that of an Angel, and his body was already paying the price.
"Before all of this, Ken and I traveled through space together," Merus continued, seemingly unconcerned by his fading form. "We saw all kinds of things. But after meeting you, Goku, I became even more certain about what I wanted."
"Merus, what are you doing?" Goku shouted. "Stop!"
"I'm afraid my next attack will probably be my last."
Angel power surged around Merus in earnest. The light surrounding him intensified, and the Angel halo appeared around his neck as the transparency spread farther across his body.
Merus turned toward Ken and smiled.
"Take care of Goku for me."
Ken simply watched him. His expression remained calm, and he offered no attempt to stop what was coming.
Moro, meanwhile, glared at Merus with pure hatred. Two of his crystals had already been destroyed, yet he had found no way to touch the Angel responsible.
Merus launched himself into the sky.
"Merus!" Goku shouted after him.
As he watched his friend rush toward Moro, memories that had been buried beneath years of battles suddenly returned with painful clarity. Merus had been the one to take him traveling through the universe long ago, back when their relationship had been little more than a passing connection. Their time together during the recent training, however, had been different. Months inside that strange dimension had given them the chance to understand each other in a way neither had before.
Merus remembered one of those conversations clearly.
"You've saved this universe several times, haven't you, Goku?"
"I guess so," Goku had answered. "I never really think of it that way, though. Strong guys just keep showing up, and most of them happen to be bad."
"What surprises me is that even when someone is evil, you rarely seem determined to kill them."
Goku had shrugged. "If they do something bad again, I'll just get stronger and stop them next time. That means I get to fight them again too. And who knows? Maybe they'll turn out okay someday."
Merus had smiled at the simplicity of the answer. "Trying to guide criminals away from evil isn't so different from what the Galactic Patrol hopes to accomplish. You really are remarkable."
"I don't know about remarkable. It just sounds more exciting that way."
"Exciting?"
"Yeah. If somebody strong changes and becomes a good guy, then maybe we can fight again without anybody trying to destroy the world."
Merus had laughed. "You really are an interesting person, Goku. Even more interesting than Jiren, whom I once genuinely wanted to train."
Living and training beside Goku for so long had changed the way Merus saw him. Before then, he had known Goku only through brief encounters and stories of what he had accomplished. Inside the extradimensional space, however, Merus had seen the almost absurd purity behind those choices for himself.
Goku wasn't merciful because of some grand philosophy. He genuinely loved testing himself against powerful opponents, and somewhere inside that simple desire was an equally sincere belief that even an enemy might become something better.
Merus had sometimes found himself thinking that Ken was almost too calculating to have become an Angel through training.
If anyone possessed the kind of pure heart suited to becoming one, perhaps it was Goku.
Even Zeno-sama had chosen to call him a friend.
By now, winning or losing his private competition with Ken no longer mattered to Merus. He had already made his decision.
Moro hurled an enormous mass of energy down at him.
Merus never slowed.
He passed directly through the attack, his fading body surrounded by Angel power, and appeared in front of Moro before the wizard could react.
His fist struck the blue crystal embedded in Moro's forehead.
It shattered.
Angel power flooded through the broken crystal at the same instant, sealing it just as Merus had sealed the other two and preventing it from regenerating.
Moro fell from the sky and crashed hard into the ground, rolling several times before finally coming to a stop. He pushed himself up with a pained groan, breathing heavily as he tried to understand what Merus had just done to him.
Above him, Merus remained suspended in the air.
His body was now almost completely transparent.
And parts of him had already begun to disappear.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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