Final Destination: Tracen Academy. Where it all began.
After days of devastation, after cities have fallen and the world has learned to fear the silhouette in the sky, Zamasu returns to a place he never expected to matter.
Not a capital. Not a fortress. Not a divine realm.
A school.
He walked through the gates from the inferno raging outside—cause by him.
His boots touch the academy courtyard.
The exact same courtyard where he first questioned mortal existence.
Where Winters spoke to him.
Where Ryo asked him to wait.
Where countless absurd events unfolded.
For several moments, he says nothing.
His eyes move across the familiar grounds.
The track.
The classrooms.
The trees.
The benches.
Memories.
“…How strange.” His voice is quiet.
Not triumphant.
Not angry.
Just thoughtful.
“Of all places…”
A breeze passes through the courtyard.
Students watch from a distance.
Teachers stand protectively nearby.
Nobody moves.
Nobody speaks.
Zamasu looks toward the academy buildings.
“This institution should have been insignificant.”
A pause.
“Yet it continues to occupy my thoughts.”
His gaze narrows.
Not at the buildings.
At the memories attached to them.
The conversations. The doubts. The questions.
The café owner asking what troubled his mind.
Winters speaking of common sense. Ren warning him.
Fragments of a world he has since tried to erase.
For a moment, his expression hardens.
“Sentiment.”
The word sounds almost offensive.
“Another mortal weakness.”
But the conviction doesn’t land quite as cleanly as he wants it to.
Because if it were merely sentiment—why come back?
Why not destroy the academy from orbit?
Why stand here at all?
The realization irritates him.
So he buries it beneath certainty.
“This is where I first entertained doubt.”
His aura begins to rise.
The air trembles.
Windows rattle.
“And therefore…”
The violet light intensified.
“It is where that doubt will end.”
Yet even as he says it, his eyes drift toward the academy grounds again.
Not searching for enemies.
Searching for people.
For familiar faces.
For answers he claims he no longer needs.
And deep down, beneath the divine power, beneath the stolen Saiyan body, beneath the conviction of the Zero Mortals Plan—a question remains.
A stubborn, infuriating question.
One that no amount of destruction has managed to silence.
If mortals truly deserve extinction…
Why does he keep returning to the place where they made him hesitate?
The courtyard waits.
The students wait.
The world waits.
And for the first time since beginning his crusade, Zamasu finds himself standing exactly where everything started—with all the power in existence at his fingertips,
and none of the certainty he wishes he had.