Month 3
The third month was when Totoma really began training in earnest. The first month, of course, had been spent mostly getting Rutaba up to speed, then capping it off with transforming, and the second had been getting her used to the form using his mother's... personal training methods. Mentally, she was pretty much acclimated, and physically she'd be caught up by the end of the month. Of course, he'd done some self-training during that time--mostly getting used to Super Saiyan 2--and he'd learned a few things from teaching Rutaba, but there was only so much he could do while juggling her training, his own training, and... uh, well, occasional trips to explore the afterlife.
He'd run into a few pretty strong fighters during those mini-adventures, but those were stories for another time.
At the end of the third month, he decided to go for it. Super Saiyan 3, that is.
He'd been doing one-finger standing pushups in an area with heightened gravity when the thought struck him to just... go for it. He'd watched Vocado transform into the form pretty much daily by this point (at his request) and asked him to describe the process--the energy comes from deep inside, and one had to push hard to find it--so he knew how to do it... and he
was a prodigy when he put his mind to it, so he should be able to pull this off, yeah?
Pushing himself off the ground into a flip, he landed a fair distance away, walking out of the area with the heightened gravity--the afterlife was a weird place, by the way... though he could see why Vocado spent his time here--and rested. This was definitely something he needed to be rested for, so... yeah. After a few minutes, he was ready.
Firmly planting his feet on the ground, Totoma burst into Super Saiyan, and then quickly into Super Saiyan 2--he could transform directly to Ascended now, if need be, but he sort of felt that doing this in sequence would help?--and then... began digging. His lightning-tinged golden aura flared into existence the moment he did.
The build-up was slow, but gradually, his aura compressed, becoming almost like a miniature sun surrounding him. As he 'dug' and his power rose, a great wind accompanied it, the air (...wait, was there air in the afterlife? well, whatever... air, airlike stuff, didn't really matter. Point is, it was windy) rushing away from him.
Sweated formed on his brow as he continued to grasp and, painstakingly, drag out that power within him. The feeling was... exhilarating, and, out of some deep, primal instinct, he let out a scream. As he did so, the 'world' around him trembled, as if afraid of the power he was drawing out of himself. It wasn't, because it wasn't alive, but it was a cool thought!
His aura bright and raging, and blinding to look out, Totoma's hair began to grow... save for the eyebrows, which began to recede. He wasn't really cognizant of this, but he could feel it! He was close, very close! Just a bit more digging and screaming and he'd be able to transform.
For a few moments after that, it seemed like he'd reached a plateau, the power he had been dragging out of himself topping out higher than his super saiyan 2 form, but lower, much lower, than what he was aiming for. The Just Saiyan was not deterred, and he redoubled his efforts.
...and then the dam broke.
The power he had grasped rushed out all at once, and his aura exploded outward, more or less disintegrating the ground into dust, which, naturally, created a dust cloud. Slowly, it began to clear and there, in the epicenter of the explosion was Totoma...
Cloaked in the flame and lightning of his aura, hair wild, long and savage, and power overflowing and greater than most anything in either the world of the living or world of the dead, Totoma had done it! Even though he knew the form was "useless" in the long run, he had managed to transform into Super Saiyan 3 after just a few months of training and on the first try!
Heh, not bad... not bad at all.
Elated as he was, the power was... both hard to control and draining. Incredibly draining. He could literally remain a Super Saiyan in his sleep, and, at this point, remain a Super Saiyan 2 for, like... a day or two, assuming he wasn't fighting, but this? He focused purely on maintaining the form as long as he could, expression focused, fists clenched, and feet firmly planted where he'd been standing... and yet...
One minute, Totoma dropped out of the form and to his knees, panting heavily, after
one minute. The energy drain was absurd! He felt like he'd just run a thousand marathons while also fighting every villain he'd encountered up until now! What the heck!? Even with his mom's training methods, this was gonna be time and energy-consuming to get to the point of being
sort of usable.
Pushing himself to his feet, Totoma... immediately fell onto his back. Yeah, he was just... gonna lay here and rest a bit.
"Hoo boy... I've really got my work cut out for me... but it's for the good of the Earth and my friends & family, so a little exhaustion's nothing." Okay, calling this 'a little exhaustion' was understating it
a bit (a lot) but the days of him just... throwing himself into insane situations and hoping for the best were over. He had to be
prepared for whatever the future brought.
Yeah... prepared... gotta be...
ZZZZZZZZZZZ
Exhaustion overcame the Just Saiyan and soon enough, he fell into a (well-deserved?) deep sleep, splayed out in the barren ground zero of his transformation site.
[End of Month 3]