“You actually came,” Trunks said, voice breaking. “No one ever loads the bad save.”

Here’s a short story based on the idea of Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai 6 and the strange power of save data.

He pressed .

Every time he tried to load it, the screen flickered. A glitched version of Future Trunks would appear, sword raised, mouth moving in reverse. Then the game would crash.

Riku stared at the glowing menu screen. DRAGON BALL Z: SHIN BUDOKAI 6 — a game that didn’t officially exist. He’d found it in a dusty game store, disc cracked like old lightning, case reeking of ozone. The clerk had just shrugged and said, “That one chooses its player.”

Tonight, the corrupted save file had a timestamp: Tomorrow, 11:47 PM.

Riku’s thumb hovered over the controller. Delete or keep? He could hear his own heartbeat through the speakers.

Now, three weeks later, Riku had beaten everything. Every tournament. Every what-if fusion. Even the secret “Xeno Janemba” boss that crashed other consoles. But one thing still glowed on the save data screen: .

The corrupted slot shimmered, revealing a version of Future Trunks with gray skin and white eyes. Not a villain. A survivor. He’d been trapped inside a corrupted timeline branch for 300 resets—every time Riku fought in the game, Trunks felt the blows. Every loss, he died again.