Universe 6 Arc

The Universe 6 arc is the Dragon Ball Super manga’s first tournament story, running from chapter 5 to chapter 13 across Volume 1 and Volume 2. Beerus’s twin brother Champa, God of Destruction of Universe 6, challenges him to a five-on-five tournament between their universes — and in the process the manga reveals the multiverse, the Super Dragon Balls, and a warrior named Hit who forces Goku to rethink how he fights.

The setup: a brothers’ bet with planets on the table

Champa has been secretly gathering the enormous, planet-sized Super Dragon Balls. Caught snooping near Universe 7’s territory, he covers his embarrassment the way gods do: with a contest. If Universe 7 wins a martial arts tournament between the two universes, Champa will hand over the six Super Dragon Balls he has already collected. If Universe 6 wins, Beerus must swap the two universes’ Earths — Champa having ruined his own Earth and wanting ours for its food. A neutral ring is built on a nameless planet, complete with a written test to keep the fighters civilised, or at least literate.

The tournament’s staging is part of the fun: the angels build the arena, a barrier keeps the gods’ tempers spectator-only, and the written test — a detail the gods insist on — removes Majin Buu before the fighting starts, because Buu falls asleep during it. Universe 7 is therefore a fighter down from the first bell, a handicap the team only admits to itself once the matches begin.

Universe 7’s team is Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, Majin Buu and a mild stranger named Monaka, whom Beerus claims is the strongest warrior he has ever faced. Buu sleeps through the written exam and is disqualified before a punch is thrown, leaving four fighters to do the work of five. Universe 6 fields Botamo, Frost, Magetta, the young Saiyan Cabba — and Hit, a legendary assassin who has never needed more than one strike.

The story in order

Goku opens against Botamo, whose body harmlessly absorbs every blow; Goku wins by thinking like a wrestler instead of a brawler and simply throwing him out of the ring. Next comes Frost, a polite mirror of Frieza who hides a poison needle in his arm. His sting fells Goku — and then, after Piccolo steps up and is worn down in a losing fight, the cheating is spotted and exposed. Vegeta insists on handling Frost personally rather than accepting a disqualification win, and what follows is a Universe 7 run through the bracket: Vegeta flattens Frost, breaks the metal man Magetta by wounding his pride, and then meets Cabba — a Saiyan from Universe 6’s Planet Sadala who has never heard of Super Saiyan. Vegeta beats the transformation into him mid-fight, teaches him to reach it, and wins, having found something like pride in another universe’s Saiyans.

That leaves Hit. His Time-Skip freezes a fraction of a second for everyone but him, and at first neither Goku’s power nor his predictions can buy a clean hit. Goku works the technique out round by round, escalates through his god forms to force openings, and finally stands level with an assassin who is fighting under tournament rules that forbid killing. Realising Hit cannot use his real techniques in a no-kill match, Goku does the most Goku thing imaginable: he steps out of the ring and forfeits, hoping for an unrestricted rematch one day. The tournament therefore comes down to Monaka — who faints at the sight of Hit. Hit, repaying Goku’s sportsmanship, theatrically throws the fight, and Universe 7 wins by doing absolutely nothing. The full run is listed in the chapter index.

Major fights and new forms

The Hit fight deserves its own footnote, because the manga plays it as a puzzle with rules. Hit’s Time-Skip lets him step a fraction of a second into the future, striking from moments his opponent has not reached yet — but the manga stresses that the technique strains against opponents whose power vastly exceeds his own, which is why Goku’s escalating god forms begin to slip punches through it. Goku’s counter is therefore not a new form but an old instinct: predict where a man who lives a heartbeat ahead of everyone else must appear, and be swinging when he arrives. It is the first time in the series that a fight is won in the working-out rather than the powering-up — even if the record books, thanks to the forfeit, file it under Monaka.

No brand-new transformation debuts here; instead the arc refines what exists. Super Saiyan Blue is the team’s ceiling, and the manga stresses its stamina cost — Vegeta is weakened in the Hit fight’s warm-up precisely because he has been dipping in and out of the form. Cabba’s first Super Saiyan transformation is the arc’s genuine new-form moment, played as mentorship rather than spectacle. Hit’s Time-Skip is the real star: a technique, not a power level, that makes Goku’s usual answer — get stronger — insufficient on its own.

How the arc ends (spoilers)

With the Super Dragon Balls gathered, the Super Shenron is summoned, and Beerus — in a rare act of brotherly grace he would deny under torture — uses the wish to restore Universe 6’s ruined Earth. The celebration is interrupted by the arrival of the Omni-King, Zeno, who watched the tournament and liked it so much that he announces a far bigger one, involving every universe. That promise hangs over everything that follows; the next major story begins when Future Trunks comes begging for help.

Chapters in this arc

Where this arc sits in the reading order

It follows the God of Destruction Beerus arc and precedes the Future Trunks arc. Note that Frieza’s return (the Resurrection ‘F’ film story) takes place between those first two arcs but is never retold in the manga — this tournament is the manga’s true second act. You can read the arc officially on MANGA Plus, and check the series’ current situation on the status page.