Disclaimer: the idea and characters of Dragon Ball are owned by Akira Toriyama. This is a simple non-profit fan parody.

Chapter 19 - Four fights and a no-show

After the initial announcement had been met by cheers and applause, silence fell for a while on the stadium. The lethargy induced in the public by long hours waiting sitting in the hot weather had been replaced by bristling anticipation. Finally, the speaker went back on, playing a rock tune that hyped the audience up even more for the upcoming bout of (hopefully controlled) violence.

"For the first match of the quarter finals!," shouted Brother Max, at full lungs, even though he was speaking in a microphone. "Our first contender is someone whose name you should know all too well already! If he can't knock it out of the park, who will? This young sports prodigy must have realised beating people up is more fun than batting, because from the diamond he's just stepped straight onto the ring! But that is no surprise - to all our friends from West City, this is no less than a hero, who gained fame first playing in the Dinos, then protecting the streets! Sponsored by Capsule Corporation, trained by the best technology cutting-edge science can offer, give a big cheer for YAMCHA!"

There was no need to say it. As soon as the warrior stepped out of the gate, he was showered in applause, chants, and the high-pitched, loud squeals of the girls from the Yamcha Fan Club, who had occupied a whole corner of the bleachers for themselves and had now unravelled a giant banner for him.

Bulma raised an eyebrow and sighed at how fleeting the mood of the crowds could be. Then again, it was all free publicity for her, so she didn't feel like complaining too much.

After a round of greeting and waving, Yamcha took his place in the centre of the fighting stage and started stretching arms, legs and fingers. Bulma felt pretty sure that was less about actually warming up and more about having an excuse to show off his muscles. Each time he flexed something seemed to draw one more squeal from a certain corner.

Brother Max waited for the perfect moment at which the public was slightly calming down, and immediately took the mic to whip it up back into a frenzy. "Coming to challenge him! He's bald, he's bold, and he'll knock you out cold! At only thirteen, he's not even the youngest participant to make it to the quarter finals, but don't let his age fool you! This kid has done it all - training at a Shaolin temple and then with none other than the legendary Muten Roshi, the Turtle Master! His pedigree is top grade, but will it be enough to step up to the challenge? It's tradition versus science in this first clash of schools! Enter KRILLIN!"

The kid walked in with his usual bluster, but seemed to immediately lose some of that when not only his entrance wasn't nearly as well-received as Yamcha's, but he actually got some people whistling and booing.

"Now, now," intervened Brother Max, as Krillin started answering by making obscene gestures at the public and the situation seemed to degenerate, "this is sports! This is martial arts! Don't bring that sort of negativity to this stage - let the fists talk! Remember: you win by either pushing the opponent out of the ring, knocking them out for ten seconds, or forcing them to admit defeat! No low blows, no using weapons, and no killing! May the best one win! MATCH ONE, START!"

Krillin had only one instant to realise what was happening and go back to his fighting stance before Yamcha was upon him. Not unlike some of the other chums he'd fought during the elimination rounds, this one seemed to being holding back and expecting an easy win because he was a child. His punch was weak and slow, and Krillin easily parried it.

"Your loss." said the kid smugly, and thrust his own fist straight towards Yamcha's solar plexus. The punch connected, and the opponent was pushed back by a couple of metres.

Krillin raised an eyebrow. He had meant that to push him out of the ring.

"Oh, I see you can hit." commented Yamcha, getting back in a fighting stance. "Didn't think I could go all out already."

Krillin sneered. "Against a pupil of Muten Roshi? You have some nerve. I'm surprised you can still talk that easily, though."

"Eh, that was nothing. I'm not as good as Goku, but I can control ki too, you know."

"Ki?" the kid was puzzled. "I know the word but..."

There wasn't time to finish. Yamcha zoomed forward again - this time so fast Krillin almost didn't see his movement. He barely managed to parry on his right, but then it turned out it was all a feint, because an even faster kick came to his left side. Krillin felt like he had been hit by a truck, and went down hard on the stone pavement of the ring. Really, not the best material to prevent people from hurting each other badly, he realised.

"You don't seem used to this, huh?"

Krillin kicked off the ground, throwing himself to the side barely one instant before Yamcha's axe kick hit the spot where he previously was, and cracked the tiles under his heel. Krillin's sense of confidence that he had gained through multiple elimination rounds in which he faced opponents that he vastly outstripped in terms of physical power melted. This was someone in his own league - with power comparable to the superhuman strength he had gained through Muten Roshi's gruelling training.

"Wait-" he shouted, but Yamcha was upon him, again. Krillin panicked. He was strong, but was he also proportionally resilient enough? He had never had a chance to test it - never fought someone as strong as himself. And the punch that was aimed straight at his ribcage would provide him the answer, which he felt wouldn't necessarily be pleasant.

Not able to dodge or parry, he simply rolled with it, and pushed himself backwards to soften the impact. The punch still hurt a lot. Krillin recovered and tried to question his memory of his training, look for ideas he could apply here.

And he came up completely blank.

Yamcha flexed his legs back. Only one metre behind Krillin was the edge of the ring, and here the opponent was preparing for his final push.

"Ready? Here I come. Wolf's Fang-"

The thing was, Muten Roshi's training had had little to do with martial arts at all, realised Krillin in a panic. Not the best moment to realise that, either. He'd been at first too taken with the headiness of having been accepted as a pupil by the greatest master ever, and then too tired to really focus on it, though he was sort of aware. When the preliminaries had been so ridiculously easy he had stopped worrying, but now, faced with an opponent that was both strong and in possession of decent technique, he couldn't avoid confronting that simple fact.

In the last six months he hadn't learned the first thing about how to fight.

"-FIST!" screamed Yamcha, as he jumped forward again, his palms ready to strike. Calling one's attacks was a great way to induce panic in an inexperienced opponent that now had to expect something really dangerous coming their way, and it worked - Krillin disorderly tossed himself to the side at the last second. Yamcha's hands, clutched like hooks, struck all around him, in a complex pattern that seemed to flow perfectly and yet being utterly unpredictable to him, as each strike created a blind spot that prevented him to see what the other hand was doing. He avoided some of that, but a few hits found their target. Still, it wasn't enough to push him past the edge, and before Yamcha could finish it with a mighty double palm strike, Krillin crouched and rolled between his legs, coming out of the other side. He tried a kick to Yamcha's back, but the other had foreseen that because he kicked back in response, and Krillin had to stop himself at the last moment and jump to avoid it.

"Good job taking that on." said Yamcha, smiling. "Here comes another, though."

Krillin thought desperately about what resources he had at his disposal. There was his Shaolin temple training, of course. Nothing especially original, but the basics were all there, and his new strength should make them proportionally more powerful. He calmed down a little. However, what had made Muten Roshi such a great master - was it just brute strength? He expected him to possess also refined technique, and he'd been counting on learning that to become really invincible. Yet here he was; he had spent months simply carrying out brute strength tasks, such as delivering milk, ploughing fields with his bare hands, or dodging bees, sharks and other dangerous creatures, but never once had he practiced katas or learned special techniques.

Or had he?

Krillin smirked as finally he was enlightened. Of course. A real master's teachings wouldn't be transparent! They would be clouded in secrecy, and in layers of opaque meaning, and it would be up to the clever pupil to figure out their true value.

The boy planted his feet on the ground, assuming an aggressive pose. "You're done for!" he proclaimed boldly, puffing his chest. Yamcha raised his eyebrows, shrugged, and prepared for another attack.

"Wolf's Fang Fist!"

This time, Krillin was prepared. He closed his eyes, letting his other senses do the rest, and visualised the strikes arriving at him not like fists and slaps - but like bees. The bees that he had been dodging for hours at an end, tied to a tree, day after day.

His body flowed naturally, unimpeded, perfectly timing each movement. Yamcha's onslaught became more furious as each fist kept missing the target. But the pattern now was obvious to Krillin, and dodging it a trivial matter. He'd been avoiding much worse, after all.

Defeated, Yamcha withdrew, to avoid the risk of giving an opening to a counterattack.

"What the hell was that?" he asked, short of breath.

"That," explained Krillin, proudly, "was the Turtle Style: Beekeeper's Defence."

"The what?"

The crowd murmured. "An exceptional display of skill from Krillin, who until now had been pressed on!" screamed the announcer. "Now, will he be able to follow that with an equal prowess in attacking?"

Krillin pulled back his fists. He knew just what to do now. He gauged Yamcha's distance from the edge of the ring - their previous exchange had swapped their positions and left him with his back to the wall. All he needed to do was take him by surprise and push him over.

There was a section in his daily milk delivery path - a road surrounded by lines of trees that Muten had him zig-zag all the way through. It had been the slowest bit of the whole route for him until he had gotten strong and fast enough to use a certain trick.

"Turtle Style: Milkman Walk!" he announced.

And then he disappeared. No, not disappeared, realised Yamcha - he was just side stepping. Left to right, right to left, so fast it was impossible to see him or spot his position exactly, but at each step advancing also forward. Yamcha got on guard, but defending precisely against an attack that could come from an arc of almost 180 degrees in front of him would be hard. He just put his arms in front of him as a shield, waiting for a blow and ready to respond in kind after taking it.

Ploughing fields with one's bare hands was no joke. The ground was hard and heavy, and all muscles down to legs and back were involved. Still, as Krillin's body had been forged by that and other equally gruelling exercises, it had all gotten easier. At the end, it felt like the clay-like dirt of his island was soft and light as whipped cream. Which meant that he was ready for ploughing something more.

"Turtle Style: Farmer's Fist!" screamed Krillin, suddenly coming to a halt next to Yamcha, and plunging his fingers straight into the pavement. The stone itself gave way and crumbled. With a last scream, the kid threw his hands into the air, and a whole chunk of stone and dirt below - not to mention a dumbfounded Yamcha, who was standing on top of them - were tossed upwards. Before the fighter could recover from the surprise and do something to control his fall, he had crashed out of boundaries.

The stadium was speechless.

"Can he do that?" asked Bulma to Max, under her breath.

"He can." whispered back the other. "But usually it takes more than one match for them to realise. Which is good, because repairing the ring isn't cheap."

Bulma groaned. As if losing her first fighter already wasn't enough trouble.

"Well, what an amazing turn of events!" exclaimed Brother Max, turning the mic back on. "Krillin defeats Yamcha with an incredible secret technique! With this, he's the first to advance to the semifinals!"

A mix of cheers and stunned surprise, with the occasional jeer, accompanied Krillin's self-satisfied walk out of the ring, while Yamcha got back on his feet.

Jackie Chun had been looking bemused for all the last part of the fight. He came closer while the fighters left the ring.

"Say, boy," he asked, side-eyeing Krillin as he passed next to him, "I've never seen anyone fighting that way. What was that about?"

The kid grinned. "Those," he said, proudly, "are the secret techniques I was taught by Muten Roshi in person!"

And so he left, leaving the old man more confused than he was before.

"Hey, Yamcha. Good fight."

"Heh. Not good enough, it seems."

"You shouldn't let it bother you too much. Bulma told me before she left that kid actually scored 20% higher than you at the scanner. So you actually did pretty well to hold your own for the first half."

"Thanks, Goku. That really cheers me up."

"And now for our second fight! He, too, studied under Muten Roshi, years ago. But since then he's been busy running a kingdom of fire and death! Infamous and legendary for the brutal justice he administered in what absolutely counts as his own personal jurisdiction, this massive warrior seems now to have stepped back into the ring to turn his violent disposition to a higher purpose! Large and in charge, I present you: THE OX KING!"

The Ox King walked onto the stage to the tune of a death metal song screaming about slaughtering one's enemies. The public did not look impressed, and remained mostly in a slightly shocked silence. His fame wasn't as great in urban areas, but enough people had heard stories about him, and the man looked just plain dangerous. For the occasion he had taken off his helmet and armour, banned as protections by the rules, and Bulma got to see his eyes for the first time, gleaming under two bushy eyebrows. He still wore his signature red cape, which billowed behind him as he stepped up.

"I am sure we are all wondering, what leads such a man to change his ways?" asked Max. The public didn't sound like they were wondering at all. "Mister... err... your Majesty, would you tell us?"

There was a moment of deadly silence as the audio was switched to the directional microphones designed to hear the contestants' words but the Ox King didn't realise it. Then, when he finally noticed everyone's eyes on him, he spoke.

"I'm not changin' my ways really." he blurted out. "Just makin' some money, is all. I'm supporting my friend Pilaf's claim to the throne, as the real King of the World."

There was another moment or two of stunned silence.

"And I'm sure that was just some pre-fight trash-talk and not any hint of high treason or sedition!" hurriedly concluded Brother Max, closing the microphone. "Now, for the next participant! He is the youngest one around, at an age of twelve! And just like Yamcha in the previous fight, he's here to show the results of Capsule Corporation's training! He's got brawns and brains and is afraid to use neither! Give it up for SON GOKU!"

Goku stepped up to the ring. He had begrudgingly left his stick behind due to the tournament's rules on weapons. Bulma had wondered if he'd be embarrassed by the crowd watching him, but he seemed just fine. A few months of city life had gotten him used to seeing so many people all together. He stood there, flexing left and right, warming up, and again, conspicuously scratching his butt, which made Bulma feel embarrassed for him.

The two combatants exchanged bows.

"MATCH TWO, START!"

The Ox King ran forward, slow but inexorable. He couldn't bring his axe, but he swung around his hands as if they were a pair of them, ready to hit the neck of his opponent with their chop. Goku kept his distance, and let the opponent come closer, push him to the end of the ring.

"Last time we fought we got interrupted!" said the King. "This one yer going down!"

He launched a downward attack that would have slammed Goku against the pavement if the kid didn't instantly propel himself with a kick and slide in between the giant's legs, emerging from the other side. Before he could even exhaust his momentum, he jumped up with his palms and lightly kicked the opponent in the back, then recovered his stance. The Ox King found himself unbalanced and rotate wildly his arms around to recover, coming dangerously close to falling outside of the ring himself.

"Ya almost got me," he commented, panting, "but that's the end of it."

"That's true. I'll need to try something different." agreed Goku, calmly.

The man dashed again towards him, but this time when Goku stepped back he didn't risk coming too close to the edge. Instead, he grinned, planted his hand into the hole left by Krillin's attack from before, and grabbed a whole chunk of rock that he tossed at Goku.

"Oh, dear." muttered Bulma, seeing so much expensive marble used as a projectile weapon.

The rock's trajectory was studied in such a way that if Goku was to avoid it, he would have been pushed towards the edge, which would have left him vulnerable to a direct attack.

Hence, he did not avoid it.

The rock crashed with a deafening noise, and for a moment, the kid was enveloped in a cloud of dust and detritus. There were small screams and gasps from the bleachers, where people almost certainly expected to see the smoke settle and reveal a corpse.

Instead, what appeared was Goku, standing, unharmed, with a hand protruded in front of himself, palm open. Almost no one understood what could have possibly happened. Bulma smiled. Among the other athletes looking from the sidelines, Jackie Chun whistled in appreciation.

Goku pulled back his arms, then tossed them forward as if launching something. Except, there was nothing. Well, not nothing at all perhaps - one could see a faint glimmer, little more than dust glistening in the sun or a swarm of fireflies, leaving his hands and flying straight towards his opponent.

"What ya doin'?" asked the Ox King, annoyed. "This is not-"

He could not complete the sentence, as a hail of something hit him square in the chest, pushing him back. It wasn't painful or anything - almost tickled, to him. But it was enough to push him off balance.

"Hey!" he roared. "What game ya playin'?"

Goku didn't answer. He ran in circle around him, gesturing more with his hands, weaving strange patterns, and spraying more of those luminous dust mites of his. Tiny globules of energy, really, barely large enough to be seen with one's naked eye. They zapped around, almost imperceptible, but whenever they hit, they gave the big man a decent push - enough to mess his footwork, make him trip, push him towards the edge.

"What the Hell are these things!" shouted the Ox King. He tried to swat them with his hands, to no effect. There were too many, too small, and too fast. A couple more hit him head on on his forehead, almost knocking him on his back.

With a raging scream, the Ox King planted his feet into the ground. Literally. He pushed so hard, they jammed themselves into the pavement. From the commentator's cabin, a loud, pained whining could be distinctly heard.

The tiny ki blasts now didn't do much. The Ox King's position was unassailable. After a few futile attempts, Goku withdrew them, and sent them to explode innocuously against a wall.

"Ya ran out of tricks?" roared the giant. "Let's see ya fight fair and square, man to man!"

"I would rather avoid that." said Goku. "That is why I was using those attacks."

"What, ya scared? What ya even doin' here at the tournament if ya can't take a little hurt?"

The kid shook his head. "I wouldn't want to cause unnecessary harm. It is just a sports event."

"What are ya saying? This is the Tournament! The big one! Ya won't fight on a bigger stage in yer entire life! Holding back isn't something ya do here! It's... disrespectful, is what it is!"

Goku blinked. He seemed genuinely surprised, as if he had not considered that angle at all.

"I apologise." he said. "This is my first time attending. I will try to live up to the spirit of the competition."

"That's what I wanted to hear! Now-"

The Ox King's words turned into a whimper, and the whole stadium gasped and winced simultaneously, as Goku landed a single, violent kick straight to his opponent's belly, so fast and hard his leg visibly sunk into it. The giant man hadn't even recovered when a second hit, a punch square to his jaw, sent his head spinning. Goku landed back on the ring's floor. His opponent's body wobbled for a moment, then fragorously fell to the ground. The referee immediately ran up to check that he was still breathing and start counting.

Next to a completely overwhelmed Brother Max, Bulma chuckled. Yamcha may have been a disappointment, but Goku was delivering. She'd seen him fight against the Ox King when they were chasing the Dragon Balls and well, she knew he had gotten stronger, but did not think he would be this strong.

Ten seconds passed, without the Ox King as much as twitching. "And that's a sudden victory for Goku!" shouted Max, finally shaking himself from his surprise. "Next up..."

"Ouch, that must hurt!"

"Indeed."

"Well, this kid's good! Wish we could recruit him, eh, Black?"

"He is part of the Capsule Corporation team, Commander. That makes him far closer to an enemy."

"True. Wouldn't want to have to fight him head on though, right? Right?"

"..."

"Black? Why aren't you laughing? It's a joke, you know! You have to learn to relax a bit. Want some popcorn?"

"What were those tiny shiny things? That's not fair!"

"Hmm. It looks like a new application of spiritual power. He must have come up with it himself. That is beyond impressive for a kid his age."

"What? I'm a kid his age! And I trained with Master Muten, and he never told me anything about using spiritual power to make shiny bullets or such, old man."

"Maybe your master thinks certain skills should be learned only when one has the wisdom to know how to best make use of them."

"What do you know, old man? My master isn't some old loser who would hold back onto his pupils with such a lame excuse!"

"Now listen here! Your master will decide things such as this for your own good and you would do better to trust him on matters on which he has literal centuries of experience over you!"

"Why do you even get so worked up? It's not like you are my master."

"...no, of course I'm not. What a foolish thought."

"...the lizard of the East! The blue menace! The pterrible pterodactyl! Let's hear it for GIRAN!"

Giran stepped up on the ring for second, raising a brow at the frankly rather lame introduction. After all, it was not like he'd come to this event looking for fame or glory. In fact, he felt slightly uneasy having come so far as to stand on the actual ring, in front of so many strangers. Going through the eliminations had been remarkably easy, but from the previous fights, it looked like he had simply been landed in an easy bracket. He would have rather had the chance to meet whatever ally he was supposed to while in the relative privacy of the gym, but none of those he fought felt even remotely close to being potentially of much help for him. Here, at least, the level felt like it was significantly higher. In fact, some of the feats seen in the previous fights had left Giran rather baffled. He had hear such things in the stories of the elders, but never really thought about them as being truly real.

What about his current opponent, though? The ptero looked at him, and felt he was an enigma. Not unsurprising, since he concealed his face behind a mask. Both his casual pose and clothing seemed unassuming; he had not spoken, only given a friendly gesture of greeting to him. He didn't seem especially muscular or well built, and in fact looked quite old, but Giran knew better than underestimating him altogether, especially since he had made it here too. He would have to test him personally, here on the ring.

"MATCH THREE, START!"

Giran assumed an aggressive stance, but knew better than blindly charging into whatever this guy held in store for him. He started circling around on the ring, keeping his distance, trying to study the opponent or find an opening in his guard. The most troubling thing was, his guard was full of openings, or rather, he had no guard at all. The masked man, Inari-san, only stood immobile, his arms behind his back, and if the smile on his fox mask wasn't his real expression, it seemed quite appropriate. To stand in such a way in front of a warrior, on a martial arts ring, was the height of arrogance. Yet this must be no amateur, or he would not have progressed this far. The alternative was rather terrifying.

Calling back to his training, the endless repetitive tasks whose purpose was as much to teach him to quite down his mind as it was to strengthen his body, Giran expunged all these thoughts and focused on the matter at hand. Fight as best as you can. Make him sweat for every second he spends on the ring. If the old man wouldn't humour him with a proper defence, then nothing could stop him from attacking him from the most vulnerable angle possible.

The ptero shouted, darting with a single leap towards the old man's undefended back. He waited until he got the instantaneous confirmation of a reaction of any kind from the opponent, and then unleashed his real strategy - kicked off the ground, flipped, aiding himself with his small wings, and landed in front of the opponent, ready to elbow him in the back of his head as he turned to face him.

Inari-san didn't turn. The slight gesture that had prompted Giran to jump had been only a feint. Perfectly aware of every movement, perfectly in control, as if he was seeing everything in slow motion, the old man extended his arm and grabbed his opponent's arm, twisting it behind his back and immobilising his every movement in a single, smooth attack.

The pressure he was exerting was insane, even more so because it didn't even hurt much. Giran realised this was someone so strong, he could afford to toy with him.

"Where in Hell have you come from?" asked the ptero, panting.

"Nowhere." said the other, jovially. "I'm from the other place."

And just like that, it was over. A single push tossed Giran straight over the edge of the ring and on the lawn. The crowd seemed split between excitement for the incredible display of skill and disappointment for such a short, one-sided match. The commentator was shouting his usual incoherent nonsense and sounded like he was about to have an heart attack.

Giran picked himself up and dusted his body off. He climbed back on the ring, extending his hand to Inari-san. Rather amused, the man took it and shook him. The ptero accompanied the gesture with a small bow, taking the chance to lean in close to the man's ear.

"You're the one I came here looking for. I need your help." he whispered.

Was the other surprised? Impossible to tell, with that mask.

"Well, now." said Inari-san, after a moment of pause. "I'm really afraid I can't. I need to go back to my place right after this."

That couldn't be it. Not unless the spirits had sent him here as a cruel prank. "Please." pleaded Giran. "It's important. You're a martial artist - you must have heard the name of Piccolo."

Yes, he must have. Because the old man took pause again at that.

"I really can't help." he said finally, shaking his head. "But keep an eye on the other competitors."

Giran perked his ears. "What about them?"

"The man who fights next, Jackie Chun." explained Inari-san. "And the kid with the scruffy hair. You can trust them with your life. Just talk to them once all of this is over."

"Wait, do you know-"

The old man didn't let Giran finish. He swiftly turned around and left him in the middle of the ring, walking back to the backstage.

Might as well follow him, decided the ptero. The Tournament was over for him, and between the sweat and the dirt, he could really use a shower.

In the commentator booth, next to Max, Bulma was sulking. It wasn't that she didn't think the Tournament was turning out well (it was, and anyway the part that mattered most was already done, her data from the preliminaries safely stored away), nor it was that she was disappointed for Yamcha dropping out so early (well, she was, a bit, but she wasn't thinking about that right now). No, the reason for her foul mood was mostly the awareness that in the next match she would have to see Mai, the woman who had once murdered her, walk right on the ring, and she still hadn't figured out what could she possibly want with the tournament, or how to stop her and expose her as the criminal that she was.

In fact, she wasn't entirely sure what had she wanted the first time they had tangled, either - besides, obviously, the Dragon Balls. She didn't have much of a lead beyond knowing that she was or had been part of the Red Ribbon apparently, and that wasn't exactly the kind of organisation you knock at the door of asking for a list of their employees. In a world with one massive central government and a few small independent principalities, such as the Ox King's mountain, the existence of a vast mercenary army that acted mostly as muscle for hire to settle disputes between those states was tolerated by the law - barely. But they weren't the most upright guys, and there were nasty rumours about the activities they'd get involved with in order to rake in some money when their usual kind of job was scarce. So, Bulma's conclusions had been that Mai could be either still working for the Ribbon, or be on her own, and that she could want the Dragon Balls for personal reasons, or to aid some nefarious criminal plan of theirs. That wasn't much to go on except for the dead certainty that it was bad. And now Mai had showed up to her Tournament, and Bulma had no way to prove that she was up to no good. All she could do was keep an eye on her and hope that there would be enough time to intervene if she were to try something funny.

Speaking of funny, her match with Muten Roshi promised very much to be that.

"And now!" shouted Brother Max, commanding the stadium's attention once more. "For the last match of the day! Our first fighter may seem a bit of an enigma, but not to the expert of history! For years ago he actually has already taken part in the Tournament - and won! That's right, we now have a former champion walking on the ring, known to all as JACKIE CHUN!"

The announcement of a former champion seemed to fire up the crowd, and at the peak of excitement Muten walked on the ring, with that ridiculous blue wig of his, greeting left and right the cheering spectators and basking in their praise. He winked, he smiled broadly despite the fact you could count his remaining teeth on one hand, he sent slobbering kisses back towards the stands. Bulma felt a sudden impulse to crawl somewhere and die just out of second hand embarrassment.

The announcer cleared his voice, calming down the cheers. "Next up is a real enigma!" he started. "We don't know her past, she has no track record as a martial artist, yet she managed to arrive here! She's a-"

Murderous bitch, thought Bulma, decrying how uncreative Max's announcement was compared to what she would have had to say.

"-former soldier who must have had a really great drill sergeant! Salute MAI!"

Brother Max ended his introduction with his usual excited tone, and it was still met with a sizeable round of cheer and applause, despite the fact that there really was no one rooting specifically for this completely unknown woman. Still, however low the public's expectations, what they got was even more disappointing.

Because no one appeared at all.

"Sorry, I'll say it again... it's now the time for MAI to come on the ring!" repeated Max, emphatically.

Nothing. A puzzled murmur ran through the crowd. Jackie Chun, or Muten, started getting restless himself. He was stroking his beard up and down, looking at the empty door of the backstage with a frown.

Max looked at Bulma, confused, as if she was supposed to know why bloody Mai wasn't coming out to fight. The girl shook her head, irritated. She already had a bad feeling about this.

"Will miss Mai please step out? This is the last chance." explained Max, slowly. "If she does not present herself, Jackie Chun will be declared the winner by default."

The door remained empty, at first. Then someone stepped out, but it was clearly too short and too bald to be the right person.

"We can't find her." said Krillin, his voice captured by the microphones and amplified throughout the stadium. "She's not here."

The hubbub got louder. Jackie Chun sighed, but he seemed more thoughtful than disappointed.

"Well, I think that settles it." mumbled the announcer, a bit dejected. "For the first time since I can remember, we have a no show in the final phase of the tournament. Jackie Chun wins the match!"

While the crowd reacted with protests and Max took to calm them down, Bulma cursed under her breath and left the room, without saying anything. She needed to get to the backstage, get Goku and Yamcha, anyone whom she could trust. Whatever was going on, Mai not showing up for her match had to be part of it.

She only hoped she would not be too late.

Giran looked at the shower stall with a stare that was between puzzled and annoyed. Of course the bloody things would be human sized. He wasn't one to share certain extreme feelings he heard from the elders of his tribe, usually, but this was one occasion in which the thought that there might be too many apes scouring the Earth crossed his mind. In the end, he decided that after all the fault for this was on them, and simply ripped off one of the walls separating two adjacent stalls, merging them into a single shower space.

Before stepping in, he touched the belt and pouch at his waist, the only thing he was wearing. He was about to untie the buckle, but thought better of it at the end. A little water would not ruin the thing. It was more important to keep the contents of his bag close to him at all times.

He turned the tap and let the water flow, at a temperature that any soft skinned mammal would have found scalding but for him felt just like a pleasant warmth. He let it run on him for a while, thinking about his next move. He would have access to the backstage for the rest of the matches, even if he had been eliminated. So perhaps he could get the chance to talk to one of the people Inari-san had mentioned at some point. He still wasn't sure why he should trust the guy, but there was something about him - as if he radiated an impression of trust. He just didn't feel like he could be lying to him or playing dirty. There were way too many ineffable, ungrounded intuitions going into this mission for Giran's taste, though. He could take his time to at least observe those people until the end of the Tournament before making a choice.

From outside there seemed to come a ruckus. Giran guessed this must have to do with the next match, but the crowd didn't sound excited or thirsty for violence. More like disappointed. He perked his ears and that's how he also heard something else, through all the water roaring around him. Someone had silently stepped into the stand next to his.

"Who are-" he started asking, but there was no need for an answer. A hand pierced right through the thin barrier separating the two stalls and went straight for his belt. With a roar, Giran jumped back, subtracting his pouch to the enemy's grasp while clawing at the arm. No sooner he connected that he realised something was amiss. The arm didn't budge, and instead a sharp jolt of pain propagated from his claws to his fingers, and up his arm. His jump sent him crashing against the barrier behind him, which gave way. In front of him, the enemy swung their arm casually aside, tossing the small panel it had pierced away. The ptero realised why he had hurt himself - the arm that had attacked him was not made of flesh, so he had miscalculated the strength required to slice it. In front of him was a woman, wearing just baggy military pants and a tank top. Her right arm was a cybernetic prosthetic, the likes of which Giran had never seen.

"You're the woman from the next match." he growled. "Not here to participate in the Tournament, I take it?"

"I didn't much care for the match-ups." she replied, with a smile. "I really wanted to have a go at you, you know."

The ptero steadied himself, taking a combat stance. "You're one of them. The tools."

"The Instruments." Mai corrected him.

"I know what I said."

Not much was left of the stalls, at this point, and water kept pouring out of the shower. Giran was not a coward, but he still checked whether there were any obvious exists he could use to avoid the fight altogether. In this situation, playing it safe took priority, and being outed would play to his enemy's disadvantage. Still, he had no way out - the window would have been barely enough for a human, and she stood between him and the only door. Breaking down a wall was not beyond him, but not something he could do fast enough and would leave him open. That left him no choice.

"Good thing we're not on the ring." he said. "So I can kill you."

"Good thing we're not." she agreed. "So I can use this."

She had kept her left hand behind her back, but now she showed it, and it was holding a gun. Giran tossed him aside to make himself a hard target, but he already realised where this was going. Mai fired one shot which landed on his left. The problem wasn't the gun - it was the threat of it. She could control the battlefield from afar with it, pushing him into the direction she wanted. Until he was caught with the wall on one side, and on the other...

"Gotcha!" she shouted. Her right arm plunged forward towards his throat. He deflected it with his own, but couldn't manage to get in a good kick. His massive size and the small size of the fighting quarters were playing against him. This bitch had chosen her battlefield carefully, he had to give it to her.

Nevertheless.

"You're puny!" roared Giran, tossing himself forward with his whole body. A flimsy human woman was no match for almost half a ton of pterodactyl muscle and fat. His race had lost the ability to fly a few million years ago, but that didn't mean his wings had no purpose either. He used them to slightly direct and propel his lunge better. Mai was overwhelmed and pushed away. She tried to aim her gun at the opponent in front of her, but with all that mass pressing against her she couldn't move her left arm freely.

Her right arm clutched Giran's flank in a pincher between upper and forearm. He thought he could shrug it off, just long enough to suffocate the attacker into unconsciousness, but he had to reconsider that. Just how strong is that thing?, he thought, cursing as he had to let her go and regain his distance. It felt like his organs would be squeezed out of his mouth.

She turned at him with the gun, fired again and again, five times in total. He dodged, all while counting the bullets. Each was one step closer to Mai's defeat; without the weapon, her left flank would be completely vulnerable. But now she had driven him under the shower again, and the water and steam were messing with his senses. He couldn't see her, or hear her, or perceive her movement, clearly enough, and that was all she needed to connect a punch. Surprisingly, the metal arm didn't hurt as much as he instinctively feared it would - but that made sense, after all, for a punch a lot of the strength had to come from her own fleshy body. Still, it hurt plenty. He kicked wildly to push her away, but that was a mistake. She managed to block, grabbing his ankle with her hand. Her robotic hand.

"Guess you won't need this." she said, with that vicious amusement of hers.

She clenched her fingers, there was a crack, and Giran gritted his teeth to stand the pain. His options had just reduced to almost none at all. She had pulverised his ankle beyond all usability for this fight, and perhaps the rest of his life. Now all she needed to do was exploit his lack of mobility to attack him and he'd be done for. As for him, he had almost no way out.

Except perhaps for the most unexpected one.

Unable to go anywhere, he just lunged forward. He knew very well where her arm was. His pain told him. He grabbed it with his own left arm. Mai didn't expect this kind of attack, though to be fair it was for a very good reason. After all, why would anyone throw himself so openly against her gun?

The answer being, because she had left him no other option, of course.

She shot once, twice. Her last two bullets. Giran took them with a grunt. His belly was thick with fat. He could take it and live, for a while at least. No way this ruckus wouldn't attract someone any moment now. Time was his enemy's most scarce resource, and he was going to make sure she ran out of it.

His right claw clasped her throat, and he managed to roll on the floor on top of her. She was pinched, and not even her mechanical arm's great strength could get her out of this lock.

This was the time when he could have interrogated her. But really, there was nothing he needed to ask her. He only needed one less enemy.

"This is where you die, lackey!" roared Giran, his pain making his voice hoarser. "The world to the strong, is what you guys say, right? Guess you weren't strong enough!"

Mai grasped for air, her eyes flashing with anger and pain. Good, thought the ptero. She could take that feeling of frustration of not being able to do anything to stop her death right down to Hell. His fingers tightened.

There was a click. Before Giran could react, Mai's handgun had exploded in a puff of smoke, going back to capsule form. The shockwave wasn't powerful, but combined with the surprise it made the ptero back down, and his right hand let the woman's throat go. That was all she needed. With a jerk, she freed herself - by detaching her mechanical arm.

Of course she can take it off, thought Giran, getting hazy for the pain and blood loss. Stupid, stupid.

"Here's where the shots came from!" shouted the voice of a woman outside. "Goku, hurry!"

Mai jolted up to her feet. Before he lost consciousness, Giran lifted his eyes to see her holding the item he was supposed to protect, the smooth stone sphere that would become a Dragon Ball, in her only remaining hand. She even flashed him a triumphant smirk before running to climb the wall and jump through the tiny window.

Then, as people rushed in the room, and there was noise and talking and someone calling for a medic, the ptero warrior dozed off into darkness. Out of the two holes in his gut, blood trickled down, mixing with the hot water and swirling down the shower drain.

So the fights begin! None of these were especially tense, at least the 'official' ones - but expect that to change with the semifinals! But of course, there's more than just fair game going on in this tournament. Thanks as usual for the reviews!

Also, in this chapter's title it might be a bit harder to catch, so I'll say outright that in this case the obligatory reference is to 'Four weddings and a funeral'.

Chrisfragger: I don't know if you're reading this already, but if you are, well, as you may have seen this chapter my idea is that this Goku while indeed slightly less physically trained is also more expert in ki manipulation from the get go. Considering that ki is what gives them their strength anyway (since as Bulma noted, normal human muscles couldn't do that much to begin with), it still means he'll be pretty strong. You could see ki as a multiplier of natural strength, making sturdier and better the tissues of one's muscles. Then Canon!Goku has a higher base strength value, while Optimised!Goku has a higher multiplier. Both are valid methods to increase one's final strength.