It was boring to watch the so-called battles of the youth division. Many of these kids could not fight and several burst into tears. How was that fighting?

I was exceedingly happy when I heard the announcer yell, "Moving right along-it's match sixteen! Ikose, age fourteen versus Son Goten, age seven!" I watched as my baby brother neared the center of the stage; he actually looked embarrassed. I was very happy to see that he at least kept his manners and bowed to his opponent.

"BEGIN!" the announcer yelled.

The boy my brother was against immediately tried to nail him with a right hook. Goten easily blocked it. The boy then tried a roundhouse kick, but that was blocked too. The boy then desperately tried to hit my brother by using as many attacks as he could. None of them hit Goten, who seemingly grew tired of it and punched the kid in the face, knocking him out cold. Goten bowed to his opponent before walking off the stage.

Dad seemed to be proud of his son and happily watched his other matches. I guess he should be proud; Goten had taken after to him in both looks and fighting abilities. The only thing that was different between the two was that Goten was much more mischievous than Dad had seemingly ever been.

I immediately retracted that thought. I really did not know Dad enough to make that distinction. Maybe he had been right when he said that I should have stayed home when he asked Dad if he could train me. No, I could not think like that! It was my choice not to come home! But if I had chosen differently, maybe I could have gotten to know the stranger I call my father better.

As I contemplated, I noted that something was flying towards my head. I caught it, simply out of reflex and looked at it. It was a rather large rock that appeared to have once been part of a concrete slab. "So it can catch!" I heard a snobby voice state in a surprised tone. I looked over to see that the blonde girl from school and her group of friends were staring at me.

The one boy approached me. "You haven't been at school recently, Son-kun," his voice's tone told me that he was just stating a fact. "Are you that ashamed of coming back that you had to surround yourself with buff men to feel safe? Or is your being with them nothing more than a coincidence."

I carefully watched his approach. "I wasn't aware that you knew the word 'coincidence.' I'm impressed." I watched with some satisfaction how his face immediately became livid while his friends laughed.

"Goshi… are they friends of yours?" Dad asked me, probably because he was a bit concerned by the fact that I started off the conversation by insulting someone.

"They're from school… but they're not friends," I replied without looking at him.

"So is that your boyfriend, Son-kun?" the blonde girl asked. "I'm impressed that you could find someone so… good looking..."(1)

I pointed to my father, "Do you mean him?" She nodded. My face immediately twisted in revulsion. "He's my Tou-san…!"

"He's your what…!" her eyes immediately began to bug out. "There's no way! He's way too young!" I shrugged. If she did not want to believe me, that was her problem.

"Oh, I see," the guy that I had insulted said with an almost diabolical look. "You're just saying these things to humiliate us. Well, we'll make it so you never think about doing that again. Besides, we owe you for the first time," He then looked back at his group. "Back me up Touji!"

I raised an eyebrow at them. "You're not honestly going to attack me, are you? You do realize that I'm here as a competitor, don't you?"

The other boy, who I guess was Touji, snorted. "That's a lie. What makes you think you'd last even two minutes out there?"

A smile appeared on my face. "Question: do you know who the last champion, the one before Hercule, was?"

"Yeah, some guy named Son Goku…" the first boy replied. "What about him?"

"What if I said that I'm related?"

The boys just laughed. "And what of it? That guy couldn't hold a candle to Hercule-sama!"

There was a great deal of chuckling from behind me. Apparently, the gang thought that statement was amusing and it really caught the attention of the blonde girl's group. "Boy, Goku," Kuririn said with a laugh, "you're reputation has really faded. I guess that you and Piccolo shouldn't have destroyed the ring back then." Dad just chuckled.

The reaction from the blonde girl's group was priceless. Bulging eyes and choking noises were rampant. "H-he's a former champion…!" Touji eventually stammered. Apparently, they then somehow managed to understand that if I was hanging out with a former champion, then there had to be some validation to what I had said, and that they had just managed to insult him. Lame excuses then followed the stammering as they practically ran from us.

"Thanks, Kuririn," I told him once the fools were out of sight. "I'm glad you played along."

"No problem," he told me good-naturedly. "But why did they have it out for you?"

I looked away for a moment before I answered with a slightly embarrassed tone. "Well… on my first day of school… they were irritating me, and I scared them pretty badly by accidently breaking a light… Gohan wasn't too happy…"

More laughter followed after that statement.

….

"We've reached the youth division final match!" the announcer shouted a little later, much to my relief. These 'youth division' matches were really starting to get to me. "Will Trunks or Son Goten stand alone at the end? Not only have they both easily overpowered their opponents-but it turns out that they're friends!"

"Finally, something worth watching!" Kuririn stated in relief. Dad and I agreed.

"Phew! The preliminaries are over!" Gohan stated as he and Videl finally joined us.

"That new punch machine musta taken a while," Kuririn mentioned, but the way he stated it made me think that he might have been indirectly teasing my brother again.

"Good thing you made it in time for this match!" Dad told him. I could just tell that Dad was overly excited.

"Let the final match for the Tenka'ichi Budokai Youth Division begin!" the announcer shouted as Trunks and Goten bowed to each other. The two then took their fighting stances.

They launched themselves at each other and the fight began. The two traded blow for blow before they broke apart and took the battle to the sky. The two finally managed to land a blow on each other, which caused them to take turns using the shadow or after-image technique. When that failed to produce any advantage, they went back to trading attacks.

Then they managed to both land a hit, which caused them to land at different sides of the arena. They were smiling at each other, just waiting to see what the next move would be. The audience, on the other hand, was in complete shock.

"Trunks and Goten are both pretty good!" Dad noted. He really seemed to be enjoying himself.

"Aren't they?" Gohan added, not even noticing that Videl was reacting the same as the other audience members.

I agreed with my Dad and brother. Both of the boys were excellent fighters already, and it was clear that that they were much stronger than any of us were at their ages. That made it difficult to tell who would actually win the fight since they were almost equal in strength, but if I had to guess, I would say that Trunks would probably be the victor.

The main reason that I believed that was that Trunks was trained by his father, who is known for not only his strength and arrogance but his strategic abilities as well. Most likely, Vegeta drilled that knowledge into his son's head in the gravity room Dr. Briefs had created. Goten did not really have that kind of training. Neither Gohan nor I are that great at strategic fighting, let alone teaching it, so it made sense that he would be lacking there. Also, Goten still completely viewed fighting as a game, which would probably take away from his performance as well.

A sudden roar from the crowd brought me out of my contemplation. People were yelling for the match to continue, that everything was a trick, it was amazing, people were routing for their favorite out of the two. It was nuts.

All of us then noted that Trunks was concentrating his chi. He was about to fire a blast.

"Is he gonna fire a chi blast from there…?" Gohan was definitely worried.

"That idiot! He'll hit the crowd!" Kuririn's tone matched my brother's.

"It'll be okay," Dad told them, which caused them to stare at him. "They're too good not to have a plan."

Trunks then released the blast. Goten easily dodged it, but that put the blast in the line of the crowd. But right before it hit, Trunks lifted his arms and directed it into the air, which prevented disaster. The crowd puzzled over what happened.

Goten then decided that it was his turn to fire a blast, and from the looks of it, he fired off a Kamehameha wave. It was not very well directed or controlled, which caused Trunks to dodge and it to hit the top of building located behind the arena.

I glared at Goten, and I think that he was able to feel it, since I noticed that seemed to look back at us for a moment. He knew better! That was one of the things that I had been helping him with, and he just ignored everything I taught him!

"Uh-oh… I guess he can't control it yet…" I heard Dad say, which just fueled my rage.

"Oh… my Kami-sama…" I then heard Videl say. She was beyond shocked.

Goten and Trunks then decided that it was time to go at it again. They rushed each other and grabbed the other's gi. Trunks then managed to throw Goten up in the air, get behind him, and put him in a lock. Goten squirmed and failed his legs to see if he could get loose.

"That's my boy!" everyone heard Vegeta say before he began to chuckled. I never thought I would ever hear him praise his son… but I did. He was so different than he was seven years prior.

Goten then did what he was not supposed to do and transformed to break out of Trunks' hold. The two then flew back down to the stage, where Goten powered down. Trunks looked irritated.

"…Goten, you dope…!" Gohan yelled as Videl's eyes bugged out of her head.

"Yikes!" Dad was more than a little surprised. "He can go Super Saiyan?"

"That was a cheap shot, Kakarrot!" Vegeta yelled at Dad. I had not realized he had gotten so into the fight.

"Hey… don't yell at me!" That's right! Dad did not know that we had agreed to not become Super Saiyans during the tournament, and he most likely had no idea why Vegeta was even irritated with him.

They were then distracted by the boys going back at it. For whatever reason, Trunks was now only attacking my brother while using only one of his arms, which gave Goten the advantage. After a quick exchange, Trunks fired a low-grade chi blast which caused Goten to launch himself into the air.

"BANZAI!" Goten yelled as he charged the ground at an incredible speed. As he was about to hit, Trunks got out of the way. Goten, surprisingly used a minor chi blast to change his direction and follow Trunks, much to his surprise.

It was then Trunks' turn to transform, which allowed him to move out of the way and blast my bother with another chi blast. It caused Goten to lose his concentration enough to prevent him from stopping before he touched the stands.

"He's out of bounds!" the announcer shouted, after going to look. "The winner of the Youth Division-is Trunks!"

"Trunks can go Super Saiyan too?" Dad asked, still rather surprised.

Vegeta then chuckled again as patted Dad on the back. "Don't feel too bad. My boy just comes from better stock!" I guess that for Vegeta that his son's victory over his rival's son was a victory counted as an actual victory for him too. Men!

The crowd then began chanting Hercule's name, and he made a show of coming on stage for the fight between him and Trunks. "Should we head back?" Kuririn then asked, and I was thankful for it. I could not stand another moment of listening to Hercule. "The prelims should be over." Everyone agreed.

"Hey!" Videl shouted. "I thought you were his friend! You're not gonna watch him fight Hercule?"

"Y-you're right! We should!" Gohan was clearly faking it. "This could be an incredible match!"

"We'll see you there," Dad told him as he and the others began to walk away.

"Gohan, stop trying to pretend that you're something you're not," I told him in a disgusted voice. "You're making a fool of yourself." I then went to catch up with the others.

"There'll be a thirty-minute break before the adult division," we heard the announcers yell as we walked. "The best is yet to come-beginning at one forty p.m.!"

"There's a break?" Dad asked, a little surprised. The tournament was much different than he remembered.

"Think I'll grab a snack…" Kuririn said, which caused all of us to do the same.

"Excuse me," a monk said as he blocked our way, "only people who have passed the preliminaries can enter beyond this point."

"So the results are up?" Kuririn seemed a little impressed. "C'mon, we all musta passed!"

"Eh? Hold on! I'll need your names!" And so we gave him ours. Although, Piccolo had entered under "Demon Jr." so that there would not be a panic in response to his real name. "You're right. You've all passed. Please, this way. There'll be a lottery at on thirty to determine the matchups."

We chatted a bit about the prize money as we followed Kuririn to where we could be served food. It reminded me of an old-fashioned restaurant, but that had no effect on the quality of the food! It was really good! And Dad surprised everyone by the sheer quantity of food he was stuffing into his mouth.

"Should you eat so much before a fight?" Kuririn asked him. "And anyway… aren't you dead?" I had been wondering about that myself.

"I don't care whether I eat or not in the afterlife," Dad replied as chewed on a piece of meat. "But the food here is great!"

Gohan entered right around then, and joined in on the feeding frenzy. For whatever reason, he sat next to me, which caused several fights over the rice and dumplings. I was there first! He was stealing my food!

Once we were done, and Dad had warned us to be good (more than once), we made our way out of the restaurant. "The lottery should be starting soon," Kuririn told us.

"You didn't eat anything," Gohan said to Videl as Dad happily claimed that he was stuffed. "Are you on a diet?"

"Gohan… most people don't eat before fighting," I told him. "It tends to cause them to get cramps or nausea."

"Really?" I just hit my hand off my forehead. Leave it to the guy who is trying to make himself look normal to not know that particular detail.

Piccolo then suddenly stopped in front of us, which caused all of us to become aware of two strangers who were standing in front of us. "Hello. You must be Son Goku-san," the shorter of the two, who was also floating, said to my father. It had been a while since I had heard someone call him that… the last one had been my mentor…

"How'd you know?" Dad asked him.

"Oh, I've heard about you," the stranger said with a grin that gave me chills. "I've always wanted to spar with you. I hope the lottery will pit us together for a match. Not that I'd ever imagine I could win, of course… but I want to know just how powerful you are." He out stretched his hand. "…May I shake your hand, at least?"

"Huh?" Although Dad was a bit taken back, he complied. "Good to meetcha!"

The stranger gave another creepy smile as he let go. "…You have a good soul. As I've always heard." He then went to walk away. "I'll see you later." He then left without another word.

"And who, Goku, was that?" Piccolo demanded.

"…I don't know…" Dad replied. "…But I know it won't be easy to pull off a clean sweep…"

"Huh? Really?" Kuririn asked. "He didn't look that tough… just weird."

Although I did not say anything, I agreed with Dad.

Who are these two mysterious strangers, and what do they have in store for our heroes? Find out next time on the next action-packed episode of dragonballz!


1 This is actually a joke agreement between my friend and me. If you haven't guessed it yet, Reishi is based on my best friend.