Chapter 5: The Elimination Round

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The day after the party went by at a snails pace. Pan once again spent the day away from the gravity room, this time shopping with Zori and her new boyfriend, who were taking the day off of school to hang out with the Saiyan at the mall.

"So, what do you think of him?" Zori whispered as she looked searched through a rack of shirts, looking for something to match one of the six pairs of jeans she had just purchased.

"Uh, he seems really nice, but what happened to Akira?"

"Well, he actually hasn't been to school in over a week. I don't know if he's sick or not, but while he's been gone I've fallen madly in love with Tatama."

Pan considered pointing out that Zori had nearly forgotten the poor boy's name three times already today, but she decided to let it slid, after all, her friend would probably be moving on to the next boy soon enough. "Will this one work?" she asked instead, holding up a small, light pink shirt.

"No, that pink doesn't really go well with my skin color."

Pan shook her head, suppressing a laugh and returned the shirt. "So, no one knows what happened to Akira, huh?" she asked, trying to sound casual, "Does anyone know where he lives?"

Zori held up three different shirts, compared them, and then said, "Nope, he's still pretty much a mystery man." She made her decision and put the rejects back on the rack, then looked at Pan and smiled mischievously, "Why? You thinking about looking for him?" Pan blushed and Zori smiled triumphantly. "You like him, don't you?"

"Of course not!" Pan said angrily. "I don't even know the guy, I just, you know, was worried that he might be... sick or something."

"Sure, if you say so..." Zori teased, but then kindly changed the subject back to clothes.

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After a couple more hours of shopping, Zori and Tatama decided they wanted to go see the latest romantic movie. They invited Pan, but she declined, saying that she needed to head home. However, once she was outside, she did not go home. She started walking toward the high school.

She'd walked less than a mile when she noticed them. Two unkempt men were following her, obviously trying to escape notice, one had his hand on a large object in his pocket, the other was fidgeting with what was probably some sort of knife.

'Why me?' she thought with a sigh. 'Well I guess it's better for me to deal with them than to have some helpless person get robbed.' She turned down a dark alley between two tall buildings, still being followed by the men, who were now closing in on her. When the alley came to a dead end, she stopped and turned.

"Excuse me miss, you seem to be a bit lost," the man with the knife said grinning evilly, Pan decided his name should be Stinky. She opened her eyes wide hoping that she looked panicked enough for them.

The man's companion, Ugly, Pan named him, looked her up and down, licking his lips. "So, do you need directions sweetheart?"

"Uh, no, I think I can find my way on my own." Pan tried to walk past them, but they blocked her path.

"Oh, don't be running off just yet. You see, me and my boy here are in need of some funds, so if you would just hand over your wallet, we'd be much obliged," Stinky said.

Pan made a big show of fumbling through the purse Zori had made her buy, looking for her wallet. "Um...I... I must have lost it somewhere," she stammered.

"Hey, that's okay, there are other things you have that we want." With that, Stinky reached out and tried to grab her chest. Pan slapped his hand away and backed up in "terror."

"Oh, I like it when they struggle," Ugly laughed, then turning to his companion he said, "Why don't you go first, while I keep a look out."

Stinky nodded, watching Pan lustfully as Ugly walked toward the entrance to the alley, then he began to advance on her.

"Look, enough is enough. Trust me when I say that you really don't want to be doing this," Pan said, dropping her act. "Why don't you and your buddy just get out of here while you still can?"

"Ha ha, don't make me laugh. We aren't going anywhere until we're through with you." He lunged for her, but she simply batted him into a row of trashcans with the flick of her wrist. "You stupid bitch!" he yelled, bring out his knife as he climbed to his feet, "You are really going to regret that."

Pan rolled her eyes and watched as he ran at her. In the blink of an eye, she had taken the knife away from him and sent him flying into the opposite wall. Ugly was now hurrying back to help as Stinky painfully stood up; the two of them faced her with rage in their eyes. Ugly pulled out a gun and pointed it at her.

"Now then, you are going to get on your back and give us what we want, or you are going to die right here, right now," he said with a snarl.

"Alright, let me say it again, you guys need to get out of here or you're really not going to like what I'll do to you," Pan was smiling broadly now, Ugly pulled the trigger.

To the young Saiyan, the bullet seemed to take forever to get to her and when it was finally close enough, she simply reached up and caught it. The two criminals stared for a long time, and then Ugly fired several more rounds at her. She caught them all with ease, then dropped them in a little pile at her feet. The two would be criminals turned to flee, but found Pan suddenly standing in front of them.

"Now, now boys, where are you going? I thought you wanted something from me," she said in a mocking voice. She became a Super Saiyan, the force of her energy throwing them into the wall at the back of the alley. They cowered before her as she walked toward them. "I should kill you for what you just tried to do to me." The two dirty men began crying and begging for mercy, Pan reached down and picked them up by their shirts, one in each hand, bringing their faces close to hers. "You had better hope that I never catch you doing this again," she whispered in a low voice. "If I do, you won't find me so forgiving as I am today." She dropped them hard on their butts and changed to normal. "Have a nice day!" she said with a smirk, and then shot off into the sky.

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Pan landed about a half-mile from the school building and ran the rest of the way. School had been out for over an hour, but she knew that a lot of the teachers stayed for quite awhile grading papers after the students left. She walked inside and headed to the main office. As soon as she opened the door, the receptionist looked up and smiled warmly at her.

"Pan, how good to see you! Are you ready for the Tenkaichi Budoukia? Has your grandfather been training you?" she asked excitedly.

"Uh, no, I've been training with my dad, but I think we're about as ready as we'll ever be."

The receptionist looked at Pan in confusion, no doubt wondering why the young woman was training with a scholar rather than working with the greatest martial artist to ever live. Thankfully, rather than continuing to question Pan about the tournament, she simply asked, "Well, what can I help you with dear?"

"I was wondering if you could give me the address for a friend of mine, I hear he hasn't been at school and I'm a little worried about him.

"Anything for the granddaughter of the great Hurcule Satan. What's your friend's name?"

"Akira."

"And his last name?"

"Um," Pan suddenly realized that she had never thought to ask him his last name, "I... uh, don't really know. He's pretty new, I just met him shortly before I started training and I guess I never asked him." She felt stupid and was blushing a little, but the receptionist didn't seem to notice; she just began running a search in the computer and quickly found the right student's file.

"Ah, here we go. Akira Masako." She printed out a copy of his address for Pan and wished her luck in the tournament, Pan thanked her and left.

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A few minutes later, Pan was walking down a slightly rundown street, looking for Akira's house.

'Okay,' she thought, 'that's 930, here's 932, and finally...934?' Pan was now standing in front of an empty lot. She looked around making sure that she was in the right place, checked the address on the paper again, and looked at the houses farther down the street to see if they were what she was looking for, but none of them were.

"Can I help you, young lady?" Pan jumped and then looked around; her eyes finally came to rest on a middle-aged woman who had come out of one of the houses to walk her dog.

"Well, I think I must be lost. I'm looking for this address," Pan showed her the slip of paper, "it seems like I'm in the right place, but I guess I got turned around somewhere."

"No, you're in the right spot, but house 934 burned down about six years ago and no one ever rebuilt it. The city cleared the debris a couple of years back after a little boy got hurt while playing in it, but I don't think anyone has even gone on that lot since then."

"Oh, I guess I must have gotten the address wrong. Thanks for your help," Pan said.

"No problem, have a nice day dear." And with that the woman headed down the street leaving Pan in utter confusion. After staring at the lot for a couple of minutes, Pan headed for home.

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She awoke early the next morning and rushed down stairs to eat. Gohan was already there, eating his breakfast, as was Goten, who had spent the night so they could all get an early start. By the time they had finished eating, Videl and Valese had come down to see them off.

"Bulma said she'd come by and pick us up around eight, so we should get there right when you guys start the qualifying matches," Videl said with a smile as she hugged her daughter. "Good luck honey, I'll see you when you get done."

Then they headed out the door and shot off into the air. It took almost a half-hour to get to the island the arena had been built on and by the time they arrived, there was already a huge crowd. They quickly located Vegeta, Trunks, Krillin, Uubu and Tien; then everyone headed to the sign-in desk.

While signing in, they were each assigned a group to compete in during the elimination round. Afterwards they all compared their groups and discovered that none of them were in the same group. Gohan and Goten expressed some surprise at this, but Trunks explained that Bulma had set it up so they wouldn't have to face each other before the actual tournament started.

After standing around for about twenty minutes making small talk, a suited man with blond hair and dark sunglasses came out of a huge building carrying a microphone.

"Welcome fighters to the 31st Tenkaichi Budouia! For those of you that have been here in the past, you will already understand how the traditional style of the tournament works. Each of you should have received a card dividing you up into groups. In just a moment, you will walk into the building behind me and find the area that has your group number on it. You will then compete until each of the sixteen groups has a champion; these fighters will be given the honor of moving on to the second day of the tournament that will take place in front of the world! Good luck to you all." With that he moved aside and two enormous doors opened and allowed the fighters in.

Pan met with the rest of her group and waited for their referee to pair them off and begin the elimination round. Fortunately, her group went through their fights fairly quickly, and in less than 2 hours she had been declared champion of Group #1.

After receiving congratulations from the ref and the announcer, who seemed to pop up out of nowhere with his microphone to announce results, she began to wander the building watching some of the other fights and looking for her family's groups. Pan found her father in Group #7 just as he was announced as group champion; she was about to say hi and see if he knew where the others were when she was distracted by the announcement that the finals for Group #6 were about to start.

"The champion of this group will be decided in the match between Yata Kouji and Akira Masako," the referee called out in a loud voice. "If those fighters could please step forward, we will begin."

Pan pushed her way to the front of the crowd surrounding the ring as the match began. Two large muscular men behind her were placing bets on the match; Pan turned to listen in on their conversation.

"I've got 50 Zeni that say Yata finishes the kid in two minutes flat!"

"Ha, I'll take that bet! I had to go up against that kid in the first round, I've never seen anyone punch so hard, he laid me out in two shots!"

Pan turned her attention back to the match, but discovered she'd already missed it; Akira had beaten his opponent in less than thirty seconds! She made her way quickly around the ring as Akira was congratulated by several people, and was standing at the edge of the crowd right as he emerged.

"Well, well, well, isn't this a surprise?" Akira spun around at the sound of her voice, and then smiled when he saw her.

"Oh, hey Pan—"he started to say.

"Don't 'hey Pan' me," Pan interrupted him, "how come you lied about your address to the school? I went looking for you, but all I found was a dirt lot!"

Akira looked shocked. "You went looking for me? Why?"

"Well... I heard you hadn't been at school... and, uh... well, I was worried... about you," she said as she tried valiantly to keep from blushing.

"Thanks, that's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me," Akira said with a smile and a slight blush of his own.

"You must not know many people," Pan said jokingly, overlooking the fact that he had changed the subject on her again.

"Less than you can imagine," Akira said, laughing.

Pan gave him a funny look and was about to ask him what he meant when Gohan called out to her over the crowd and began to make his way over to them.

"Hi Pan, have you been waiting long?" Gohan asked when he reached them. "Oh, Akira, right? What are you doing here?"

"Akira's competing; he's the champion from Group #6." Pan explained.

"Wow, good job Akira," Gohan said in slight surprise.

"Thanks, I was mostly doing it for fun. I guess I must have been in one of the weaker groups, I really wasn't expecting to make it through the elimination round."

"Well, congratulations. I was just going to tell Pan that everyone else has finished and is going to get some lunch in the cafeteria, would you like to join us?" Pan looked at her father in distress as he made the offer, but neither of the men noticed.

"I'd love to!" Akira replied smiling happily.

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A/N: Akira's last name is the last name of one of the Japanese voice actors for DBZ (I can't remember which one). His address is a slight DBZ reference also, but I'll let you figure out from what...