~Chapter 3: The 21st Tenka'ichi Budôkai~

So, Muten Roshi carted Goku and I off to the tournament. What I remember most is how big it seemed. How utterly, mind-bogglingly huge, much too big for a little kid like me. In fact, the closer I got to the tournament, the more sure I felt that my being there was some kind of sick mistake. Man, we sure got some strange looks when we signed up to compete. They asked us if we were trying to make some sort of joke. I didn't think it was so funny. I felt like I was going to be sick.

The Budôkai was, as it always has been, a circus, but it seemed as serious as death to me at the time. My sick feeling multiplied when we got in with the contestants for the qualifying rounds. They all looked so strong and imposing. At that point all I cared about was not getting paired against Goku first, since I was pretty sure I'd be eliminated in the first fight. Well, I wasn't paired against Goku, but I wished that I had been when I saw my first opponent. It turned out to be my old rival from the Orinji temple. He recognized me immediately and began to torment me before our fight even started. The referee for the qualifiers called out our numbers and we got up on the platform.

"Just promise not to hurt me, Kuririn", he sneered.

"D-don't make fun of me..."

Any shred of self-confidence I was still holding onto at that point was gone. I was back at the temple, and everything was exactly the same as it had been before. Then, something strange happened. The fight started and he threw a punch at me. I saw it. It seemed almost to be moving in slow motion. I dodged it and decided to put everything I had into one kick, so at least I could hurt him before I lost. Here's the strange part - the kick sent him flying a good 50 meters and embedded him in the wall.

The audience gaped. Believe me, no one was more surprised than I was. I hadn't realized just how strong all of that ridiculous training had made us. Goku beamed at me.

After that, the qualifiers went by like a dream. It was ridiculous how easy the matches were. I blew away my opponents, all dedicated martial artists, like they were nothing. When they hit me, it didn't even hurt. Goku seemed to be having an even easier time of it. He was basically blowing on his opponents. It was crazy. Needless to say, we both qualified for the finals. So did Yamucha, who Goku introduced me to right then. He seemed like an okay guy, not at all the type to hang around in deserts and beat the crap out of passing little kids for their capsules. I didn't really think about it then, though - I was way too excited about qualifying for the tournament. I was also briefly introduced to Bulma, Oolong and Pu'ar, although I only saw them for a second. Pretty soon after that all the qualifying contestants had to gather to be placed in the bracket. There were 8 of us, and it was a pretty odd group - Goku, Yamucha, me, an intense guy named Namu, a pretty girl, something that looked like a monster, and a strange old guy named Jackie Chun, who was really Muten Roshi in disguise, although I didn't know that then. There was also a giant with a terrible stench surrounding him. Yamucha told us that the guy was called Bacterian and that he was famous for his stench developed from never taking a bath. Sheesh. Like I said, the tournament's basically a circus.

I drew the first match, against Bacterian. I was really nervous. I'd gained some amount of self-confidence, but the actual tournament was very different from the qualifiers. It was really jazzed up. There was a huge crowd surrounding the arena, which was itself only a concrete platform, yet had a certain majesty to it. There was an announcer, an enthusiastic guy with sun shades and snazzy hair. I love that guy. Somehow, the tournament wouldn't be the same without him.

My match against Bacterian was really weird. He supposedly paralyzed his opponents with his horrible stench, and for some reason this worked on me. This makes no sense because I never really smell anything - I don't have a nose. I don't know why I was so convinced I was smelling Bacterian, but the match was pretty easy after Goku reminded me that I couldn't possibly be.

The next match was "Jackie Chun" against Yamucha. I hope nobody in the audience blinked, or they might have missed that one. It was pretty scary. Goku had told me that this Yamucha guy was really strong, and he sure looked fast, but he never even landed a blow and Jackie Chun beat him without even hitting him. And I had to go against Chun in the next round. Suddenly I felt sick again.

There were a couple more weird matches after that. Namu beat Ran Fuan, who was fairly strong but relied mostly on using the fact that she was a girl to psychologically affect opponents, which is pretty low if you ask me. Goku beat Giran, the monster-thing, who wasn't too strong.(Goku was a funny kid. When they called him up for the match, he had gone off to take a nap and I had to go fetch him. Oi.) Nevertheless, that match was pretty close. Goku might've lost if his tail hadn't grown back at a crucial was when I learned that he had a tail, by the way. I couldn't believe it. That made another tally on my growing list of Things I Couldn't Possibly Have Seen.

Next I was up against Chun. I had seen what he did to Yamucha, so I didn't waste any time in attacking full out. He was quick, and I didn't land any blows, but I think I made him sweat. We broke off from that and he took a weird stance. The next thing I knew, I felt a sharp blow to my face and I was thrown back against the wall. I had no idea what had just happened. I felt like he had hit me, but he seemed to have never even moved. I couldn't even see his punch. From the sideline, Goku shouted that I could see it, all that I had to do was look very close.

Look close. Ok. I tried it. Jackie Chun tried the same punch again, and this time I saw it coming and blocked it. That was the first time I ever moved at "super speed" - that is, too fast for the normal eye to follow. I picked it up pretty quickly, and we exchanged whole sets of blows at that speed. At one point the announcer made us stop and act out what we had done slowly so the audience could know what was going on. They cheered when we showed them all of what we'd done in less than a second. I guess it was pretty exciting.

I was starting to weaken at that point, and it was obvious that my opponent was way out of my league in strength, so I tried a desperate ploy I'd prepared for just such a situation. Reaching into my uniform, I pulled out a pair of panties(PLEASE don't ask where I got them) and threw them onto the arena. Naturally Chun, being really Muten Roshi, immediately dived for the panties, leaving him wide open for a kick that sent him flying out of the arena. My ploy worked! I was pretty sure I had the match won at that point. Suddenly, though, as he flew through the air Jackie Chun produced an enormous blast from his hands that propelled him back into the arena. I gaped. It just wasn't fair. I'd heard of the Kamehameha before, but for some reason while training I never actually got to see it. My guess is that Roshi didn't want me to see it yet and Goku had forgotten that he knew how to do it. After seeing my opponent do something like that, I panicked and really defeated myself. I played right into his hands. I charged at him, and he circled around behind me so quickly he left a near-perfect after-image and hit a pressure point in my neck. That was it - I was down and there was no way I was getting back up. So I lost that match, but I think I did pretty well considering that Chun used at least 5 moves I'd never seen anything remotely like before. After the match Yamucha accused Chun of really being Muten Roshi, which he denied. I did realize that he looked remarkably like him, but I didn't actually think he WAS him. After all, why would the Invincible Old Master want to enter a martial arts tournament?

For the other semi-final, Goku fought Namu. Namu was really good. In fact, he was the only one at the tournament not involved with us in some way that was really strong enough to compete with us. He probably could have been a member of the team with some training. It's pretty fortunate for him that he never got roped into that. Anyway, he managed to get Goku pinned and he used his final attack. He jumped unbelievably high into the air, so high that we couldn't even see him, and then fell back down, using all of his momentum to strike Goku on a pressure point. Goku took all of the blow. It was horrible - I remember thinking that he must have been killed. The announcer started counting, and just before he could get to 10, Goku got up. He actually got up. From that moment on, I had an enormous respect for Goku. Not just anybody walks away from a blow like that. Like me, Namu panicked after that and basically defeated himself.

The final with Goku versus Jackie was long and more shocking than the rest of the tournament all put together. Right at the start, Goku was kicked out of the ring, and it looked like it'd be the shortest tournament final ever, but Goku somehow managed to fly by using his tail as a helicopter blade. I'll never understand how that was possible. Right after that, Goku and Jackie launched two Kamehamehas and the blasts hit each other. There was a tremendous flash of light when the blasts hit, then they were gone. I guess they canceled each other out. Man, that was scary. The Kamehameha seemed ludicrously powerful at the time, and I never even considered the possibility that I might one day be able to pull it off. The battle was intense, and it went back and forth as to who was winning, although gradually the favor of the crowd turned toward Goku as the old man seemed to be wearing out. It looked like Goku had him on the ropes. However, Chun suddenly got very calm and declared that he would win. I didn't know what in the world he could have up his sleeve that would make him suddenly so confident, but I knew it was going to be big. Chun suddenly clasped his hands together and produced a huge bolt of electric energy that shocked Goku and raised him into the air. It was terrible to watch. The energy tore through Goku and he cried out in pain. Pretty soon Goku couldn't stand the pain any longer, and he was about to surrender when he looked up and saw the moon. Suddenly, inexplicably, Goku turned into a giant ape and started tearing up the arena. Man, is that Goku full of surprises or what? Apparently Yamucha had seen Goku do this before, and he had a plan of action, but Muten Roshi(I'm tired of calling him Jackie Chun) was ahead of him. He powered up for an immense Kamehameha and blasted away. When the smoke cleared, the giant ape was gone. I thought that he had blown Goku away with the blast, and I was inconsolable. I couldn't believe that he was dead. Fortunately, he wasn't. Roshi didn't blow up Goku, he blew up the moon.

He blew up the moon. It was gone. In case you're wondering, I gave up on my list of things I couldn't have seen about here - it was getting too long.

Somehow the match continued. Goku and Muten Roshi knocked each other out, and the announcer said that the winner would be the first to stand, smile, and declare themselves the winner. Goku stood up, but he passed out before he could say anything, so Roshi ended up being the winner of that tournament. The crowd applauded wildly, and even though "Jackie Chun" had been the winner, most of the applause was really for Goku. Everyone was awed by his fighting spirit. Roshi collected the prize money and greeted us back in the crowd with a couple of tricky manuevers to try and preserve the myth that he'd been in the crowd the whole time. I walked away from the tournament dazed and giddy. I'm certain that I wasn't the same person coming out of that tournament as I had been going in.

--END OF CHAPTER THREE--