Tenshinhan's body moved in a controlled dash forward. He was restraining his speed. It was not as if he was purposefully holding himself back to get punished or underestimating his opponent, in fact, it may have been the other case. Tenshinhan was giving Yamcha the benefit of the doubt after the initial burst of offense and holding defensive options while not putting too much weight on his rushing foot.
Yamcha placed his hands out together in a position similar to the one of a completed Kamehameha. Tenshinhan's elbow butted against Yamcha's hands and like an experienced constrictor, Yamcha proceeded to transition from a successful block into an armbar by twisting Tenshinhan's elbow behind him. Tenshinhan thrust his free arm down for support and balance while both of his feet shot upward behind him. While Yamcha avoided getting blasted up into the air by such an improvised lower body offense, it still forced him to release the hold prematurely.
Despite that, he was not about to let Tenshinhan catch his breath and rethink his approach. Yamcha launched another flurry of his wolf-fang style palm strikes, forcing Tenshinhan on the defensive again. Yamcha's striking power was considerable, to be able to hurt someone like Tenshinhan would have required many days to be spent peeling layers off of hardened underground minerals with one's bare hands as an entry-level exercise of strength.
When martial artists began their training, they fashioned their attacks after animals for self-encouragement. Claiming one was as fast as a wolf would have sounded amazing to one just starting out. Truthfully, Yamcha's grip and striking strength had long since scattered the ashes of a mere wolf's bite in the wind. Not even the largest dinosaur alive could likely match the strength of Yamcha's grip, anything less than that which he had and Tenshinhan would have laughed his attacks off.
"Agh! He's getting close to the edge!" Goku pointed out. He was right, Yamcha might have been counting on something like that. It would have given him no joy to win that way but it would have surely silenced all that tough talk from Tenshinhan's side to be eliminated in such a lame way before one had a chance to show their true strength.
Tenshinhan's hands struck with the swiftness of a cobra strike. His upper arm and forearm did not leave the blocking posts but his hands reached out for Yamcha's head managed to wrap their fingers around it, like an automaton, diving the belfry downward while his knee shot up with the impact sound detonating like a shotgun blast. All focus and aggression left Yamcha's eyes for a second, he might have whited out a tad bit there but he regained his composure and vaulted backward a bunch for some safe distance. Tenshinhan allowed that, having just won this breather for himself.
"I'll apologize." Tenshinhan straightened his body out, breaking his fighting stance all of a sudden. "It was arrogant and rude of me to be surprised that someone like you could not have gotten past the garbage level of competition from the preliminaries. You are a true martial artist and your level of skill deserves respect."
Chayote scratched her head. This young man did not speak anything like what she'd have imagined an avenger out to get her for killing his mentor to sound. Nor did he sound anything like his mentor. Taopaipai was a snake who would have kicked the head off of his own mother to attain victory yet somehow he might have raised a martial artist with the utmost respect for martial arts and every value they represented.
"Well, I won't lie, I might have looked down on you a bit as well…" Yamcha kept on stroking his forehead in the spot where he was just kneed to. His head was beginning to swell and such a strike would have kicked any lesser man outright in a less than sanitary way. "When I heard you've trained with Tsuru Sen'nin, a rival of Muten Roshi's, I thought you'd be a step behind my level of skill. If I had stayed and trained with Muten Roshi for the last three years, that last kick would have finished me off then and there…"
"Well then, now that we have moved past that, let us fight for as long as our bodies can support an all-out fight." Tenshinhan returned to a fighting stance. His eyes were dead-serious and accepting of any outcome that his fists and lightning-legs would have wrought and were Chayote not absolutely sure of her own terrifying strength, she'd have been intimidated by such a stare without any question.
The man was not even staring at her right now, how petrifying it must have felt to Yamcha, someone who spent a decent amount of time hitting this three-eyed baldy with everything he had and only seeing mere scratches on the skin of Tenshinhan's arms.
Tenshinhan's body disappeared, Yamcha's glare sharpened, he did not lose focus but Tenshinhan's sudden reappearance right in front of him, airborne with a flying knee strike surprised the martial artist. Another roar of thunder followed by Yamcha's grunt. The master of the Wolf Fang Fist spent the last couple of offensive stretches trying to throw Tenshinhan off of his impeccable footwork, Tenshinhan did it with a sonic boom in a single focused attack – Yamcha was airborne.
The self-tempered martial artist was not about to stop his attacks just because his opponent was hurt and thrown off his feet. With eyes every bit as ruthless as before, Tenshihan hopped up and positioned himself just above Yamcha with a downward-pointing elbow strike. His elbow went straight through a rippling afterimage as Yamcha was not where Tenshinhan's knee strike left him in the beginning.
"Ka-Me!" Yamcha grunted from the other end of the ring. That knee strike hit him straight in the face and his forehead was now busted open and bleeding an alarming amount, it was a work finishing up from Tenshinhan's previous attack. It made sense he'd do that, given the knowledge that he was trained by a master assassin. "Ha-Me!"
"Oh! Contestant Yamcha is about to use the signature technique of the Turtle School! The Kamehameha!" the announcer declared.
Tenshinhan flicked his finger. A painful memory snapped in Chayote's head making her jump up in unease and only manage to muzzle her scream at the last second. She was about to yell for Yamcha to be careful but then she noticed that Tenshinhan had lowered his finger. He decided not to punish his opponent this way but instead to take the Kamehameha head-on. As someone who employed a similar strategy in the last tournament, Chayote fully knew that mindset. If Kamehameha was Yamcha's best shot, something he resorted to after an opening, taking it head-on and then shrugging it off would have crushed his fighting spirit altogether.
"Ha!" Yamcha did not falter, choosing to unleash a mighty Kamehameha wave at the enemy Tenshinhan decided to just stand there and take it. He placed his hands by his sides and blew out his chest. The three-eyed warrior tempered his body like a little bar of iron. The Kamehameha hit it like a wet slipper hitting a brick wall, it bounced off of him almost in the same vein.
"It… Didn't work?" Yamcha's look faltered. All that bravado from before gave way to shock and awe.
"I had learned to deal with that wet fart of a technique back when I still trained with the Tsuru Sen'nin. It was one of the first things he taught me." Tenshinhan relaxed his body. He appeared to have taken less damage from that blast than he did from Yamcha's previous attacks. "I can only wonder if Kame Sen'nin did the same…"
Tenshinhan's finger went right back up. A faint flicker of light left it. A protective wall behind Yamcha exploded as if from pent up inside it pressure, throwing a pair of spectators off their feet and sending them on the ground. Quivering for their lives. Yamcha looked at the rustled audience with a sense of dread. He had taken it to the air, instinctively, he had no time to think his movements through or consider what might have happened to the audience behind him, he just dodged for his life, just because he felt like if he didn't – he'd certainly die.
"Hmm… I see that you are not completely hopeless. Leaving Kame Sen'nin and training with another mentor may have been the best decision you've ever made." Tenshinhan commended his opponent.
"I'll make you eat those words with the spin-off technique I've honed still on Kame Island – Neo Wolf Fang Fist!" Yamcha yelled out before shooting right back down at Tenshinhan with a divekick. Tenshinhan smirked and blew out his chest again. He couldn't have possibly intended to take Yamcha's flurry the same way he stonewalled the Kamehameha!
Yamcha's foot hit an impenetrable wall in the shape of Tenshinhan's chest. Not letting his unsuccessful attack impede him too much, Yamcha unleashed a flurry of downward kicks from an upward position, as if attempting to stomp Tenshinhan to the ground but none of those attacks achieved much at all. With a backflip, Yamcha threw himself a fair distance further back and then dashed straight at Tenshinhan with his arms in the modified Wolf Fang Fist position.
"The control of his Ki has sky-rocketed since I've last seen him. Tenshinhan better not try and take this attack head-on, not even he could do something like that." Jackie Chun observed from the sidelines, stroking his beard.
A twin-snapping sound cut Yamcha's big attack short. The master of the Wolf Fang Fist tried moving his arms but found them fixed in place with Tenshinhan's hands locked firmly on his wrists.
"That's the problem of focusing on a flurry of blows…" Tenshinhan smirked. "Now you can't do any of that…"
The three-eyed baldy was quick to punish his overly aggressive opponent with a brutal headbutt, further deepening Yamcha's forehead wound and making his opponent white out. While Yamcha already looked quite lifeless and barely offered any resistance, Tenshinhan bent his head back for another go. When his head moved forward, however, it did not meet Yamcha's soft and mushy forehead, it hit the brick-tough resistance of Yamcha's knee.
"Should have restrained my feet as well!" Yamcha snapped back at his opponent while making sure to kick and thrust his foot all over the exposed upper body of Tenshinhan. Too bad for him, his kicks and stomps were nowhere near as hard as his strikes and Tenshinhan's body was hardy like iron. Using the moment of shock in Yamcha's expression after a few completely ineffective kicks, Tenshinhan stomped at Yamcha's feet.
"Like this?" he asked with a mocking tone. Tenshinhan cocked his head back for another headbutt. He grunted halfway through it when Yamcha threw his restrained hands, still in Tenshinhan's lock in the way, making Tenshinhan sort of punch himself in the face that way. Using the moment of daze in his opponent, Yamcha twisted his wrists and alleviated the pressure of his opponent's hold, skillfully maneuvering out of it and freeing himself.
"Amazing! Simply amazing!" the announcer boomed into the microphone. "Who knew that these two competitors could put up such an incredible opening match! Every exchange is like fine artistry, every move is a demonstration of every advancement in martial arts humanity has achieved throughout its existence! Simply exhilarating, ladies and gentlemen!"
"Teehee, Yamcha's pretty amazing!" Krillin nodded to himself in the sidelines.
"Between the two of you, which one is stronger?" Chayote wondered, floating in her flying state beside the two boys that still used pull-ups to see the fight taking place in the ring.
"I don't know, we're pretty much equal. We've never sparred seriously, kept it for the tournament to make it more exciting." Krillin shrugged. He must have known why Chayote asked this. She would be fighting Krillin in the final match of the quarter-finals after all. A bit of information about the level of competition compared to Yamcha's level in the first match would not have hurt.
"Ka-Me!" Yamcha cupped his hands and placed them aside.
"Huh? Have I struck your head that hard? You've already tried that!" Tenshinhan mocked his opponent.
"Oh! It seems like contestant Yamcha is trying the Kamehameha once more!" the announcer turned at the audience. "The first one didn't seem all that effective, perhaps he is counting on the wear and tear of the battle to have chipped through Tenshinhan's body, making him more susceptible to the attack now!?"
"Ha-Me!" Yamcha chanted again before throwing his hands out. "Ha!" he yelled out. The Kamehameha wave blasted off from his hands and beamed right at Tenshinhan with its signature howl and all-consuming azure light. Tenshinhan threw his hands aside and blew out his chest again but it was only met with a confident grin from Yamcha's side who let go of his beam and appeared to grab hold of his end of the Ki wave. With a yoink, Yamcha manipulated the flow of the beam to go over Tenshinhan's head and then pulled the beam back.
"What the…!?" Tenshinhan grunted when the beam slammed right into his back and blew him off his feet. After the blast had settled and the smoke had cleared, all the rubble had found its way on the shaken ring, Tenshinhan was on one knee with a smoking and bruised back.
"Threw you off after all…" Yamcha wiped his nose with his thumb.
Tenshinhan clenched his fists and pressed them to his sides so hard that his entire body began to bulge. Veins popped out on the baldy's forehead and his grit teeth seemed like they'd pop the opposing line of teeth right out. Tenshinhan's finger shot out, unleashing a Dodonpa that was unlike the mere flicker of light from before, this one was a singular and focused beam, more akin to what Chayote saw Taopaipai use.
"Now who's predictable…?" a voice echoed through the fighting ring when a hole appeared in Yamcha's rippling afterimage.
Yamcha charged at Tenshinhan from the side. Striking him a with a flurry of his Neo Wolf Fang strikes but when Tenshinhan tried returning the favor he only dispelled another afterimage.
"That Kamehameha… It did a number of Tenshinhan's power level." Chayote noted. "Evened the odds a little bit. Yamcha's lucky that Tenshinhan doesn't want to show any of his moves so early on. That's why he's struggling."
"True but… What bothers me is that despite Tenshinhan taking such a massive hit, he is still ahead in terms of speed, strength, and toughness." Jackie Chun observed. "All Yamcha can do is just hit and run and all the hitting he's doing doesn't seem to be having much of an effect."
"Y-Yamcha, don't approach him again!" Goku yelled out with an alarmed tone that Chayote rarely heard him use.
"You fool! My third eye sees right through!" Tenshinhan grunted after leaning aside and then clutching Yamcha's arm after an attempted punch in his armpit.
"Even you don't have eyes at the back of your head!" Yamcha grit his teeth in pain from the pressure of his furious opponent as he attempted to strike at the back of Tenshinhan's head but found his punch slipping through the air as well and under the other armpit of his opponent.
"Damn it, get out of there, Yamcha!" Goku slammed the top of the protective wall at the side of the ring from which he was hanging and observing the battle.
"You're quite a hardy martial artist. You would not allow this battle to end quickly, normally, I would not want that either. However, given the charade of me having to fight while holding most of my moves back, I find little use from humoring you any further. I've decided to end this now." Tenshinhan spoke with a tone that was calming down with every successive word. He needed this brief explanation just as much as his confused and struggling opponent. With a decisive upwards flex, followed by a gut-wrenching snapping sound, Tenshinhan let go of Yamcha's arms and walked a few paces forward.
Yamcha collapsed on his knees, howling in pain as his arms bent the opposite direction like flabby jelly. They were only broken in one, matching place but this injury was debilitating enough to end the battle prematurely. The announcer did a quick count to ten, quickened out of mercy for Yamcha's suffering but it was just an unnecessary formality because Chayote, Krillin, Jackie Chun, Goku, Puar, Bulma and the rest had rushed onto the stage long before the end of the count.
"Treat it as a white towel…" Tenshinhan stated with a cold look at the announcer.
"Yamcha! Yamcha!" Goku kept shaking Yamcha by his shoulders, which, frankly, Chayote wasn't sure was helping at all. Chayote leaned and picked Yamcha up.
"It's okay, I'll take him to the hospital." She declared. "Dark Kinto!"
It's been a while since she's called on the Dark Kinto but in her early stage of the flying technique mastery, she'd be unable to move fast enough with a passenger. It barely sustained a controlled flight and she needed efficiency that only the Dark Kinto may have provided. Chayote took a light hop with Yamcha still in hands and found her feet touching the ground a moment later with Yamcha thudding against the floor not too long after.
"What are you doing!?" Puar lost his shit and began pounding at Chayote's forehead with its puny arms. "You're hurting Yamcha-sama even more!"
"I… Phased right through?" Chayote turned back at Dark Kinto that still waited for its owner to take their place on it and ride it.
"Never mind that," Krillin sighed. He pulled out a pouch from his side and removed a bean from it, placing it in Yamcha's mouth. As if knowing what to do, Yamcha chewed on it and his grunts of pain, as well as his breathing, fixed themselves before everybody's eyes.
"Huh? Weren't those just ordinary Senzu?" Goku wondered.
"Yeah, they're not just for filling you up with food, they can heal people too…" Krillin nodded. "When we left the Korin Tower we took a pouch each and had hoped to use them during emergencies only but… I suppose this might suffice, somewhat."
"Thanks, Krillin." Yamcha nodded while he stretched out his arms that were broken and hanging flabby the other way than they were supposed to bend.
"Are you sure those beans even work that way? Maybe Yamcha should still check into the hospital?" Chayote wondered. "You know, just in case…"
"I don't think that's necessary, really…" Yamcha shrugged. "We haven't yet used the Senzu this way but… We're pretty sure that's how they work…"
"I mean… If that's the case, then you won't be gone for long, you might miss the old geezer's fight at best. You'll be back before the interesting stuff starts." Chayote insisted. Everyone glared at the Saiyan weird. Being the focus of attention like that made her eyes race across the bunch and back a handful of times. There went her cool vibe that she tried putting together…
"Alright, alright… I guess it won't hurt knowing for sure." Yamcha shrugged. "Though I'm telling you, it's kind of pointless."
The gang stared at Chayote and Yamcha leaving for the Papaya Hospital on foot. Chayote didn't see them stare but she could almost feel it, it didn't even require any of her superhuman perception abilities to know that. They were staring all the way until the pair mixed into the crowd.
"Was it really okay just letting those two walk off like that?" Bulma wondered with a grumpy expression on her face.
"Why not, jealous!?" Oolong teased the inventor.
"As if!" Bulma pounded the anthropomorphic pig at the top of its head and continued to try and drill her fist right through Oolong's head. "I'm just worried Chayote might miss her match, that's all!"
"But Chayote's the last one to go." Goku pointed out with a blank expression, he was not used to correcting Bulma. "There's no way she'll be missing the fight."