Once the Kamehameha was as finished as it would ever get, Goku continued to stare at Chiaotzu for a handful of moments. While Chayote would not put it aside that the goof had not fully thought up of what he'd do with the Kamehameha once he was done charging it, she liked to believe that was not why Goku froze like that. He felt that moment, sized his opponent up and didn't lose himself in the excitement of coming up with a plan. He was truly trying to evaluate a potential comeback, both based on what he'd already seen and also trying to realize what might have stopped him at that moment and if his opponent was even capable of such a thing.
Then he just disappeared. Together with the fully charged up Kamehameha in his hands.
"He's gone!" Chiaotzu leaned forward with a shocked expression on his pale face.
"Don't lose your cool, Chiaotzu, he's using the Afterimage Technique, keep your eyes open!" Tenshinhan yelled out at his partner but by the time Chiaotzu's slow head registered what his partner had advised him, Goku flashed up right by Chiaotzu's face with a frightening grimace filled with childish glee.
"Dodonpa!" Chiaotzu gasped out, throwing his finger out and skewering the emerging Afterimage with a beam of energy of his own, one that penetrated the blurry Afterimage and flew all the way down to where it detonated in the arena, leaving a meager crater with a few roasted tiles on the sides.
Goku's Afterimages flickered and manifested in a circle all around Chiaotzu, all of them wielding a Kamehameha in their hands, without the supernatural perception abilities of Tenshinhan or advanced experience in Ki sensing, it would have been outright impossible to tell which Goku was real.
"Amazing, his mastery of the Afterimage matches that of Korin-sama's own." Krillin's jaw dropped.
"Not to mention that Goku managed to combine the Kamehameha with the Afterimage seamlessly like that. You can truly see that he spent considerable time training with Son Gohan…" Jackie Chun observed.
"Huh? You know Son Gohan too?" Krillin looked down at Jackie Chun who just coughed and cleared his throat.
"Keep your eyes on the battle, young man!" he tried weaseling himself out of the predicament. Chayote had almost forgotten by now that Jackie Chun was Muten Roshi in disguise, she sure wasn't keeping track of who knew and who didn't know his secret at this point. She wasn't even sure why the old man went through the same charade as last time but she was sure he'd be all too excited to tell them at some point.
"Double Afterimage… No… Triple… Quad… Ruple…" Chiaotzu lowered his head and started bending fingers on his hands, trying to count the amount of Afterimages had used in order to identify the number of steps that Goku had taken the technique up to.
"Eyes on the battle, Chiaotzu!" Tenshinhan yelled out but all too late as Goku had appeared right behind Chiaotzu and threw his hands out into his face. The Kamehameha howled and blasted Chiaotzu at point-blank range, sending the poor ghoulish boy plummeting down although in a trajectory that would have made him land on the arena still.
With a chilling crunch to his landing, Chiaotzu slammed onto the ring and skid a fair distance, coming very close to falling over the edge of the ring on the other side while leaving a nasty, black skid mark over the ring.
"Hmm… I guess now I'm the one falling out of the ring…" Goku pressed his index to his cheek while he realized his folly. Before the fall could truly endanger his chances of still winning the match, Goku used his tail as a makeshift propeller to glide onto the edge of the ring before giving the audience and the announcer a peace sign with two fingers raised up.
"Simply breathtaking!" the announcer yelled out. "Contestant Goku used the Afterimage technique to baffle contestant Chiaotzu and all but guarantee a successful, point-blank Kamehameha hit!"
"Hmm… Shouldn't you be counting?" Goku wondered.
"Oh, that's right…" the announcer pulled his trousers up higher and rushed up to seemingly unconscious Chiaotzu. "One, two!" he counted.
"Three, four!" the announcer kept on going but by the four count Chiaotzu hopped up on his feet and tilted his head, cracked open in a few spots to give Goku the same creepy glare he was giving everyone else the entire time at the tournament.
"Wow, you're one seriously tough guy!" Goku shrieked out. "And you looked so puny…"
"Amazing, to think that Tsuru Sen'nin's pupils could survive a point-blank Kamehameha like that! It's almost like they've trained their entire lives to humiliate that move, it doesn't seem to work on Tenshinhan whatsoever and it can't put down Chiaotzu either…" Jackie Chun observed the fight with perhaps the most shock he'd allowed himself to show thus far.
"Don't worry, Kakarot didn't put that much force into that attack. He's still fighting with his tournament power, you know. Had he hit him full-power, he'd likely have killed the shrimp outright." Chayote tried calming him down.
"No. I cannot shrug off responsibility like that… Kamehameha might not be the marvel of martial arts I've always taken it to be. Perhaps the move can still be taken further still? That, however, is no task for old men…" Jackie Chun sighed.
"Huh? Why would you take responsibility for the Kamehameha's failings? Isn't it Muten Roshi's move?" Yamcha put his hands over his hips with some serious suspicion behind his expression.
"Ah, well… Yes… You see… With the Kamehameha, every master of the move is responsible for taking it to new heights and responsible for the move's failings. In that way, you youngsters should also take note of this experience." Jackie postured at the three.
"Not me though, I still can't pull the move off one-hundred percent of the time." Chayote raised her hand.
"That must be because your heart's not in the right place, don't worry though, I have a feeling you're getting close to becoming true to yourself." Jackie smiled at her. What did the old man know? True, he was there when Chayote failed to jump onto the Dark Kinto like she always used to, though was he implying that she couldn't because she was becoming too honest with herself and pure to do so?
"You look pretty banged up though." Goku pointed out to Chiaotzu, observing the little ghoul's tattered uniform and multiple bruises all over his body that muddled and stained the pale skin of Tenshinhan's partner murky red. "You sure you can keep this up?"
"Monkey!" Chiaotzu raised a shaky finger and pointed at Goku, trying to mirror the way he mocked the boy before but lacking the bodily integrity to stand nearly as frozen in place and motionless as before as well as lacking the peace of mind to keep up with his blank face.
"Heh, alright then," Goku smirked. "Everyone thinks you're creepy, but you're hardy and that's something I've got to respect!"
Chiaotzu just shot forward at Goku, no trickery, no telekinesis or psychokinesis. The jiangshi-boy just fired off like a missile at his opponent with a headbutt. Goku was so surprised that he could just throw his hands out and block the headbutt but not the knee strike that Chiaotzu promptly transitioned into. Upon successfully throwing his opponent off and breaking their attempts to guard themselves, Chiaotzu unleashed a flurry of quick strikes and kicks, all of them landed but Goku didn't seem all too affected by them after the series of blows ended.
"The shrimp's lacking the pissing strength to hurt Kakarot in a significant way, not to mention the length of his limbs to pack that much of a wallop." Chayote realized and voiced her thoughts out loud.
"Indeed, although Chiaotzu knows this." Jackie Chun corrected the female Saiyan. "He is no longer fighting to win, if he was, he'd try his mental trickery again, try and catch Goku with his paralysis technique or use his telekinesis to throw something at him from afar while his stamina for the Dodonpa returned. Chiaotzu has realized that he is no longer drawing the winning hand so he's just in the game to impress somebody, more importantly, to prove his own worth to himself. He's just seeing where his body will take him against a monstrous opponent, can you relate to that?"
"Sure…" Chayote pocketed her hands and smirked. "I definitely can."
Goku returned the hurt back to Chiaotzu with a diving uppercut that took the ghoulish martial artist up in the air and threw his hat off again. The force at which Chiaotzu's head cocked backwards seemed considerable enough to snap his neck outright but Goku's opponent returned to his senses and prepared himself to answer Goku's strikes to the best of his abilities.
That was a rather naïve hope for Goku didn't take long to overwhelm Chiaotzu with punches and kicks. Goku had a varied fighting style, no method of attacks, chops, kicks, acrobatics, trips, punches, slams or bites were beyond him. He implemented it all and just in the right way, finding the best method for an attack in each situation. That was the true testament of a martial artist's experience. That was perhaps the most notable gain in his training with his grandfather, not the mere boost in power level.
Having pummeled his opponent to a pulp and positioned them for a nice double ax handle slam, Goku attempted to finish Chiaotzu off that way but Chiaotzu extended his hands. Breaking Goku's composure and sending a shock of pain all throughout his body that was just enough for Chiaotzu to fly past Goku and send the Saiyan kid crashing down with a sole butt to the back of Goku's head.
"Hmm… So much for fair play…" Chayote sighed.
"No, I don't think Chiaotzu's will lingered. He is fighting to the best of his abilities, that means utilizing every move in his arsenal, even those that most fighters would consider shady at best." Jackie Chun shook his head.
"Old man… You seem to be showing a great deal of respect towards Chiaotzu." Tenshinhan noted with a sideways glance at Jackie.
"It isn't because I'm trying to suck up to you or anything. I'm just giving credit where credit is due, your friend is a remarkable young man who will grow into a fine martial artist in the future. It is absolutely mind-boggling how far you've brought yourselves all by yourselves already. No… You would have failed if you trained on your lonesome. It is exactly because you trained together that you've become as strong and skilled as you are." Jackie Chun postured.
"Chiaotzu…" Tenshinhan looked on at the arena, observing Goku peel himself off the ground while wiping the slobber off the corner of his lip and shaking his clenched fist at Chiaotzu.
"Whenever a martial artist undergoes such a grueling climb and claims such remarkable achievements, they honor the very craft of martial arts themselves and it is the responsibility of any martial artist to acknowledge that. To cherish the new heights at which their craft has been taken to. That is a bond that every martial artist shares." Jackie Chun continued and Tenshinhan's eyes began shimmering with an emotion far different from that which he usually directed at the Turtle School and Jackie Chun who chose to hang out with them.
He stared at the old man with admiration, it was of no surprise, for the old man spun a wondrous yarn of the very thing that meant the absolute most to Tenshinhan – the concept of martial arts itself, the pride but also the modesty of martial artist.
"Why you!" Goku growled and clenched his fists by his side, "Can't let my guard down around you for a second, now can I!?"
The young Saiyan charged upward with clenched fists and grit teeth. Chiaotzu extended his hands aside, the tiles together with the foundation of the ring underneath shook and trembled, Goku noted that he had not seen this position of Chiaotzu's hands before but he was too mad, too absorbed in the heat of the battle to care.
"Get ready to eat my Rock-Paper-Sci…" Goku roared out before his voice was snuffed out by two massive chunks of the fighting ring slamming from both sides, crushing him in between. Dirtied and a tad bruised, Goku fell from the rubble with a face twisted in pain Chiaotzu utilized the opening that he had created and his opponent handed to him by trying to just force his way through an unknown technique by diving down with his head pointed right at Goku.
Like a rumbling thunderbolt, Chiaotzu drove his head into Goku's gut and slammed the Saiyan into the fighting ring, sending rampant ripples alongside the still present tiles and leaving the ring in a pitiful state of ruined devastation but with sizable chunks still present and separating the area outside and still inside of the ring.
"Begin the count!" Chiaotzu wheezed out while breathing heavily on his knees. Before he could turn back to Goku, a punch dug deep into his jaw as Goku had returned to his feet before even the count of one. Following up on the rush that he felt pounding in his heart, Goku threw a focused right hand punch at the center of Chiaotzu's head but the ghoulish combatant put his hands up and blocked it, yelling out in pain as even blocking such a strike summoned mad resonances of anguish within the paled out martial artist.
"Rock!" Goku yelled out, cementing the first part of his rush attack, before putting his palm onto the dirt of the devastated ring and sweeping at Chiaotzu's legs, despite the young man not even having them planted on the ground. The curious method of attack Goku had chosen managed to send Chiaotzu spinning in mid-air and the maddened Saiyan threw a vicious palm strike right at Chiaotzu's gut, forcing the poor jiangshi to blank out for a second.
"Paper!" Goku roared out. He then launched a pair of his fingers in a thrust aimed at Chiaotzu's eyes but met only the dull resistance of rock, telekinetically flung up from underneath Chiaotzu's feet to block Goku's final strike. Despite two measly fingers usually being poor resistance compared to stone and ground dirt, Goku's strike demolished the resistance though found no paled out ghoulish martial artists hiding behind.
"Ten-san, I'm using it!" Chiaotzu barked out from high up in the air. Tenshinhan's head spun rapidly up to where the voice was coming from as from the craziness of the battle transpiring in front of him he had lost the position of his friend outright.
"Go, Chiaotzu!" Tenshinhan smiled and shook his fists in encouragement of his friend. Chiaotzu might not have been nearly as fast or as strong as Tenshinhan, nowhere close as skilled of a martial artist but there was one area in which he had managed to surpass even his superior friend – the Dodonpa.
"Barrage Dodonpa!" Chiaotzu pointed his finger down at the entire ring as well as Goku, unleashing a scattershot downpour of Dodonpa rays down onto his opponent, as well as the entire ring. The crashing destruction beams laid siege upon the eardrums of every spectator and sunk the entire scene of combat in rampant dust clouds. Debris flew off wildly in each direction forcing everyone present to cover up behind the tiny walls protecting the audience from the madness transpiring in the ring.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, what an impressive show of force! Contestant Chiaotzu had finally preserved enough stamina after taking it on the defensive for a little while for his ultimate move – the Barrage Dodonpa! I'm not yet certain, there's far too much dust and rubble but… Yes! It appears as if though the entire ring has been totaled again!" the announcer gave it all into the microphone. His yells resurrected those that considered themselves fallen in the aftermath of Chiaotzu's attack.
"No! Wait just a blasted second!" the announcer leaned his upper body forward so that the tension in his gut that held him back from expressing all of the hype he felt deep down as a fan of martial arts didn't rip his body into two. "Contestant Goku appears to have stood perfectly still in this rain of destruction and blocked everything coming his way with his body! His ring platform is perfectly safe! The only island for safety in this total devastation and contestant Goku is standing right on top of it! This insane match is still continuing!"
Once enough of the dust and rubble cleared for the rest of the audience to see what was on the stage, the rest could see Goku with his arms crossed and raised up to block the downpour of mayhem that fell on top of him. Minor bruises littered his body but it didn't look as if though Goku had taken all that much damage at all. Chayote sensed it, from all the way inside the eye of the devastating hurricane, Goku had expelled his Ki from his body in a protective bubble, just like he had seen Tenshinhan do with Yamcha's Kamehameha. He had used the Kiai without even realizing it, what an absolute monstrous prodigy…
"Heh, now it's my turn, I'll make this hit count!" Goku declared as he clenched his fist and raised it up, the boy's tail curled up until it resembled a little string and launched his up in a mad dash toward his opponent, separating the skies like a mad arrow, Goku threw his focused punch the moment he approached close enough to his worn out and failing to believe that his best shot barely achieved anything noteworthy in terms of hurting Goku opponent.
Chiaotzu's eyes whited out while his lips desperately tried clenching for air but found none. Chiaotzu had collapsed completely lifeless onto one of the dirt that his own technique had left of the fighting ring, forcing the announcer to end the match without the proper count via ringout.
"It seemed like these two would fight forever and by God, sometimes I wished they would but… The third match is over, contestant Chiaotzu is out of bounds so the winner is contestant Son Goku!" the announcer ruled pointing at Goku who was propelling himself in a controlled landing glide with his tail so that he didn't accidentally ring himself out as well after putting so much effort into his last punch.