"Ladies and gentlemen, the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament will now continue!" the announcer declared with his arm reaching for the sky and inspiring exclamations of joy from the gathered audience. These people didn't appear to need any warm-up matches to get them into the mood of seeing some action in the ring.
"We've got a crazy match cued up. It's between two experienced contestants of the tournament who participated last year! Krillin of the Turtle School and Chayote, the champion of the last tournament!"
Chayote had never even considered being revered on this planet for martial arts knowledge or strength before she heard the cheering in the audience. Clearly, the name of being a champion of the World Martial Arts Tournament meant something here. How naïve these people were, they considered Chayote the champion in martial arts amongst the rest when in fact she was a mere initiate at this point. She's studied with some of the best masters present on this planet but she still lacked experience, patience and… Compared to Goku, even talent.
"Chayote," Krillin turned to the Saiyan, breaking her out of her contemplations. "I have a request."
"You want me to hold back so that we can have an even fight? I think I can modify my power level to match yours somewhat, I did intend to do that anyway." Chayote replied.
"No, the opposite, actually. I want to ask you to not hold back at all and come at me with your real strength." Krillin bent his fists to his chest. He looked rather passionate about this.
"Won't you shit your pants?" Chayote rolled her eyes.
"Maybe…" Krillin made a stupid smirk and rubbed the back of his bald head. "But when I saw Yamcha fight Tenshinhan and think he lost to his opponent in a fair and even match, then, fight Tenshinhan's real power… When I saw the disappointment in Yamcha's face… I never want to feel that way. If I get trounced out there, that's just fine by me, I just want to know where my training really got me."
Chayote contemplated that for a brief moment as the two slowly walked out onto the ring, parallel to each other and stared at the audience that encouraged them to do their best. The Saiyan noticed the audience cheering way harder for Krillin. It made sense, she was nothing if not rude to them and the other contestants three years ago and nobody wanted to see somebody win two or three times in a row. The audience wanted intrigue alongside their bloody entertainment, a different planet, similar trends.
"Yeah, I'll do that, Krillin." Chayote spoke up loud enough for Krillin to hear. "I think you're strong enough to survive it."
"I'm glad you think so." Krillin took the usual Turtle School fighting pose that he mirrored from seeing Muten Roshi, Goku and Jackie Chun use though Krillin's stance was modified. He wound up his left leg farther back. Chayote was certain it meant something but she lacked experience still to read stances that well. She figured that it was best if she stuck that note on the Krillin's nervousness board and was done with it.
"Begin!" the announcer yelled out while the gong tolled on the other side of the ring. Almost immediately Krillin charged at Chayote with a flurry of strikes. His arms were rather short and lacked significant reach, his speed was impressive for an Earthling but his moves appeared almost sluggish to Chayote's serious perception. Not a single hit even contacted a block, Chayote was almost lazy in her dodges though flashes of her training did begin to surface.
Devil Man swiped a handful of times, Chayote leaned to the sides and under his strikes and leaped up to avoid a tail sweep. Another flurry of thrusts followed by a low-aimed leg thrust which Chayote jumped over as well. When her feet landed onto the tongues of the statues of the Devil's Toilet, however, she found a chilling sense of weightlessness drive the stake of fear into her heart while her body mustered up for her levitation ability.
"You're strong and fast beyond compare. Stronger than even most demons I know. Still, even you need to mind your surroundings. Earthlings are a cowardly lot when they are charging you, it's usually because they're confident they can win. Surroundings play a large part in most Earthling planning, especially in the World Martial Arts Tournament or the Devil's Toilet!" Devil Man crossed his arms over his chest, nailing another lesson down to Chayote's thick head.
Chayote glanced back while putting up a wider and more generalized block to avoid potential strikes Krillin might attempt to utilize his distraction with. She tensed up her calves to stonewall any potential leg sweeps even though Krillin lacked the length in legs to utilize such a balance-robbing move effectively. There it was – the edge of the ring. Chayote was quick and agile but her evasion cost her space which all narrowed it down to her approaching the edge faster. Did Krillin truly count on ringing Chayote out?
The Saiyan slipped in a body blow in the seemingly ceaseless offensive of Krillin's but before she could complete the counterattack, something sharp gouged at her eyes. It wasn't Krillin's fists or even his fingers, not even pebbles or pieces of dirt irritating them but… It was a blasting ray of light. The gleaming rays of Sun reflected off of Krillin's head and blinding Chayote for a blink.
A handful of dull thuds resonated through the Saiyan's body before a more powerful smack across the side of her cheek. Chayote felt discomfort from those strikes but they didn't make her do much more than just stagger back a fair bit.
"Tsk, give me a break!" Krillin grunted in irritation that Chayote didn't trip and fall over and, possibly, out of the ring. Chayote heard taps of his boots nearby and then all the way across on the other side of the ring. Krillin had dashed back to the edge of the ring himself and prepared for a crushing, full-ring flying kick to Chayote's jaw which he felt certain would kick her out.
The boot was far away, closer, closer… Just inch from where Chayote could have smelled the sweat off of Krillin's white socks, his boot pierced through the air. Krillin realized that he was floating over certain ring out so he thrust his hands out and blasted a quick and puny Kamehameha that came out as a measly pulse of energy, just enough to stop his wild momentum and throw him back into the ring. Just as Krillin's feet touched the eastern area of the ring, a sense-robbing knee to the chest knocked him down and out cold.
Chayote opened her eyes. They still felt watery and irritated but Krillin had overestimated how much she would require to rely on her eyes. The announcer with a sweat-covered face and stiff jaw crept up to Chayote from behind.
"Sh-Shall I begin the count!?" he asked.
"No need. I don't think this would do him in. After having to wait this long, I want to have a bit more fun yet." Chayote denied the announcer's request.
Krillin hopped back onto his feet, his tongue sticking out and clenching his chest, wheezing for air as if every breath caused him torment. He did receive a fair and stiff hit to the center of the ribs. Any weakling or even a person considered legendary by Earthling standards would have had their chest cavity caved in and their ribs shattered to dust from such a hit. Krillin really did ace Korin's training, it seemed.
"Come on, Krillin, you knew I could sense Ki, didn't you? Also, something you refused to learn is that just like psychics like Baba can see the future, I can see the present, meaning you won't sneak up on me with dirty tricks like that." Chayote postured at the recovering martial artist.
"Heh, heh… After Jackie Chun used my head as the moon, I thought I had a wild idea…" Krillin chuckled to himself before breaking up into a fit of coughing.
"It was a nice redirection, making me think you will ring me out before pulling your trick off," Chayote admitted, "That's the only reason why you landed the few hits you did land."
"D-Did you just commend me? Feels kind of weird…" Krillin dyed his face with a malicious smirk before taking a fighting pose again.
"I do feel bad about this but you did ask me to attack you seriously," Chayote clenched her fists by her hips and took a fighting pose of her own.
"T-That pose!" she could hear Tenshinhan's outraged voice from the sidelines and he had all the reason to be furious – she did kind of borrow his fighting pose without the intention of ever returning him, which on Earth was also widely known as stealing something.
Krillin tried his best to prepare himself for what was to come. Chayote straight out faded out from his vision she appeared right up in Krillin's face with an elbow shot to the face, mirroring the manner in which Tenshinhan attacked Yamcha, though repositioning the elbow strike to the solar plexus and aiming it at Krillin's face instead. Krillin's image rippled, revealing the Afterimage trick that he had used to try and give Chayote the slip.
Like a frightened mare, Chayote floated her lower body upward with a double kick behind her, a strange manner of kicking an opponent who stood right behind one which would not have been possible with the aid of the flying technique. This time Chayote was stealing from all over the place as she had stolen this particular backward kick from both the kangaroos she'd seen during her journey around the Earth before the last World Martial Arts Tournament and Raditz.
Krillin cried out in pain as Chayote's feet drove into the bottom of his chin and sent him flying up high. This manner of kicking was not optimal as it did not employ any balance, meaning the kicking force was greatly diminished but Chayote's plan was not to knock Krillin out with a mere backward-aimed kick. Chayote's body faded out and flickered up into the sky, after her opponent.
"Incredible! Absolutely unbelievable! Contestant Chayote moves so fast that she is totally invisible unless she's standing still!" the announcer roared into his microphone without losing his voice.
Krillin grunted in pain, his consciousness was returning to him from the howling wind caressing his cheeks up high. Below him, he could see white, cotton-like clouds, something that tipped him off that he was in less than a favorable position but he couldn't help it when every strike he skipped made him black out for a moment.
"N-Now where did she go?" he mumbled to himself.
"Pinto Spear!" Chayote's battle cry from up above would have alerted Krillin to his opponent's position had Chayote not tackled him in the back with a downward shoulder charge and fallen to the ground like a crashing meteor together with her opponent. The announcer covered up his face while the audience cowered behind their protective barriers that have never served their use so often as they did during the last couple of tournaments.
"A-Amazing! Contestant Chayote had tackled Krillin from above the clouds, crashing together with him back down! I can already see the massive crater and the tiles of the entire ring are cracked! Let's just hope that we will not require another break to replace the ring!" the announcer recounted what had just transpired in front of the audience which, while seeming pointless, couldn't have been more useful when most of the audience couldn't even register anything but blurs and signs of the devastation that followed.
"Is he out of the ring?" Chayote emerged from underground with dirt and pebbles from the crashed tiles all over her cloak and hair.
"Ummm… Well…" the announcer looked down at the abyssal two-meter wide crater left right in the center of the ring and the ripples all over the ring around it. "Unless I can confirm Contestant Krillin touched the ground down below and you didn't, I cannot say for certain… Technically he is still within the confines of the ring right now."
"Good. Will you start the count then? I don't believe Krillin should still be conscious." Chayote gave the announcer a chilling stare.
"Y-Yes, that seems reasonable! One…!" the announcer began counting. Before he could count to three, Krillin burst forth from underground, riding a Kamehameha wave.
"I'm not out of the ring yet!" he cried out in desperation. Due to the busted up body holding him back, Krillin failed to complete his elegant flip and instead landed on his back onto the cracked and busted area of the ring. Little by little, he scurried back on his feet and, despite standing in a somewhat unstable way, still staggering from time to time, he was on his feet.
"Contestant Krillin, it was too dark to see if you touched the ground below, could you tell us what had happened? Also, keep in mind that Contestant Chayote is here to help us find out the truth, in case you try to lie about touching the ground and she's declared to possess some sort of psychic powers." The announcer approached Krillin and pointed the microphone up in his face.
Krillin, with a lump on one eye that threatened to close the swelling eye up until it was given time to heal, a tattered Turtle School gi that was torn in a way that left it only covering half his body and covered with cuts and bruises just hyperventilated for a couple of seconds while he struggled against the attraction of the ground underneath his feet attempting to claim him.
"I used my Afterimage to try and blindside Chayote, I guess she was right about psychic powers because somehow she managed to kick me up into the air. She then raced so far high up above that she could tackle and crash with me down into the ground, completing her insane pursuit technique." Krillin explained it to the baffled audience.
"Spectacular, and how did you avoid a ring out?" the announcer asked.
"There was no way for me to do so. Chayote tackled me down so fast and hit me with such velocity and brutality that… I blacked out for a second. It wasn't until the pain of crashing down woke me up, I formed a Kamehameha in my hands to cushion my crash through the dirt. It was because the Kamehameha provided both a pillow of opposing force as well as a push back that I never touched the dirt underneath the ring, I merely touched my own blast."
"You've become quite skilled with the Kamehameha…" Chayote observed. "You're using one far faster than Goku or Yamcha do. I don't think I've ever seen even the old man use it quite as fast."
"Heh, well… Yeah, I did practice with the Kamehameha a fair bit." Krillin scratched his nose with his index.
"Very well, I don't see why we cannot continue this match!" the announcer gestured for the pair standing on the opposite sides of the crater at the center of the ring to continue fighting.
"I don't see any other options…" Krillin warmed up and tested the flexibility of his muscles by cracking his knuckles, bending his knees a few times and twisting his neck around as far as it went. "I'm going to have to go for broke here."
"If you had an option to defeat me, I'm disappointed you didn't take it from the beginning. You aren't a Saiyan, your body doesn't grow stronger from further punishment." Chayote scolded her opponent, feeling skeptical about Krillin's declaration though retaining some semblance of wary in her actions since Krillin has shown himself to be a resourceful combatant so far.
"Alright, here goes!" Krillin crossed his arms and his image began blurring out. Copies of the pint-sized warrior just as translucent as the blurry original began appearing all over the ring, this went far beyond the use of the Afterimage that Chayote had seen, this degree of mastery over the technique matched if not transcended that of Korin himself.
"Hmph…" Chayote closed her eyes and crossed her own arms. Krillin's Afterimages all froze in place instead of shuffling all over the arena trying to confuse her. For a moment there they must have thought that Chayote would repeat the technique he had used and struggled with believing that was possible. However, instead of copies of Chayote, a bubble of Ki formed around her, visible enough to where not even those without the ability to sense Ki could see it.
Chayote grunted while extending her arms out to the sides. The bubble erupted in rapid expansion, colliding with the Afterimages and dispelling them all at once and overwhelming the original Krillin as well. The floating Earthling avoided a ring out by breathing loads of air in and expanding his body, stopping his momentum to fly outward all at once. Once he landed on his feet, Krillin clutched his ribs and leaned really close to the ground.
"Dammit…" he cursed. "I was so close…"
"Close, close to what?" Chayote bent her head to the side like a curious puppy.
"If I tell you, I'll never be close to that again…" Krillin smirked.
"In your state, I doubt you ever will either way." Chayote shrugged.
"Well, I don't think I've got it in me for another beatdown so… Only one thing left to do now." Krillin put his hands together and moved them to his hips by his side. "Ka-Me-Ha-Me…"
It was difficult to understand just what the bald warrior was trying to achieve by firing a Kamehameha with all of his remaining strength now. He likely still had considerable strength left, just not a body to utilize it effectively so on paper this might have seen as his only viable fight plan but… Chayote couldn't help but feel like it was just pointless, as powerful as his Kamehameha would have been – it would not have achieved anything of note. And it wasn't like his blast had that much Ki packed into it, Chayote sensed ample reserves that Krillin was still keeping in reserves, even when going all out he wasn't willing to gamble it all.
"Ha!" Krillin extended his hands out at Chayote, making the thigh of the female Saiyan twitch but the blast didn't fire at her, instead, it stayed in Krillin's hands that then moved down below. The ring rumbled and cracked from the concentrated pressure and the ground underneath the feet of both contestants shook enough to warrant concern over the ring's well-being.
The Kamehameha burst forth from underneath Chayote, sinking her in an upward rising pillar of Ki as the somewhat weakened from its travel underneath the ring Kamehameha consumed the opponent it meant to defeat. Once the blast weakened and died out, Chayote stood there in a state of unease, as if she had just been frightened by a jumpscare but nothing of note came out of it, just as she had intended the direct hit from the Kamehameha to do.
"You know, even if you blasted me directly, I wouldn't have tried to dodge it. There are spectators behind me, you know…" Chayote tried to reason with Krillin to surrender already but there was nobody there where the pint-sized martial artist was before firing his underground Kamehameha at Chayote.
The Saiyan took a couple of steps forward, trying to get a better look at the ring and all of its devastated ridges and craters. There was nothing in the ring. That Kamehameha, Chayote didn't even sense where Krillin had gone when the blast covered her, it served almost like a smokescreen for her Ki Sense. The female Saiyan closed her eyes, trying to see into the present and where Krillin was right now. The moment her eyes closed, she realized it but all too late, before she could even tap into her visions of the present.
"Gotcha!" Krillin yelled out, grabbing Chayote's tail from behind her, coming out from the hole that his own Kamehameha had created. His final gamble was executed to perfection, all but one tiny detail. Krillin's feet dangled in the air once Chayote's tail had tilted his entire body off the ground, spun it around and flung it out of the ring. The young Earthling yelled out in pain once his back slammed against the protective wall behind which the spectators lined up and dropped his behind softly onto the grass out of the ring.
"Did you really think I wouldn't train my tail in between the tournaments?" Chayote turned to Krillin.
"I had a feeling you would have but… I had no other choice but to gamble my victory on that," Krillin smiled while stroking his busted up and dirty head.
"Ring out! Contestant Krillin has been eliminated, meaning Contestant Chayote moves on to the semi-finals!" the announcer declared the end to the match.