"Count!" Tenshinhan turned to the announcer, having just recovered from his haze of battle. It was difficult to tell for sure what had caused his escalating breathing if it was his recently experienced warrior's madness or the physical strain that abusing the Afterimage technique in the way he had just used it left the user with.
"One! Two!" the announcer started the count. Dark clouds covered up the sun in the sky, obscuring the gleeful enjoyment that the universe itself has been absorbing from the match. These weren't storm clouds and not a drop of rain fell from them but, for a short moment, gloom took the ring over while the sun hid behind the cumuli.
"Three!" the announcer raised his finger up only to witness Goku peeling his face off the ring floor with a smirk and wiping a trace of blood off his lip with the back of his hand. A drop of blood, that was all the reward for Tenshinhan's efforts.
The cool façade that the three-eyed warrior donned most of the time had collapsed long ago, the bricks that comprised it laid barren and scattered all over the ring where Goku pushed him to his very limit while he was enjoying everything Tenshinhan threw at him thoroughly. This was the first time that Tenshinhan was in the ring with someone who enjoyed every bit of punishment he threw out just as much as he enjoyed his own response. Earthlings tended to not like taking as much as they enjoyed giving in a battle.
"Their breathing…" Chayote noted. It was a physical testament to what she sensed inside and read off of their Ki. Tenshinhan was breathing erratically, he was winded whereas Goku's chest was bloating and deflating in an irregular rhythm but a much subtler one – both fighters were tired but only one of them felt the sweet draw of collapse pulling them ever closer, caressing their cheeks and their chin while attracting them to lay down and take a breather.
"Tenshinhan has made a mistake in that last clash. He might just pay for it with this match now…" Muten Roshi observed, joining in on Chayote's assessment and agreeing with it.
Devil Man spiraled off into the sky, bouncing off of the roof of the Devil's Toilet and fell to the ground, coughing up blood and slobber onto the stone tongue. He straightened his back and took a fighting stance as a true demon would. A part of a demon's charm was always how they didn't buy nor sell any of the violence that the enemy was dishing out.
"I was wondering…" Chayote stared at her fist which she just used to fling her mentor away. "Kakarot has gained a great deal of power fighting his brother. He may just be stronger than me and there is a fair chance that even after these years of training I will not cover that gap. This isn't doing much for my overall power level anyway. How do I fight a stronger opponent?"
"You've learned from Muten Roshi and the God of the Korin Tower and you still don't know that? These are the fundamentals of martial arts!" Devil Man hissed.
"No, I get the whole use the enemy's strength against them schtick, it's just… What's the overall game plan here?" Chayote pouted.
"Wear them out. It will be the most difficult thing you've ever done. You are already on disadvantage against them – they have more energy, likely better stamina, they're faster and stronger than you. You would need to use every dirty trick in the book to make them waste that stamina. You do not close the gap, you let them waste it. Every fist you throw, every breath you draw in a battle is a debt paid. Even if the enemy starts with more resources than you, if you're wiser with your finances, if you take the hits you can afford to take if avoiding them would be more troublesome than taking them, you might just let the gap disappear." Devil Man explained.
"Heh, I might have gotten carried away there, Son Goku…" Tenshinhan smirked as well while breaking his stance and straightening out his back. The gloomy clouds went away, letting the sun out from their cage. "That can't be helped when one is fighting you, I suppose."
"So you're gonna give up?" Goku asked with some frustration behind his voice. He would not have liked that very much.
"No. I will just have to go to the end on the path that I have burrowed for myself." Tenshinhan declared as he gripped both of his hands together in an ax-handle hold.
"What does that mean?" Krillin looked to Muten Roshi.
"Tenshinhan decided to stop planning, stop trying to win and just fight to the end to the best of his abilities. No more strategy, no more attempts to lure out Goku's mistake because he made it first by using a bit too much power in that last exchange of Afterimages." Muten Roshi stated.
Tenshinhan's eyes burst open in a mad-like twisted squint shuffled in with a creepy smile to boot. The martial artist launched himself at Goku, just a hair's breadth away from the ring floor. Just a slight miscalculation might have caused him to scrape his own chest at the tiles of the ring at the speed he was dashing in. "Volleyball Fist!" he chanted out.
Goku hopped over Tenshinhan's hooked sweep using his right arm and delivered a kick to Tenshinhan's jaw. Using his tail, Goku tilted his body off the floor while all of his limbs stretched outward and his strengthened tail spun the boy's body like a living whirligig, delivering a blinding flurry of spinning kicks and backhands that Tenshinhan could only cover up from.
"Sports Combination Technique!" Tenshinhan grunted, still pushing through the pressure Goku was applying with his living whirligig rush attack. "Soccer!" he yelled out while his left leg shot out with a quick kick aimed at Goku's tail, tripping the boy up and making Goku float weightless for a moment, "Soccer!" Tenshinhan yelled out again while delivering a stiff high kick to Goku's gut, forcing the boy to shoot upward like a raised soccer ball.
With a blinding blitz, the three-eyed martial artist dashed right up to his airborne opponent. "Basketball!" he grunted short of breath while grabbing Goku's back with his hand and driving him down as the two plummeted to the ground. The ring cracked and the ground underneath it churned after the crushing impact of Goku slamming to it with Tenshinhan's assistance head-first from an altitude almost reaching the clouds.
"Count!" Tenshinhan turned to the announcer.
"One!" the announcer raised his hand but Goku was up before that hand could weigh down in preparation for the declaration of the number that came next.
Goku yelled out as he charged at Tenshinhan, knee forward, elbow bent by his front, charging sideways in a defensive stance that covered most possible counters all the while Goku's hand remained by his side, cocked back and ready to deliver a punishing strike if need be. Tenshinhan clashed elbows with the boy while the two engaged in an exchange of blows, genuinely looking like any of those blows could have knocked the other off their feet.
Then one connected, Tenshinhan stumbled back but with whited out eyes returned to the fray. Fists and feet were flying everywhere, blitzes and shockwaves that seemed almost blinding and ruffled hair and clothes in their passing.
Goku jumped back, reacting to a blow to his mid-section he skipped but with a battle cry, he leaped back with tenfold the fury that he struck with before. Tenshinhan spun out from the mad combination of limbs that the clash of the two had turned into, having received a stiff blow to his upper section that turned him round and round like a cyclone, with a much weaker cry the three-eyed warrior leaped back with a cross to Goku's jaw while taking one from Goku in return. The two stumbled back from one another, tripping and fumbling after the exchange of blows both of them had taken.
Tenshinhan's body and face were beginning to swell, due to the fact that the martial arts prodigy fought bare-chested, all the bruises and trauma he suffered laid bare for those spectating the match to witness. Goku had some dirt on his uniform and small traces of blood on his lip and by his elbow where it got cut open during Tenshinhan's basketball-mannered slam dunk of the boy but overall he looked like he could still go for three more fights like this. This was where the difference in power truly became clear, Tenshinhan was fighting for his life, pushing his body and pride to their very limit but to Goku, this was just a fun afternoon entertainment.
Perhaps the most fun one he has ever had though…
"Heh, this is insane! I never thought this would be so much fun!" Goku couldn't wipe the smile off his face while he swiped the blood off his lip, leaving himself with just one open wound. "You must know as many techniques as the old-timer!"
Tenshinhan clenched his hands by his sides and let out a frustrated cry of pain. No… This was something else, he was yelling from the tension that something was leaving on his body, some unexplainable strain that took him over whole. Was this another one of his techniques!?
"Yes, the Four-Witches Technique!" Chiaotzu exclaimed in excitement. "That should cover it!"
Two lumps of flesh rose from the back of Tenshinhan's back, looking like parasites burrowing underneath the man's flesh and growing ever-larger with time, threatening to burst through but these were no mere parasites – these were bones. Bones of newly forming limbs. Even Goku, who was enjoying this match to the fullest took a stumbling step backward, shaking in the surprise of what he was witnessing. Tenshinhan stood before him with four arms instead of the usual two.
"Th-Three eyes, four arms… Just what is this guy!?" Krillin's own lips waggled and quivered in similar respectful disgust of the freaky ability that Tenshinhan had shown.
Tenshinhan dashed at Goku who was too absorbed by the technique of his opponent to offer a defensive stance. Tenshinhan's four arms worked like a machinegun, firing and reloading in the span of milliseconds and offering Goku no quarter as they laid a siege on his bodily integrity. Goku's teen body got thrown about like a rag doll all over the ring.
Both pairs of Tenshinhan's arms locked in a ax-handle position and began slamming the boy from both sides, making him fly up and then slam back down with enough force to bounce off of the ring tiles while Tenshinhan's doubled number of arms didn't let go of the boy nor did it offer him any release to catch his breath or take a defensive stance and protect himself at all.
Goku cried out in pain as he'd never yelled out in this tournament. It was an almost pitiful expression of torment once both ax-handles of Tenshinhan's four-armed technique smashed Goku's mid-section in between them before grabbing the boy and driving him back-first into Tenshinhan's knee. Offensive-wise, Tenshinhan was working overtime and it showed, his entire body dyed in an unhealthy blush that threatened to flip into a deadly shade of pale at any point.
Tenshinhan reached all four of his arms out to wrap them around Goku to lock him up in a bearhug, hoping that any of his relentless strikes had busted Goku's ribs, making a bearhug an impossible and excruciating maneuver to apply in such a situation. And this whole time the three-eyed martial artist moved without hesitation, no forethought, he made these deviously lethal decisions through instinct and experience alone. Tenshinhan was everything Baba described and more…
Just as Chayote prepared herself to feel her heart sputter in discomfort from Goku's cries filling the air again, it was Tenshinhan who roared in pain while Goku's limbs locked around all four of his arms, using his arms and legs to lock the four in place while the boy applied intense pressure to them which forced Tenshinhan to wriggle about in anguish. Eventually, he did the only right choice he could have and withdrew his extra pair of arms to where they came, freeing up Goku's upper half and having the boy swinging like a pendulum. Before either of the two could exploit this opportunity of a temporary standstill, Goku kicked off of Tenshinhan's chest and rolled like a cannonball through mid-air before landing further away.
"Heh… I actually felt some of that, it really hurt. I'm amazed!" Goku commended Tenshinhan while stroking a painful bruise on his cheek with his right backhand and clutching at his aching ribs with his left hand.
Tenshinhan's eyes kept on switching from functional to drowsy while sweat and blood flowed on his forehead profusely. The entire body of the three-eyed combatant hung on a thread, it was impossible to tell just how this man stayed on both feet in the awkward degree of hunching that he stood in but it was self-evident that he may have collapsed at any moment there.
"I've gone as far as I'm going to go…" the bald finalist admitted. "It's time I go all-in."
"Huh?" Goku bent his side to the head like a curious puppy. "Are you saying you know even more techniques?"
"That's exactly right, just one more… I feel like I've got just enough Ki left for it too and it's my only chance to win." Tenshinhan nodded.
"Alright, bring it!" Goku took a fighting stance. He truly was a monster, despite all the effort Tenshinhan went through, Goku still looked like he had just heated himself up and like the real battle was just about to begin at this point.
Tenshinhan's feet separated from the ring floor as the finalist split into the skies like a speeding arrow. Goku could barely raise his head high enough to follow his opponent and he had to cup his hand by his forehead to be able to see Tenshinhan all the way up there in the afternoon sunset.
"Ten-san, don't do it!" Chiaotzu cried out, both Chayote and Muten Roshi directed their stares at the ghoulish youth. "Use my Barrage Dodonpa instead, if you have enough energy left for Kikoho, you should still be able to do it!"
It took a combination of telepathy and her awareness of the present to invade the communication of the pair like that, Muten Roshi appeared to be capable of invading the pair's telepathic communication without much trouble. He was more adept at using the technique so it was of little surprise anyway…
"The Kikoho!?" Muten Roshi whited out. The old man clenched his fists. "To think that Tenshinhan would resort to such means!"
"Huh? What's that technique?" Yamcha looked at Roshi with discomfort growing within his chest, the prospect of his rival possessing yet another fright-inducing technique he wasn't aware of didn't sit all too well with Yamcha, it seemed.
"It is a beam of energy utilizing breath control and the cultivation of one's own spirit energy. It is a beam of immense power, incomparable to the Kamehameha but in addition to being easily capable of annihilating the enemy, it also either kills the user outright or just shortens their lifespan." Muten Roshi declared with a solemn look on his face. "Damn that Tsuru Sen'nin… It was him who taught Tenshinhan the technique, without a doubt…"
"Do you know this technique?" Chayote wondered.
"It was a technique devised and polished by our mutual master – Mutaito. All of his pupils are able to use it." Muten Roshi nodded, looking not at all pleased with himself as he declared that.
"To think that Muten Roshi always had that in his back pocket, even in his fight against Tenshinhan and could have pulled it out at any time to avoid defeat but… Didn't…" Krillin mumbled. "It must be… Quite the technique in terms of what it costs you."
"My target is the ring!" Tenshinhan declared while homing in on the square, cracked and demolished construction that, miraculously, had managed to avoid complete devastation up to now. "You're an absolute monster but not even you might survive this so please dodge it, Goku!"
"Fine then, I'll put everything I've got into this too…" Goku declared and cupped his hands out in front of him. "Ka~! Me~!"
"Have you lost your mind!?" Muten Roshi jumped up and burst out of the spectator's area. "No matter how strong you are, the Kamehameha is unable to channel nearly as much of your Ki as the Kikoho, and that's before the Kikoho gets amplified with spirit cultivation! You will die!"
"Ha~! Me~!" Goku pulled his hands back to his side while an intense blue beam, firing rays of rotating white light through available spaces for it to escape and shimmer on the outside, sinking the entire battlefield in blinding white light.
"It's your grave! Kikoho!" Tenshinhan roared out from the bottom of his chest, unleashing every remaining ounce of his power while drawing power amplification from proper breath control that enhanced his Ki circulation, cultivating a great deal of his very life spirit in the process and forming a beam of unmatched power with an all-consuming beam of orange light that dyed the entire sky orange.
The two beams clashed in the middle. Splitting the earth bursting through with white light and the heavens that glowed orange while the two beams clashed and rotated around one another in a relative standstill with the Kamehameha losing ground again and again in a slow yet non-stop rate. Goku lowered his hands while the Kamehameha beam concluded and wrapped up together into a sphere that began losing ground to the superior technique at an escalating pace.
"Now, full power into this!" Goku declared, his voice almost drowned out by the absolute madness of two world-shaking beams sorting their place on the food chain with one another while Goku cocked his right hand back to his side and wrapped his left hand over it. "Rock-Paper-Scissors! Rock!"
Upon chanting out his thing, Goku took off with a rising uppercut, throwing his "Rock" into the midst of his Kamehameha and bursting through, disappearing into the void of rampaging orange destruction and slowly snuffing out the white and azure shimmer. With an overwhelming nova, the beams erupted into a blast that appeared to be at its most intense at just the area where Tenshinhan focused it on, despite having more than enough power to evaporate the entire island, everyone on it, then drill its way through the entire planet and leave through the other side.
That was the power of breath control and spirit cultivation.
A grave silence took over the ring, now but a miles-deep crater shaped like a perfect square, once the complete devastation concluded with nothing but a rain of ashes and incinerated debris raining from the sky. Neither Goku nor Tenshinhan was anywhere to be seen. The silence created an auditory illusion of a ghastly shriek in one's ears, an afterimage of the vociferous and contained apocalypse that the tournament grounds had just gone through.
The announcer shook his head, trying to pick up on any signs for him to report the end on.