Tenshinhan took off into the air. Despite being the one to introduce the flying technique to the Dragon Team, the master of the Crane Style martial arts didn't soar using Ki, he took a bountiful aerial dash with his arms sticking up by his sides and his feet curled by his chest, ready to strike in case his opponent tried pursuing him. Despite Tenshinhan's readiness, Cell stayed in his place with his arms crossed and his tail waggling as his right hand still clutched the Ultimate Dragon Ball.
After reaching the zenith of his ascent, Tenshinhan flipped backward before expelling a mighty Kiai burst from his feet and propelling himself forward in a hasty dash. Cell looked almost bored. He could see such an elementary attack coming from a mile away. A lashing tail protected Cell from a deceptive rush attack performed by one of Tenshinhan's students. Another one blitzed in from the side, employing the After-Image technique in a myriad formation that created a mirage covering up the student's approach.
Cell thrust its tail into the student's chest, knowing damn well where the student would have to be in order to strike him with his Crane Style jab. Instead, the martial artist's hand curved and his fingers pinched the stringer, keeping it in place. Another student washed in from the front with a backhand strike of pinched thumb, middle, and index fingers. Cell widened his eyes, expelling an invisible Kiai burst that absorbed the punch, sending the ambitious youth flying and crashing into the cave building.
A pair of Tenshinhan's students charged at Cell from the front, each striking with Crane-style jabs at different arteries in Cell's neck. The Bio-Android merely smirked in mockery, taking the hits in stride. The martial artists gasped and staggered back when the cruel realization that their opponent didn't feel a thing hit them. It wasn't just that Cell tensed its neck muscles to protect against the jab. The Crane-style jabs produced a sharp and piercing type of blow that would have penetrated through a mere stonewalling defensive approach or a wall of muscle. It was as if the vital points that the budding martial artists targeted didn't exist at all in Cell's anatomy.
Cell's tail forcefully slammed the student that was pinching it into the dirt before rolling them around and flinging the floored student away to crash into the nearby rock canyon. The Dorakiyan authorities opened fire with plasma bolts from the rocky cover of scattered boulders where the Choki rampaged and where Cell smashed the bothersome Ten-Shin-Ryu martial artists, crashing them into the Planet Dorakiya town scenery that flawlessly blended nature and futuristic urban developments.
Just as Cell was about to flick away the remaining students and then kill the weakling Dorakiyans, it turned with a bent forearm and absorbed Tenshinhan's soaring kick from above and behind the Bio-Android. By now, Cell was familiar with martial arts enough to know that Tenshinhan was looking for a quick knockout, as opposed to a decisive victory. He tried ringing Cell's belfry and shell-shocking the Bio-Android. Likely expecting to make a swift escape in that time while Cell was recovering and reeling back from the effective hit from behind.
"Hmm… Ganging up on me, attacking from behind… What does this say about your miserable pride of a martial artist, or is all that just a load of boloney?" Cell mocked Tenshinhan while the three-eyed mound of muscle sneered at it with disdain.
After Cell's blocking arm deflected Tenshinhan's flying kick, the three-eyed martial artist back-flipped into a proper stance and charged at Cell again, unleashing a machine-gun barrage of blows at the Bio-Android. With just one hand to compete with Tenshinhan's skill in martial arts, Cell vaulted over and put its hardened insectoid wings together into an improvised shield that absorbed the relentless flurry. While the avatar of biodiversity in a single creature felt confident about its advantage in raw power, speed, and toughness over Tenshinhan, technique was a different matter entirely. Cell could only lick its beak in excitement, imagining the delectable techniques it could force out of Tenshinhan by holding his precious students hostage.
Cell's whip smacked Tenshinhan straight in the face, forcing the martial artist to stagger back, albeit maintaining an upright stance. The exalted martial arts master resumed his protective stance before a narrow streak of red ran down his nose, prompting Tenshinhan to wipe it with his thumb quickly and resume battle as effectively as he could.
"Such is the overwhelming pressure of a predator breathing at your neck. Weakling prey has no use for trash, like pride, morality, and dignity. Survival is the only thing it can work toward and it is never guaranteed," Cell said while flexing in a revealing pose, as if taunting Tenshinhan or students who have either not had enough, or hadn't joined the fight yet, to attack while Cell was wide open and one of its hands was occupied.
"It cannot be helped," Tenshinhan admitted, closing his eyes and straightening his back with his arms weighing down by his sides as opposed to keeping his guard up. "Fighting against you without being able to use my full arsenal, withholding my strongest techniques is a losing battle. There's no hope of victory fighting that way. I will just have to show you everything and count on my ultimate victory today."
"Yes!" Cell exclaimed with hungry eyes bulging in excitement as its beak dropped and its tongue stuck out in supreme ecstasy. "Show me everything! Let's find out which one of us is the greater predator. May the surviving predator grow even stronger with their battle scars and continue to reign undisputed across the universe, forcing the cycle of evolution to turn ever faster!"
"Master…" a flabbergasted martial artist muttered. "Could we truly be about to see master, fighting at full strength? Ten-Shin-Ryu at its peak, heavenly level?"
Shocking everyone, Tenshinhan flicked his sinewy arms up and positioned them by his temples with the hands wide open and close to the center of Tenshinhan's face. Fingers spread toward Tenshinhan's eyes as the lone surviving master of the Crane Hermit Style of martial arts was someone who had polished this technique to the point of its peak, going as far as being able to keep all three of his eyes wide open while using it.
"Solar Fist!" Tenshinhan exclaimed, provoking a nova burst of blinding white light to fire outward in all directions, washing over Cell and whiting out the Bio-Android's eyes, meanwhile stunning in place even Tenshinhan's students and blinding even the hiding Dorakiyans who were observing the battle that very well may have been waged for the future of their civilization and the fate of their planet.
"Wh… What!?" Cell shrieked out, shaking and twitching in pain as its body was wide open and seeking to record every tiniest flicker of Tenshinhan's muscles, every most insignificant ounce of the peerless martial arts techniques that the esteemed martial arts master would perform. Instead, blinding light, scorching his pores like vitriol seeped into all the Bio-Android's scanning and recording systems, not only overwhelming all of Cell's senses but etching itself into the Bio-Android's memory, making Cell only able to bring up this agonizing sensation of blindness, pain and helplessness.
"Now! Strike him down now, master!" the blinded students chanted to support Tenshinhan, who had honed the skill of Solar Fist to where he needed no support for resisting its effects himself. Instead, they found themselves surprised when they opened their tearful eyes, still reeling from the itching sensations, only to find Tenshinhan calmly standing before Cell and refusing to make a move.
"Khk… D-Damn you…!" Cell hissed, clawing and peeling its eyes wide open through whatever bio-fluid filled its body and carried nutrients across it and bloody tears. It was as if Cell itself couldn't believe that Tenshinhan wouldn't use this chance to use whatever heavenly world of martial arts techniques he'd entered and unleash all of his power upon Cell. As much as it eroded Cell's pride to admit it, in that moment of helplessness, he'd have been unable to record anything. No matter what technique Tenshinhan used, it would have been a freebie… And yet…
"Laung, catch this!" Tenshinhan barked out in a firm tone that suggested he would not accept any talking back and expected his demands to be followed to the letter. The loyal martial arts student rushed to catch the orange marble orb with a blurry bundle of black stars decorating its face.
"The… Ultimate Dragon Ball?" Laung shuddered while staring at the miraculous magical wishing orb shimmering in his hands.
"Damn you, you sly fox!" Cell chortled, finally regaining a limited amount of awareness and control over his discombobulated body. "You didn't use that Solar Fist to create an opening to attack me, you used it to blind me so that you could retrieve the Ultimate Dragon Ball from my hands."
"That was always my intention," Tenshinhan admitted. "The initial attack was merely an attempt to gauge the difference in our strength and skill, to determine if showing you a martial arts technique was necessary for the retrieval of the Ultimate Dragon Ball."
"And you did… You've shown me the Solar Fist. That's another technique that I'll be able to use against your friends, because of your actions. I hope you're satisfied with your sacrifice, Tenshinhan…" Cell taunted its opponent, but Tenshinhan only cracked a rare for him smile and looked up at the sky while Cell struggled to halt the watering eyes and the feeling of billions of jittery needles poking its neurons all at once.
"My sacrifice?" Tenshinhan asked Cell with a genuine, good-hearted smile on his face. "No. Not quite yet. I haven't sacrificed nearly enough to be content with it. I intend to sacrifice a great deal more for the sake of victory."
"Victory, you say?" Cell burst into laughter, confusing the discomfort of its body still reeling from the powerful Solar Fist burst and the delight of boundless amusement over Tenshinhan's words. "For someone so crafty and skilled at martial arts, you're an unbelievable imbecile if you think you can still win. Your students, the Dorakiyans, all of them are just tools in my hand. You might consider them your allies, but they are all my aces that I can bend, tear, and toss aside to force more and more skills out of you. I will draw this out, drain you of every lick of your energy as I snap the spines and twist the necks of every bald-headed moron you've brought here to die. Their Ki is insignificant compared to the value of drawing out your most prized techniques, Tenshinhan."
"Hmm…" Tenshinhan couldn't contain his smirk. He found something profoundly amusing in Cell's abysmal threats directed at him, the locals of this planet, and his treasured students that would carry the legacy of Ten-Shin-Ryu into the centuries and millennia to come. "For someone so sophisticated, you're still incredibly narrow-minded, if you believe that's how this encounter of ours will go."
Cell still hissed and frothed from its mouth, shaking with ire and desperately waiting for when its body fully recovered so that all of Cell's strength could crush Tenshinhan all at once.
"Haaah!" Tenshinhan clenched his fists by his side, erupting with a scarlet aura of King Kai's Fist.
"Weak!" Cell exclaimed, repeating Tenshinhan's King Kai Fist usage back at him with a red flare of matching intensity.
"King Kai's Fist x20!" Tenshinhan cranked it up, making the ground shake beneath his feet and split open with terrifying fissures while his students gathered the poor Dorakiyans caught in the crossfire and held them in the air to avoid injury because of the calamitous quaking of Planet Dorakiya.
"I don't understand what you're trying to achieve here!" Cell mocked Tenshinhan, effortlessly repeating Tenshinhan's usage of King Kai's Fist x20. Then, as a hidden ace, Cell burst with a shimmer of gold that surrounded its body in a layer of bright light. The light crackled away like the shell of a boiled egg, revealing Cell in a new, golden coat of armor. "Whatever you can do, I can double it! No… Triple it! To think that you called me narrow-minded! You're the one who can't see that not only did I start from a stronger position, but I can elevate my Ki far higher than you can with your martial arts prowess and decades of experience!"
"So, it seems, indeed…" Tenshinhan relented, snuffing out the flame of King Kai's Fist and surprising Cell, who also absorbed the golden flare of Super Saiyan aura shimmering around it within its body. "No matter how hard I would have fought you, I'd have stood no chance. I am content."
"What is this? What are you implying, you dimwit?" Cell squinted its left eye, bulging the right out in befuddlement.
Tenshinhan's feet hovered a few meters above ground before scolding his students with a glare. "Laung, Sous, Reis… Everyone. I leave the future of Ten-Shin-Ryu in your hands. Please, return the Ultimate Dragon Balls to Earth and save it!"
"Have you gone completely mad with fear?" Cell turned its head, freezing the budding martial artists in place with the death-inducing stare of the most advanced and dangerous creature in the known universe, adapting the most dominant traits of the most powerful species in the universe to become the ultimate predator, reigning above all things. "I'll plow through those weaklings in a heartbeat!" Cell proclaimed, launching itself in a mad dash toward Laung, the closest student standing out in front of the rest.
A blinding flash of light washed over Cell from above. Tenshinhan panted from an elevated, sky-high position with his hands put together by the tips of his fingers and thumbs. Gazing at the battlefield through the triangle-shaped opening in between his hands while smoldering smoke passed over Tenshinhan like an obscuring cape. Tense veins littered his muscular body that's tensed up to its peak physical condition while some remnants of cultivated spirit energy still lingered around Tenshinhan's hands.
"What are you waiting for, you fools? Run!" Tenshinhan barked out a demand at his students, which he would have accepted no arguments against.
"B-But… Master!" Laung exclaimed, unable to contain the crawling despair that wrapped its fingers around the throat of the young martial arts student.
"What about the fate of the Ten-Shin-Ryu!?" Sous yelled out while more and more students crawled out of the rubble to plead with their master to find another way out.
"Please, master, we cannot leave you behind!" Reis exclaimed alongside Sous, a man whom the two used to share an intense rivalry with during their training. Their combined plight caused both men to step over themselves and throw away their pride for the sake of their mutually treasured master.
"New Spirit Cultivation Cannon!" Tenshinhan exclaimed, firing another triangular blast of uncompromising light that resonated with spirit energy bolstered by Tenshinhan's life force. The resulting outburst of energy was enough to flatten Cell and burrow the Bio-Android deeper underground. The downpour of sweat escalated across Tenshinhan's body. "My precious students. Was I so lax with you that you haven't gotten the clue yet? The future of the Ten-Shin-Ryu lies within all of you! Save the Earth, grow strong, and be proud of your martial arts, for it is the strongest in the world! Grow strong and wise, then pass on your wisdom to the new generation. Make your own path based on what you believe in and never stop following it. This is the one last request of your master!"
"Master!" Sous stepped forward, closing in on the obliterating destructive triangle that dug deeper and deeper into the ground. A firm grip on his wrist kept Sous in place from nullifying all meaning behind Tenshinhan's sacrifice.
"Your master gave you his last order, Sous!" Laung barked out with an outraged expression, seeing within his peer something abominable to fight with all his might if he continued to defy his master's final request. "Don't you dare undo everything that our master has sacrificed himself over! I won't let you!"
With tears streaming down their cheeks, the students turned their tails and bolted, dashing toward the Capsule Corps spaceship to take off and bring the Ultimate Dragon Ball back to Earth. As they dashed past the terrified and anguished Dorakiyans, the martial artists grabbed hold of their wrists and dragged them to save as many as their ship could carry. Even if Tenshinhan prevented the monster Cell from destroying Planet Dorakiya, it wasn't like they'd have much of a life with Cell reigning over the planet as its apex predator anyway.
"Haaah! Haaah! Haaah!" Tenshinhan exclaimed repeatedly, chaining together bursts of New Spirit Cultivation Cannon as they blasted Cell deeper and deeper into the heart of Planet Dorakiya, pushing the abominable Bio-Android into the planet's mantle and drowning it even deeper. "My precious students…" Tenshinhan took a blink to gaze upon the departing spaceship. Its image blurred, distorted in the plentiful tears and weary in Tenshinhan's bloodshot eyes. "I am so very proud of you. You've grown into excellent martial artists. You'll make the Ten-Shin-Ryu proud. I know it. All of you… All of you pass this final exam. You are no longer students. Now you are the masters of your own path. Fare all of you well."
Just as it seemed like Cell would surface and escape the gigantic, debris-spewing and quaking crater of Tenshinhan's creation, Tenshinhan turned his attention back, unleashing another burst of New Spirit Cultivation Cannon, then another, then another. Firing as many as it took to force Cell back to the scorching circulatory system and the beating heart of the planet, he threatened, despite Cell's toughness. Tenshinhan could have used the Spirit Cultivation Method to recycle the wear and tear on his body and spirit, however, he would not dare teach Cell a technique as potent as that and risk dooming Earth and its valiant protectors who would inevitably defeat Cell once and for all. Not after all, but ensuring that his part in saving the Earth was played and its fiercest new defenders were in place to fight for it with all their strength.
"Chiaotzu…" Tenshinhan's eye wandered onto the wayward gigantic Dragon Ball that powered the immense biological weapon known as Choki not too long ago. "Not too long ago, I would have thrown caution to the wind and sacrificed anything to search the universe for a way to have you back. Can you ever forgive me for being so thick and forsaking everything you died to protect? Never mind that now. We'll be meeting each other soon, then, I can tell you everything about what your sacrifice helped forge, about everything precious that I gave my life for. Just like you did… Whatever lies ahead of us, we'll face it together, old friend. Just wait for me… New Spirit Cultivation Cannon!"
The Dorakiyans fled in terror as the beam ravaging their planet and threatening to blast all the way through it continued to amp its intensity and attempt to undo the horrific Bio-Android that's arrived to haunt their planet. Screaming and cursing their infernal fortunes, the Dorakiyans, who had such an option, hurried to their spacecrafts that could leave their planet and blasted off. They observed from the outer atmosphere as the strident, golden light of an undying martial artist's spirit flashed over and over again until it died forever. Dark clouds shrouded Planet Dorakiya's skies, spilling over with forlorn downpours that showered its surface with so much passion for washing its dark fate away that they foamed as they accumulated into ponds and puddles. Lightning ripped through the skies as the atmosphere of a decimated planet threatened those trapped on it to leave before the planet's inhospitable and ruined atmosphere, ripe with calamity, would rip them asunder.
Dragging itself out of the crater that marked itself as a jarring hole in the center of the donut-shaped Planet Dorakiya, covered in bruises and grunting, Cell emerged from the hole only to see Tenshinhan's lifeless body lying face-down before him and drowning in the down-pouring rain. Once again, the defiant martial artist denied him the fortune of draining him of Ki, choosing death over bolstering the power of the apex predator, the shadow of which threatened all across the infinite universe.
"You insolent fool!" Cell cursed, staring at the back of Tenshinhan's dead body, deflated and robbed of all the bountiful force that had once left the martial artist swollen with muscles and full of vigor. "Once and again, there will be a stout herbivore who will put up such an astounding resistance that even the king cannot rip into their flesh out of respect. Somehow, you've succeeded in everything you set out to achieve here with your puny level of strength, spitting in the eye of fortune itself that put you against an insurmountable foe. I may be a cold-hearted devil of carnage that seeks to devour and conquer all to rule as my own, however, even I cannot help but feel respect."
With a flick of its finger, Cell cast a scorching red Jelly Beam that ignited Tenshinhan's body and burned it down to cinders before his very eyes, drowning the ashes in the foaming puddles of the Dorakiyan soil. Having accepted its defeat on Planet Dorakiya and full of ire toward the cruel universe that put the Bio-Android up to this, Cell strut off to seek Dorakiyans that had no way of escaping their dying planet to collect their cells and create new Cell Jrs that would terrorize Planet Dorakiya as the apex predators for as long as the donut-shaped planet would survive.
However, it seemed like the cruel fate had other plans. Extreme heat and vivid light robbed Cell of all its senses, drowning the Bio-Android in a raging infernal nova of a dying planet before it blinked out of existence. When Cell next opened its eyes, nothing but space dust and ash surrounded it. The students had taken off and suppressed their energies with the Dorakiyan civilians being nigh untraceable weaklings at a different planet system by now. Still, Cell knew where they were going. Earth. In time, it would make sure to visit it and collect its Ultimate Dragon Ball, as well as claim its dominion as the apex predator of the universe.
But for now… Cell pressed its middle and index finger to its forehead, concentrating on a different, pronounced, and lively Ki signature far away. Bulma hadn't warned the Dragon Team to suppress their battle powers just yet. Until they encountered Cell, they'd not have the common sense to do so, it would appear. These ones. These ones Cell would devour before they could muster up an ounce of resistance for sure!