Lu-sensei's offer to take you to your first tournament catches your attention. It's an opportunity to advance your abilities as a martial artist. It's a chance to visit another country. It will let you see what magic - and for that matter - ki use feel like outside of Sunnydale, and give you a better idea of just how much of a difference - and danger - the Hellmouth truly makes. And it's just a plain old chance to get out of this sleepy, horrifying little town where you were born and raised, even if it's just for a week.
Your mother is reluctant to approve the trip. Your father is more supportive. He tends to think of "martial arts" as chop-sockey wire-fu movie silliness and little old men meditating under waterfalls, and espouses boxing and wrestling as how Real Men fight - and he won't hear a word about how both styles are martial arts themselves. That said, the words "tournament" and "competition" are ones your dad understands and approves of wholeheartedly, and he's able to talk your mother around. They're able to get together the money to pay for a plane ticket - third-class, nothing fancy - and the quite reasonable entry fee. It's implicit that these will be this year's birthday present from your folks. Zelda's present is a crayon stick-figure drawing of you holding a up a shiny gold belt - has she been watching wrestling with Dad? - while a smaller stick-figure with a dress and red hair stands to your left, and a tiny red ball of light with wings hovers to your right.
Your parents think it's cute. You thank Zelda for the picture, and briefly try to explain that you're probably not going to receive a shiny gimmick belt - she won't hear any of it, however.
"Alexth ith gonna win!" she lisps through the teeth that haven't fully grown in yet. "And winnerth get the belt!"
It is futile to argue with a two year old, especially one that is also your cute baby sister. You wisely surrender and quietly tuck the picture away in your room, somewhere you will be able to retrieve it at a moment's notice, but where your friends (including Briar) will never find it. You hope.
Once the travel arrangements are made and your absence from school cleared with the faculty, you spend most of the last couple of days before your flight with Lu-sensei, polishing your skills and learning about the tournament. You will be competing in the Under Tens division. There will be a preliminary round, where - depending on the number of entrants - you will have to defeat anywhere from one to four opponents over the course of a day in order to advance to the tournament proper. The preliminaries are not scored; you win by holding a ten-second pin, by ring-out, by knockout, or by your opponent's forfeit.
"Of course," the old man adds seriously, "use of excessive force or weapons will result in immediate disqualification. Fortunately, the latter will not be an issue for you."
"What about ki use?" you ask.
"There are no rules against it," Lu-sensei tells you. "Indeed, it is generally expected that any competitor who reaches the quarter-finals of the adult division will possess such skills, or a comparably... exotic ability, and it is not unheard of for one or two competitors in the junior division to also be so gifted. That having been said, it is considered poor form to use those abilities against an opponent who lacks them." The Enlightenment Stick appears, raised menacingly and - you swear - glowing faintly with its own malicious will to inflict educational pain. "So don't let me catch you doing it, boy!"
"No, sensei!" you reply hastily, from a defensive crouch halfway across the dojo.
The day before your flight, you have a modest pre-birthday party with your closest friends. Cordelia is a little miffed at you for "running out" on your "responsibilities" as one of the popular crowd, but she also grudgingly admits that a trip to Japan is an acceptably cool reason to do it. Larry is fired up about the tournament and envious that he won't be going with you, and Amy just wishes you good luck.
A surprise awaits you at the airport the following morning.
"What are you doing here?" you ask Cordelia.
"What does it look like, genius? Lu-sensei said I was good enough to compete if I wanted to, a chance to go shopping in Tokyo is not to be missed, and it's not like the tickets were all that expensive. By the way," she adds, "you and Sensei have been bumped up to first class."
You stare at Cordy for a moment, then look at Lu-sensei, who you note is looking away from you, whistling innocently. Briar, hovering in her customary place over your shoulder, is giggling.
"Making an opponent's strength into your own, Lu-sensei?" you finally ask.
"One could look at it that way," the old man admits. "One could also quote the old proverb: 'never look a gift horse in the mouth.'"
"The next person who compares me to a farm animal will be making this flight as cargo," Cordy says bluntly.
"Yes'm."
The plane takes off an hour and a half later. You spend a good part of that time in your seat, going over the flight plan - Sunnydale to Hawaii, and a day-long stopover before continuing on to Japan aboard a different plane - and wondering just why a small town like Sunnydale has an airport, let alone one that can handle international and/or transoceanic flights. You don't think you can directly blame it on the Hellmouth, unless the airline company is owned by demons - which isn't impossible - although the presence of the Hellmouth is almost certainly what stops everybody in town from questioning the airport's existence. A mystery for another time.
What do you want to do while you're in Hawaii, waiting for your connecting flight to be ready?