"Ladies and gentlemen! The twenty-third World Martial Arts Tournament is now underway!"
The announcer's voice rang across the entire arena through the loudspeakers.
Son Goku stood in the competitors' passage, with Bulma cheering behind him.
"Goku! You can do it!"
"Don't get hurt!"
Son Goku turned back and waved to her, his smile bright. "Yeah! Just wait—I'll win the championship!"
The preliminaries ended quickly.
In the quarterfinals, Son Goku faced Chi-Chi.
On the ring, Chi-Chi assumed the martial arts stance of Fire Mountain, her expression serious. "Goku! I won't go easy on you!"
"Yeah! Me neither!" Son Goku replied, taking the Turtle School's opening stance.
The fight began.
Chi-Chi's moves were fierce and her footwork nimble. She had clearly inherited Ox-King's skills. She closed in at once and punched toward Son Goku.
But against Son Goku... the gap was simply too wide.
"Thwack."
Son Goku gently deflected her attack, neutralizing it with ease. He flashed behind Chi-Chi like a phantom, but didn't attack. He merely gave her shoulder a light tap.
"Chi-Chi, you've gotten stronger," he said with a smile. "That 'Flame Punch' is a lot better than it was when we were kids."
"Cut the chatter!" Chi-Chi spun and kicked, but Son Goku easily dodged. "Fight seriously!"
After a few exchanges, Son Goku found his opening and tapped one of her pressure points with a lightning-fast finger.
Chi-Chi's body stiffened as her ki faltered. She began to fall, and Son Goku hurriedly caught her.
"Quarterfinal match! Son Goku is the winner!"
Holding Chi-Chi, Son Goku gently carried her outside the ring and asked softly, "Are you okay?"
Chi-Chi blushed and turned her head away, her voice barely a whisper. "Y-you jerk, you did that on purpose, didn't you...? Holding me so tight..."
"Heh-heh." Son Goku scratched his head.
Chi-Chi suddenly grabbed his wrist and looked at him seriously. "After the tournament... will we get married?"
"Yeah!" Son Goku nodded vigorously, his smile bright. "Together with Bulma! The three of us!"
Chi-Chi's face turned red. She chided him, "...You idiot!!!"
In the semifinals, Son Goku faced Tien Shinhan.
Tien Shinhan stood on the ring, his three eyes fixed firmly on the figure opposite him.
"Son Goku! It's been three years! I've waited for this day... for three whole years!"
Son Goku's usual carefree smile faded, and his expression grew serious.
"Tien Shinhan! Let me see... all the sweat you've shed over these three years!"
[In the original story, Tien Shinhan risked his life using the Tri-Beam to stop Cell and the Androids. He's a true martial artist... far more devoted to the path than I am right now.]
[In this life, I want him to know that I've seen all the effort he's put in.]
"Just as you wish!"
Tien Shinhan roared, and his ki surged around him!
The spectators in the stands staggered back under the pressure of his aura. Some even slid right off their seats.
"Th-that's some incredible ki!" Krillin's bald head gleamed in the light as he spoke with a tremor in his voice. "He's more than ten times stronger than he was three years ago!"
Yamcha's palms were drenched in sweat. "What kind of training... did this guy go through?"
"Four Witches Technique—!!!"
Tien Shinhan crossed his arms in front of his chest, and in a flash of dazzling light, his body split apart! Four identical Tien Shinhans appeared on the ring.
"Attack!"
All four figures moved at once!
Son Goku watched the figures coming at him.
[The Four Witches Technique... Each duplicate has one-quarter the original's strength. It's a real group-battle trump card!]
[But after training on King of Worlds Planet, I can see the flow of ki now.]
"Hah!"
He gave a low shout and became a blur! Rather than retreat or defend, he charged straight at the four Tien Shinhans!
"Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!"
Four muffled impacts rang out almost at the same time.
He leaned aside to dodge the first Tien Shinhan's knife-hand strike, then drove an elbow into his ribs. He leaped high to avoid the second one's sweep, twisting in midair to kick him in the shoulder. He slapped away the third one's ki blast, and the backlash of the energy wave sent him staggering. The fourth Tien Shinhan tried to attack from behind, but Son Goku caught his wrist without even turning around and gave it a light twist—
"What?!"
All four Tien Shinhans widened their eyes.
"Your teamwork is perfect," Son Goku's voice came from the energy-choked air, calm but clear. "But..."
He flashed in front of one of them, stopping his fist an inch from the man's nose.
"Your ki is scattered."
"Solar Flare—!!!"
The three remaining Tien Shinhans raised their hands above their heads. A blinding white light flooded the entire arena! Thousands of spectators screamed and covered their eyes.
"Damn it! It's the Solar Flare!" Krillin shouted through the glare. "Goku can't see!"
On the ring, Son Goku did indeed close his eyes.
But the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
[Now that my eyes are closed... I can see even more clearly.]
In his perception, the Tien Shinhans' ki shone bright and clear. Not a single movement could escape his "sight."
"Above!"
The three Tien Shinhans leaped into the air together, clasped their hands, and aimed at the "blinded" figure on the ring. Their ki gathered furiously, white light pouring from their palms and forming four enormous columns of energy—
"Tri-Beam—!!!"
Four Tri-Beams rained down from above! It was Tien Shinhan's ultimate technique, each blast powerful enough to shatter rock. Fired together, the four blasts engulfed the entire ring in destructive white light!
"Boom—!!!"
The deafening explosion shook all of Papaya Island. Dust surged into the sky, and shards of stone flew like rain. The spectators in the stands screamed in terror, and the judge was knocked off his feet by the shock wave.
But when the dust slowly cleared—
Son Goku stood in the middle of a massive crater.
His feet were buried deep in the cracked stone tiles. He held his arms crossed above his head, a pale layer of ki surrounding him like a shield. He had taken all four Tri-Beams head-on, attacks powerful enough to blast through an island.
His martial arts uniform was only a little torn.
"Not bad," he said, lowering his arms and looking up with genuine admiration. "Really... not bad at all."
"If I'd faced that move a year ago, I wouldn't have been able to withstand it."
The Tien Shinhans in the air panted heavily. The Tri-Beams had drained their ki at an alarming rate.
Hearing this, the original Tien Shinhan froze for a moment, a complicated emotion flashing through his three eyes.
"You..."
"But," Son Goku said, his voice turning low as he sank into a slight crouch, his feet leaving two shallow dents in the rubble, "I'm not the same anymore."
"Sorry, Tien Shinhan."
"Here I come!"
"Whoosh—!"
The air tore with a sharp sound.
Tien Shinhan didn't even see him move. He only felt a gust of wind rushing toward him. He instinctively raised his arm to block, but before it was halfway up, a precise, gentle blow landed on the back of his neck.
"Thud."
The force was controlled to perfection: enough to knock a martial artist unconscious, but not enough to injure him.
The focus slowly faded from Tien Shinhan's three eyes, and his body pitched forward.
In the last moment before he lost consciousness, he heard Son Goku's voice from behind him, low and sincere:
"Thank you... for giving me such an amazing fight."
"Thud."
Tien Shinhan fell onto the rubble, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The judge stood frozen for a full five seconds before shakily raising his flag. His voice wavered with shock. "T-the semifinal match! Son Goku is... the winner!"
The entire arena erupted!
Krillin's mouth hung open. "O-one move?!"
Yamcha gave a bitter smile. "That guy... what kind of monster is he...?"
Piccolo stood in the passage, his green fists clenched tight, his eyes full of gravity. "Saiyan..."
Before you continue