The shadows lengthened in the April sun. The landscape for miles around was stark and forbidding, with only scant vegetation and no human habitation visible from one horizon's edge to the other. Even the larger saurians were absent from the area; there wasn't enough food for either the slow, ponderous herbivores or the fast-moving, dangerous predators. Nothing larger than a sand lizard called this place home. Today in particular, the noise and commotion from high up in the sky had kept the small creatures cowering in their underground burrows. It might have been a storm, but the sky was clear and cloudless. Another kind of tempest raged, one without rain or wind, with sound and fury far more forbidding than the worst lightning or thunder.

High above the featureless plains hovered two figures, human-looking, but not of this world; both had been born on a distant, long-dead planet, many light-years away from Earth. Black hair and black eyes were the only common features between them, besides the brown-furred tails each kept wrapped securely around their waists. One was taller, broad-shouldered, with hair that spiked out in a dozen different directions. The other was much smaller, hardly larger than a half-grown child, with fire-at-midnight hair that grew up and back like a bristling helm above a face set in a perpetual scowl of fury.

The pair faced each other, unmoving for the moment, both breathing heavily, each taking stock of their own remaining energies while at the same time trying to gauge how much fight was in the other. Neither was completely fresh, but nor were they anywhere near the end of their respective resources. Nor did either seek a swift end to the confrontation. It was just beginning to get interesting.

"HAAAAA~!"

Without any warning, Vegeta charged Gokou, who attempted to slip out of the way. He made it, but his tail didn't; he unlimbered it in order to keep his orientation in the air as he moved. In a flash Vegeta seized hold of the appendage in a savage, merciless grip. Gokou yelled in a most satisfactory manner: "ITAAAAAAII!!!!"

"When will you learn to guard your tail, Kakarott?" Vegeta grinned fiercely, squeezing enough to make Gokou grimace in pain. "Pity you're not an Elite, like I am. And even so I know when to keep my tail wrapped up out of temptation's grasp. No wonder you let them relieve you of it; it's more a liability to you than an asset."

For Gokou, the pain was comparable to being kicked in the groin. Actually, being kicked in the kintama was almost preferable--at least that was over fairly quickly unless your opponent kept stomping on you. But the tail...once someone had hold of that, the pain went on and on, sapping his strength, until they chose to release him.

Gritting his teeth, he swung upwards at Vegeta's arm, hoping to dislodge his iron grip. Vegeta simply laughed and avoided the clumsy blow, delivering another torturous squeeze that made Gokou yelp like a kicked puppy. "Come on, Kakarott," he taunted, "surely the mightiest warrior ever born a low-blood Saiyajin can do better than that!"

Another squeeze, and Gokou's arms doubled up to his chest and he howled. Vegeta chuckled. He was enjoying this just a little too much, he knew. Kakarott didn't have many exploitable weaknesses, and every once in a while it was helpful to remind him who was really at the top of the food chain. Even if this lowborn rabble had managed to achieve Super Saiyajin first, he still had a better, and Vegeta was it.

A simple miscalculation, he told himself sternly, watching Gokou writhe and wondering what attack he would try next. I should have been the first to achieve that level of power, not him. Kakarott's an upstart, just like his father was. A little humility will do him good.

Part of him knew better, of course. There were few creatures in the galaxy less proud than Son Gokou--he was about as humble as any warrior could be. Still, Vegeta reminded himself, the man did need to learn to guard that overly sensitive tail of his. If Vegeta could snag it in the midst of a spar, an enemy could just as easily catch hold of it during a real fight. True, not many adversaries would know of Kakarott's particular weakness, but still--

"...ha...meeee..."

Vegeta blinked. "Wha--?"

"--HAAAAA!" Suddenly Gokou's hands were thrust up into Vegeta's face, and the world turned a brilliant blue-white. It was a weak blast, nowhere near full power, but it took Vegeta completely off-guard. Not only did he lose his hold on Gokou's tail, but the force of the blast drove him high into the air, then curved lazily as he still rode its crest, slamming him into the ground face-first. A tiny grass lizard who'd ventured out after a bug or two scampered clear as he struck, chittering and squawking back to its hole as the dust cloud rose and settled.

Gokou hung in midair, gasping, as he gingerly tucked his bruised and throbbing tail under his sash. Vegeta was right, of course, about him keeping it under control--De mo, does he have to enjoy making me yell so much?!

Vegeta pulled his head out of the ground with a snarl. "Very good, Kakarott," he hissed through clenched teeth, shaking clods of red dirt from his spiky hair. "Now let's see how fast you really are!" He kicked off the ground and launched himself like a bullet into the air, streaking right for Gokou, readying a foreblast in both his hands--

*shk*

"Okay, TIME OUT!!"

*shk*

Vegeta stopped so suddenly in his charge that he nearly whiplashed himself. Slowly he turned and looked for the source of the amplified voice, which had come from about a hundred meters away on the ground below.

Gokou muttered, "Ut-oh...I think we're in trouble, Vegeta."

Vegeta snorted. "What do you want, woman?" he sneered.

Bulma stood with her fists planted on her lush hips, scowling up at him. In one hand she was holding a bright yellow bullhorn. Beside her stood ChiChi, arms folded, looking every bit as cross.

Bulma raised the bullhorn again. *shk* "Do you two have ANY idea what TIME it is?" *shk*

Gokou and Vegeta looked at each other, then back at the smoldering pair below.

"Aaa..." Gokou finally ventured. "Did we miss breakfast?"

ChiChi took the bullhorn from Bulma and spoke through it. *shk* "AND lunch. And dinner's getting COLD. It would serve you right if I never fed you again, Son Gokou!" *shk* Finished, she handed the horn back to Bulma and folded her arms.

Gokou gave a wail of despair more heartfelt than any of his earlier cries of pain. "Gomen, ChiChi!!!!" He dropped out of the sky immediately, landing beside his wife with a look that was one part heartfelt apology and three parts desperate supplication. He wrapped an arm around her stiff shoulders. "Don't say things like that! You're the best cook in the world! In the universe, ChiChi! I couldn't live without your cooking! I'll come home right away, okay? And--" Desperately he fished for some way of appeasing his seething mate. "And I'll stay home all day tomorrow! I won't spar once! I'll weed the garden and mow the grass and I'll--I'll even read a book! I promise! Yakusoku na!!! Pleasepleaseplease??"

ChiChi softened a bit. "Well. All right. But before we eat you have to take a bath!"

"Oh, hai! Hai! We go home right now, okay?" Hurriedly he whistled for the Kintouen; with ChiChi still in his arms, he hopped aboard and the floating golden cloud quickly whisked them both off towards home.

Vegeta watched the scene play out with unabashed scorn on his face. "Amazing how any Saiyajin can be so controlled by five percent of his anatomy," he muttered, smirking as he drifted down to the ground.

Bulma watched his descent with a steel-eyed glare; the moment he touched down, she turned on her heel and started stalking back towards her aircar.

He met her there, blocking her path.

"Out of my way," she snapped.

He folded his arms and returned her steady glare. He didn't budge.

"Hmph!" Bulma turned and stalked around him to the other side of the car, clambering in from the passenger's side. She tossed the bullhorn into the back of the cab and started the engine with a violent twist of the key. With a measured hum, the car rose up off the ground. She slammed the throttle forward and felt the jerk of momentum as the gravity nullifiers kicked in. The roar of the engine filled her ears and she hunched down savagely over the wheel, eyes fixed on the road.

It took her at least half a minute to realize that the landscape around her wasn't moving, and an additional eight and a half seconds to come to the conclusion that since her surroundings were static, that meant she wasn't going anywhere either.

"Damndamndamn!!!" she growled, and pulled the throttle back. The car tilted slightly upwards, but still wouldn't move forward so much as a millimeter. Reverse had no effect, either. "You stupid car, what's wrong with you?"

She determined she was a little less than two meters off the ground; she cut the hover mode and expected a sharp jolt as the vehicle dropped--a jolt that never came. The car sat, dead still and deactivated, suspended inexplicably in the air.

Slowly Bulma took her hands off the wheel and leaned out the driver-side window. There was the ground, a short jump below her, and the shadow cast by the suspended car...and another, smaller, maddeningly familiar shadow drawn out long below.

Bulma had to lean halfway out of the aircar to peek underneath it. Upside-down to her perspective, Vegeta smirked at her, still holding the car up in place with one hand.

"Bastard!" Bulma opened the door and jumped to the ground, stomping away without bothering to look back. "Fine, if you want the car so bad, I'll walk home."

She heard a thunderous crash behind as Vegeta tossed the abandoned aircar aside and it exploded in a burst of dull orange light. She didn't slow down or even glance back. The next moment strong arms wrapped around her waist, and her feet left the ground, which dropped away at a heart-stopping rate.

"Put--me--DOWN!!!" Bulma roared, kicking and flailing and hammering at the iron bars of Vegeta's forearms with tight, tiny, useless fists.

"If you insist," he murmured against her ear.

And let go.

"NONONONONOOOO!!" she screamed, clawing uselessly at the air as she fell. She didn't know how far up she was, her mind wasn't working clearly enough to gauge distance, but the smoke-belching ruin of the aircar looked like a child's toy below and she knew with terrible certainty that, when she hit, she wasn't going to leave a good-looking corpse.

Arms around her waist again, bearing her up, and she found herself able to breathe once more. "Make up your mind," Vegeta chuckled.

"Beast!!" Bulma pounded at his forearms as hard as she could, only managing to bruise her hands in the process. "First you leave me alone all day so you can come out here in the middle of nowhere and play tag with Son-kun, then you wreck my favorite car, and now you're tormenting me shamelessly..." She couldn't decide whether she was closer to laughter or to tears.

The wind rushed past them at furious speed. Vegeta laughed again, a low throaty rumble that made Bulma's chest flutter, and he rubbed his cheek against hers with a gentle roughness. "Oh, I haven't begun tormenting you," he promised silkenly, "yet."

Bulma's diminishing squeals of protest were carried away on the evening breeze.

"Come on, Trunks-kun!" Goten was dancing from one foot to the other, looking at his best friend entreatingly.

"No." Trunks' scowl would have done his father proud. He refused even to glance at Goten, but continued to obstinately sharpen his already razor-edged sword. "En-oh, that means no, that means hell no way no how, not ever."

Goten whined, "But, Trunks-kun...! It's fun, hontou! And you won't believe how powerful--"

Trunks dropped the whetstone and stood to face Goten. The late afternoon breeze stirred pale lavender strands across his intense blue eyes. "Goten," he said, in a voice that purred good sense and reason. "I appreciate what you're saying, but I simply don't care for the idea. It's nothing against you, or against the idea, but I just don't see any point in discussing this further." He tossed his sword carelessly up in the air. The blade spun once, flashing in the dying sunlight, and Trunks leaned slightly to one side without the slightest glance upward as it fell point-downward into the sheath across his back with a shrinng! of finality. He straightened up at once and brushed his bangs out of his eyes with an absent swipe of one hand. "Now, why don't we go inside and get cleaned up for dinner? I'm sure Papa and Mom will be home soon."

"Will you at least think about it, Trunks-kun? Just a little?"

Goten's eyes were as wide and pleading as a hungry puppy's. Trunks laughed softly and clapped Goten on the shoulder. "Okay, all right, I'll think about it. I don't promise that I'll change my mind, though. I really don't think I'd be any fonder of 'Fusion' than Papa is. Come on, let's go."

The small hill behind Capsule Corporation was quiet, as always. A cluster of headstones dotted its grassy crest, each bearing a name that was all too familiar to this evening's visitor. The red light of the setting sun glinted off cornsilk-pale hair as the young woman knelt before a freshly-dug depression in the ground, set a bit apart from the other graves.

Small, slender hands laid a tattered, faded denim vest with a hole burned through the back in the shallow excavation alongside a stretched and torn T-shirt that might once have been red.

The girl sat back on her heels and drew a small, silvery knife. Two flashes, and twin swatches of soft blonde hair fell into the ersatz grave.

"It's all I have left of you to bury," Marron whispered. "Kaa-san...Tou-san...I hope your souls can rest easy now, wherever you are. Aisuzu is dead, in our world and in this one...and Goten and Bra-chan and I are all still alive." She swiped the back of her dirty hand across her face to brush away hot tears. "They're good to us here, you know...as good as they know how to be, and Bra-chan and Goten are so happy." She tried to smile bravely. "I hope someday I can be happy here as well."

She carefully covered the hole over and laid a wreath of woven spring buds on top of the pile of earth. She stood, dusting her hands off on her jeans and straightening the blue tank top she wore. She stood a moment longer before the small mound, her hands clasped before her, her eyes shut tight. When she felt herself finally under some kind of control, she lowered her hands, opened her eyes, took a deep breath and turned around.

And froze.

Juuhachi-gou stood at the edge of the treeline, just outside the small clearing. "I hope you can be happy here, too," she said quietly. "Please forgive me; I didn't mean to intrude."

"It's--it's okay," Marron said softly. "I was just..." She faltered, uncertain of how to explain.

But Juu nodded. "I know. I can only imagine how hard this is for you." She stepped forward into the small clearing. Her long pale hair, the exact color of Marron's own, stirred in the freshening breeze. "It's very hard to lose someone you love and have nothing left of them at all. And you, and Goten and Bra, have lost more than most people can imagine."

"We'll be all right," Marron said, tossing her head so that the two pigtails mounted high on her head, now cropped to the level of her chin, danced on either side of her face. "We're survivors."

"Yes, you are." Juuhachi-gou smiled. "That's why you're here. So many times you could have just given up, let go--but you didn't. Not ever."

"My tou-san taught me that," Marron said, with a slight defiant lift of her pointed chin. "He wasn't the strongest fighter, or the toughest, but he was the bravest man I ever met. Besides Gokou-san, I mean; he's just as brave."

"You're right." Juu looked off towards the horizon. The sun's fiery disk was just slipping below the horizon, and a quick flash of green lit the sky as it disappeared--there and gone in an eyeblink, leaving behind a riot of purple and rose and deep blue in its wake. "Kuririn--this world's Kuririn--knew he didn't stand a chance against Juunana-gou and me. If he'd run away, we would have let him go, wouldn't have bothered with him, but he didn't run. He faced us knowing he was going to die." She looked so sad. "I wish I could have stopped it. Changed it. Saved him, gotten to know him. I think I really would have liked him if I had."

"You loved him," Marron answered quietly. "At least my kaa-san loved him. More than anything."

Juu nodded again. "I was another person then. Not even a person; just a killing machine set loose on a helpless world. Both of us were. We had no goals or hopes or dreams or desires; we were doing what we had been programmed to do, nothing more."

"What happened to him?" Marron asked suddenly.

Juuhachi-gou looked at her, puzzled. "Kuririn? I told you, we--"

"Not tou--not Kuririn-san. Juunana-oji-san."

"Juunana-gou..." Juuhachi-gou looked down.

"Yes. You're alive, and I know he must be somewhere, too."

Juu shook her head, not raising her eyes. "He came back just as I did...but he was still evil and didn't want to change. He wanted to make me become what he was, what I'd once been, and there was no turning him aside from it."

"Did you kill him?" Not an accusation, merely a question put boldly forward.

An honest question, deserving an honest answer. "No; but I probably would have had to--if Vegeta hadn't beaten me to it." She looked at the daughter of her other self, a look of mingled grief and shame. "I wish there'd been another way, but he had the same chance I did to change, and he chose not to. If only--if only he'd listened, if only I'd been able to talk or shout or beat some sense into him."

"You miss him?"

"I do. I think I miss more who he was before we became what we did, even though I can't remember very well what our lives were like before Gero turned us into cyborgs. I think--I believe he wasn't a bad person, just bitter and misguided. And of course, Gero's programming didn't improve things much. I had the chance to fight it, and overcome it, finally. He never did."

"So you don't have any family left, either," Marron said quietly.

Juuhachi-gou managed a smile. One slim small hand reached out and brushed a few stray silken strands from Marron's high, pale brow. "I have you, and you have me. That's a good place to start."

Marron looked up at her, her heart in her eyes. The next moment she flung herself into Juuhachi-gou's arms. "Kaa-san..."

Juuhachi-gou folded her into a comforting embrace. "I'm here, musume," she murmured, kissing the top of Marron's head. "I won't ever leave you. I promise."

Videl woke from a deep sleep. With a new mother's instinct she knew that her daughter was crying. She yawned as she rose from the bed, snagging her dressing-gown in passing as she padded from the bedroom into the new, brightly-painted nursery.

As she reached the doorway, she saw that the soft pink-tinted light above the crib was already on. A tall, lean-muscled figure held a tiny squirming bundle, crooning softly.

"Gohan...?" Videl whispered. "It's my turn to feed the baby..."

Her husband turned around and gave her a sheepish grin. "Saa, you were so fast asleep I didn't want to wake you. Neither did she, ne, Pan-chan?" he asked, smiling down at the infant cradled so tenderly in arms that could crush mountains.

"I woke up anyway. Here, give her to me." She accepted Pan from her father's embrace and sat down in the rocking chair. "Shush, now, aka-chan, I know you're hungry. Kaa-san's here."

As she nursed the baby, rocking slowly back and forth in the chair, Gohan wandered over and knelt beside her, watching mother and child, his wife and daughter, with softly shining eyes.

"She looks like you," he ventured. "The same nose, the same eyes..."

"She has your eyes," Videl corrected him gently. "And she's going to have that wild careless hair you keep cropped so close."

Gohan chuckled and ran a hand through the short rumpled black bush atop his head. "We don't know for sure, maybe she'll have soft silky hair like her kaa-san."

"You didn't."

Gohan shrugged a little and touched one of the tiny hands. It immediately curled around his finger. "It doesn't matter, ne? She's ours. Part of you and part of me."

"She'll belong to no one but herself," Videl murmured, smiling. "She'll make her own way and live her own life. And she'll grow up in a world of peace and happiness."

Gohan noticed the distant sadness in her eyes. "She'll have everything we didn't," he assured her.

Videl nodded, her face still somber. "I wish Tou-san could have seen his grandchild. He'd be so proud of her."

"Saa, that reminds me--I was thinking maybe we should enter the Budokai, ne? Get back into fighting trim?"

"Go-han!" Videl scoffed, but she smiled a bit. "You couldn't get out of fighting trim if you tried. Me? No, I have to officiate the whole blasted thing, remember? After all, it's the first Tenkaichi Budokai in twenty years, and it's being held in my father's honor. I have to stand up in front of all those people and smile pretty for the camera." She shuddered a bit. "Besides, I've had my fill of fighting for one lifetime. I'm perfectly content to be a normal, ordinary, everyday housewife and mother who also happens to be a requisition specialist for New Hope City's reconstruction program."

"Mm."

"You can if you want to, though. I won't mind."

"Ano...I'm not sure I do want to, really. I never liked fighting much--I only learned how because Piccolo-san taught me, because he had to. There's a part of me that likes fighting--that loves it, really--but that part of me got plenty of fighting in the bad years. I'm enjoying being able to live in peace for a while."

"Hmm. Well, you'd better make your mind up fast. The tournament starts next week, remember."

"I know. Maybe I'll sleep on it, ne?"

"Good idea. Speaking of sleep, I think our little one's about ready to drift back to dreamland." Gently Videl laid Pan over one shoulder, burped her properly (Gohan chuckled at the tiny sound), and stood up to carry her back to her crib. Videl stood there a moment, watching her, and when Gohan appeared quietly beside her and slipped a solid arm around her shoulders, she leaned against him, and he rested his cheek atop her head.

"Children are the metal piece that hold the fan together," Gohan whispered. "My kaa-san always says that. Without them, a marriage isn't really complete."

"I know some people who would argue with that," Videl answered just as softly. "But not in this room, ne?"

"Sou."

The sky hung low, iron grey, over a mountain range far to the north of New Hope City. The jagged black peaks jutted brokenly above the horizon like the teeth of an ancient, long-dead gargantuan, tearing hungrily into the forbidding sky.

A cave was crudely scooped out of one cliffside, the entrance all but blocked up by fallen boulders and settling debris. Deep within, far from any daylight, lay the shattered remains of what had once been the laboratory of a madman.

A picture of the long-dead Dr. Gero could easily have been put beside the entry for "mad scientist" in any dictionary. The lone survivor of the infamous Red Ribbon Army, he had become obsessed with the destruction of Son Gokou--the one responsible for foiling Red Ribbon's plans for world domination. To that end, he had constructed a series of jinzouningen--humanoid robots, killing machines. Some had been born human, others Gero had built from scratch and had been completely mechanical. Of the twenty known products of his labor, only one--Juuhachi-gou--was currently active. All the others--including Juuni-gou, Dr. Gero's last monstrous creation, which was actually Dr. Gero's own brain in a superpowerful android body--had been destroyed.

Or so everyone believed.

In a subterranean level below the main floor of the ruined lab, in a chamber that no one living even knew existed, a row of stasis capsules, each fully three meters long and a meter and a half in circumference, stood along the rough rock wall. All were empty--save one.

The sole functioning stasis chamber hummed quietly to its unresponsive occupant, as it had done for countless years. Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou had never known about this place, though they themselves had slept here in their turn, as had all of Gero's jinzouningen. Now only one remained, the one Gero considered his greatest failure, forgotten and left to sleep its undreaming sleep forever.

Fate had other plans.

Though no active volcanoes remained this far north, the mantle below still trembled sometimes with the restless movements of magma below the surface. Occasionally, a crack would appear in the soot-black rock and allow a trickle of the planet's molten lifeblood to ooze out, hissing as it touched the snow and cooled into volcanic glass. At other times, the pressure would build up and suddenly shift the structure of the surface, causing subsidences and random rockslides.

On this particular day, in mid-spring, Gero's abandoned lab shivered with tremors. A landslide covered the gaping hole, sealing the lab completely. In the lower, secret vault, an empty stasis chamber, its cover hanging open, rocked on its foundation, teetered for a moment, then crashed over into its neighbor. Like dominoes, the chambers fell, crashing loudly to the floor one after another, sending up thick clouds of smoky dust and causing sparks to shoot from the flint-hard floor into the blind darkness.

A siren began beeping blandly from the sole active chamber, accompanied by the flashing of a dull red light on its exterior console. The door cracked open with a hiss of expelled air, and a massive, hulking figure sat up.

Hesitant at first, the jinzouningen got its bearings quickly and stepped out of the fallen capsule, righting itself. Obviously the capsule had been nearly too small to accommodate it; on its feet, it stood nearly three meters high. It glanced around in the dusty gloom, but saw no other activity in the chamber.

It took less than a heartbeat for the programming to come online. Gero was nowhere to be found, but that meant nothing. Its purpose was already clear, had been clear from the first moment of its awareness.

Guided by vision that could see clearly even in total darkness, the massive shape headed for the accessway, climbing up into the laboratory proper. The sight of the total destruction gave it some pause, but not enough to deter it from its ultimate purpose. It paused only a moment over the decapitated, robotized form of its creator. Dr. Gero was dead, and any further orders or directives from him were now null and void.

It had only one purpose, one meaning for its existence, and it would see that purpose carried out. It was the least it could do for its

(father)

for its maker.

The heavy slide of boulders showered out from the cliffside, the heaviest of them no more than a momentary hindrance to the force that drove them. When the entryway was clear, the last jinzouningen took one leap from the ledge and launched into the air, flying off towards the south to seek out its predetermined target.

The morning sun shone brightly on Papaya Island, where the walls of the newly-reconstructed battle stadium gleamed with fresh paint and lacquer. At the signup board, Videl stood in a red-and-white patterned kimono with a black obi--suitable for a young married woman. On her back, Pan slept in a gaily-patterned sling.

"Everyone choose your numbers!" she directed the assembled warriors. There were only sixteen slots this year--it was the first Budoukai in twenty years, after all, and they'd had to scrounge to find even that many warriors, even with the arrival of Goten-tachi--but the empty slots had filled up quickly enough.

"I wanna fight," Bra pouted, leaning against a gate-post, her arms folded.

"You're too young," Vegeta told her. "You can fight in the next one, three years from now."

"Three years is forever!" she protested, stamping her foot. "I'm almost thirteen now!"

Vegeta looked at his daughter. Though she'd only been part of his family for a handful of months, he had bonded with her almost at once, and he found it annoyingly hard to refuse her anything... not when eyes that held his will and Bulma's fire combined looked his way. Much like his first-born, so very much. The best of both their parents. He understood better these days why Kakarott looked at his children with such pride and happiness. Still, a warrior without discipline was nothing. He showed her his fiercest scowl, which made even Bra take a step back. "Stop whining," he ordered firmly. "Or I'll kick your butt right here and now and send you home with worse than a bruised ego."

Her tiny hands clenching into tight fists, Bra turned on her heel and stormed off, her pale blue topknot bouncing furiously with every step. Vegeta chuckled dryly to himself. Oh yes. When she is old enough to fight, her competitors won't stand a chance in Hell.

"Weren't you a little too hard on her, Papa?" Trunks asked, looking after his retreating sister.

Vegeta turned his black glare on his son. "She's still conscious, isn't she?"

Juuhachi-gou selected a number and turned away to allow Goten his turn at the number selection--and came up short as a pair of burning eyes met hers from behind a cold, gloss-white, expressionless mask.

"Excuse me," she said politely. The masked stranger did not respond. He stood perfectly still, absolutely unmoving, neither blocking her way nor moving out of it. If it hadn't been for those unnervingly intense eyes, she might have thought he was a statue.

She half-smiled, mildly embarrassed, and still received no response. She couldn't tell what emotion was behind that unrelenting stare, but whatever it was had to be incredibly strong. Hate or worship, anger or fear, it caused her artificial heart to skip in its beating. Trying not to seem too hurried, she stepped around the stranger, who only then moved, to watch her pass with his steady, unblinking eyes.

Something bumped into the masked stranger from behind, and he whirled around at once. His hand went up to clutch at the weapon slung across his back, but in mid-motion he froze.

"Sorry," Marron said, flashing him a bright smile. Her wide blue eyes sparkled in the early sunshine, and as she bounced past him, the short white-gold twin ponytails bobbed saucily atop her head like two silken tassels. He stood staring after her, unable to take his gaze from her, his eyes now focused with a very different sort of attention.

"There, now, sweetie, don't cry." Bulma petted her daughter's hair. "Don't be in such a hurry to grow up too soon. There'll be plenty of other tournaments, I promise."

"Buh-but I wanted to fight today! Goten gets to, and Marron. It's not fair!!" Bra sat up and wiped at her eyes, sniffling furiously. "What's age got to do with it any--huh?" She blinked her wide blue eyes as a shiny red candy apple seemed to appear in front of her.

"Will this help?" a soothing young male voice asked. "I hate to see such a pretty girl crying."

"Excuse me," Bulma began, and looked up--

And gasped.

Before the seated pair stood a young man, surely no more than sixteen, his lean, sculpted fighter's form backlit by the morning sun. The light picked out blue lights in his glossy mane of black hair, the same color blue as his deep, friendly eyes.

"Thuh-thank you," Bra stammered, taking the apple shyly, her tears forgotten as a soft pink blush colored her cheeks.

"That's better," the youth said approvingly. "Oh, I brought one for your sister, too--" and he held a second candy apple out to Bulma.

"Oh, I'm--uhm..." Bulma coyly crossed her legs and fluffed out her shining hair. "Why, thank you!" she giggled, allowing her fingers to brush the young man's hand as she accepted the gift.

"That's my moth--" Bra began.

Bulma cut her off quickly. "Don't talk with your mouth full, little sister," she giggled, dredging up every memory she had of being sixteen and cranking up the cuteness factor as high as she could manage. God, he's beautiful! What a killer smile, and look at that body! Wrap him up, I'll take him home with me! "Thank you very much, Mister...?"

"No 'mister'. Just Chamuya." He took Bulma's hand, bowed over it, and graced her knuckles with a light, courtly kiss that made her giggle even more.

"I'm Bulma, and this is my little gi--sister, Bra."

Chamuya gave Bra the same gesture of gallantry, which made the girl blush even brighter, though she was smiling big, her lips tinted candy-apple red.

A gong sounded, and Chamuya glanced up. "Excuse me, ladies, but I have to go down to get my match assignment. I hope to see you both again later, though..."

"Sure!" Bra piped.

"Good luck," Bulma said, giving him a thumbs-up and a quick wink.

Chamuya grinned, winked back, and headed down the stadium steps two at a time.

"Oooooh," Bulma crooned, "what a hottie!"

"Daddy's gonna be mad," Bra warned from behind her apple.

"Oh, pooh! What your daddy doesn't know won't hurt him," Bulma said, waving her hand dismissively. "Besides, what's the good of being young again if you can't flirt a little bit? It's harmless."

Bra didn't reply, but she saw her father peering from around one of the bleachers, watching Chamuya head towards the locker rooms with a look that promised pure murder.

On the podium above the ring, Videl checked the cards in her hand and looked around at the crowd. The small stadium was packed, but she was able to pick out her mother-in-law, and waved. Pan, sitting in ChiChi's lap, crowed and flailed her chubby arms in response.

Videl smiled and spoke into the microphone. "Welcome, everyone, to the Tenkaichi Budoukai! All our competitors have been briefed on the rules, which I'm about to summarize here. No weapons or foreign objects are allowed; neither are eye jabs or, ah, 'low blows'. A competitor loses the match by touching the ground outside the ring, by being pinned by the shoulders to the mat, by losing consciousness, or by submission. This is only a competition; any fighter that kills his or her opponent will be disqualified and banned from any future event for life.

"Enough with the preliminaries, let's get ready to rumble!" Videl threw her arms up as the crowd cheered in wild anticipation. Then she extended an arm to the main entrance, and the crowd immediately quieted.

The first competitor had obviously trained long and hard at his fighting ability; tanned and muscular, he ascended the stairs with the air of a born champion.

Videl checked the cheat-card one last time. "Introducing--Commando!"

Cheers rose from the crowd, and Commando nodded, his stony face set in a granite-hard sneer that approximated a smile. He raised his arms and flexed them, showing off bulging muscles, and several girls shrieked appreciatively. His oiled, perfect skin glistened in the sun.

"He will be facing..." Videl shuffled the cards to the next listing. "Piccolo!"

A few gasps from the crowd, but mostly curious murmurs. Commando smirked, obviously not recognizing the name.

A cloaked and turbaned figure emerged onto the field, approaching the ring with a casual but determined stride. He mounted the steps and approached his opponent, stopping a bare arm's reach away.

Commando's grin faded as he looked up into Piccolo's fathomless eyes, set in a sharp-planed green-skinned face. As the musclebound fighter stared, the Namekseijin's lips curled into a mocking smile, parting to show the barest tip of one gleaming white fang.

A hush fell over the assembled crowd. There was a breathless pause during which time seemed to stand perfectly still, waiting for something to happen.

Videl slowly raised her arm, opened her mouth, took in breath to announce the beginning of the match. "Ready...fi--"

She was cut off by a dull, resounding thud! from the ring as Commando keeled over and fainted dead away at Piccolo's feet.

Videl paused, blinking, then lowered her arm. She watched Piccolo nudge his opponent experimentally in the ribs with one foot, turning him onto his back. Commando was out cold, his handsome face frozen in a mask of pure terror.

"Um..." Videl spoke hesitantly into the microphone. "The...first match goes to Piccolo...by...pass-out."

The audience erupted into laughter and jeers for the fallen Commando. Piccolo shook his head, eyes narrowed to slits. "Flattering," he muttered, "but pathetic." With a toss of his cape, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the ring. Commando was carried off by the medical staff to recover his senses and the last shreds of his dignity in private.

A chorus of cheers and whistles accompanied Marron to the ring, mostly from young men who appreciated the beauty of the Budoukai's first female competitor. Her spirits buoyed by the attention, she waved at the assemblage as she mounted the steps. She stopped in her tracks when she saw her opponent--the tall, masked stranger she'd bumped into earlier.

"Hi," she said, nodding. "Fancy meeting you here."

No response. The stranger--Kamen--simply bowed stiffly, then straightened into a preliminary stance.

"Not much of a conversationalist, huh?" Marron responded in kind. "That suits me just fine."

"Ready..." Videl dropped her arm sharply. "Fight!"

Marron warily circled the white-clad figure, wishing he wasn't wearing that damned mask--it was almost impossible to read him behind it. When he darted at her, she made it out of the way barely in time, dancing to one side and swinging a countering kick at his legs. He jumped over them, turning a careful backflip and landing just out of reach. He's good, whoever he is, she mused, balancing on the balls of her feet.

Good, indeed, he was--but only human, for all that. If nothing else, she could outlast him, but as the match progressed, he showed no sign of tiring, countering her experimental punches and kicks, blocking her at every turn. To be fair, Marron was equally successful in avoiding being hit, but things weren't progressing fast enough to suit her.

Time to crank the volume--She launched herself into the air, leaping over Kamen. He paused to watch her, and before he could turn, she landed behind him and delivered a solid kick to the small of his back. He shot forward, knocked squarely off his feet, and fell off the edge of the ring. The crowd gasped, and several cheered--

Black-gloved hands clamped onto the edge of the mat, and Kamen swung himself back up into the ring. The cheers stopped, and surprised murmurs rose from the bleachers.

"No ground contact," Videl confirmed. "The match continues!"

The unreadable eyes focused on Marron. "You're good," their owner muttered, not without appreciation.

"So you can talk." She matched his steps, circling him as he circled her.

"When I choose. I prefer to speak with action, however." As he said this, his fist flashed out and connected sharply with Marron's chin. An ordinary girl's jaw might have been broken, but Marron was anything but ordinary. Even so, the blow snapped her head sharply around. When she looked back at him, a thin trail of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

She smiled sweetly at him. "Now you're talking my language."

Kamen hesitated, startled by the scarlet stain on the rosebud lips. "I--I'm so sorr--" He broke off as the girl before him...vanished.

In the next instant, he felt his feet leave the ground, and he was rushing upward, towards the sky. He felt two small hands fisted into the back of his gi, and twist though he might, he couldn't pull free.

"Happy landings," Marron told him joyfully, and hurled him earthward from about five meters up. He struck the ground with a solid thunk that made the whole ring shake and knocked the breath soundly from his lungs. For a moment he hovered in a gray daze, wondering whether he should just give up and pass out, when his opponent swooped down on him from above and, with a well-placed punch to the jaw, made the decision for him.

"Marron--the winner by knockout!"

"Marron--yattaaaaaaa~!" Bra cheered from the bleachers, her misery forgotten. Marron waved back at her friend before descending the ring steps. She cast one look over her shoulder, wondering briefly if Kamen was as cute behind that mask as he sounded.

At last Vegeta's turn came. There was only one opponent he was truly interested in, but he felt sure that he would face his one true rival eventually. It was inevitable that he and Gokou should meet, and that he, Vegeta, would finally vanquish the upstart lowborn for all the world to see, finally proving who was truly the mightiest survivor of Vegetasei.

But first he would have to fight at least one other. Not that it would be a problem; he knew he was the match and more of any warrior except, perhaps, Kakarott himself. A warm-up could only benefit him in the one match to which he aspired.

But when he saw the face of his opponent, he chuckled wickedly to himself. So, it's the one who dared to speak to Bulma. Let's see how a little rearrangement affects his pretty face.

"Good luck, Chamuya!" Bulma called.

"Huh?" Bra blinked at her. "Mom, you're rooting for the wrong guy!"

"Oh, not really, honey..." Bulma sighed. "I'm just sympathetic. Vegeta's going to clean the place up with him."

"...Oh."

At first, Chamuya thought he was doing pretty well. He allowed his thoughts to drift back to the pair of pretty ladies he'd met up in the stands. They're both cute, but I'm pretty sure the little one's a tad too young, even for me--fourteen'll get you twenty, like the Master says. Her older sister, now...she has definite possibilities. If I were the spiritual type like Rin is, I'd think she was my girlfriend in another life or something. As it is, I'd really like to get to know her better in this one.

Gokou watched the bout with interest. Ano, Vegeta's holding back a lot. He's letting that guy think he's gonna win. I feel kind of sorry for him...

"He's good," a voice said behind him--wavering, heavy with the burden of ponderous age. "Of course, he's going to lose, but he's young, he's got plenty of time to improve."

"Nanda?!" Gokou spun around and found himself confronted by the figure of a wizened old man with a long, snowy beard, wearing sunglasses and a loud Hawaiian shirt.

"Long time no see, Gokou m' boy," Master Roshi greeted him. "How's life treating you this time around?"

"Kamesennin!!!!!!" Joyfully Gokou scooped up his first sensei, hugging him tight. "I didn't realize you were still around! Of course, I didn't see you up in Heaven, but then again I figured you might have gone the other way."

Nonchalantly Roshi brought up the heavy staff he always carried and clonked Gokou soundly on the head. With a yelp Gokou dropped the old man, who landed squarely on his sandaled feet. "Mind how you talk to your elders, boy," Roshi scolded mildly. "It's good to see you alive again."

Gokou rubbed the bump on his head and laughed. "Good to see you too! You haven't changed much."

"After three hundred years, I figure I've done all the changing I'm going to--eh?" Roshi looked down as something furry and soft brushed his bare leg. "What's this?" He reached down and caught hold of a roughly plush tail. "Ah, so you grew this back, didja?"

"KYAAAA~~!" Gokou wailed in pain and fell face-first into the dust.

"And still as tender as ever, I see," Roshi continued, unruffled, and released it.

Gokou scrambled back to his feet, dusting himself off, gasping and wiping the tears of pain from his face. "Ha...hai."

"Mm?" Roshi adjusted his sunglasses. "I think Cham's about to learn the hard way that size doesn't necessarily matter."

"Ano?" Gokou turned around in time to see the tall, lean-muscled youth catapulted out of the ring. Chamuya soared skyward in a graceful arc before plummeting earthward. Gokou stepped aside as the young man slammed face-first into the ground at Roshi's feet.

"The winner," Videl announced from the podium, "Vegeta!"

"Ah, well, better luck next time, Chamuya," Roshi murmured. "Meantime, I'd like you to meet one of my older students. Son Gokou, this is Chamuya. He's been training at Kame House for 'bout five years now."

"Hajimemash'te," Gokou said, bowing to Chamuya's twitching, upended legs.

"Come on, boy, let's get some antiseptic for your ouchies." Roshi grasped the orange shirtback and pulled Chamuya's head out of the ground, slung the unconscious youth over one rawboned shoulder, and headed off the field with him.

"Bai bai!" Gokou called, waving merrily. "See you later, Roshi-sensei!"

"Next match," Videl announced, "Son Gokou versus Tarantula!"

"Aa! That's me!" Gokou bounded towards the ring, looking forward, as he always did, to another fight.

"Yaaaaay, Papa!!" Bra cheered as her father landed beside her. She jumped to her feet and flung her arms around his neck. "I knew you'd beat 'im! --You didn't hurt him too bad, did you?"

"He'll live. I doubt he'll be foolish enough to go sniffing around another man's woman anytime soon." He gave Bulma a significant look, and when she folded her arms and pointedly looked away, he stiffened, cocking one arched eyebrow. "What?!"

"Whoever said I was your woman--or anyone's but my own?" Bulma demanded haughtily. "It's not like I have 'Property of Vegeta' stamped on my butt."

"That can be arranged."

She sniffed. "That wouldn't change the fact that you have no claim on me. A few...um, hundred...rolls in the hay does not a relationship make!"

"But, Mama!" Bra protested. "Papa's your husband!"

"Husband?! Hah! As if I'd marry such a--an arrogant creep! Not that he's ever asked me. He's probably afraid I'd turn him down. And as long as I'm a single woman, I'll see whoever I choose and I don't have to answer to any man until--unless I get married to one!"

Vegeta's eyes narrowed to black slits.

"Ut-oh," Bra muttered, her own eyes wide.

Bulma felt herself slung over a hard muscled shoulder--hardly an unusual position for her to be in, but never before had Vegeta dared to treat her so in public. "Hey! Put me down!"

"You're loudmouthed, ugly and have a fat butt," Vegeta muttered, almost absently.

"That is not what I meant! Listen, you, you'd better let me go right now or I'll--yeep!" Bulma squealed as she found herself suddenly fifty meters up and still ascending. With a tiny gasp she grabbed hard onto Vegeta's neck.

"Hey, wait for me!" Bra called, launching herself into the air after her otherworld parents.

"Hmm," ChiChi murmured as she saw the trio fly past overhead. "I wonder where they're going--Gokou's match is about to begin."

Gokou's opponent was a hooded black figure with a band of cloth obscuring the lower part of his face.

"Oi," Gokou said as he quick-cracked his neck to one side, then the other, "how you see out of that stuff anyway? And with all that wrapping, how you gonna move?"

"I am Tarantula," the figure intoned, taking an elaborate stance. "I am descended from generations of mystic ninja warriors. From what lineage do you descend?"

"Me?" Gokou blinked and pointed at his own nose. "I'm a Saiyajin!"

"I know not that family. Prepare to meet defeat!"

"Well, you could say I'm not from around here...okay, we gonna fight now? Sukei!" Gokou leapt eagerly at Tarantula and delivered his first experimental punch.

"The winner by knockout," Videl announced, "Son Gokou!"

"....nani...?" Gokou looked at his fist, then at the unmoving figure at his feet. He gently nudged Tarantula's ribs with one foot. "Oi, get up! That was just a warm-up!"

No response.

"Che..." Gokou sighed and took a step over the fallen foe. "I need a snack."

"You realize," Piccolo told Marron as they faced each other in the ring, "I'm going to kick your butt."

Marron showed him a cool smile the mirror of his own. "You're welcome to try."

"No." Piccolo chuckled, amused both by her confidence and her defiance. "I'm going to kick your butt."

Marron winked, blew the Namekseijin a kiss--and vanished.

So did Piccolo.

Ten thousand eager eyes scanned the ring, trying to catch sight of the two fighters. At ground level, the Son family males, and Trunks and Juuhachi-gou, followed the action that was too fast for untrained eyes to witness.

A sharp cry, and a slim female form seemed to fall out of the air and land hard on the mat. She lay where she was and didn't move. Juuhachi-gou took an automatic step forward, but brought herself up short at once.

"The winner," Videl announced as the tall green form reappeared, standing still in the ring, "Piccolo!"

Juuhachi-gou dashed to ringside and retrieved her daughter from the fighting area. "Good try," she encouraged as Marron came slowly to her senses, cradled in her arms.

"He's...good," the younger woman admitted feebly.

Juuhachi-gou nodded once. "So are you. Next time you'll show him." She carried Marron over and set her down carefully beside Trunks. "Look after her," she told him. "My match is next. Since your father took off to parts unknown, he's out of the tournament. That means you get a bye into the third round." She kissed him briefly before heading back towards the ring. "See you there."

Sadly, it didn't quite work out that way. Juuhachi-gou faced Master Roshi's other student, Rinriku. As this was Juuhachi-gou's first spar against a non-Saiyajin, she deliberately held back. That was most likely a mistake, particularly when Rinriku suddenly leapt at her--and kissed her full on the mouth. Caught by surprise, the jinzouningen fell backwards--and Rinriku pinned her shoulders firmly to the mat.

"Ecch-CHI!" Juuhachi-gou shrieked, in an unconscious echo of Bulma at her finest, and kicked the grinning Rinriku solidly out of the ring--but it was too late.

"Winner by pinfall," Videl affirmed, "Rinriku!"

"Nanda?!" Trunks bellowed, outraged. "He cheated! Videl-san, that wasn't fair!"

Videl looked sternly at the youth. "There's no regulation against kissing your opponent," she told him. "Rinriku won fair and square."

Trunks grumbled and gave the retreating Rinriku a death-glare worthy of his father. "Just you wait till the next round," he rumbled. "I'll teach you to keep your hot lips to yourself."

Slowly recovering, Marron sipped one of Trunks' health drinks and giggled to herself.

"Oi, Gohan," Gokou grinned. "I don't expect you to hold anything back. Give it your best!"

"Hai, tou-san! I won't make it easy for you," his son promised.

The two fighters in the ring could have been brothers--the same wild black hair, the same broad, almost manically cheerful grins, even the same burnt-orange shogi--only those who knew that these two were father and son appreciated their true relationship. Gohan gave Gokou a good fight, never giving an inch, asking for no favors and granting none.

Videl lowered the microphone to cheer for her own personal favorite. "Gohan! Gambatte yo!!!"

"Hai, Videl-chan!" Gohan paused to strike a heroic pose for the love of his life--and left a wide opening for his father, who took full advantage of same.

Gokou gave Gohan a firm push, and the younger Son stood cartwheeling his arms on the edge of the ring, then launched himself into the air. "You don't get me that easy, Otou-san!" he warned, raising his arms.

"Saa, so it comes to this? Yosh'!" Gokou cupped his hands to one side. "Ka...me..."

"Masenkoooo..." Light fluttered around Gohan's fingers.

"...ha...me..." A globe of white brilliance formed between Gokou's palms.

"...sappo!!"

"...HAAAAA~!"

Both warriors thrust their hands forward in unison, and two glowing beams shot forth, one from each, to meet between them. Spectators cried out, shielding their eyes from light that was brighter than the noonday sun.

For long tense moments, the beams spat and sparked hotly at one another, blue against white gold, now surging towards the airborne Gohan, now hissing back at Gokou, who stood on the ground, feet planted apart, teeth bared in a grimace of concentration.

"Gohan-san's going to win!" Trunks exhorted, eyes shining, his earlier fury forgotten in the excitement of the contest. "He's more powerful than ever--more powerful than anyone! Na, Piccolo-san?"

"Hrm." Piccolo squinted against the hot glare from the ring. "This isn't just about raw power. It's a battle of wills, and I don't think any creature in the universe has more willpower than Gokou."

As though to prove the Namekseijin right, a long spiraling kiai echoed as the blue-white burst of the Kame-hame-ha suddenly erupted upwards, a fountain of pure ki, and hungrily enveloped Gohan's blast and Gohan himself. The beam arced upwards, then slammed down into the arena, scattering bystanders as it drove the younger Son into the freshly-painted brick wall just below the grandstand.

"Ge..." Gohan fell to the ground, leaving a Gohan-shaped impression in the brick.

"ThewinnerisSonGokouGOHAN!!" The microphone bumped and squealed as Videl dropped it. She leapt from the podium and was at her husband's side in a moment. "Gohan!! Are you all right? Speak to me!"

"Saaaa..." Gohan sat up, rubbing at the back of his head and shaking brick dust from his spiky hair. "I'm okay, Videl. Otou-san, I almost forgot how hard he hits, even when he's playing!"

"Heh-heh-he," Rinriku chuckled nervously, hand behind his head. "Don't worry, I gave up kissing big green guys for Lent."

Piccolo's taloned hand lashed out to catch hold of Rinriku and toss him from the ring, but the small man ducked between Piccolo's long legs and pushed him hard in the rump. Piccolo crashed face-first into the mat. Before he could get up, Rinriku jumped on Piccolo's head, slamming his face down again, and then leapt clear.

"Cute," Piccolo muttered, clambering to his feet. "Real cute." He delivered a roundhouse kick, but Rinriku leapt above the blow, landing on Piccolo's outstretched leg, then jumped to the big alien's shoulders and pulled his turban down over his eyes.

"HEY!!" Piccolo made a wild grab for Rinriku, who dropped off, landed on his hands, and gave a hard double-footed kick to the back of Piccolo's legs. The Namekseijin lost his balance and toppled. Temporarily blinded, he was unable to right himself before he hit the ground outside the ring.

"Rinriku is our winner!" Videl giggled, trying not to laugh outright as Piccolo stood and yanked off his turban.

"Wise-ass," he muttered, but he was half smiling. "Not bad. Better than I would've expected from a human. Next time I won't wear the weights and we'll see who ends up on the ground on their butt."

"Oi, I don't think we've sparred before, Trunks-kun," Gokou grinned as he and the younger man circled one another.

"We have, Gokou-san," Trunks replied, smiling gently, "but not in this time or place."

"Nani? Whups!" Gokou ducked under a quick sweep-kick. "Good going, Trunks! Don't let up!" He grabbed Trunks' swinging leg and tossed him towards the edge of the ring.

Trunks quickly righted himself in mid-air and came around to face Gokou. His arms wove a complicated pattern in front of his torso. "Burning Attack!" he shouted as a blast of ki shot towards Gokou.

"Kame-hame-HAAAA!!!" Gokou responded, meeting Trunks' power with his own. Leaping into the air, Gokou pressed forward, still firing, until he was within arm's reach of Trunks. Then his fist drove through both beams and clipped Trunks squarely on the jaw. The youth fell like a stone and landed hard outside the ring.

"The winner is," Videl announced, "Son Gokou!"

"Cheer up," Juuhachi-gou smiled as she helped Trunks to his feet. "There's always three years from now."

Trunks stood and rubbed his aching jaw. "Ano, I think I'll become a cabbage farmer."

She snorted, dusting off the back of his jacket. "As if."

"It all comes down to this, ladies and gentlemen," Videl said, restored to her podium as her husband sat with the "retired" fighters and gave her a thumbs-up. "The winner of this match will be the champion, and will face the winner of the next Budoukai in three years' time. To my left, the favorite, Son Gokou!"

Gokou waved in response to the cheers and whistles and applause. "Ossu, minna!"

"And to my right," Videl continued, "the challenger, from the Kame school, Rinriku!"

"Hiya!" the shorter man greeted as he jumped into the ring. "It's good to see you, Gokou!"

"Ano...?" Gokou blinked, peering at the young man. "Have we met before?"

"Yaah! Umm...no, nothing, forget I said anything, he-he-heh." Rinriku waved his hands violently in front of his face. "Let's just get started fighting, okay?"

Gokou grinned and nodded once. "Yosh'! Only...don't fall over the first time I hit you, okay?"

"Deal." Rinriku jumped up in the air, did a neat somersault, and landed squarely on Gokou's head, where he did a quick tap-dance before hopping back off.

"Owowowowow!" Gokou laughed, rubbing his head. "Okay, that's pretty good! Let's have some fun! Ikusho!"

He charged forward, grinning hugely, and closed with Rinriku, who met him punch for punch and block for block. It was fascinating to watch these two men; rather than snarling and cursing one another with every blow, they laughed and shouted encouragement to one another, just as if they were two old friends having an amiable spar rather than first-met strangers competing in a worldwide tournament.

A brief flash caught Gokou's eye from the area around his opponent; he paused, then tossed an experimental ki-ball at Rinriku. Reflexively the other fighter flared his aura and the ball of energy bounced harmlessly off.

"You can use ki attacks? Yosh'! Now we're really going to have fun!" Gokou crowed.

"You want to see a ki attack?" Rinriku's black eyes flashed; carried away with the excitement of the match, he forgot himself, forgot the secret he'd vowed to keep, forgot everything except the testing of his skill. He raised one muscular arm, and a yellow glow formed above his upstretched palm, roiling and flattening into a discus shape. "Check this out! KIEN ZAN!" He hurled the buzzing energy disc directly at Gokou.

The Saiyajin stood rooted where he was, eyes wide, blinking in stunned amazement. "Kien...zan...?" he echoed faintly.

"Gokou!" Juuhachi-gou shouted. "Look out!"

"Otou-san!" Gohan and Goten chorused.

"Abunai yo, Gokou-san!" Trunks yelled.

"Gokou, you idiot monkey, duck!!" Piccolo bellowed.

"Huh--?" It was only when the Kien zan was close enough for him to feel the first prickling of energy at his forehead that the momentarily jammed gears of Gokou's brain finally re-engaged and began to work again. By that time it was too late to move out of the way.

"GOKOUUUUUU!!!!!" ChiChi screamed.

Gokou had just enough time to raise two fingers to his brow. "Shuken Idou!" he yelped--and vanished just as the Kien zan tore through the air at what had been Gokou's eye level.

"Whoaaaa..." Rinriku's legs gave way, and he sat down hard in place.

"Gokou!!" ChiChi shouted.

"It's okay, ChiChi," Gokou said from where he now stood beside her, "I'm right here."

"The winner is," Videl shouted over the microphone, "Rinriku! Rinriku is the Budoukai champion!"

"Nani?" Gokou looked down at his feet, then to the ring, where Rinriku was getting to his feet. "Aaa--chikushou! I disqualified myself!"

ChiChi shook her head. "I don't care about that, Gokou, are you all right?"

"Gomen, ChiChi--I gotta talk to somebody--chotto--" And he vanished.

Rinriku, laughing with relief and the heady rush of victory, was waving his hands and grinning hugely at the crowd. Suddenly a shadow fell over him from behind; puzzled, he looked around. "Who--ahhh!!"

Gokou stood over him, his dark eyes glaring intently. Then the taller man's hand shot out and fisted in Rinriku's shirt. The next moment, both were airborne, shooting straight up far out of eyesight and earshot of the gathering below.

"Hey, lemme go! Jeez, Gokou, you didn't used to be this sore a loser! --UH! I mean, um, that's what I heard...from people...you know, like Master Roshi...and stuff...uhm...he-heh?" Rinriku trailed off, noticing for the first time the glimmer of tears in Gokou's wide dark eyes.

Softly, so softly, Gokou spoke one word. A name. "...Kuririn...?"

Slowly a smile played across the younger man's narrow lips. "Whups," he said, "I'm busted."

"KURIRINNNNN!" Gokou shouted, throwing his arms around Rinriku and hugging tight. "You're alive! I never could understand why you didn't go to Heaven like the rest of us, but Dende-sama said some stuff about the 'Wheel of Life', and I didn't get it too good--"

"Go...kou..." Rinriku started turning blue in the face. "Ease up...couldya...?"

"Ack! Gomen!" Gokou let go. "De mo...it's so good to see you!"

Rinriku grinned, looking more like his former self than ever. "Good to see you too, Gokou. I knew you were back, but I didn't know...I mean, it's kinda hard, you know? I used to be a monk, I can take all this reincarnation stuff in stride, but it's not so easy for a lot of other people to wrap their minds around."

"Sou...my brain don't stretch that far anyway." Gokou laughed. "Ano...where's your dots?" he asked, pawing at the shock of longish hair that fell over Rinriku's brow.

"They weren't genetic, dumbwipe." But Rinriku was still grinning hugely. "I didn't get tattooed this time around because I was born as just a regular guy. Enma-ou let me keep my memories from my past life so I'd retain all the skills and power I'd learned, and have a whole other lifetime to sharpen and increase them. When I was old enough--fourteen, in fact--I went to find Master Roshi. He recognized me right away, I think, but he's never said anything and I haven't told him. It's a little hard to bring up in conversation."

A flicker of memory glimmered at the back of Gokou's mind. "And...Chamuya...?"

Rinriku nodded. "Yep, that's Yamucha. He doesn't remember, but he's more powerful than ever for all that."

"Aa." Gokou reached out, ruffled the wild stripe of dark hair bisecting Rinriku's head. "I think this is better than being a bald monkey, ne?"

"Look who's talkin' about monkeys! You've got your tail back, huh?" Rinriku made as if to reach for it, and Gokou instantly drifted out of reach, chuckling.

"Um, excuse me."

"Wha?" Rinriku looked down, and his eyes went wide. "Oh...uh, hi. Heheh..." He waggled his fingers in a bashful wave at the cool blonde who hovered in mid-air a meter or so below the two men.

Gokou followed his friend's gaze. "Oi, Juuhachi-gou!"

"I don't mean to butt into a private conversation," the jinzouningen intoned, "but I drew the short straw and got drafted to come up here and ask if you two were ready for the victory celebration."

"Oh--sure!" Rinriku showed his most winning smile and drifted down to Juuhachi-gou's eye level. Still smiling, he held out his hand to her. "Listen, I didn't mean to make you mad during the match. You're really strong. I hope you won't think badly of me. I'd like to be friends, if we could."

Juuhachi-gou arched an eyebrow. "If I'd been mad, you would have known it. No hard feelings." She reached out, shook his hand, then let go and dropped swiftly back down to the ground, her long blonde hair billowing up around her face as she went.

"Wowww..." Rinriku whistled, watching her. "What a babe. I'm glad she didn't kill me a second time. I'd sure like to get to know her better."

"Ano..." Gokou scratched his head. 'I dun' think Trunks would like that too much, Kuririn."

"Trunks?! Aw, man..." Rinriku's shoulder slumped as he watched Juuhachi-gou drift down into Trunks' waiting arms. "Figures. I never get the pretty ones, do I?"