Ch. 184: Tournament's Second Round

"Now, taste dirt! Fission Ball!" Vegeta'd thought up the move in the moment, but that didn't make it any less powerful. In an instant, all of the energy blasts surrounding Vegeta and Buu, stopped in mid-space like tiny stars, converged on Buu's figure.

"BUUUUUU!!???" A confused cry came out of Buu's mouth as the energy formed into a thick shield of energy, creating a ball with Buu inside of it. In an attempt to escape, Buu turned himself into pink mist, but there was no point. It was inescapably thick, with both Vegeta and Buu's energy powering it.

"Have fun on the moon!" With that shout, Vegeta tossed the Buu Ball at the moon. The thought behind his action was pretty simple. He couldn't knock Buu unconscious, and didn't want to kill him, so he needed Buu to touch the ground. But tossing the Buu Ball at the Earth would cause an extinction level event, so he tossed him at the closer moon instead. 

"Aww, Buu!" Buu whined, standing in a crater on the moon.

"Umm... I'm getting confirmation now... Contestant Buu seems to have touched... the moon?! Never had that happen before... But it still counts! It appears that Contestant Buu has touched the ground in an area that isn't inside the ring and is therefore eliminated!" The (very confused) announcer declared after getting confirmation from his higher-ups via his earpiece. With that, I cut the screen showing Vegeta and Buu's space fight. 

A few moments later, Vegeta and Buu descended from the sky, landed on the ring, shook hands, and left the ring, Buu going first to accentuate his defeat.

...

After the fight between Vegeta and Buu, the fight where Trunks went Super Saiyan, only to be instantly tossed out of the ring by Piccolo, was a real disappointment. In response to his son's failure, Vegeta could only shake his head, annoyed. He knew how weak Trunks was compared to the truly strong, though, so he wasn't especially shocked by that outcome, despite how much he yelled at Trunks for it. 

The battle between Uub and 18 was pretty good, though. It surprised me how skilled Uub had gotten, training with Goku. 18 fought back pretty hard, but she wasn't much of a match for the reincarnation of something that'd once threatened to destroy the entire seventh universe planet by planet. The fight was purely physical in nature, though the shockwaves from their attacks did leave large holes in the arena. 

Finally, it became time for my fight to kick off the second round of the contest. It was going to be me versus Pan.

Before we went onto the stage, Pan grabbed my sleeve to pull me aside for a chat.

"Look, I know that I don't stand a chance against you, if you can beat Uncle Goten that easily. But I'm still going to give it my all, alright? I want a real fight, one way or another, don't just treat me like a kid, pick me up by the neck, and toss me out of the ring." 

As an answer, I ruffled Pan's hair a bit and flashed her a smile.

'Objective accomplished.' I thought to myself as Pan and I entered the arena side by side.

...

'She's so strong... It feels like I'm fighting Grandpa...' Pan'd thrown everything she could at the girl opposite the ring to her. Everything from close combat to the Special Beam Cannon, she'd tried. Hanna hadn't even pretended to fight back. When Pan had tried the Special Beam Cannon, Hanna had simply watched her charge up the energy required, only to absorb it into her fist without even missing a beat. 

Pan knew that she wasn't that weak. When she fought her Uncle Goten in his base state, eight times out of ten, she won. Even Piccolo couldn't take a Special Beam Cannon from her head-on without injury, and yet this girl was literally just standing there and letting Pan hit her, with no troubles at all. The only person she'd ever felt this helpless in front of was her grandfather himself.

...

"Haa! Haa! Hyaah! Hah!" To be honest, when I'd originally begun this 'fight' against Pan, I'd figured that I'd let her put on a little bit of a show, allow her to figure out the limits of her power, then simply end it, but I'd severely underestimated this little firecracker in front of me. It was like every single bit of Gohan's absent Saiyan instincts and latent love for fighting had gone straight to this little girl, and she'd taken Piccolo's techniques to heart on top of that. 

She didn't hesitate at all, every single motion she made was smooth and fast. Whether I dodged or blocked, I'd find another fist or foot coming at me before she'd even finished her last action. When she'd realized that close combat was useless, she'd immediately blinded me with a Solar Flare, sent three Destructo-Disks my way, then closed it off with a Masenko. When I'd sent one of the disks back at her, she'd easily dodged it, then attempted a masterful Special Beam Cannon. Now, she was trying all sorts of things, loosing energy from her fists, trying to make me waste my effort by concentrating energy at her fingertips, the works. The stage around me had been ripped to shreds by her power, which far surpassed Goten's base state, despite her inability to go Super Saiyan.

Honestly, I suspected that she had enough base strength to unlock Super Saiyan 2 if she really really tried. She just needed a little... push.

Finally, I decided to give her a little help. As her fist brushed past my face, I caught it, stopping the small girl in midair with my energy. Then, I went deeper, enveloping her entire body with my energy, holding her in midair like a statue. She couldn't even blink. Then, I gave her the push she needed, before walking off the stage. 

"I forfeit." By the time the words made their way to the stands, the spot where I'd been standing was empty.