Buzzsaw
Chapter Two
Spots and whorls and stranger things strobe across your vision, and while you
can fight blind on ki sense alone, it's never easy.
Cynthia, on the other hand, just narrowly avoided getting speared by a Special- and though you didn't put enough into it to be confident it'd punch right through her and go out the other side like the legendary Mister Piccolo's, you're pretty sure she could stand to catch her breath herself.
Fren is saying something to the crowd, but you have ears only for your opponent, not least because you're trying to use them to compensate for not being able to see a damn thing.
Shaping ki to pitch directional sound is a weird little trick, but not a hard one to learn if you care to. You use it.
"...Who taught you? I know everybody who could have taught you that well, and none of them taught you. At least I thought I did." Your head's still a little fuzzy from catching that Kamehameha on the chin, so it comes out a bit differently than you'd thought it. Then you take a shot in the dark- still unlikely, but the only person you can
name who might have done it. "Was it your friend? The one passing you tips with telepathy." You nod at the short very-saiyan fellow.
"Passing advice isn't cheating," says Cynthia, her voice making you
sure she's glaring.
Touchy. It's hardly unheard of. However this match goes, afterwards you're going to tell her of the days when you used to fight like that.
"Didn't say it was. But is he the one that taught you? Why are neither of you in the Cap Circuit? You could hit the finals easily, Cynthia, and your friend honestly looks
bored, watching us."
"He didn't teach me jack shit," says Cynthia. You blink at that. They looked like friends. Or... you begin to feel like there's something outside your experience going on here.
It's confirmed when the bantamweight lone wolf at ringside mutters "Thank the gods." Cynthia gestures back and you blink again.
"He's just a friend," she says. "Just here to watch. Neither of us like publicity."
What.
What what what.
Does not compute. Did she just- but she- but-
AAAH this makes your head hurt worse than the Kamehameha!
You suppress the impulse to give her a rude awakening. To tell her that if she was trying to avoid publicity, the smartest thing she could do would be to not show up. That about the only thing she could do, now, to get
more publicity than she would anyway would be to strip to her underwear and do dance routines at center ring.
Because if the poor girl with the certifiable professional-grade ki blasts, with the damn near pro-grade hand-to-hand skills, is this far out of her head... She needs more than a rude awakening. And the Teachings have a lot to say about your duties at a time like this.
At the same time, you are still
very confused, so you do less good a job of it than you might. You even splutter a bit before you can form words. "That's it? You
don't like publicity? Come on, it's the Circuit! I'm sitting here telling you that you could go far. You'd be famous!"
Cynthia snorts. "I don't want the fame of being a fighter, and he's an arrogant jerk who thinks nobody is worth his time. He'd be a terrible tournament fighter."
"I'd be out in the prelims," says the man, shrugging.
What. You frown, trying to figure out what's going on. You look at him. Her. Him. Her, then speak slowly to the little man with the killer-instinct eyes.
"I'm... not sure I believe that...but I don't feel like you're lying."
"Get used to disappointment," he says, with about a millimeter's worth of shrug.
The Balor fighter speaks up while you're still mulling that one over. "Besides, I want to be known as a scholar, not a fighter," says Cynthia, and you blink at her again. You frown.
But this is a problem you know; it reminds you a bit of cousin Ume, with his passions for Turtle Style hand-fighting
AND metallurgy. Idiot keeps thinking he has to just pick one. You shake your head. "You don't have to choose! You can do both! Look at the crowd! They love you! Wanting to be known for your other work doesn't change that. You don't have to choose just one!"
She just looks at you, perhaps a bit nettled again. "Don't we have a fight to be finishing?"
Oh well. You can lead them to water, but you can't make them drink. Maybe you can help her write a book later. But right now, you're going to help her fight her way into the Exiles' legends. Put a chapter in her saga that begins... hm. How should it go?
Despite an marvelous showing in the first tournament match of her life, her youth and fire narrowly lost out to the age and positively nasty guile of Mitsuba Roma. She can always cross you and win some other day, after all.
Your vision has cleared. You're ready. Renown awaits.
You nod. "Fine." You shift into third stance, for the aerobatic contest you plan to win. "I see you're hoping to keep me at range."
She nods back a little. "I thought it was a good idea, given our styles."
"Unless your enemy trains to get in close against a ranged fighter." You grin. "Which I have." And Cynthia must have learned some healthy respect for
you, because she starts jinking
right away.
The battle is rejoined. She flies like a bird. Or like a bird would, if a bird could laugh at the polite suggestion of something called a 'sound barrier,' and execute right-angle turns at several thousand gravities. She flies at least as well as last year's world champion, maybe better.
But then, so do you.
The tournament top-rankers, year after year, may have managed to take you down- so far. But never
once did they do it by outflying you. At the same time, Cynthia is managing to match you in the air.
All she has to do is dodge. And dodge, and dodge, and keep shooting back. It's not that complex.
And she does, again, again, rarely needing to teleport. Which is good for her, because if she took a second out to concentrate on doing
that too many times, sooner or later you'd be on her like blonde on royalty before she finished. She pelts you with ki bolts, you pepper her right back, like dogfighters from the Continental War, only faster and harder. Once, twice, you let go with a heavier blast from short range. Once, twice, she loops around it the Evil Explosion's zone of effect, still firing back.
She doesn't even try a Kienzan. You've taught her not to try and tag you with one of those. Then again, you're not stupid enough to waste power trying a Special either.
Someone very,
very good taught this girl. And she's obviously been practicing evasive maneuver for years.
Where? Is there some underground hollow, two or three miles down under House Balor's oldest family home, where she trains hours a day in secret at a power level of a few thousand so the neighbors don't sense it?
And there's more to it even than that. You've had the joy of sparring with Lord Berra a few times, back in the days when he was hammering the flaws out of his own technique, holding back to match commoner power levels while training his teleportation-heavy version of Goku Style. There was a peculiar
echo to his ki as he flickered over the sky, seeming to punch from left, right, and center all at once. You could sense that he was at once exerting himself furiously, and at the same time barely beginning to tap into his true might.
Cynthia feels like she has the same echo, but it can't possibly be for the same reason. Either you're imagining it, or it's some trick of ki shaping that she picked up from the same place she learned to hold her own like this.
This dogfight is perfect; even if she's not outflying you, she has the art of evading shots down to a dynamic perfection. It may be variant Krillin Style but it's
pure Krillin Style. And her return fire has that same stinging crispness as her Kamehamehas, like it belongs to someone five or ten years older. Maybe even twenty. You're trying to get close and stay there, and it's
not easy.
If she doesn't tire out, if you don't slip up and give her a chance to throw something bright blue and heavy at you, this could go on a long time. You could stretch it out, maybe for hours. Another day, you might want to do exactly that, because it's fun.
Maybe you should- ah well. Are you going to have to? Yes, you probably are.
The two of you must be a blur to those unfortunates in the stands who can't match the official half-million power level of the tournament. Maybe to some of the ones who are. You hope some of them are powered up enough to watch
this in slow-motion, because you haven't used this trick since the year after the Sealing.
Not just anyone can make you need it, after all.
You start missing her. A lot. Bolts going wide and wild.
She calls a taunt as she curves and twists and lets loose a burst of ki bolts that bounce you away from your closest approach to her. High spirits may finally be getting through to her too. You hope so, she's earned it. "Are you even
trying to hit me?"
And you let out a laugh, still on her tail.
"Nope!"
With a flourish of your hands- the showwomanship may not come to you as fast as to some, but it
is in your blood sometimes- you bring things down on her. The stable, remotely controlled orbs of ki you had hovering up near the top of the battle zone, up among the lights and higher than the fighters usually ever go on purpose for fear of getting ringed out into the ceiling, swoop down into the path of her flight.
There aren't that many. It's not a Hellzone Grenade. More of a Hellzone Firecracker. But it'll do. It'll do. It's area denial, pure and simple. A variation on one of Demon Style's constant, recurring themes.
Distance control. In this case, the area being denied is "straight ahead."
Cynthia's smooth flying is interrupted rudely by a double-take. By a series of wild evasive twists, almost flailing. But you? These little blasts are your babies, they make way for you. One heck of an advantage in the air. Enough?
Enough. Your hand closes on Cynthia's ankle. You smile, and yank.
Back into hand to hand, now. Your fists blur, punctuated by those sharp kicks you practice harder than almost anything else, even when you're masqued, even
without ki. Cynthia's putting up her best defense, and it's not bad at all. About as good as Mikan, and he's the most promising disciple you've ever had.
Mikan's a brilliant trainee- but a trainee all the same. A journeyman, not a master. And Cynthia isn't
comfortable up close like Mikan is, either. She keeps trying to skip back, and back, dodging, but she's run out of maneuvering room.
She's blocking, twisting, evading for all she's worth. It's a lot, but she's firmly on the defensive. And she's not teleporting her way out of this. The thought that flames in your mind doesn't have the focused push of a telepathic sending, but you wonder if it gets through anyway.
If you try waste your time doing a calculus problem in your head, if you raise an arm to your forehead, I will kick it so hard your bones will think I'm an android. You're cornered. Fight!
Her eyes narrow a bit, and you can tell she's starting to think along those lines after all. She starts countering harder- hard enough that your left arm goes numb and your punches with it start getting sloppy. Manages a riposte, here and there. Tries to kick off you to gain distance, and it almost works. She could do even this, if she really focused on it for a few more years.
But on a good day, you're a challenger even to the best fighters you know, effective at any range- and up this close and personal, she isn't
quite there. Not quite. Not yet.
You feint, you feint, you keep her thinking about guarding her periphery. You
pounce. The fist rockets straight down the middle to double her over, headed for the solar plexus...
And ki flames across the surface of her outstretched, totally-out-of-position palm.
It turns out there's
one way for her to tag you with a Kienzan.
Time slows in a way that has nothing to do with the power of ki over the tyranny of the clock, as Cynthia's energy unfolds in another whirling spiral of carefully balanced death. A squawk escapes your lips as you strain to check your momentum.
Sticking your hand into a buzzsaw isn't a metaphor anymore.
You
almost stop your jab before your fingers hit the blade, and that molecule-sharp edge
only cuts through your flesh and into the bones. You do
not drop a shower of fingers to the ring floor twenty meters below.
Quite.
It only feels like you have.
Cynthia was trying to backpedal out of range of the strike and failing, you thought. Now her foot comes flying up to catch you in the jaw. Your head rocks back and your mind reels and she can
hit, square in the chest and you rocket back, your hand still screaming at you.
You may send three or four or more opponents through the ring-out wards for every time you hit them yourself. But there is no mistaking the chill of the magic as you crash through.
You slam to the ground, tumbling awkwardly in a ragdoll roll that has you suppress a
scream as your right hand brushes the ground for a moment, but you will yourself to regain control. Stopped flat on your ass, you take one slow breath, remembering a mantra, racing through it for what must be the thousandth time.
The pain does not exist. The pain cannot be seen. You cannot touch it nor hear it. You cannot taste or smell it. It has no ki, save what you give it. Inhale, exhale. There is no pain.
Zenkais are a thing of your fiery girlhood, long past. There's nowhere for greater power to go except a short road to summary execution. Even if there was, you wouldn't experience the boost
en masque. Doubly not at these deliberately clamped-down power levels. Triply not from such a comparatively small injury.
But you
do feel the vestiges of something a little like it- the usual loosening of your ki after an all-out battle with a competent opponent. A flush of extra energy, now unbound from the tight structures of your defenses and internal feedback mechanisms.
You direct it to your right hand with practiced efficiency. Ashitaba's lessons from fifteen years ago pay off once again. What kind of fool doesn't learn enough ki healing to do their own first aid?
There is no pain.
The blood flow from your fingers is already stopping as you shift your weight and climb to your feet, answering Papata Fren's patter and Cynthia's sportswomanlike concern. The words bear an easy equanimity, words you've used dozens of times, and heard said hundreds more.
Then Taro and Bana catch up, you feel
genuine again. Embarrassed, but genuine. You wave a hand to your people's biggest celebrity and your valiant, surprisingly tricky opponent- "Excuse me," you say.
Taro glomps to your leg, calling "Momma!" in the voice that melts a mother's heart. He's worried. Sweet of the boy.
The words come to you, not from the Teachings but from your soul, though you try to let there be no difference, now. "I'm fine, Taro. And hey, it was a good fight, right?"
"Very good fight," says your husband, who came in full Trunks Style training clothes, fully intending to enter the melee, even if he left his sword by his seat to run over to you.
You catch him in a hug, laughter coming back to your eyes, calling out loud for the crowd "You always say that!" And whispering "
You just like looking at my legs..." for his ears only. You catch a hint of a flush from him. A bit more of the laughter is there, now, and you can turn to face Mikan and Budo.
To teach them a lesson, as you have just learned one.
