บท 179: Ch. 179: Chores (2)
After dropping Zenny 2 off with Goku in Trunks' timeline, then advising Goku to leave the timeline while the Z-fighters that I'd just revived were still really, really confused, I opened another time rift and jumped to the future once more.
Well, technically, chronologically from my spot in Trunks' future, it was the past, but for the people I'd just been with, it was about seven years in the future. In front of me now, stood the famous building that'd housed the World Martial Arts tournament for decades.
I was at the 29th annual World Martial Arts tournament.
The 26th and 27th World Martial Arts tournaments had been won by Buu, who had thrown the competition and lost to Mr. Satan in order to let Mr. Satan keep his title.
The 28th tournament was Pan's first, but I had no idea what had happened with Uub and Goku, or afterwards. Frankly, it wasn't worth attempting to visit. So I'd chosen the safer option of visiting the 29th tournament.
Nothing was known about how this tournament would go, other than the fact that Mr. Satan would win it (because it was all rigged). It hadn't been mentioned at all in any canon, and there was an above-average chance that Goku would be too busy with Uub to fight in it. But as I'd expected, the people I was looking for had already signed up and were in the crowd. In fact, everyone else was here, too.
...
"Hey Pan. It's been so long, you've gotten so big! Come here and give your grandpa a hug!" In the GT timeline, Goku had essentially disappeared with Uub after the 28th tournament, for somewhere between five and ten years, not seeing Pan at all between the ages of about 3 and 11 or so, but that wasn't the case in this reality. While Goku did train Uub, he also trained with Whis, Broly, and Vegeta as well, since Uub couldn't compare to the gods.
As a result, he'd seen Pan a few times over the course of the last three years but seeing her was still rare enough that she exclaimed "Grandpa!" with glee as he picked her up and swung her around in his arms.
"It's nice to see you, dad. You could visit a little more often." Gohan addressed Goku.
"I know, but..." Goku didn't have an excuse, making Gohan roll his eyes in annoyance.
"You never change, Goku." Krillin said.
"Oh, Krillin! Are you entering the tournament too?" Goku asked as he put Pan on his back, giving her a piggyback ride.
"Sorry, Goku. I think I'm gonna sit this one out." Krillin said, rubbing the back of his head.
"Heh. Weakling." Vegeta muttered nearby, earning him a double-smacking from his wife and daughter.
"Vegeta, time and place."
"Dad, that's Marron's father. Stop embarrassing me!"
As Vegeta attempted to come up with a retort, suddenly he went stock-still. Goku did the same. Slowly turning to each other, the two Saiyans locked eyes.
"Vegeta, that's..."
"Yes, Kakarot. You're right. I'd never mistake it." The two communicated something between them that the other Z-fighters gathered weren't privy to.
"What's going on dad?" Goten couldn't help but ask, followed up by Trunks,
"Yeah, did you guys sense something?" Trunks tacked on.
Vegeta's eye began to glint. "Yes, son. We definitely did sense something."
"Something tells me that this tournament is gonna be one to remember! Now I'm getting excited! Pan, let's hit the stalls and get some pre-tournament snacks!" Goku said, pumping his fist into the air.
"Yay, food!" Like any good seven-year-old part Saiyan, the idea of getting food immediately caught Pan's focus. With that, Goku and Pan wandered off, leaving everyone else confused.
"So, if we couldn't sense whatever those two did, does that mean that some god's joining the tournament?" Gohan connected the dots pretty quickly.
"Wait, a god?!" Goten looked at his big brother with wide eyes. In response, Gohan put his hand on his little brother's shoulder and looked him in the eye.
"Man, I'm glad that I decided to not fight this year."
"You said it, buddy!" Krillin said, bumping fists with Gohan.
Beside her husband, Videl shook her head. "Gohan, our daughter's fighting in that tournament!"
"Yeah, but dad doesn't seem too concerned, so there's no point in worrying about it." Gohan reminded his wife, speaking from experience, "If dad's not worried, then he knows something that we don't. I'll worry when this 'god' is actually attacking our little girl. If that does end up happening, though..." Gohan trailed off, his aura almost becoming tangible around him as he thought of the possibility of Pan being hurt. Since Piccolo had opened his eyes about three years ago, Gohan had tried to be careful about training every once in a while, in case the worst came to pass. He had still definitely grown weaker with time, but if Pan was on the line, Gohan didn't have any doubts about his abilities.
Not that he needed to. It was me, after all. I wasn't going to hurt Pan. All I wanted to do was... play a bit.
There was a bit of a wait between the sign-in time and the time that we were required to pass the preliminaries, so I wandered around the stalls for a while, sampling whatever cuisine remained, like Goku and Pan were doing. Unfortunately, the stalls seemed to run dry of food faster than I anticipated.
I did bump into Bulla, Marron, Gohan, and Videl at one point in time, but the only one of the four that could sense energy enough to realize that there was something strange about me was Gohan, who didn't have any proof, so I simply made eye contact with him on the sly, smirked, and patted the girls' heads as I passed by.
Nobody noticed the small hairs that vanished from the girls' heads as I touched them, though.
"That's two..." I muttered to myself once the group of four was out of sight.
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