It rather surprised me that Kakarot noticed Tate's tail but not mine, when both of us were showing off an overwhelming aura, but the moment he did, he tried to bound over to the behemoth of a Saiyan to talk to him, likely excited, seeing one of his own kind for the first time ever.
Keyword: Tried.
The moment that Tater saw the poor kid coming, he literally froze Kakarot in his tracks with a focused burst of aura. To the poor seven year old, it probably felt like getting hit by a train… or twelve. Stacked on top of each other. And filled with bricks. He started trembling, his body unable to move another step until it unconsciously took a step back, which made Tater drop the intimidation.
My eyebrow twitched up as I noted the way Kakarot's hands clenched into fists, his teeth gritting, his body refusing to fall to the ground, despite the clear tremble in his knees, which literally knocked together in fear.
The kid was a real Saiyan, all right. And I could feel Tater's quiet approval of the boy's grit, too.
Though he still wouldn't bother talking to the kid.
The preliminaries went by quickly. Kakarot and Zeck got sorted into one of the early tiers, on opposite sides, so that they'd face each other in the quarterfinals.
I got sorted into the same bracket as Roshi, who was still masquerading as Jackie Chun. Opposite sides again, so I'd have to beat him in the quarterfinals, too.
Honestly, the idea of fighting Roshi himself really did excite me, but it also made warning sirens blare in my brain on loop.
Roshi didn't have much of an impact on the original timeline. In fact, the only battle that he actually fought and won outside of the Super timeline was against young Goku. He gave up against Tien, lost against Piccolo, was killed by Buu, and who knew what happened to him in Trunks' Android future, because it genuinely didn't really matter that much.
But I didn't dare ignore him just because he wasn't particularly strong physically. Out of everyone in this world, Master Roshi was the greatest, when it came to punching outside of his weight class. From what I understood, in the Super manga, Roshi even went up against Jiren during the Tournament of Power. I wasn't about to underestimate the guy.
But I wasn't going to lose to the old man. It had to be me who fought Tater, who'd almost certainly make it all the way to the semi-finals without much effort, since I didn't notice anything strange from anyone in his bracket.
Sure enough, things played out exactly as I'd figured they would. None of the notable fighters expended much effort in preliminaries.
Kakarot made a habit of waiting for his opponents to strike first, getting a read on them, and then retaliating, usually winning with one powerful blow.
It was the same strategy that Roshi and I used.
Zeck didn't think the same way as us, though. He didn't have the same confidence that Goku, Roshi, and I did. Years of being the weakest genuine fighter in our settlement by a stupidly wide margin had ground away his confidence in his abilities, leading him to take up an 'underdog' mindset. As such, he wasn't comfortable enough to allow his opponents the first strike, and often found himself going overboard and putting too much power into his attacks, ending fights instantly.
But not as instantly as Tater, who didn't even bother really fighting.
Dismissing his opponents as worthless from the outset, Tater didn't even pretend to fight. Instead, every time his number was called, he'd sigh, cross his arms in front of his chest, and walk up to the arena. Then, the moment that the referee began the fight, he'd simply flare his aura, literally blasting his opponent out of the ring effortlessly, without moving a muscle. A few of his opponents were seriously injured and carted out by the standby medical team, but my former teammate didn't seem to care. It irritated me.
"Tiger Bite Kick!"
"You're a wolfman." I deadpanned as the foot sailed toward my face in seemingly slow motion. It was honestly a bit sad, just how badly outclassed these normal people were, even though their techniques weren't actually that bad. In fact, as far as experience went, I was likely outclassed by most here.
As a bit of training in precision, I waited until my finger was touching the sensitive fur between the wolfman's bare toes, inches from my face, before I chose to dodge, casually smacking him on his backside, making his movements hitch for a moment, causing him to hop on his remaining leg, unbalanced.
"Winner, Tarble! He advances to the quarter-finals."
"WHAT?!" I was already at the edge of the arena, ready to go back to my corner, when the wolfman's steadying step found nothing but air and caused him to drop to the ground outside the bounds of the stage. By the time anyone involved realized what'd happened, I was already gone, leaving an indignant wolfman on the ground.
Roshi caught my eye as he stepped down from his own final match, his face an impassive medley of deep thought.