Ningenkakushi: Lord of the Desert

Battle of the Kami

Yamcha has barely used his airbike in the past three years, and it's fun to be riding it again as he heads towards the Budokai, almost like flying. He stops briefly in a couple towns on his way there – first to get a Turtle style gi made up for himself on a hunch, the next because it turns out the suit Roshi got him to wear to the last Budokai is a bit too short and tight now, which is a surprise – he'd thought he was done growing. It's also slightly problematic, because he doesn't have enough money left to buy a new suit, so in the end he settles for some plainer clothes. If he can't be formal, at least he'll be tidy. To this end he also gets his hair trimmed; it's grown quite long during his training, and he finds he can't quite bear to cut it all off again, because no matter how much he knows Bulma likes it short, he prefers it long. So he gets it lopped to a few inches past his shoulders, the shorter bits in the front tidied, ties it back, and calls it good.

OoOoOoOoO

The Budokai is already crowded when he arrives, though there seem to be fewer contestants this year than in previous ones – possibly word spread about the fiasco with the roster after the last one, or maybe everyone's just hiding from the rain at the moment. He signs his name regardless, catching a glimpse of a few other names he knows as he does so, causing the grin that's been on his face since he arrived to widen. The others are here already and, if the placing of their names on the list is anything to go by, they just got here recently and thus won't be too far away.

Chiaotzu is the most distinctive of the three, but he's also so short he'll be impossible to spot unless he's flying or has shot up three feet (and no one grows that fast). It's doubtful Krillin's gotten particularly enormous either, so Yamcha scans the crowd for three eyes and shoulders sturdy enough to support a second set of arms-

-and there he is, over by one of the walls, under a wide, conical straw hat to keep the rain off. Yamcha pulls his pack a bit more firmly onto his shoulders as he jogs over, the other two slowly coming into view. From the looks of things, the rivalry between Turtle and Crane is now a thing of the past, at least in terms of the current generations of each school, and he waves as he gets closer.

"Hey! Hey, Krillin, Tien!"

There's a moment of polite incomprehension before they recognize him (and dang, he didn't think he looked that different (though, speaking of not different, has Chiaotzu grown at all?!)).

"Yamcha?!" Krillin goggles, "Where'd all that hair come from?"

Yamcha runs a hand through it and laughs. "I forgot you've never seen me with it long before. Anyway, look at you – a few more inches and you'll almost be up to my shoulders!"

"Yeah, rub it in," Krillin grumbles, only half joking, "I'll bet I'm finally taller than Goku, at least!"

Privately, Yamcha wouldn't bet on it – their monkey-tailed friend has always been taller than Krillin and there's no reason for that to have changed now. Still, they all stand together as they wait for the rest of the group to show, chatting about their training in very general terms (they'll go into more detail after the tournament, when the new moves they've all been working on aren't secret anymore and sharing them won't mean losing the edge of surprise).

Then Chiaotzu points out that the rain is stopping, Krillin spots a group of familiar-looking people, and suddenly the gang's all together again. And while Goku's growth spurt is unprecedented (he's closer to Yamcha than Krillin in height now (so much for no one growing that fast)), it's Bulma who truly catches Yamcha's eyes. She's wearing make-up and a close-fitting dress and... she doesn't look like a teenager anymore, she looks like a woman, and if Yamcha's grown into himself then Bulma's blossomed. Suddenly he wonders if she'll still want to be with him after all, a thought that hadn't really occurred to him before. She had said she would wait, but the travel and isolated nature of his training has meant that communication between them was mostly in the form of letters and one-way, him to her. She looks so sophisticated now, so grown-up... what if she sees him and decides she wants someone more like that now, instead of some ex-bandit for whom the city is still, in many ways, unfamiliar territory? He stands very still as she walks up to him, her expression unreadable.