~Chapter 8: Life After Death~
After the tournament, Tenshinhan was totally humble and apologetic. He said that he didn't deserve to be the champion. He even offered Goku the prize money, but he wouldn't take it. Tenshinhan also apologized to Yamucha for injuring him, but Yamucha shrugged it off - he said that he was alive, and that's what's important. How true that was. We were all in a pretty good mood. Tenshinhan said that he'd treat us all to dinner, and I chuckled at that - he didn't know what he was getting into. I was happy, and why not? I had no clue what was in store for me. In my mind, the adventure with the Red Ribbon army was probably the most exciting thing that would ever happen to us, and I could have fun and be normal for the rest of my life. We'd all go home and do some serious catching up. What difference would it make if I spent a minute or two retrieving Goku's stuff from his locker for him? What really gets me is that I volunteered. "Relax, Goku," I said, "I'll get it for you." It was just around the corner.
When I got there, the announcer guy was there. He was glad to see me. He told me that we'd made for one hell of a tournament, just like last time. I smiled and told him to expect us to do it again in three years. I liked that guy. I got Goku's stuff and casually started to ask the announcer just what his name was, anyway, when I saw the horrified look on his face. Bewildered, I turned around.
Something green and winged and very very large grinned back at me. I'll never forget that terrifying face. I screamed. I was dead before I finished screaming. I didn't have the time to dodge, or block, or anything. I felt something on my neck, and it hurt like hell for maybe a split second, but then it stopped.
Dying doesn't hurt. Well, let me reprhase that - dying doesn't cause pain in the traditional sense. What you do feel is far, far worse than pain. It feels almost like your soul is being torn away from your body, or sucked out. All of your senses warp rapidly and shut down. Everything becomes dark and then light. You hear a dull hum, then a loud buzzing, and then nothing. There's a very distinctly odd sensation of no sensation at all. For a moment you feel like scrambling, desperately trying to get back, then almost immediately you feel as if it isn't worth it anymore. It's undescribably terrible. It just- well, it's like... Dying sucks. That's all that needs to be said.
I don't remember anything at all about being dead. Well, almost nothing. I do recall having a sense of drifting. It felt like I was drifting a very long way... it's vague, though. It's very vague, and barely even worth mentioning.
A while later, the feeling of drifting stopped - I distinctly recall feeling as if i'd been moving and stopped. I'd felt weightless, but suddenly I felt very heavy, tired, and sick. I opened my eyes slowly and found myself staring up at the smiling face of Bulma. "He's alive! He's alive!" she shouted. Yamucha and Lunch were there too, also celebrating. I sat up - a tremendous effort. I was in some sort of preservation capsule. Nearby, Chaozu and Muten Roshi sat up in similar capsules. I had no idea what it all meant.
"Hey... what happened?" I said.
"Oh, you were dead, but we revived you with the dragon balls!" said Bulma. It seemed almost an afterthought to her. I was bewildered. Dead?
"What happened?" I heard Muten Roshi say. Yamucha excitedly shouted that Goku had killed The Great Demon Piccolo and saved the Earth. That just made me even more confused. Who did Goku kill? Who was Piccolo? Why did killing him save the Earth?
iDead?/i
I desperately tried to sort things out in my mind. I was... no, I had been... dead? iI had been dead?/i But that didn't make any sense. Death was supposed to be final. I'd known that the dragon balls were capable of reviving the dead, but I'd never imagined that I would live again after my death. I tried to remember dying. I recalled the creature - that was it? THAT was death? It all happened so quickly. Like any kid, I'd always thought of death as something far off. Who knew that life was so fragile? I stood up, and I found moving to be very difficult - all of my joints felt stiff. Then it occurred to me. "Oh, my God," I thought to myself, "This body... MY body... is a corpse." A corpse. They had put my soul back into the hollow shell that it had vacated. I felt such a wave of revulsion sweep over me that I was lucky I didn't vomit. Instead, I climbed out of my capsule.
The others continued to celebrate. When Roshi asked where Goku had gone, Yamucha said that Shenlon told them that Goku was training at the sanctuary. Muten Roshi said that Goku's trainer must be Kami-sama. That threw everyone for a loop, especially me. Goku being trained by Kami-sama? What did it all mean? Yamucha and Tenshinhan and Chaozu all got really excited and said that they'd start training even harder for the next Tenka'ichi Budôkai. Everyone laughed. Well, everyone except for me. I just gathered my courage and finally managed to weakly stammer,
"Someone, please.... please tell me what's going on. Please."
Everyone fell silent and stared at me. Slowly, agonizingly, they must have come to the realization that I didn't know about everything that had happened. Everyone calmed down and we went inside. They must have seen how shaken up I was, too, because they gave me a blanket and Lunch made me some tea. They all told me the story of Piccolo Daimao, which I'm pretty sure that I don't need to tell anyone about - after all, it's prominently mentioned in all of the history books. Here's the gist of it - Piccolo was supposedly a demon that Muten Roshi's master had imprisoned years ago, and he had now returned to take over the world. He was worried about the threat of martial arts experts, so he had his minions go around and kill all of the Tenka'ichi Budôkai finalists from the past few tournaments, starting with me. He took control of the world briefly and declared on worldwide televison that he'd destroy Earth's cities one by one, but Goku killed him. That's basically what they told me, anyway. I was numb. That was a lot to take in. They asked me if I was going to be okay, and I only stood up and said, "Thank you for restoring my life", and locked myself in my room for 8 hours.
Everyone was still there when I came out. Muten Roshi and Chaozu had apparently been telling of their time in the afterlife. That shocked me - I hadn't thought about the afterlife. Why couldn't I remember anything like that? What was wrong with me? Was I bound for hell? Did I even have a soul at all? It occurred to me that those killed by demons, which Piccolo supposedly was, were destined never to find peace in the afterlife, but that didn't make any sense either - at least Chaozu had also been killed by Piccolo. When they asked me about it, I smiled weakly and tried to fib my way through it, and they quickly lost interest, figuring that I was too tired to tell anything. I was grateful for that.
Those first few days after being resurrected were really tough for me, and my friends all helped me through it. Everyone seemed to feel a bit sorry for me, and they tried to cheer me up. I was surprised to find that Bulma, in particular, was very kind to me during that time. People surprise you sometimes - there's more to that girl than meets the eye. After a few days, I started resembling something human again. I started thinking about what I'd do next. The others had told me that Piccolo had killed Shenlon and that Goku had had him resurrected, primarily for the purpose of bringing me back to life. I felt a great debt to Goku that I could never repay, should the both of us live to be as old as Muten Roshi. I knew that I had to thank him somehow, but what kind of gratitude would someone like Goku appreciate? I made up my mind - I'd train. I would train for the next tournament and become strong enough to give Goku a real fight, and thereby I'd show him that I didn't intend to waste the second chance he'd given me. I was awfully brooding in those days.
A couple of days later, I asked Chaozu if he'd teach me how to fly. He made me apologize for making him do math, then he said okay. "Let's start out with some simple floating," he said, and he kicked my legs out from under me. I landed face-first on the floor.
"No, no," he said, "That's no good. You're not supposed to fall." Aigh. Chaozu wasn't much of a teacher, but in that day I managed to get to the point where I could float around a bit and negate momentum. That came in handy later on.
After a week, Yamucha and Bulma went back to the Capsule Corp HQ, and Tenshinhan and Chaozu left around the same time despite Lunch's alternately tearful and threatening supplications for Tenshinhan not to leave. She was convinced that she'd fallen in love with Tenshinhan, and that only confused him and made him more anxious to leave. That left just Muten Roshi, Umigame, Lunch, and I at the Kame House, and it wasn't long before I left too. I decided to seek out Karin tower, which was where Goku had gotten the huge power boost that had made him stronger than Muten Roshi and strong enough to take out the Red Ribbon Army. It was located in the same general area of the world as the Orinji temple, so I made that journey again in reverse. This time, though, I did it on foot. It didn't take me too long to find it once I got there - it was a big landmark. Man, it was tall. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. You could look straight up and not see the top of it. I was met there by Upa, who seemed glad to see me. There was another man with him, tall and muscular. Upa turned excitedly to him and said, "Poppa, it's another one of Goku's friends!" The man smiled at me and said hello. "Um, hi!" I said. He said that he already knew that I'd come to climb the tower. He even mentioned that someone had climbed it just a few days previously. I thanked him and started to climb the tower, but I thought of something.
"Wait," I said, "You're Upa's father?"
"Yes," said the large man.
"So, um, how do you feel about being resurrected by the dragon balls?"
He smiled at me, and his eyes seemed to have a wisdom behind them. "I treat it as the most sacred of gifts," he said.
Climbing the tower was tough. It wasn't so hard at first - I knew how to climb, and I had good endurance - but after six or seven hours it was pretty maddening. I thought that I'd never see the top. It was night and morning again before I reached the top, and I had to dig my hands and feet into the tower and take a nap. Still, all of my muscles were on fire, and I was about ready to fall off when I finally caught sight of the top. The last few feet were the worst - I screamed with every movement. When I was just one handhold away from making it, I buckled. It was no use, there was no way I could go any further. Then, a hand reached down and gripped me firmly, then pulled me up. I looked up at the source of that help, and I found it to be none other than Yamucha.
"Hey, great, you made it!" he said.
"huff huff wheeze Yamucha? pant pant"
He laughed. "Yeah, it's tough, isn't it? Take one of these." He handed me a small bean like a lima bean, and I shrugged and ate it, wondering why he'd give me something like that. Suddenly, I felt totally revitalized! It was like I'd just had a good week's worth of rest and a big feast to go along with it, and, strangely enough, the cuts and scrapes I'd gotten climbing up the tower seemed to have disappeared.
"What... what kind of bean was that?" I said.
Then a cat with a walking stick walked forward and said, "It's senzu. One will last you for ten days. Is this a friend of yours, Yamucha?"
Yamucha told him who I was, and he called him Karin-sama. I blinked a few times - the great master of Karin Tower wasn't what I'd been expecting. When I asked him if he was a cat, he got really mad at me but didn't really give me an answer one way or the other. I was also introduced to Yajirobe, who was a bit of a big and homely guy with a katana strapped to his side. He folded his arms and grunted at me in greeting. We were a lovely group there at Karin Tower.
Karin-sama's training seemed to consist mostly of attempting to steal a flask of water from him, which was tough because he was really fast, and because the air up there was thin. Karin-sama told me that only two people had ever managed to accomplish it, Muten Roshi, who took three years, and Goku who took only three days. So far Yamucha had been trying for a week and a half, and I'd have to wait my turn. I was certainly impressed - I couldn't imagine Muten Roshi taking three years to do such a thing, especially when he was young. I sat with Yajirobe and watched for a week and a half as Yamucha and Karin-sama danced all over the place. I didn't do much during that time. I tried to talk to Yajirobe a couple of times, but he didn't seem to want to talk to me much. I think that he resented our interrupting his privacy. The only meaningful exchange of conversation between us came one night when I asked him what the pole extending from the top of the sanctuary was. He told me that it was Goku's Nyoi-bo, and that Goku had climbed up it to get to Kami-sama's lookout. I stared at the pole for a long time. I wanted to see Goku so badly, and I was so close to him. At the same time, I knew that it wasn't time for me to see him yet, and that I'd never be allowed up in Kami's lookout. As frustrating as it was, I resigned myself to not seeing Goku again until the next tournament.
After three weeks, Yamucha stole the water from Karin-sama. I don't know what it is about that training and threes. It was my turn after that, and it was exhausting. I couldn't breathe well up so high, and Karin-sama was brutal. He spun around me, left after-images, dangled the water in front of me and then snatched it away, and even hit me over the head with it, laughing a feline laugh all the time. I think that he really gets his jollies from doing that, the weirdo. I broke the pattern, by the way. I got the water from him after eight days. Yamucha and I were surprised that that was the extent of Karin-sama's training, and although we had gotten a lot stronger doing it, we had to figure out where to go next to train.
After thinking about it for a while, I said, "Hey, it just occurred to me. If Piccolo was really as strong as I've heard, then there's no way the Goku we knew could've beaten him. He had to have gotten another power-up somewhere else."
"Hey, you're right!" said Yamucha. "If only we could find out where he got it from, then we could get stronger."
"Well," said Yajirobe, "He did drink the god-tea stuff, that made him a lot stronger." Karin-sama suddenly hit him over the head with his walking stick and shouted, "Shut up, you idiot!"
That got Yamucha and I interested. We asked Karin-sama if he knew anything about it. He told us that he had some, but that he would not let us have any. "The Choshinsui can make one much stronger, but if you aren't strong enough, it'll kill you. Of the fifteen people who have tried to drink it, only Goku survived, and he very nearly died." He didn't have to tell us twice. I wanted to be stronger, but there wasn't much point to it if I was dead.
"Well, then," I said, "I guess I'll have to settle for what I was thinking of before."
"What's that, Kuririn?" asked Yamucha.
"I won't leave this tower until I've soundly beaten each one of you in a spar."
They looked at me sideways. "Come on, Kuririn, what are you up to?" said Yamucha.
"It'll be good training," I replied. I figured that if I couldn't beat them in a match, I hardly had a chance against Goku. "Come on, Yamucha, you first."
Yamucha smiled at me. "Well, okay then. Kuririn, I'm sorry that I'm going to have to humiliate you like this," he said smugly. "It's nothing personal. I hope that we can still be friends."
I smirked back at him. "Oh, do you now, Yamucha? Let's see."
I was used to Yamucha's fighting style, so I knew more or less what to do. Both of us were much, much stronger than we'd been the last time we'd fought less than a month ago. I did an after-image and circled behind Yamucha, which he'd been expecting, but I actually used a double after image, which caught him off-guard. I kicked him in the head and sent him flying to the ground, but he recovered. We traded blows for a while, and he used the fist of the wolf fang on me, but I grabbed his leg and pulled it out from under him, and then I leapt up and jammed my foot into his ribcage and pinned him to the floor.
"Uncle?" I said.
"Yahh... okay, uncle, uncle!"
I let him up, and he had a senzu. "It's because you're so damn short," he growled. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to guard against someone that short?"
I grinned at him. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to hit someone that tall?"
I fought Karin-sama after that. "Be gentle with me, I'm over eight hundred years old," he said.
"Really? What's that in cat years?"
Man, that set him off. He came at me like a rocket. It was a tougher fight than Yamucha, but eventually I got the better of him. I launched a Kamehameha at him, and while he was off-balance from dodging it, I tackled him. He got kind of upset at me, but he admitted that I'd won. Yajirobe stood off to one side with his arms folded. I told him that he was next.
Yajirobe practically spit at me in contempt. "You don't want to fight me."
Suddenly, Karin-sama was grinning. "Oh, Yajirobe, why don't you indulge the boy?" Yajirobe sighed and said that he'd do it as long as it would get rid of me. All of that confidence started to make me nervous, but I tried not to show it. He faced off with me and set his sword aside.
"I'm better with my sword, but I don't need it. Let's go."
Suddenly, this began to seem like a very bad idea. I tried to hide my nervousness. "Ah, so you think you're pretty good, huh?"
Yajirobe just seemed annoyed. "Are you going to attack me, or what?" I attacked him. He blocked and pounded me over the head, sending me to the ground. I did a backwards somersault and came at him again, throwing a lot of punches. He blocked them all and then tripped me. After I got back to my feet, he said, "Oh, wait, you want me to pin you, is that it?"
I couldn't believe the audacity that this guy had! "Well, duh!"
...
Holy crap, did Yajirobe ever beat me up. When he was done, I couldn't even see straight. He leaned down and pinned me with his index finger. "Ok, is that good enough?"
"Guh... guh... guh..."
"Well, all right, then."
Karin laughed like a maniac as I crawled limply over to the senzu. I was so frustrated that I thought I'd burst. How in the hell was Yajirobe that strong? It hadn't even been a fight. He didn't look so tough - he looked pudgy, even. Even Yamucha was laughing as I growled "I'll be back here later," and climbed down the tower. I was a ways down before I couldn't hear them laughing anymore. How embarrassing.
I really didn't know where to go to train after that. I lived with Upa and his father Bora for a while, and they were very hospitable. I didn't see Yamucha when he came down the tower, but I assume that he left around then. I went to a nearby city and participated in a lesser martial arts tournament, but I didn't find much of a challenge there. I did get some prize money, which was nice. I tried fighting great beasts like dinosaurs for a while, but I got tired of that. Finally, I went back to the village where I'd spent a lot of time while I was at the Orinji temple. I was recognized there, and I took up residence with a nice older couple who sold goods at market and were glad to have the help of a strong young man. I spent a lot of time isolating myself in the forest and using techniques from the temple to train myself. I also spent some time trying to find new ways to manipulate ki, starting with a basic Kamehameha and seeing what else I could do with similar techniques. I invented something that I called the Double Tsuihikidan, which was two slow but powerful blasts launched from the hands that can then be controlled fairly precisely. That move tends to throw off people who've never seen it before because they don't realize that you can control it's directon.
Thus, the time passed. I became a regular around the village, but I was careful not to become too attached to anyone because I knew that I'd only return to the Kame House after the tournament. For that reason, I remained "That funny-looking strong kid" to most people, and that was okay. As the tournament got closer, however, I started to get anxious. I knew that the tournament was only a couple of months away, and I still didn't feel strong enough. So, I set off to find a rumor that I'd heard about a wizard who granted wishes, figuring that maybe that way I could just wish for a power-up, something I'd never have the audacity to use the dragon balls for.
Oh, by the way, I've heard that any good autobiography has to have a nice, juicy secret in it somewhere, so this next part is going to contain my greatest secret. Yes, I've never told what I'm about to tell you to anyone, not even my wife of 14 years, Number Eighteen. Watch for it.
Luckily for me, this guy actually turned out to exist. He lived at the top of a sheer cliff, and one of his deterrents to people who would have their wish granted was that you had to climb it or he'd turn you back. Of course, to someone who'd climbed Karin tower, it wasn't much. When I got to him, I found kind of a bizarre small palace with an arena. I didn't actually see the guy at first, but I was informed by a huge booming voice that if it were a wish I sought, I must defeat the three champions, or some such. I shrugged. It seemed an awful lot like the Uranai Baba's test to me.
I've got to hand it to the guy, his fighters were pretty tough - they were the toughest opponents I'd had since Yajirobe. They were all tough, but I managed to beat each of them by finding and exploiting their weakness. The first battle was against a robot. The thing was a powerhouse, but it wasn't that smart. I managed to trick it into going straight off the cliff. The next one was pretty bizarre, some kind of animate creature made of straw, which was very quick but didn't have much endurance. I just let him run himself down before finishing him off. The last one, some sort of giant cat-like beast, seemed not to have any weakness until I fired a Kamehameha at it and it yelped like a puppy and dove to the floor. Really the thing was a big coward. I grinned at it and fired a Double Tsuihikidan straight up, then pointed at it and said, as menacingly as I knew how, "Next one's in your head." It screamed and took off, and I never saw it again.
After that the wizard came out, shaking like a leaf. I was as excited as a little kid. "Cool, are you gonna grant my wish now?" I said.
The guy vigorously rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh, well, you see, I'm not sure I can, as such."
"What?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, I've kind of been faking everyone out to gain legendary status. No one's ever beaten my champions before."
I started getting angry. "What, then you aren't a wizard?" I demanded.
I thought the guy might faint. He seemed really scared of me. "Oh, no... I am a wizard..." He swallowed hard. "I'm just not a very good one."
Well, that was just great. What a waste of time. I sighed and asked him if he thought he could increase my power any, and he got really huffy and said, "Heavens, no! You're too powerful already! You're terrifying!" Well, I was determined that neither of us would go anywhere until I thought of something that he could give me, and slowly, something occurred to me. It was only a joke to myself at first, but then I got to seriously thinking about it, and there was one thing that had given me no end of trouble throughout my life. I decided to go for it. What was there to lose?
"Um... hey, I don't suppose you could make me any taller?" I was still well under three feet tall, don't forget.
He blinked at me. "Uh, well, yes, I suppose I might be able to manage that." He rummaged through a spellbook, said some incantations, and suddenly my height almost doubled to four and a half feet tall. I nearly went into shock. My eye level was a good bit higher, which would take some getting used to. I tried out my new limbs. It felt great.
The guy sweatdropped. "That's all? I'm sorr-" he started, but I enthusiastically shook his hand and thanked him profusely, and ran off shouting happily. Ha ha ha. There's my secret for you - if I hadn't taken some initiative, I'd be even shorter than I am. In retrospect, maybe I should've asked him if he could do any better, but after having to live with being 2' 4" for so long, I was satisfied. I may not be tall, but at least I don't have to endure a sea of knees anymore.
Sorry if anyone was expecting a really good secret - I don't have any of those. I'll stop here to give you a while to recover from that startling revelation.
--END OF CHAPTER EIGHT--