"Goku!" Krillin yelled out with teary eyes and a glistening smile on his face that only a return to life and removal from the previous obscurity would have provided one with. "It was so horrible, that monster guy did something to me and it was like nobody could see or talk to me. I was just floating around and… Nobody saw me…"
"You were stuck in Limbo, Limbo is a realm in between the living world and the Otherworld. In a way, you were stuck in between the two realms." King Enma picked his nose with his pinky while resting his heavy head onto a free arm of his.
"Are so many people killed by those Evil Tribe guys that you even made a separate realm for that?" Chayote wondered.
"No. Sometimes when a person dies, they have such a powerful will to live that they do not move on to the Otherworld. In those cases, they might restrain themselves in Limbo as well." Upa pointed out. Fortuneteller Baba turned back at the young brat with a smirk on her face, feeling a bit proud of her little protégé's knowledge.
"That's right, it's what you mortal folks call "ghosts"…" King Enma stared at a booger he rolled around in between his fingers for a while before flicking it away. "Either way, I need to get back to work and you guys are holding off the line. Unless you've got some other business, go home."
"You won't need to tell us that twice," Fortuneteller Baba sighed and began floating to the eastern section of the Check-In Station, followed by Upa. Goku, Chayote and Krillin stayed not too long behind Upa as well.
"That demon guy killed you, Krillin. Chayote won something called a Free Reburn Ticket and I'm not quite sure how it works but it brought you back to life." Goku tried explaining things to Krillin the best he could with his limited grasp on things. His excited emotional state didn't help things, the last time that Chayote saw the kid this excited was when he was about to leave to meet his grandpa in the Otherworld. Judging by how oblivious he was to some things, Baba didn't quite give him a tour. It was more than likely that what she did with arranging the meeting between the two wasn't entirely legal but that was Baba for you…
"Alright, Upa, beam us back home then…" Baba turned back to Upa.
"Keep your eyes peeled, Krillin, that's pretty awesome!" Goku turned to his resurrected friend who just nodded and then turned back to Chayote.
"Th-Thank you!" he mumbled. "Thanks for bringing me back to life."
"Yeah… Well… It's called the Free Return Ticket, for the record." Chayote shrugged and looked away, choosing not to confront the snot-inviting sentiments of the situation at hand. "And I didn't feel like waiting around until you get brought back to life using the Dragon Balls anyway. I've got a schedule and I've already stayed here longer than I wanted to."
After the trio left back to Baba's Palace using Upa's conjured doorway, Fortuneteller Baba turned to Chayote with a wayward look. A look that implied that Baba knew exactly what it would be that Chayote would choose to do in this situation but she wanted to make sure, in addition, she would have much more preferred that Chayote did not do that thing.
"So, now that Krillin is back home, there isn't anything keeping you to Earth, is there? You're going to leave, aren't you?" Fortuneteller Baba raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Chayote.
"Huh?" Krillin turned around.
"That's right… Although… I can still sense some wicked Ki far off in the distance to the North, I haven't got the faintest doubt that's the ringleader of the Evil Tribe gang." Chayote declared. "If you guys are going to go kill him, I wouldn't mind tagging along."
"Ch-Chayote!" Upa yelled out. "Didn't you hear a thing that was being discussed in the Otherworld? You cannot kill Demon King Piccolo without killing Kami-sama as well!"
"I intended to kill him with my own hands anyway, remember? This way I'd get to kill two guys I was always going to kill at once…" Chayote shrugged. "I'm sure that Kakarot agrees with me. Had it not been for the necessity to bring Krillin back to life, we'd have gone and killed him off the first chance we got."
"We're gonna knock him flying but we won't kill him." Goku declared with a determined expression. "We need to show him that he better not do anything bad ever again but we shouldn't kill Kami."
"What do you care? You've never even met the guy. The first thing he did when we met was have his boy-toy kick me off his tower." Chayote sighed and wrapped her arms over her chest in frustration. "Although this might be the last good fight I'll see in a while, I may as well see it through before leaving."
"Are you coming, Krillin?" Goku looked at his resurrected friend who just poked his fingers against one another. It was evident that he felt a bit cowardly about confronting the leader of the monster that killed him off but he didn't go pale nor did his feet quiver, meaning he wasn't completely lost yet.
"Y-Yeah… Though it might be better if you do the fighting, Goku. I don't think I'm quite on your level just yet…" Krillin looked away in embarrassment.
"Nonsense, you'd do just fine." Chayote tsked with her tongue and smacked Krillin against the shoulder. "The only reason you got done in was that you were looking out for somebody else and lowered your guard. Trust me, you're good. As long as you don't look out for anybody else but yourself…"
"Chayote…" Krillin muttered. "Th-Thanks…" he nodded. It wasn't too tough to see that he was about to tear up and start getting snotty again, Chayote made sure lift off before letting the atmosphere get moist like that. Who knew, she might have gotten let it go into her head and gotten teary-eyed too. That much couldn't have been permitted…
Without waiting for any special welcome, the trio blasted off into the distance, headed North to where Chayote picked up a weak signature of wickedness similar to that of Tambourine and the sniff of Demon King Piccolo that she's sensed earlier.
"It's a crisis to be certain…" Kami declared with a serious face, still clutching to his staff for support as even standing up straight seemed to be a difficult task in his current situation. "Not too long ago, I started feeling great pain, the eruption of some mystical energy burst from within me and every passing moment felt like dying."
"That must be when we've beaten Demon King Piccolo…" Tenshinhan turned to Yamcha.
"That was what Mr. Popo assumed as well. Knowing that monstrous fighters like Chayote are in this world, we did not think that in his current years and being as weakened as he was Demon King Piccolo would be that much of a challenge." Kami admitted.
"Well, it wasn't Chayote who beat him, it was us. Probably didn't need both of us, to be certain…" Yamcha bragged.
Kami closed his eyes, letting his body rest for a brief moment. It didn't appear as if he was dying at the moment, whatever crisis had befallen Demon King Piccolo and caused the great distress up in God's Temple must have been behind right now but he still wasn't anywhere near the appearance of a healthy guardian of a planet.
"I was ready to accept my end. It would have been only fitting. Something despicable and weak that I have done in my past catching up to me, ultimately… It was Mr. Popo who didn't want it ending this way. He just couldn't accept that it was my time already." Kami said.
"What do you mean by that?" Tenshinhan wondered.
"Long ago, when I was just in-training to become a guardian, my status was in question because I had great evil in my heart that I just couldn't get rid of, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I meditated on it. It was as if that taint was a fundamental part of me. The heart of the Earth's guardian must be pure, until I got rid of that rot, I could not have ascended… One day I… Got very frustrated with my lack of progress and… It just happened, I expelled all of my evil out, I created Demon King Piccolo by splitting him from my own being just so I could ascend. I should have let his demise be the end of it, it would have been right." Kami sighed.
"No, it would not have been." Tenshinhan shut the old deity down. "I've done a lot of questionable things in confusion as well. I was brought up as the successor to master Taopaipai, as the greatest assassin to succeed him. I've taken lives and swindled people, walked in the path of darkness and I never felt satisfied with it. That frustration caused me to shut into the wrong path for me even more. Become even fouler. Even when I realized my mistake and left Tsuru Sennin and Taopaipai's training behind, I was still surrounded by darkness and Chayote or Son Goku would have been in the right killing me. Though they've done something more remarkable, they've let me carry on and gave me a chance at redemption over everything I'd done. Had it not been for the chance that Fortuneteller Baba, Muten Roshi-sama, Son Goku and Chayote provided me with, I'd have remained lost and I do not accept that dying lost is ever just."
"Young man…" Kami muttered.
"Unless you feel like you've redeemed for unleashing Demon King Piccolo on the world, which, seeing that you wish to have died together with him, clearly you have not, you must live every passing day seeking redemption. That is true justice, only by purifying your heart from evil the right way can you make up for what ails you." Tenshinhan declared.
"Mr. Popo left to save Demon King Piccolo from being destroyed. I'm not quite sure what's going on with him but he must have recovered Demon King Piccolo before you could strike the finishing blow. Something's wrong though, if Mr. Popo rode off on his magical carpet, he should have been back with the Demon King about now…" Kami said, somewhat calmed down by Tenshinhan's feelings on the matter. He might have even agreed with the young man's wisdom that was far beyond his years as not even Kami with a fair share of the wisdom of his own couldn't have stumbled onto that answer on his own.
"You mean… Demon King Piccolo might have escaped!?" Yamcha blanked out.
"I'm not sure such a thing might be possible. Mr. Popo surpasses Demon King Piccolo in power even in his prime. Although, something might have gone wrong because Mr. Popo's hesitance to fight Demon King Piccolo…" Kami looked down, looking devastated that he allowed someone who was possibly the most hesitant being alive to fight the Demon King to confront him. He had little choice at the time nor did he have the power to stop him but that didn't mean that the guardian of Earth couldn't place that responsibility alongside everything else on his weakened shoulders.
"Would it be possible to sever the link between your life and that of the Demon King Piccolo using the Dragon Balls?" Tenshinhan looked up at Kami. "Our friends are currently working to collect them with the goal of destroying the Demon King…" only then did it dawn on Tenshinhan. With a blank expression, he turned to Yamcha who shared the worry with his rival and the two continued to stare at one another.
"We must leave, now!" Yamcha somehow found it within himself to mutter as the two turned around and dashed for the edge of the Temple, Yamcha launched himself off of it even if he couldn't fly. He trusted Tenshinhan to catch him and lower him back down to his jet and that was exactly what Tenshinhan did. It was excellent that they've communicated with Bulma and the Dragon Team before meaning they knew where they needed to head out to, still, Yamcha fumbled through the buttons to contact the Dragon Team again and tell them that they couldn't have tried to destroy the Demon King with the Dragon Balls.
"We didn't get an answer before rushing out…" Tenshinhan lamented after closing up beside Yamcha's jet that lagged behind compared to Tenshinhan's flying speed.
"Well, at this point it doesn't matter. We need to make sure that the Dragon Team doesn't use the Dragon Balls to destroy Demon King Piccolo, we can try to sever their lifelink and if it doesn't work… We'll just ask for strawberries…" Yamcha joked.
"Who would be vain enough to ask a Divine Dragon such trivial things?" Tenshinhan smirked at Yamcha's joke.
"Nicely done, Chiaotzu!" Muten Roshi cheered on the floating ghoul as he blasted the massive glacier with his Dodonpa, separating the ice and leaving only one half of the glacier with the Dragon Ball etched inside it exposed for picking up. Bulma lowered her craft and let Puar float out through the open doors and pick the Dragon Ball up. The floating cat pulled on the Dragon Ball but failed to remove it from its icy prison.
"Heh, you're such a weakling…" Oolong mocked his pal before receiving a pound to the head from Bulma who turned around just to punch the useless anthropomorphic pig.
"At least he's trying something!" Bulma complained. "You're just sitting here doing nothing, no, even less than nothing because you're complaining and making us all mad."
"M-My… It's… Awfully cold outside…" Launch buried herself in her fur coat only for the frosty fur hood to caress her nose and irritate it even more than the chilly northern winds have already done. To surprise to absolutely nobody, Launch sneezed.
"Alright! Time to lodge that damned thing out!" Launch, now in her blond form approached the open door with a massive army knife lodged in her teeth and jumped off, grabbing Puar by his tail and taking him down with her. Had it not been for Chiaotzu's aid in lifting the maniacal bandit up, she'd have gone down and splattered down below together with the shapeshifting cat.
"Thanks, short-stuff!" Launch smirked at Chiaotzu before using his arm as a swing and swinging herself to the ice platform and beginning to go at it with her knife. It didn't take her too long to dislodge the Dragon Ball and turn to the Dragon Team inside the jet with the Dragon Ball free from ice.
"Finally, we've got all seven…" Muten Roshi sighed at ease. The seventh Dragon Ball even gleamed in a golden shine, as if excited to meet its six peers.
A ray of red sent the jet spiraling down while it blasted at the glacier, devastating it and sending titanic ice shards into the air from the violent explosion. Only the Dragon Ball froze in mid-air and began floating at another direction, together with six more that came from inside the jet in a controlled manner, floating in a vortex right after another and landing in a neat formation beside the wooden boots of a lone, tall and slouching figure atop of a nearby glacier.
"What luck… That all seven Dragon Balls would be brought together just as I came for one of them…" Demon King Piccolo muttered to himself as he leaned to examine the seven by his feet. "Did I not deserve a lucky break though? After having all my sons systematically slaughtered and feeling every bit of their pain, after having my own body reduced to a pathetic shell, clutching for every pathetic little straw for a chance of survival, even being taken by my worst enemy on a magic carpet ride… Mr. Popo… You should have kept closer attention to what you are carrying to your master… No. It's no luck at all that I have memorized the readings of that blue shrimp's Dragon Radar in case he tried to betray me. I earned every little bit of this."
The jet began rising up even though its engine had been snuffed out and every mechanical part of it had frozen the moment that the burning jet fuel wasn't there to thaw the emergency propellers out. Chiaotzu struggled to keep the entire jet afloat, holding it from below as he lifted it in search of the nearest platform to place the jet onto.
"Hmph… Martial artists… Of course, your lot would be collecting the Dragon Balls…" Demon King Piccolo spoke to himself with bitterness. "Yet even now I lack the strength to challenge you, but rest assured after my strength is restored, I'll hunt you all down as you did to my sons…"
"It's… Demon King Piccolo!" Muten Roshi pointed at the lone, sluggish and crooked shape atop of the glacier. "Chiaotzu, place us down, I can't perform the Mafuba on such unstable grounds, I'll miss the jar!"
"There's nowhere to put us down to…" Chiaotzu yelled out, he could have easily lifted a jet such as this one even if it was filled with wrecking balls and not people but lifting it and remaining concentrated enough to hold it in the air was a much more difficult task.
"Come now, Divine Dragon, appear and fulfill my wish!" King Piccolo raised his hands over the Dragon Balls.
Muten Roshi grabbed Bulma and leaped out of the jet, landing atop of a nearby floating glacier piece. It was far too feeble to support the jet but it could have supported a handful of people just fine. Launch had been clutching to one such piece and floating in freezing water unconscious just below. There was no way to connect with the Mafuba from this distance but if the Demon King summoned the Divine Dragon, Muten Roshi might have just spoken his wish before the Demon King Piccolo did, reducing the Demon King to ash and ending his reign of terror at last.
"Don't do whatever you're planning to do." A voice reached Muten Roshi from the side. The confused martial arts master turned to his side to witness a black-skinned genie floating atop of a magical carpet, donned in fine, eastern clothes similar to royal inhabitants of the Diablo Desert region and clad in golden jewelry and accessories.
"Who are you?" Muten Roshi muttered.
"I am Mr. Popo. God's Attendant." The genie declared with a blank and indifferent face as he observed the sky turning dark and gloomy in preparation for the emergence of the Divine Dragon.