"Whoa, look at the giant queue! Baba's business must be booming!" Upa noted while pointing at the giant mass of fighters that indeed looked greater than Chayote could ever recall it being.
Upa leaped off of Kinto alongside Chayote who swooped down and landed by the queue of impressive-looking fighters. As tall and brawny as most of them were, the unexpected landing of the pair appeared to scare their underwear off of them with the nearest one with a bald head and thick mustache shrieking like a little girl. Then again, the general atmosphere of Baba's Palace supported that sort of fear for unnatural occurrences and ghost haunting and the sort, provided that Ghost Usher was a wispy spirit himself.
"Greetings, Chayote-san and Upa-san!" Ghost Usher shook his stumpy arm and floated up to the pair, gently leading them through the crowd and into the passageway to where Fortuneteller Baba might have seen them.
"Business is pretty busy, isn't it?" Chayote voiced the general impression of the matters to Ghost Usher.
"Well… Yes. With the World Martial Arts Tournament being not too far off, plenty of martial artists are looking for great places to train and test their skills. Few of them know that this place can be more dangerous than the tournament itself." Ghost Usher replied with a polite tone while chuckling to himself after the final remark.
Having spent more than their fair share of time in this palace training and learning all sorts of things, Chayote and Upa knew that Baba must have been occupied with a group of fighters to lead through their perilous attempt to challenge her own five warriors for a free divination. As odd as it seemed, Chayote couldn't sense five distinct Ki in the vicinity.
"Does the old lady have trouble finding fighters? There are only three here worth fighting for her." Chayote let her observation be known to the Ghost Usher.
"Well… Sadly, this might be a factor for why the business is booming at the moment – Baba-sama only has three fighters working for her at the moment. She'd love to have you fight for her again, Chayote." Ghost Usher smiled after making the suggestion despite looking quite desperate after explaining the reason for the lack of notable Ki signatures in the area.
"Just three? That's horrible!" Upa covered his mouth. "Although… I don't see any fighters passing Mummy Man anyway."
"Yes. Sadly, Devil Man has passed on back to Hell not too long ago and with Kami being gone too, Baba-sama's access to the Otherworld has been made quite difficult as he often served as a middle-man between Baba-sama and King Enma." Ghost Usher sighed.
"The old devil kicked the bucket?" Chayote repeated as she struggled to believe it.
"I'm afraid so… Someone attacked him while he was shopping and killed him. It's hard to say who or why might have done it but… We take solace only in the fact that Devil Man has returned to the place he yearned to come back to, even if it is as an inhabitant…" Ghost Usher said.
"There aren't many capable of killing him. He did win the World Martial Arts Tournament twice so maybe one of Demon King Piccolo's runts offed him?" Chayote wondered. An uneasy core of chaotic boiling furled down in her gut, a certain spark of unease. Despite it hardly seeming like an immediate concern, Chayote felt like she wanted to bring the old-horns back. He was the only demon she ever felt fond of.
"That's impossible. The others resurrected everyone killed by Demon King Piccolo and his goons when the Dragon Balls turned active again. Someone else must have done it." Upa pointed out.
The soon-to-be Kami had a point there. Had Tambourine or Demon King Piccolo himself killed off Devil Man for being a champion of the World Martial Arts Tournament, Devil Man would have already come back to life. Then again, would the Demon King have even gone after Devil Man when the latter was just as much a demon as he was a martial artist? The shriveled up Namekian seemed a bit more focused on weeding out Earthling threats first. It was unlikely he'd have gone after Hellions too, especially when there was just one of them and he was just visiting.
"Maybe he didn't want to return back to life? If he had gone down back to Hell, it's likely that he wouldn't want to come back and break his back working for Baba." Chayote ran her hand through her hair, trying to piece that puzzle together as something about it just felt off. "Damn… Old-horns was just who I wanted to see."
"And why's that? Didn't you miss your old friend Fortuneteller Baba at all?" Baba's squeaky, ancient voice ran crooked, bony nails through the harp strings, instilling a chill into the backs of everyone that heard it. Provided, of course, that said backs weren't battered and broken like those of the defeated fighters leaving the palace alongside the old crone.
"Baba-sama!" Upa bowed in front of the old lady while the old crone's eyes glittered like rubies, watching the soon-to-be Kami bowing in front of her. Chayote didn't even need to ask why the fortuneteller had so few problems letting her apprentice and assistant off to train and become Kami – he'd be her plant in the divine plan, while the old woman already pretty much did whatever she pleased, she did so with Kami's permission, or rather, refusal to deal with her insolence. Nobody in the Otherworld wanted to deal with this crone, which was why they compromised with her and let her have her way, feeling thankful that the bothersome woman didn't ask for anything too much. Just a deadman here and there, just for one day to protect her own priceless labor from being taken advantage of.
"I wanted the Devil Man to blast Upa with his Devil Mite Beam. If even the Devil Mite Beam wouldn't work on him, he'd have no trouble passing the Kami Trials." Chayote sighed in irritation that yet another stick got stuck deeper in her wheels than she could pull it out from.
"But… Don't you know the Devil Mite Beam too?" Fortuneteller Baba raised an eyebrow, stretching out her wretched face in ways that it was not meant to be stretched and misshaping one of the sides of her face by having the eye bloat out, compared to the other.
"Mine's still garbage. Back when I left for the tournament my Ki control was too wobbly for it to come out consistently and even if I could pull it off, it wouldn't be anywhere near as good as the real deal. I doubt I could make enemies explode as Devil Man could." Chayote groaned, scratching the back of her head. She was so bad at using that technique that she'd rather avoid facing the fact she even knew its basic concepts.
"Well, do you want to have my little Kami apprentice blow up, you nincompoop!?" Baba croaked out with an inquisitive tone.
"I mean… I guess not. But it won't be the same still…" Chayote sighed. "Though, I guess, if Devil Man's gone, there's no other way, is it?"
"So what you're saying is… Upa-chan's training is almost complete? He's about to face the spirits of the old Kami in the Divine Sage Realm?" Baba seemed excited by that information leak, no doubt because she couldn't wait to exploit the poor boy by guilt-tripping him into transferring entire handfuls of dead martial artists under her employ to help her stay lazy and rich while getting no actual divination done.
"That's right! And it's all thanks to you and the mystical training you've put me through, Baba-sama!" Upa clenched his little fists and bowed in front of his old mentor a pair of times. "All the divine matters and magic came off far easier than it would have. I might have never been able to pick up some things had it not been for the herbs and shortcuts you've taught me in mastering magic and mysticism."
"Ah… There you go, youngin, making this old crone's cute cheeks flush red… I just hope that when you're sitting atop of that temple, all high and mighty, you won't forget the handful of ash and bone dust that brought you up there. You wouldn't do that, would you?" Baba played her cards just right, she was known to do that but there was a certain fond spot in Chayote's own heart for this floating granny.
"Alright then…" Chayote took a few steps forward and turned back to Upa, placing her extended fingers by her temple before positioning her hands in front of her in a triangular position, not too much different from how Tenshinhan performed his Kikoho. Sparks of violet lit up with jolts of lightning passing down Chayote's entire body, her Ki was far more powerful than Devil Man's though he channeled it far better so there was still a question as to which one performed the technique better.
Chayote had never succeeded in doing anything but wounding the enemy with it, she could never expand the negative Ki enough to make the enemy outright blow up as Devil Man intended it.
"Devil Mite Beam!" she chanted out while extending her fingers forward and letting the beam spiral on as it traveled at Upa. It was a slow technique too. If there were no inhibitions on space, any opponent worth their salt might have dodged it as well. Devil Man could have manipulated its course, expanded the range of the spiral it traveled in to have it cover more ground but Chayote was glad about just pulling it off in the first place. Even that used to only happen from time to time and demanded more time to channel the technique than it was acceptable.
Upa let out a light "Oomph" when the beam hit him head-on and encompassed him entirely. Chayote closed her eyes and tried to focus, find any hints of evil inside this young man, illuminating his spirit for any traces of fear, anger, hatred, jealousy or aggression, anything negative that could have been expanded and blown up. Having felt a lump of something, Chayote extended her fist and clenched it, wondering if it would make one of her best Earthling friends pop.
A pop did come out, though it was from the puff of smoke of the technique dissolving around Upa while the young man looked around, curious if anything had happened at all.
"Well… Was this your performance issue or is the boy truly pure of heart?" Baba wondered.
"Hard to say… I don't think I did the technique wrong, it came out now better than it ever has and… Nothing. Upa could ride Kinto no problem so I'd say… You're ready…" Chayote smiled and nodded at Upa, her excitement seemed to resonate in Upa's own heart too so he laughed out in return.
"Heh… I see now what my senile brother sees in these trivial matters. Pride in one's youngins does feel a bit warm and fuzzy, maybe I'll establish a school of my own, Fortuneteller Baba's School of Seeing-All…" the old lady sprayed saliva from her extended tongue as if spitting at such an idea though she soon returned to the smile that twisted her shriveled face again.
"Alright then, I think you're as ready as you will ever be!" Chayote nodded at Upa with a smirk. "Time to make you into a Kami then, if those old spirits refuse you, then to Hell with all of them."
"So, how'd it go?" Mr. Popo asked with a troubled face when Upa and Chayote landed on the God Temple and waved Kinto off. The genie was looking for signs of what to take from their trip but he could find nothing concrete until Chayote shrugged her shoulders and mustered up a nod.
"Take him to the trials. He's as ready as he'll ever be." She declared.
Of course, saying just this much was putting it lightly though what else could Chayote have said? Mr. Popo didn't know Devil Man or cared about him too much and Goku, alongside the rest of the Dragon Team, was off training.
"What will you be doing? The Room of Spirit and Time is taken for now but you can try it tomorrow." Mr. Popo wondered while Upa approached him and took his position by his side.
"Really? Who's taking it?" Chayote wondered.
"That girl you've brought onto the tower. She said she wanted to become strong to get Son Goku's attention and she was the weakest amongst everyone here so I thought it would be a good idea to let her catch up." Mr. Popo smiled. It was tough to say if he was genuinely happy about his decision since this smile was his neutral state. It was when that smile was absent that Mr. Popo's expressions and therefore the situation at hand required analyzing. "A person can only enter the room twice in their entire life so I'd make that visit count if I were you."
"Wait, what!?" Chayote dropped her jaw. "You mean I spent a whole year of my training just teaching Upa and looking out for Piccolo Jr.?"
"Don't worry, when I become Kami I'll make sure to modify the room so you can visit it more times." Upa nodded, looking as if he just couldn't contain himself.
"You better… You owe me." Chayote crossed her arms and looked away before looking back at Upa and smirking to his back as Mr. Popo took the young man to the black door that molded perfectly into the night-colored hallway that it stood in. The Saiyan would have wished the young man good luck but he wouldn't have heard it. She'd have liked to accompany him too but this was something he was meant to do by himself, plus, the Divine Sage Realm sounded like one of those places where only Gods and their attendants were allowed in.
"So this place is the Divine Sage Realm?" Upa wondered, his eyes scurried around the seemingly infinite vastness located inside. In that way it looked similar to the Room of Spirit and Time, except where the former was infinitely bright, white and inhospitable, the Divine Sage Realm was covered in a thick, grey mist but its skies looked like the clearest and most serene night's sky that Upa had ever seen. The clouds that might have obstructed the sky lingered by the ground, making it impossible to see what one was stepping on.
"That's right. This is where all Kami go when they die." Mr. Popo pointed out. "This place hosts all of their spirits and they are the only ones that can judge who can become Kami. Only those that are Kami, wish to become Kami and their attendants or beings of higher divine order are allowed inside. It is a place of great sanctity and must not be disturbed unless the case involves a serious matter."
"Even when on the final step of becoming Kami, I'm still learning…" Upa snickered. "Thanks, Mr. Popo, for everything so far and for being alongside me now."
"I look forward to serving you in the future," Mr. Popo nodded his head.
"A mortal has entered the Divine Sage Realm! Why!?" a voice mighty in volume and strict in tone resonated throughout the place, making the serene and majestic night's sky turn blood-red as all the stars blinking up above died out and surrendered to the violent furl of crimson. Dark shadows rose from the obscurity of the mist and formed titanic, humanoid shapes of cloaked men with partings only to display their eyes – the mirrors to their soul that, at the moment, seemed empty.
Yet Upa didn't think they were empty, that these holes were just holes, the view in the eyes of the spirits of the Kami from the past reflected the sky, therefore the state of this room and that was what those holes signified. The fact that this room was entirely a mirror of the souls of the Kami of the past.
"I am no mere mortal, I come here to take my Kami trials!" Upa yelled out at the rising behemoths of smoke and clouds, his arms twitched to reach behind his back for his tomahawks but they then relaxed when he remembered that the Divine Sage Realm was no place for violence. Only judgment. And only Kami were allowed to cast theirs.
"You speak thusly but… Your predecessor is not here, is he?" one of the rising figures of past Kami asked.
"Indeed, if current Kami is alive, you cannot succeed him as Kami." The one to the left of the observant past Kami added.
"I am sorry but… The current Kami is not alive anymore…" Mr. Popo declared with a shaking voice. He had gone through quite the journey and suffered an enormous loss, though it was only through that torment that the power to utter those words came to him. "The current Kami is neither alive or dead. He has become one with a demon he gave birth to in order to save the world from him. In becoming a part of King Piccolo again, he made the demon's heart soften and helped humans save their own world. Earth now needs a new Kami."
"Hmmm… Indeed, if Mr. Popo says that Kami is no more… He is a faithful servant that has served many of us with unseen devotion that might not be repeated by anyone else." One of the past Kami spoke with a softer tone. Clearly, whoever this Kami was, had great care for Mr. Popo and felt grateful for the attendant's service.
"This cannot stand!" the first of the Kami to speak insisted, his cloud began turning darker and spreading wider, attempting to obstruct the redwood hues of the rest. Crackles of lightning began emerging all over the spreading storm while blizzard sprayed from its reach, pelting at Upa and Mr. Popo with the might of snowfall unseen anywhere else in the entire cosmos. "If the Kami is not dead, we cannot select a new Kami!"
"But if the current Kami is one with a demon, does that not mean that his heart is one with evil? Only a pure-hearted person can become and be Kami. There might not be a precedent of a Kami being selected while the current is in a state where they are neither living nor dead, but there is a precedent of Kami becoming evil and needing to be replaced. I suggest that we permit the God Trials in this case." Another Kami spoke up, spreading his own purifying influence against the furious spirit and soothing its wrath upon the entrants to the Divine Sage Realm.
"Very well…" the first Kami relented. "Let us then see if your heart is pure and fosters no evil."
"Be advised, young one, that if your heart does foster evil, you may still cleanse it and come forward. Your predecessor has done so." The Kami that has soothed the grouchy first one spoke up once more.
The wrathful Kami rose above its peers and black jets of storm clouds fractured the calming skies, dyeing them black. A divine thunderbolt pierced the heavens and struck Upa, the jolt was so mighty that it lifted the boy off the ground as it attempted to crash at the core of all wickedness inside him. Upa examined his hands and looked around, despite being utterly consumed by the divine shock, he felt not a single ounce of the jolt.
"Remarkable. Humans have trouble achieving purity and yet this one is as pure as it gets." The wrathful Kami sounded impressed by the entrant he had previously dismissed.
"It's no surprise, Upa and his father have served as protectors of the Sacred Land of Korin, they've devoted their entire lives to see to it that no evil wanders into our hallowed grounds." Mr. Popo looked at Upa with pride while the native boy landed on both his feet after the divine thunderbolt stopped cradling him and dispersed.
"Very well, then. Your final trial as Kami begins. If you draw the Kami symbol onto your clothes, signifying your exalted status – your godhood is granted." A Kami of a feminine-sounding voice declared.
"Huh…" Upa looked around. "What a weird trial…"
And yet… The more he looked around, the more troublesome he found the assignment. Try as hard as he could, he couldn't make out a thing below his knees because of the thick shroud swallowing up him whole. Upa bent his knees and began scanning the floor of the realm with his hands.
"What's wrong?" Mr. Popo wondered.
"I can't find a brush…" Upa complained. "How will I paint the symbol?"
"That's right, youngin, this realm stretches out into oblivion and you will not find a single pen, pencil, crayon or brush in its entirety. Does that stop you from claiming your status as Kami?" the granny-Kami wondered.
"Nope, I guess I'll just conjure up one…" Upa shrugged and extended his hand. A crackle of golden lightning formed around his hands but once it faded away, there was only a flaccid donkey tail in Upa's hands.
"Oh my!" Mr. Popo covered up his mouth.
"Hurry up, boy, before we reconsider…" one of the Kami that has remained silent up until that point spoke up.
"R-Right, sorry!" Upa blushed and placed the donkey tail under his belt before removing his tomahawks and raising them over his head. A powerful jolt of divine lightning came down, drawing strength from the Divine Sage Ream itself as Upa crashed the conjoined blades at the floor before him, splitting the shroud that had covered it for just a brief moment.
Upa browsed the ground but couldn't find a brush either. This was embarrassing, he had spent all this time training with Chayote and he was able to do all sorts of magical tricks, maybe it was just the atmosphere of this realm that inhibited him from effectively materializing objects but… No. He needed no excuses, they wouldn't help him now.
Upa grabbed the handle of his tomahawk and clutched at the tip of the blade hard. He removed his vest and placed it onto the ground. Upa placed his hand over the vest, feeling where its center would have been as the shroud made it impossible to tell for certain.
"Huh… Mr. Popo, can you help me guide my hand?" Upa wondered.
"Wh-What!? Why?" Mr. Popo jumped up in shock.
"I… I can't read or write… You see…" Upa laughed out.
"Ah… Very well…" Mr. Popo nodded and dragged Upa's bleeding hand across the jacket, leaving a bloody stain on it. Upa was well aware that would not do but he could transform blood into paint and shape it better using his divine powers much better than trying to conjure up a brush out of thin air. He raised his jacket in front of him and dragged his bleeding hand across the vest, just inches shy from touching it. And thus the miracle came alive – what was previously just a bloody stain roughly in the shape of the Kami kanji on the back of Upa's leather vest was now a perfectly dyed Kami symbol.
"I still have a lot of places to grow but with Mr. Popo's aid, with the aid of the humans I seek to protect, I will do any task I must as Kami! I swear it!" Upa declared with a determined face as he held his vest in front of the past Kami all of whom examined his signature made in blood.
"What the boy lacks in talent and power, he compensates with potential and devotion, it seems…" the Granny-Kami dispersed into a shapeless shroud and began whirling around Upa while the boy felt a mighty surge of Ki leaving his body. The power he had never previously even felt being there.
"Well, well… What a showoff, it takes many to awaken the divine power within a person. Very well, I shall too add my signature into the ritual!" another Kami dispersed and Upa began feeling more and more Ki that he had never before sensed flowing through him. The power that felt divine, not in its might or quantity but its majestic and exalted essence.
Upa's performance in the trials had earned more and more of the past Kami submitting to the ritual until the aura brimming around Upa became the color matching that of raging fire while miniature twinkles of stars glimmered all around it.
"You did it, Upa, you've become a Kami now! The God Ki has been awakened inside you!" Mr. Popo cheered as the power of unity with the entirety of the Divine Sage Realm had faded away as quickly as it brimmed up, leaving Upa with nothing except the feeling of grandeur and exaltation, having become one with something greater than himself.
It didn't take long after the birth of the new Kami for the remaining year until the next World Martial Arts Tournament to pass and the time for everyone to show off the fruits of their training to come again.
Author's Note: Some of you might find issue at the fact that Kinto can travel higher than the Korin Temple. It's true that Korin has claimed that the Korin Tower is the highest that the Kinto can go and some fans had assumed that was because Kinto is a cloud and the God Temple was shown to be above the clouds but that is just a fan theory and speculation at best. All that we know about traveling onto the God Temple via unnatural means is that both Korin and Kami have methods of preventing that if they deem it necessary. It is, therefore, my stance that Kinto is no ordinary cloud and it can rise above the layer of natural clouds if needed, especially when the anime depicts the characters riding it going over the clouds many times, and it is indeed the magic of Kami or Korin that would prevent one from taking the cloud up their temple, which is what I believe Korin meant when he said to Goku that the Kinto wouldn't take him there.
Anyways, look forward to the next arc, I hope you liked the story so far. It won't be an exact retelling of the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament sadly, as I'm not too fond of most of that arc anyway. The only parts of it I find valuable are the marriage between Goku and Chi-Chi and the final match, all of which I can still promise without compromising the tournament too much. I hope you can forgive me of taking some... Liberties with the tournament. You'll all know what I meant by that soon :D