"We're here!" Mr. Popo announced and took a leap off of the magic carpet. Goku looked around, letting the sights of God's Temple sink into his mind, ever the curious soul. Krillin still clenched to the carpet and quivered in shock as the traveling speed of the magical carpet might have been a bit more than he was used to. It took Krillin far too much time to even approach the edge of the carpet and peek down at the marble-colored tiles below. The boy looked at them as if they were hot lava.
"What is this place?" Goku wondered and then jumped off the carpet himself, taking a few moments to wander around a few steps to each side just so he could examine the place more carefully.
"This is God's Temple. I am Mr. Popo, the attendant of Earth's guardian." Mr. Popo explained. "Earth's guardian lives here and presides over the entirety of the world. You might know it as the upper layer of the Korin Tower, the temple one level above Korin Temple."
Goku jumped back in surprise, exclaiming all of the shock aloud. Krillin finally gathered the courage to extend his pudgy and hardened by training arm and touch the solid floor with his finger, still clutching the warm and safe embrace of the carpet for the moment.
"I'll be having those bells. The two of you have earned Korin's approval, after all." Mr. Popo extended his hand.
"Huh? You mean these bells?" Goku reached under his gi and pulled out a bell that he then handed to Popo. Because Krillin still felt awry about taking off of the carpet, Mr. Popo whistled making the carpet blast off from underneath the boy's feet so fast that Krillin rolled off of it and tumbled on the tower ground, as if someone had pulled a literal rug from underneath him. While it was a trial by fire to Krillin's recently brought back to life mind, the youth had enough sanity left to hand his bell to Mr. Popo when the genie approached him.
"For the next day, the two of you will train here." Mr. Popo announced. "Kami-sama is no longer with us to oversee your training but the world needs saving."
"Huh?" Goku bent his head to the side like a curious puppy.
"Demon King Piccolo has used the Dragon Balls to merge with Kami-sama. Long ago, the Earth's guardian and the Demon King were one and the same being and now, using the Dragon Balls, King Piccolo became one again with his old self." Mr. Popo explained.
"Ah! So that's why the sky turned dark all of a sudden! I had figured that Bulma and the rest have gathered the Dragon Balls, so it was Demon King Piccolo, after all!" Goku hammered his extended palm with his fist while his face turned serious. The boy then tightened his belt. "Alright! Thanks for letting us know, we've gotta go flatten him now!"
"Calm down. All of your friends who have been gathering the Dragon Balls have died. Demon King Piccolo annihilated them. I would have died too but it takes a lot more physical power to destroy me since I am mostly a magical being." Mr. Popo explained. He might not have anticipated Goku's reaction, the young Saiyan clenched his fists and tensed up his entire body while he growled with animalistic noises, the hair on his tail and on his head spiked up like that of a furious cat. The Saiyan then erupted in a wild roar that made the ground underneath his feet shake, tilting and nearly pulling the tiles from underneath his feet all over the God's Tower.
All reactions that should have been entirely impossible in the rare atmosphere up here.
"Calm down." Mr. Popo ordered. "If you run off right now, you'll die like the two other friends of yours that have come up here."
"Two more? You can't mean… Tenshinhan and Yamcha?" Krillin wondered. The news of everyone's deaths has hit him hard though he reacted differently from Goku. His entire body appeared to stiffen and lock down in fear, the boy's lips waved while the color of his skin paled out. Despite the emotional turmoil he was going through, those two seemed like the only duo capable enough to have earned Korin's permission to climb up to Earth's guardian deity.
"Tenshinhan and… Yamcha too!" Goku yelled out, hunching over in fury. "That Piccolo bastard… Must pay!"
The boy took off in a speedy blitz. Mr. Popo's shape blurred and flickered right up in front of where Goku was dashing to. The genie delivered the strongest hook to the boy's jaw he could because it would have taken just that sort of impact to even get to the Saiyan. The best blow Popo had didn't even send Goku down either, the Saiyan just stumbled back a tiny bit and wiped his jaw, checking for traces of blood of which there was none.
"What's the matter? I… Should have been faster…" Goku wheezed. "Stronger!"
"All that meaningless raging and breathing. You've spent out your limited air up here. Your body's reacting accordingly. If you can't breathe – you can't fight. See? There's so much you still need to learn. I would like to train you for a good decade or so but there's no time. Demon King Piccolo will continue to rampage day by day, he's desperate too so he will be in a rush to conquer the world." Mr. Popo explained himself.
"Rush? What do you mean?" Krillin wondered.
"Demon King Piccolo originally intended to regain his youth using the Dragon Balls. That's because he is very old and might not have much of his natural lifespan left. When one dies of natural causes they cannot be brought back using the Dragon Balls too so there would be no coming back for him. I believe he intends to use his unmatched power to conquer the world and then populate it with his Evil Tribe demons, stronger than ever because they would be spawned from his current power." Mr. Popo replied.
"So he's that desperate, huh? Still… There must be a way to restore the Dragon Balls!" Krillin clenched his fists too, the boy shook his head as his eyes were beginning to tear up. Everyone, everyone he knew and has grown to like over the past few crazy years were now dead with one simple blast, just like that Evil Tribe demon killed him…
"I'm afraid that might be impossible. Kami-sama has created the Dragon Balls, it is an ability only he had, there were no other guardians capable of creating the Dragon Balls. Although… Kami-sama might be an alien, given how he's come to this world using a spaceship." Mr. Popo scratched the side of his turban. "Right now that is not your main concern. You must follow me, we don't have much time."
Without staying around to make sure he was being followed, Mr. Popo turned around and began tapping toward the main temple. Krillin's attention switched between Goku who still stood in place, stunned and staring at his fist, grinding his teeth in anger and Mr. Popo, who continued to walk with a hastened step toward the depths of the temple.
"Goku, we must go…" Krillin pressed his hand to Goku's shoulder.
"It hurts…" Goku growled, releasing his fist and scratching his chest. "I wanna go and take a shot at Demon King Piccolo for what he did so bad, it hurts not being able to!"
"If you want to beat Demon King Piccolo, following Mr. Popo and becoming strong, being patient, that's the way to do it…" Krillin pointed out. "You heard what Mr. Popo said, Tenshinhan and Yamcha took off to fight Demon King Piccolo without training here and they… They're gone now. Remember what Mr. Popo said? We'll only be training here for a day, then we'll be able to beat Demon King Piccolo! Come on, Goku, surely you can be patient for just a day!"
Krillin smiled and faked a laugh, just to brighten the mood, act like the deaths of most of his friends all at once didn't make him sadder than he was wandering limbo as a restless spirit. At times the baldy caught himself thinking that it might have been better if he didn't return to life at all, that he remained restless but at least thought his friends happy and alive. Maybe… Maybe Chayote should have held on to her ticket and used it on someone innocent like Bulma?
"I guess…" Goku sighed and caved in to despair, letting go of the rage furling in his heart while he turned to Krillin and the two ran after Mr. Popo to the darkness of God's temple. "Thanks, Krillin."
Krillin nodded. He couldn't help wondering why Chayote would use her Free Return Ticket to bring him back. Now that she did, he had to justify that responsibility, she spent this one-of-a-kind chance on him and he should have proven her right for doing so but… How could he? He wasn't a weakling but still so much weaker than Goku, Chayote and even Tenshinhan. Now all he could have done was be a friend to Goku, help the boy cling to what little sanity remained to their life and help him discover the virtue of patience.
That was all he was good for but it didn't have to be.
"This is the Room of Spirit and Time." Mr. Popo pointed at an old but maintained and oiled wooden door. "There are several doorways to that place and one of them is on this tower. Time flows differently in that place after you spend a year inside this room, only a day would have passed on Earth."
"I see! So that's why you said we'd only be training for one day, in reality, it will be a great deal longer!" Krillin pumped his fists. This was his chance, the crazy, divine training that will help him close the gap, become strong, as strong as Goku, as strong as Chayote and become useful in different ways. Prove that Chayote didn't waste her ticket by bringing him back to life. "We don't have to stop there… We can train for three days, maybe even a whole week!"
"It's not that simple. If Mr. Popo tells you that you should train for just one day – he means business, remember that!" Mr. Popo pointed at Krillin. The tone of his voice rose even though his calm expression didn't change whatsoever. "The conditions inside that place will be horrible. The weather in there goes haywire, the air is incredibly dense, worse even than up here. Worst yet is the gravitational pull, it's ten times stronger than that on Earth."
"What's gravilational pull?" Goku turned to Krillin.
"It's uh… Well, how to explain it…" Krillin butt his two fingers, wondering if he truly could handle the conditions that even Mr. Popo considered to be brutal. Not too long ago, he nearly lost all of his stomach's contents to a really fast magical carpet that barely even affected Goku or Mr. Popo at all. The only reason he did not was because he hadn't eaten anything since coming back to life.
"No time now, you'll find out once you enter. A person may only use one entryway into the room twice in their life. Don't feel discouraged to leave earlier than intended too. I'm sure that Krillin might not handle a full day inside there. Even a full hour will be fine, I can assist with the rest until Goku is finished." Mr. Popo explained.
There he was again… Singling him out, that was always the case, wasn't it? Goku was always the freaky monster of power and skill. Krillin ran away from Orin Temple because he couldn't handle the bullying, he hoped that training with Muten Roshi would be a shortcut to the power needed to teach his bullies a lesson and become strong, someone people would admire. At Muten Roshi's he kept trying to find shortcuts too, in the beginning, at least… Then Goku kept pushing himself to the line and past every time, discovering new and new worlds of power where Krillin just hung back and played it safe, following Goku's footsteps where he knew it was safe and sound, stepping where he knew he could handle it. No more, no more shortcuts!
Krillin stepped forward, prompting Mr. Popo to open up the door and let him in. It was important to Krillin that he entered first. Goku looked crushed the entire time, it was as if that now that he was not allowed to act on his anger he didn't know where to spend all of those emotions, all of that boiling power so he just functioned just like Krillin had before – as a restless ghoul wandering the God's Temple. That was fine, once he began seriously training, devoted all of those feelings into training – he'll be back to normal in no time. That was just how Goku was, no matter who came and gone, Goku would remain the same, he was the constant, the one nonsensical thing that made the most sense.
"Oh yeah, only two people may enter at a time. Mr. Popo would have liked to enter and oversee your training but… Now that Kami-sama is gone, Mr. Popo is the temporary guardian. I will need to find a suitable replacement too. Either way, Son Goku is really amazing for a mortal. Someone with the instincts of you two will have more use discovering the new, plateau of power by yourselves anyway." Mr. Popo smiled as the two entered and then he shut the door behind them.
"Whaa! Look, Krillin, it's a full house in here!" Goku yelled out in surprise once the two were the only souls left in the endless plain extending from beyond the central temple. The Saiyan youth ran up to the two wings extending from the central entry point and pointed at the housing, the vast food supplies and bathing quarters. Just like Goku had claimed, the Room of Spirit and Time had everything needed for a comfortable year of training, except, of course, comfort.
Even inside the temple, Krillin's face turned pale as he wheezed in and out, the air was incredibly dense even inside the temple, a far cry even from what it was like on God's Temple. And they were supposed to train here?! Train as if physical activity? When even Goku got winded after breathing erratically a couple of times to where he went from being a little monster to not being able to outpace Mr. Popo… No! No more excuses, no more shortcuts, that was what Krillin had decided, wasn't it?
Krillin ran past Goku, the confused Saiyan just looked at his partner baffled as Krillin ran up to the edge of the temple and took the first step on the endless white space that extended to seemingly limitless expanses to each direction. The immense pull of the ground, once he stepped off of the first step, made Krillin slump to the ground, hunched over the focusing all of his strength just to not collapse on his face.
"I can't breathe…" he thought. "Shit… I can't… Breathe…"
Sweat broke out on Krillin's bald head and ran down his entire body, even the turtle gi that Krillin wore became soaking wet with it in seconds when heat twice worse and at least four times drier than that of the Diablo Desert washed Krillin's body. In an instant, chills of sixty degrees below freezing point stiffened Krillin's body while his arms shook from the seemingly impossible challenge of merely staying inside this room. Training… Just what kind of training were they meant to do in these conditions?!
"Krillin, are you okay, what are you doing!?" Goku yelled out, chasing after him before his entire body became paralyzed as well and his knees bent from the pressure of gravity befalling him out of nowhere. "Whoa!" he yelled out. "This is just like that place Grandpa showed me…"
"He's done this sort of training before… If Goku can do it then…" Krillin's hands shook, the muscles both in his upper arms and in his forearms felt like they were made of led, lifeless and only good for caving in and being molded by tremendous pressure. Rings of black surrounded Krillin's eyes, something snapped and then… Everything went black.
"Wake up!" voice reached Krillin. "Come on, wake up!" there it was again, Goku's voice. Krillin opened his eyes, seeing the worried expression of his friend. The baldy sat up and looked around, he was used to dreaming nightmares, he would have been fine recalling the dread of his death or the meaningless existing as a ghoul doomed to wandering limbo forever. But the one thing that he was not used to was waking up to the real nightmare.
The dense air, the crazy, shifting each passing moment at seemingly random intervals weather… Krillin would dread training with Goku even outside, even in perfectly comfortable conditions but this… This was something that nobody should have signed up for.
"You passed out! It's okay, it was really hard for me too, but you know what? I think I've gotten a whole bit stronger just dragging your body to bed!" Goku laughed out. Just like that he was back to his old self, the trouble of training in such a crazy location, the despair of having lost all of his friends with a single, careless hand gesture of a tyrannical Demon King, none of that weighed Goku down. At this moment, he was just glad to see Krillin feeling better.
Krillin laid his head back onto the pillow. It was easy to declare that he would, from now on, train as hard as he could. That he'd persevere any conditions, no matter how taxing. That he'd become as strong as Goku or Chayote when coming from the position of a tremendous disadvantage. A whole different matter entirely was putting one's money where one's mouth was. Krillin was always good at declarations and resolutions, so was Yamcha, but Goku was always more of the doing kind.
"You rest, for now, I'll try getting used to this place in the meantime, we can start training when you feel better!" Goku smiled with serious eyes, raising his fist up for a bump by Krillin's side.
"No!" Krillin sat up and pushed the cover aside. "I've already wasted so much of your time, we only have one year, Goku! We can't just lay around and get used to a little bit of heat or cold or crazy gravity! Yamcha, Tenshinhan, Bulma, Muten Roshi, Puar and Oolong are gone. We owe it to them, we owe it to them to try our hardest!"
The smile didn't fade from Goku's face, he just nodded when Krillin answered Goku's fist bump and slipped out from his bed. The two rushed out together, side by side, to let the inhospitable conditions of the Room of Spirit and Time to challenge their bodies and their souls once more. As they'd have to do for a whole year to come…