"King Enma!" Upa jumped up upon being called out by the king of the ogres for stalling the line of souls that had to be processed.
"Kami, what is the meaning of this? You're lucky that neither Whis-san nor the Supreme Kai is here," King Enma showed his teeth both as a threatening gesture as well as a natural result of his cheer derived from the dumbstruck expression on the face of the newest deity in the universe.
"I've come to restore the body of this mortal. He is very special and I was not aware he died in the first place so I had to do so post-mortem, I apologize!" Upa bowed before King Enma making the king of the ogres ease up and begin picking his nose when Kami began boring him.
"If he's so special, how come you weren't aware when he died?" the giant mumbled to himself before standing up some to see Goku better from over the counter. "Ah, yes, I think I remember you. You came here to cash in Baba's Free-Return Ticket a few years ago, right?"
"It's been more than just a few years ago," Goku scratched the back of his head, looking significantly less awed by the massive king of the ogres than he was when he first laid eyes upon the universe's largest bureaucrat.
"Not to a judge of all who are dead and the king of all ogres!" King Enma pointed at himself with his thumb, looking boastful and as excited as ever to inspire awe in the eyes and hearts of mortals around him. "In any case, you're holding off the line. I hope you didn't get the bright idea to just restore this mortal to life, did you, Kami?"
"W-Well… Not yet, we shall be using the Earth's Dragon Balls for that eventually but… I've heard that King Kai is looking for a potential pupil to teach his supreme martial arts techniques. Given how Son Goku is now on the Otherworld, I've been wondering if he could give it a shot…" Upa asked the king of all ogres.
"Huh? King Kai, that grouch? Fine, if this guy can run through the Snake Way, there's no harm in him meeting King Kai. Hey, you, are you sure you wanna run through the entire Snake Way?" King Enma leaned over the table to look at Goku while he asked.
"Huh? I kinda don't really get what's going on but Upa said something about martial arts and I'm all about that!" Goku exclaimed in excitement. "Sure, I'll do it!"
"Alright, it's your afterlife that's at stake…" King Enma shrugged, "Now move it you two, don't hold the line."
"Goku, you must listen really closely, at the end of this path here lives King Kai. If you could see Kami as being the King of the World, King Kai is the King of All Worlds," Upa pointed out as he led Goku to King Enma's right, accompanied by a few puny ogres dressed in office attire and donning glasses.
"Huh? He's an even greater God than you!?" Goku wondered out loud.
"Oh yes! Much, much greater! He's greater even than King Enma!" Upa nodded a few times.
"You know, my hair isn't really obstructing my hearing, Kami!" King Enma glanced at Upa who froze into a popsicle and went pale. While Upa wasn't wrong about King Kai surpassing King Enma in the rank of divinity, King Enma would have rather not have heard about it in his proximity, especially not when another mortal near and could have filled his head with that which King Enma didn't want them to hear.
Upa made sure to accompany Goku to the Snake Way before continuing the explanation. The Snake Way was a long, narrow, and winding path of white marble, shaped after its namesake and was the only pathway guiding through vast fields of cottony, sunny clouds. Goku could only marvel at the sight with primal yells of excitement.
"Indeed, an impressive sight, isn't it? Legends state that this path is millions of kilometers long though its exact length remains unknown. It might even be longer than that as it is visible on the model of the Universe 7 that Whis-san gazes at, meaning that it is of meaningful enough length in the scale of the entire universe!" a blue office ogre pointed out, appearing to share his king's excitement in wowing the visiting mortals.
"This is amazing!" Goku shrieked out, taking a leap onto the serpent's head immediately and gazing into the horizons, seeing no end to the path.
"Goku!" Upa yelled out visibly irked. "You need to hear this! King Kai has been looking all across the universe for the next pupil to teach his esteemed martial arts techniques. So much so that he's been growing desperate and he might just accept you into his tutelage as long as you finish the dash across the Snake Way. I'd have advised you guys to try reaching out to him when you were preparing yourselves to face Piccolo Jr. but none of you were dead at the time and King Kai was far less vocal about his search for disciples."
"Those clouds look delicious!" Goku shrieked out, taking a giant leap with his arms and legs wide open to grab onto the cottony, lemon clouds below like they were a giant cake. A jolt of lightning from Upa's tomahawks covered him and dragged him across and back to the stand before the Snake Way.
"Goku! You went straight to Hell, I swear!" Upa scolded his dim-witted friend. "That's Hell down there, you can't stray off of the Snake Way or else you'll plummet to Hell and you'll have to spend your time there!"
"Hell?" Goku looked up, looking confused.
"It is… Where all the wicked souls go after death…" the office ogre pointed out, looking taken aback by the fact that a mortal could be this uneducated in the afterlife matters.
"So that's where everyone wants me to go when they shout "Go to Hell" and stuff…" Goku laughed out to himself, leaving Upa and the blue ogre shocked at his ignorance.
"Is this mortal from Earth, Kami?" blue office ogre pointed at Goku.
"He is a Saiyan…" Upa replied with a half-answer, wanting neither to lie to the Other World official nor admit that Goku, who didn't have a clue about most afterlife matters, was under his care. "Honestly, I thought he'd be more familiar with the Other World given how he trained with his grandpa for a few years in the Supreme Kai Realm."
"Alright!" Goku tightened his belt and took a valiant leap onto the Snake Way again. Looking onward with a face full of determination and grit.
"Remember, Goku, the sooner you get to King Kai, the more time you'll have to master his techniques…" Goku was gone before Upa could finish the sentence. His afterimage still lingered but his Ki was halfway across the horizon covering unfathomable distances in mere blinks.
"He is astounding!" the blue office ogre yelled out in amazement. "Dashed right off and barely raised a whirl down here! What ludicrous speed!"
"It's not his ability to make it to King Kai that bothers me," Upa shook his head, stroking his forehead as he turned away from the Snake Way and moved back to the Check-In Station from where he could teleport back to Earth and see to it that the Earth is adequately prepared for the looming Saiyan threat.
"This is nothing! I'll be at the end in no time!" Goku yelled out in excitement all to himself as the visages of the Snake Way and the same old cottony lemon clouds whizzed past him. A potent rumble and a quake of the Snake Way that almost made Goku lose his footing halted him in his path. The Saiyan threw his gaze left and right, wondering where the robust growl that shook the heavens might have come from.
"Food!" a dynamic howl came from somewhere deep down. Goku approached the edge of the Snake Way and looked down, using his right arm to try and cover up his face as if it could have helped him to gaze through the clouds.
"Yes, please!" Goku yelled back at the clouds, wondering if something was listening and would hand him food.
"Hungry!" a roar shook the heavens once more. This was the only area where Goku felt this overwhelming power rumbling. While he was sure that whatever caused this didn't just start yelling right now, he could only pick up on the rumbling once he moved into the vicinity of whatever this phenomenon was.
"Yeah, I'm starving!" Goku yelled down, using his hands as tunneling cups to channel his voice better, wondering if the creature in the clouds could hear him.
"I lament you, oh, cruel fate! Food everywhere yet nothing to sate my hunger!" a more eloquent howl proceeded to rip through the Other World from down beneath the clouds. Goku scratched his head.
"Upa said something about not falling off the road but I can fly… Plus, that thing said there's food everywhere in Hell…" Goku shrugged and vaulted off of the Snake Way, taking a plunge through the clouds and diving down under. Just as he made a noticeable distance plummeting down, he felt a powerful Ki emanating from down under. As he split the layer of cottony clouds between the Other World and Hell, Goku noticed the clouds growing thinner.
Once he emerged from the in-between layer and appeared in Hell, the stench utterly decimated Goku's nose, prompting him to pinch it immediately. Noticing the change in scenery with the surroundings appearing remarkably moody and sunken in the gloom, Goku looked up and noticed the lower levels of Hell being covered up by tar-black storm clouds that were the cause for this darkness covering the place.
"What is this reek!?" Goku shrieked out with a high-pitched voice as pinching his nose had transformed it. Once the Saiyan finally reached the bottom of his fall, he did not hit anything solid. Instead, his boots plunged up to his knees into the swampy bog.
It was only once the Saiyan became accustomed to the constant downpour from the skies and the swampy mire beneath his feet that he noticed the scarce scenery of trees that glistened in eternal sunlight even though the clouds obstructed them just as they did with everything else. The fruit of the tree was something Goku could recognize quite well though it wasn't something that one usually saw growing on a tree.
"Food!" Goku yelled out as he jumped at the nearest tree and tore chicken, cooked dinosaur thighs and handfuls of pure, white cheese that dissolved in his hand with stretchy goodness as he picked it from the tree and stuffed his mouth full of. The more Goku's eye reached into the horizon, the more delicacies he could notice in there. "This is great!" the Saiyan yelled out a cheerful declaration before a sob made him look back and face that which shook the heavens with its moans.
It was a massive blob of purple, mutated flesh. So vast and pudgy that his arms and legs were mere stubs that were just a part of the greater whole with just the feet and the hands being something more pronounced and standing out from the morbid mess of fat. One of the mutant's eyes was bloated out while the other looked relatively normal and cried with human tears while the rest of him thrashed about.
"Oh, it's you…" Goku waved. "What are you doing in Hell, did you die too?"
"Hell? Yes, this is Hell… But it is my Hell, the Hell of King Gurumes. What are you doing here, did you come to torment me more?" the mutant bellowed in a miserable voice begging for an end which was the only thing that he could not have received in any dimension of the Otherworld.
"Nah, I heard your whining and I thought that you were giving out free food…" Goku laughed out as he took the chance to stuff his mouth full in between the breaks when he had to speak.
"You fool! Yes, take all of it, all of this food, and choke on it. Can you not taste how bland it is? How putrid?" King Gurumes shook his fist over his head. The mutant only had one free arm as most of him sunk into the mire and had to perpetually swim out every four minutes or so in order that his entire body did not submerge under the bog. "As horrible as the mire I've tried drowning myself in, I swear. If only I could taste some delicacies with actual taste once again…"
"Huh? You don't like all this stuff?" Goku looked around. "Is it okay if I take it with me then on to the Snake Road?"
"What's that? You think you're leaving!?" King Gurumes laughed his lungs out in what might have been the first genuine laugh that he had in however many years of torture down in Hell that he'd spent. "If we could have left, I'd have left long ago. I can only drown in the bog and eat this raw and bland waste off of the trees."
"Oh, I guess you can't fly, huh?" Goku shrugged and tilted a giant sash made out of an oversized leaf that was filled to the brim with enough food to feed an entire army of people. "Okay, take care then," the Saiyan saluted his old acquaintance that he had once stopped in early childhood and took off. He did not fly very high up.
"What the!?" Goku grunted in pain when the sticky goop from the mire appeared to hold him in place as a membrane of something smelly and sweat-like only allowed him to pull off of it a few meters. No matter how much strength Goku mustered up, not even the blaze of his Hot-Red Mode helped him.
"See, you fool, this place is indeed Hell and nobody can escape Hell. Though I suppose it isn't half as bad for you. This place has been designed to torment me and make me wish for death. After living my life as a glutton I am now merely a glutton for punishment. The magic of Hell is mighty, it even restored the Curse of the Blood Rubies in my body with no Blood Ruby is sight. It's like this place knows how to cause the most torment to each of its inhabitants," King Gurumes lamented and cursed his fate.
"I dunno seems to me like there could be way worse places to be stuck in…" Goku shrugged. "There's ample space to practice martial arts and this whole place is nothing but yummy food growing on trees…"
"Yummy? What would a casual such as yourself fathom in delicacies? I've engaged my voracious appetite in all of this realm's offerings. Even though my entrapment is worse than yours, I can muster up anything by just thinking of it and despite having spent my entire life gormandizing, I cannot think of a single delectable thing to eat. Food all around me but all of it just fluff of culinary degradation! Waste of space and products," King Gurumes stuck out his tongue in disgust when looking across the endless fields of magnificent dishes and sinful little snacks alike.
"Hmm?" Goku leaned down and picked up an apple from the mire and dragged it over his gi before examining its yellow and somewhat pummeled look. "Did you ever try this?" he wondered. "It's not on any trees and, weirdly enough, it's the only thing that actually belongs on one…"
"Hmph… Might as well eat my own shit and drink it down with the bog. Your uncultured appetite insults me!" King Gurumes submitted in his struggle against the bog and submerged up to the base of his chest in the mire. "This horrid fruit is the first thing I grasped for upon opening my eyes in this miserable abode. That was before I realized that I was in control of what mass dragged the branches of these trees to the ground. I merely thought these trees looked like apple trees, I assure you, I've not sinned against my indulgent nature, I merely mistook myself as someone that was still alive."
"So, you've thrown it away? How 'bout you try it? Can't know if you like it 'till you do…" Goku extended his hand looking serious. He would shove this discarded apple down this mutant's throat if he had to.
"B-But it's so… Yellow, mushy, and… Beaten… So unseemly!" King Gurumes shivered from the very thought of taking a subtle bite of this repugnant apple.
"Yeah, that's because you threw it away and let it drown in the dirt for so long!" Goku objected. "Eat it up! Before I find a way out of this place, I'll force you to eat every single thing in this place so that you don't waste any of this food!"
"Bah, the sooner I am done with this…" King Gurumes swam out with his left hand and pushed his body out of the mire, defying the laws of physics and answering only to the laws of the accursed realm he inhabited. With quivering fingers the glutton grabbed the apple and shoved it all into his face, covering his unsightly frame in apple mush in the process. "Hmm… I have missed this taste. Yes… I do believe I've only eaten this once… But is of no use trying to replicate that miracle. I am now once more cursed by the hunger of the Blood Rubies and there's not a single ruby in sight, my craving will never subside as long as the clock of eternity keeps ticking."
An overwhelming shine took over King Gurumes' body. The frightened mutant wrestled against the ethereal gleam but could only fight the gravitational pull that dragged him deeper into the bog. The obese abomination began shrinking down, its deformed features began taking a rounder, more generalized appearance while King Gurumes became fluffy and round, like a little, shiny, white cloud.
"What's this? Yes… I feel the end, at long last. But I am not afraid, I am, more than anything, calm…" Gurumes exclaimed overcome with glee as his speech turned to unintelligible squeaking. The ethereal cloud began rising higher and higher, heading straight for the upper layer of Hell. Mustering all of his remaining strength Goku took a bashful leap and grabbed hold of the cloud's tail before the disembodied soul of what once was King Gurumes blitzed in an instant right back to the Check-In Station.
"What's this? Someone from Hell has purified themselves of sin!" a red office ogre exclaimed pointing at King Gurumes soul. "Hurry, send it with the next batch to the Reincarnation Machine!"
"It appears that we've got a stowaway too…" a blue ogre approached Son Goku who was still writhing from the space-time bending trip he took while ahold of a purified soul sent from Hell for reincarnation. "That's odd… Wait, I know you!"
"Yo!" Goku jumped back up on his feet and greeted the familiar blue office ogre with glasses. "I kinda jumped off of the Snake Way and fell to Hell. I'd like to get back to it if that's okay."
"S-Sure but… Y-You'll have to start all over again…" the blue office ogre fixed his glasses and wiped his sweaty forehead while his red colleague guided the purified soul to the batch of souls headed for reincarnation. You're actually inside King Enma's middle drawer right now, head that way, and push against the mahogany wall."
"Thank you!" Goku saluted the blue office ogre while jogging in place and promptly took off toward the direction where the blue ogre pointed him toward.
It only took a light ram for Goku to bust King Enma's drawer open. The pink king of all ogres jumped up in surprise when his drawer busted open and Goku leaped out and dashed over his table. The judge of the dead ground his teeth at first, ticked off by Goku meddling in his affairs once again but then sighed realizing that it couldn't have been helped since Kami gave this meddlesome soul its body back.
"Yo! It's me, Son Goku, again. I kinda got lost so I'm gonna go back onto the Snake Way if that's okay by you, King Yemma!" Goku laughed out to himself.
"It's King Enma, dammit!" King Enma pounded his table but Goku jumped off of it to avoid the quake. Using the commotion to dash to the room leading to the Snake Way again. "Tell me, Saiyan, do you truly believe that you can run all the way to the end of the Snake Way? I was the only one in the Otherworld able to do that, you know…"
"Sure, it's no big deal. I'll be at the end in no time at all 'cause now I know the way so I can fly to where I jumped off," Goku chuckled, amusing himself in the process.
"J-Jumped off?" King Enma's eye twitched when Goku ran off without waiting for the king of all ogres to confirm Goku resuming his trip. "Just what kind of monster did Kami unleash upon us?"