The Lookout

Clouds churned beneath his feet like a vast sea.

Son Goku landed on the jade-paved plaza and steadied himself. His tail swayed slowly behind him as he looked up—

A towering palace stood before him. Built entirely of pure white jade, it had not a single seam, as if it had grown straight out of the clouds.

The roofline was simple and solemn. There were no carved dragons or painted phoenixes, yet the palace carried a solemnity beyond the mortal world.

Sunlight pierced the churning sea of clouds and refracted off the jade, casting a faint golden halo over its surface. The entire Lookout seemed to float between light and clouds.

His ki flowed especially smoothly in this place, as if every one of his meridians had been washed with warm water.

"So this is... the Lookout."

He took a deep breath, and his heart began to beat a little faster.

In the original, Goku rode the Flying Nimbus up here. I flew here on my own. The timeline is also several years earlier. But the Lookout is still the same—only much more magnificent than it was in the manga.

Standing in the middle of the plaza, he turned and looked around. The jade plaza stretched all the way to the edge of the sea of clouds, surrounded on every side by rolling white waves. Standing here felt like standing at the top of the world.

As he stared blankly out at the clouds, an old, dignified voice came from behind him.

"You've come."

Son Goku turned around.

An elderly man stood before the palace doors.

His skin was deep green, and two antennae rose high from his forehead, quivering faintly as if sensing some fluctuation in the air beyond the perception of ordinary mortals. A snow-white divine robe fell to his ankles, its hem lifted and lowered gently by the breeze from the Heavenly Realm.

His face was kind yet profound. The pair of dark eyes in his deep-set sockets watched Goku, calm as an ancient well, yet somehow making Goku feel that nothing could be hidden from them.

Son Goku immediately stopped his tail from swaying, brought his legs together, lowered his hands to his sides, and bowed at a ninety-degree angle.

"Lord Kami!"

Kami walked toward him at an unhurried pace. Each step fell in time with some invisible rhythm. His footsteps were barely audible, yet seemed to beat in sync with the pulse of the entire Lookout. He stopped three paces in front of Son Goku and studied the boy, who looked twelve or thirteen, from head to toe.

"You're Son Goku." It wasn't a question, but a confirmation. "That ki just now—was it yours?"

"Yes." Son Goku straightened up and met Kami's gaze without hesitation. "I drank the Ultra Divine Water. It awakened some of my potential and increased my fighting power."

"...Some?"

The corner of Kami's mouth twitched faintly.

"Do you know the Ultra Divine Water is deadly poison?" Kami asked gravely, his antennae quivering slightly. "Nine out of ten people who drink it die on the spot."

"I know." Son Goku nodded, his voice calm.

"If you knew, why drink it?"

Son Goku didn't answer right away.

It was almost the same question Korin had asked, but Kami's tone was different. Korin had tried to persuade him; Kami was asking. Not doubting him or trying to stop him—he wanted an answer. An answer worthy of opening the doors of the Lookout.

He fell silent for a moment. Countless images flashed through his mind: Grandpa Son Gohan standing with his wooden staff outside the little cabin on Mount Paozu; Bulma's terrified scream in the desert; Krillin panting on the beach at Kame House at five in the morning, refusing to be the first to stop; Master Roshi taking off his sunglasses and saying, "Go on," his old eyes suddenly clear...

Then the images changed.

The cold Scouter on Raditz's face. The haughty sneer on Vegeta's lips. The purple-red Death Beam lighting up at Frieza's fingertip. Cell standing in the ring, his black carapace gleaming coldly in the sunlight. Majin Buu's pink body reforming from the smoke as he giggled, as if enjoying a pleasant game.

And Krillin—his first death at the World Martial Arts Tournament, eyes wide and mouth slightly open, as if he'd been about to say something boastful but hadn't gotten the chance. His second death on Namek, the last word he shouted before his body exploded in midair, scattering into a cloud of blood—

"Goh—"

"I don't want to lose anyone else."

He raised his head and looked Kami straight in the eyes. This time, he didn't need to switch between the masks of an "innocent country boy" and an "outsider from another world." There was no need to disguise these words. They belonged to Sun Haoyu and Son Goku alike; the two were perfectly in accord on this. "Because... I don't want to lose anyone else."

Kami froze.

In those eyes, which held the wisdom of a thousand years, there was a flicker of remembrance, a tremor of emotion, and... understanding.

"Very well."

He slowly turned around, his white divine robe fluttering gently in the breeze. Raising a hand, he pointed toward the depths of the Lookout.

"Come with me. I'll have Mr. Popo train you."

Son Goku's eyes lit up at once. Not because of the name "Mr. Popo" itself—as someone who had crossed over, he knew exactly who Mr. Popo was. Kami's most loyal attendant, a man whose martial arts mastery was so great that no official power level had ever been given for him, and a mysterious figure who had fought evenly against Goten and Trunks after they transformed into Super Saiyans, all while wearing his fixed smile and speaking in a perfectly flat voice.

Son Goku's eyes shone because he knew—the door that led to the heights was about to open. Kami had accepted him.

"Mr. Popo has served me for hundreds of years," Kami said, turning back to him, his gaze profound. "He knows everything I know about the essence of martial arts. In some respects, he knows even more."

His voice dropped slightly, as if slipping a warning quietly into a gift. "But Mr. Popo's training is different from everything you've experienced before. He doesn't teach techniques. He teaches you to 'feel.' Whether you learn anything doesn't depend on him—it depends on how still you can quiet your own heart."

Son Goku clenched his fists and grinned. "The harder, the better!"

Turtle School training drew out one's potential by pushing the body to its limits; training at Korin Tower honed one's instincts through combat. Mr. Popo's training was about finding "movement" within "stillness." It was a higher dimension, unrelated to fighting power and tied instead to one's level of mastery.

Kami glanced at him but said nothing more.

Deep within the Lookout, in the courtyard.

Son Goku followed Kami down a long corridor and around several side halls. Neither of them spoke along the way.

At last, they stopped in front of a courtyard.

It was entirely different from the splendor outside. There were no lavish decorations, only a simple stone table and stools. An ancient pine tree, its age beyond counting, spread its broad limbs from the very center of the courtyard. Its branches swayed gently. The needles were so dark they seemed almost black, yet they gleamed warmly in the morning light.

Everything here was still. Still enough to hear your own heartbeat, still enough that even breathing felt like a disturbance.

"Lord Kami."

A voice came from beneath the pine's shadow, completely without inflection.

Son Goku followed the sound, his pupils contracting slightly.

It was... a figure, entirely black.

He was black as ink from head to toe, with round eyes like two white pearls set into his dark face. No emotion could be read in them. He wore a simple white robe and stood with his hands folded before him, neither welcoming nor distant.

Mr. Popo.