Ranma stood in front of King Enma’s palace. He took a quick stock of his situation. He was male, which was good. He was naked, that was bad. He quickly moved to cover himself.
“I see you finally made it.”
Ranma turned to see a green man with a turban and shoulder pads with a cape attached. “Who are you?”
“I’m Piccolo, former Kami of the Earth. I’m here to present you to King Enma.”
“Uh, why am I naked?”
“Would you have rather shown up as a guy in a fuku?”
“Good point.”
“But maybe this will help.” Piccolo put his hand on Ranma’s head. With a flash of light Ranma was clothed in his usual Red Chinese shirt and black pants.
Ranma took a quick look over himself. “Not bad. Remind me to look you up when the next dance comes around.”
Piccolo chuckled. “Come on. Enma’s waiting.”
They walked into the palace and stood before a massive desk, easily ten stories high. Ranma took an involuntary step back at the massive man sitting behind the desk. “Saotome Ranma, eh?”
Piccolo nodded his head. “I’m here to ask that he go for training with King Kaiou on Dan Kaiou’s world.”
King Enma flipped through his book. “Hmm” His eyes widened at everything that had happened to Ranma in his life. “Looks like you’ve already seen worse than Hell! I’d say it’s the least I can do.”
Ranma smiled. So all that suffering was worth something after all. “So what do I do?”
King Enma pointed to one of the exits. “Just take that exit and one of the ogres will show you to the Higher Plane. From there you will travel to Dan Kaiou’s world for training with the most powerful fighters of all time and space.”
Ranma couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. “This is going to be great!”
Piccolo laughed at the eager young man. “I’ll tell your friends to wait a year to bring you back. Is that satisfactory?”
Ranma was beaming. “Yeah! That’s great!”
Piccolo nodded and then teleported away.
Ranma bowed to Enma and walked to the exit indicated, preparing for the training of a lifetime.
<Author’s Note: Catch all the coming excitement when Ranma returns in the Dragonball R side story: “Birthday Bash”, and finally catch the last installment of the DBR trilogy: “Dragonball R: No Need For a Saga”.
As always, send all comments, compliments, and complaints to heed452@provalue.net>