Ch. 140: So... I Died

"Hey." Upon my death, I found myself on a concrete pathway, standing in front of a grey building. Looking around, I noticed that the building itself was on a cloud, and almost every single available space outside of the building was filled with disembodied souls and otherworld attendants guarding the line and ensuring that each and every soul got to see judgement. Checking out my body, I was pleased to find everything in working order, and even my jacket, Shay-less as it was, perfectly mended. The only thing off was the halo above my head, but I knew that I could make that go away if I really wanted to.

In the reality of the Dragon Ball Universe, 'Otherworld' was essentially a separate dimension from the main one that living people lived in. It was superimposed onto the original dimension, but the locational data was warped in areas. For instance, King Kai's world was technically in the exact center of the northern quadrant of the seventh universe, but in otherworld, it was fairly close to the border-planet Earth's check-in station, relatively speaking. In fact, it was about the same distance from every single inhabited planet in the northern quadrant's check-in station, even though some of them may have been further from others in real space. 

Otherworld's entire purpose was to house the souls of people who died in real space, and in order to do that, they usually temporarily separated people from their bodies before bringing them in front of a judge who had a catalogue of everything they'd ever done in their life. After that being made its judgement, they'd be sent off to wherever the judge decided they go. Those judges were given spaces where time was ever-so-slightly warped in order to allow them to deal with massive numbers of people fairly quickly. Naturally, though, one check-in station couldn't deal with an entire universe full of sentient beings.

In order to have a check-in station, a planet needed to be inhabited by sentient life. That was the easiest way to find a station. As such, there was one on Namek. But I hadn't gone to that one.

No matter where you died, your soul was drawn to a check-in station. As such, there were also general stations available for areas outside of a planet's atmosphere, and general stations available for areas inside of an uninhabited planet's atmosphere. Since I'd had Frieza toss me into space before he killed me, I'd gone to the general space check-in station for the Northern Quadrant. There were four such space check-in stations, but this was the only check-in station outside of Earth's where I had any personal business at all, since I didn't really care about seeing Vegeta's soul at Namek's.

Honestly, I was just here because I wanted to ask the judge something. I'd planned for Frieza to kill me instead of Krillin, but it wouldn't have really mattered at all if I'd just skipped otherworld completely and lounged in the Core until my plan called for Shay bringing me back to life. But since I was here anyways, I wanted to get something out of it.

Skipping the line with a bit of subtle energy usage, I stood in front of the judge, a giant ogre who reminded me of King Yemma. Apparently, it was common, though not universal, that an ogre like Yemma would be a soul judge. "Hey." 

"Alright... Hanna... Daughter of Goku, a Saiyan... killed by Frieza..." He paused for a moment before reading the next part, "You're the granddaughter of Bardock?!"

"You know my biological grandfather!?" I asked, feigning shock.

"Yeah. In fact, the guy went through this check-in station along with a half-dozen other Saiyans when the lizard that killed you destroyed Planet Vegeta a couple decades ago. Can't forget that one... First Saiyan I've ever seen dodge HFIL, apparently other than you... what's this note about 'Just let her do whatever?' about?" The ogre thought aloud. 

I shrugged. Neither me nor my girls had ever bothered to adjust my file in otherworld. I could ignore death, after all. My best guess was that either Whis or the Grand Minister himself had decided to slip that into the file on the off chance that I decided to die and go to judgement for some reason. Awfully thoughtful. No matter what I did in life, my afterlife was now set, not that the note would've seen much use were I to begin acting like a normal god of my station. "I dunno. Can I meet my grandfather?" I asked.

"Sure. He spent a decade or so on warden duties... so I think he's in the fields now... let me look him up for you real quick and I should be able to send you to his general vicinity. According to this note here, a Kai has granted you full access to otherworld, so if you have anywhere you want to go, then just ask the nearby demon attendants and they should be able to guide you." The big ogre was surprisingly helpful. After finding Bardock's location, he pointed it out on a map for me, explaining exactly how to reach the general location. He'd been sent to the area reserved for the souls of people that were good, but didn't really have any specific place that they'd been called to. I just ended up using Instant Transmission to cross the distance, since I wouldn't get there in time otherwise.

Despite not being allowed to keep his physical body, my grandfather's face looked exactly like my dad's, so once I was sent to his location, it didn't take me long to find him. He was sitting beside another woman who my memory just barely managed to identify from one of the Dragon Ball movies as my grandmother Gine. Neither of them, nor the people that they were talking to, had legs since they were just disembodied souls stuffed into bodies made of clouds.

"Grandfather?" Bardock had seen me teleport in from a mile away, since I was the only person there with a real, physical body. When I walked up to him and said the word 'Grandfather'