To his credit, the monk running the sign-in booth had enough spiritual awareness to sense when Gohan let some of his ki out, seeing it as the threat it was. “I-I’m sorry, but the Champion insisted on it, he wanted his daughter to be able to compete. Everyone under age sixteen will compete in the youth tournament.”
Gohan tilted his head at the information. “So Mr. Satan is claiming to be the champion?” It would make sense, as he is the current World Heavyweight Champion… in his wrestling stable.
“That’s right.” The monk replied, placidly smiling.
“If he wanted his daughter to participate, then surely someone who qualifies for the youth tournament could then willingly sign up for the adult tournament, yes? I’d still need to go through the qualifying round, of course.” Gohan reasoned.
“The Champion was also insistent that such a thing would not be allowed.” The monk said hurriedly. “Or else his daughter would do the same.” Ah. That made way too much sense.
Gohan hummed. “What if I got the winner of the last World Martial Arts Championship to insist on an exception? He’d have a greater claim to the title of Champion than Mr. Satan.”
“I’m afraid Son Goku does not work with the tournament’s financiers, and thus would not have any authority to challenge things.” The monk replied. Damn, this monk was no fool. “It’s good to see you again, Mr. Son.”
“Thanks!” Dad said, “It’s nice to be back.”
“Unfortunately, I can only sign you up for the youth tournament, Mr. Son. However, the winner gets as a prize, in addition to cash, “ Gohan scoffed at the prize. He’s fifteen percent owner of four asteroids that have been deposited in various places on Earth, each carefully selected to provide a minimal disruption on the ecology and planetary rotation, while also being located close enough to a labor pool that has the skills and equipment to mine the giant rocks. “-an exhibition match with the Champion.”
Hm… “Does it specifically say ‘Mr. Satan’, or ‘The Champion’?”
The monk smiled, glad that his promise was picked up on. “It just says the Champion. I imagine if there was any confusion, it would go to the panel of judges.”
Gohan grinned. “Okay. I’ll sign up for the youth tournament.”
“I don’t know what that was about, but I’m sure you’ll win, Gohan.” Dad said consolingly, the lovable fool. “Now, I have a question: If I win, do I get that fancy belt?”
The monk laughed.
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Apparently, the qualifier for the youth tournament, and from the distinctly not-child- friendly size of the machine it was probably the same for the regular tournament, with the top 32 spots competing. Gohan considered outputting some insane number, but after seeing a fairly muscular fourteen-year old boy get a score of 52 and having that be noted as a shoo-in to qualify, Gohan just estimated what it would take to get a 100 and did that while overselling the effort, barely missing the mark and getting a score of 101. He then properly showed off his muscles, pretending to be impressed with himself, and the unnaturally high but not absurd scoring was allowed without any issue.
Gohan thought he’d need a bit of deductive reasoning to spot out Mr. Satan’s daughter, but he shouldn’t have: all he needed to do was to find the girl that was pouting about not being able to fight in the adult tournament. That is, he needed to find the only girl present.
He didn’t know anything about Mr. Satan’s daughter, either her age or name, but to his medically experienced eye she was in the midst of her first growth spurt, so she was either an early bloomer or was a year or two older than him. Gohan, on the other hand, was a pretty normal height for his age, by human standards, so slightly shorter than her. Whatever weird growth stages that a saiyan had to go through, he clearly took after his human half when it came to that.
“Hi.” Gohan said goofily, extending his hand. “I’m Son Gohan. You look strong.” She really did, her ki was about five times as intense as the next-strongest contestant in the youth tournament. This was not that unusual, but it meant she was about on par with some of the adult fighters he’d sensed on the way here. He wondered what her score on the machine was…
The girl looked up from her brooding, blinking in surprise at his introduction. “...Videl.” She said simply, looking at him in suspicion but shaking his hand nonetheless. After an awkward beat where she glanced down at his exposed arms, she added: “You look pretty strong, too.”
“Thanks!” He said guilelessly before doing what any other kid would: complain. “Doesn’t this youth tourney suck? I came here to fight in the real tournament!”
Videl matched his energy immediately. “I know, right? I fight adults all the time at Dad’s gym!”
“I have literally never fought anyone my age before.” Gohan deadpanned, although admittedly he kinda-sorta did when he met those orphans who were running from CPS, “Although I have fought people shorter than me before, so it can’t be too much different than that.” Krillin distinctly did not like the fact that Gohan had become ever so slightly taller than him within the last few months.
“Really?” Videl asked, surprised. “Never?”
“All my friends are either my dad’s friends or animals.” Gohan admitted, blatantly inviting pity. “I mean, there’s Dende, but that’s a real long-distance friendship right there.” It was, however, excellent telepathy and energy sensing practice to maintain a link over the interstellar distance, as New Namek was only four stars away. They could only do it if they both reached out to each other, which he was sure to do every night and morning. “My dad loves fighting, so we train together a lot. He’s definitely going to win.”
“No he isn’t.” Videl immediately said, defending her own father. “My dad’s the strongest in the world!”
Gohan grinned. “Sure he is.” He said completely insincerely. “That’s what today’s all about, isn’t it? Who’s the strongest in the world?”
Videl took a moment to parse his statement, trying to find where he was mocking her, but she was only a child. “Yeah, it is. That’s my dad. He’s the World Heavyweight Champion.”
“Well, my dad is the current Strongest Under the Heavens. Winner of the 23rd World Martial Arts Championship.” Gohan boasted.
Her eyes widened. “Woah, really? I thought they couldn’t find that guy!”
“We may live in the middle of nowhere, but we still get television.” Gohan said, as if they would have a television without Gohan buying it himself. “Actually, if your dad’s Mr. Satan, do you think you can get me his autograph? I’m a big fan of his performances. Very entertaining.” Specifically, he liked the man’s incredibly well-scripted speeches on how much he was going to destroy his opponent. It could use more sentai poses, though…
Videl evaluated this new piece of information, and nodded to herself. “Okay, maybe your dad has a chance to win.” She allowed, “But I’m still going to beat you, shorty.”
“If I win, you get me that autograph.” Gohan offered, holding his hand out to invite her to counteroffer.
“Bet.” She said confidently. “When I win…” She took a moment to think.
“How about an autograph from the last three tournament winners?” Gohan offered, “They’re all here, although I don’t think Roshi’s competing.” From what little he knows of the old man, he’ll be thrilled. Tien might need some convincing.
“Deal.” Videl said, taking his hand and shaking it.
---------------------------------
As Gohan had expected, absolutely zero of the other youths stood anything resembling a chance against Videl, much less him. He won his fights in the same way each time: he let the other boy attack, catch their limbs, lift them up over his head, wrangle them into immobility while walking to the edge of the arena, and then toss them over the side onto soft grass. In other words, he manhandled them like they were toddlers, making absolutely clear the difference between him and the other competitors without resorting to any sort of collateral damage.
In contrast, Videl took her opponents seriously and actually attacked them, causing more than one of her opponents to burst out into tears from the pain of her blows. A few put up a bit of a fight, but she took those blows with aplomb,
Because he absolutely rigged the tournament brackets, securing himself as spot number 1 and Videl as spot number 17, it was only at the finals they met in the ring.
The announcer, who had welcomed Dad and the others to the tournament like an old friend, had always been very enthusiastic at both of their performances. “Now, for the fight you’ve all been waiting for!” He began, “These two young fighters would have totally tried to fight in the adult’s brackets if we would have let them, and with punch machine scores like theirs, they would have qualified!” The crowd roared with excitement at the hype.
“First, we have Videl! The one and only daughter of the World Heavyweight Champion, Hercule! At just ten years old, she’s been barreling through boys twice her weight for the entire tournament!” While this was the first time the announcer had explicitly mentioned the connection to Mr. Satan, he had introduced everyone by name and age before, so he had the chance to ask between rounds. Apparently, Videl was approximately ten months older than Gohan, which was less of a margin than he expected. So she was both older and an early bloomer.
The crowd clearly wanted Videl to win, as she was the clear underdog despite being the taller of the two of them. “On the opposite side, we have Gohan! He’s also the child of a champion, the winner of the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament, Goku! With his tenth birthday in just two weeks, we have a truly climactic finish to the Youth tournament! Does this boy carry the strength his father did when he entered his first tournament at age twelve? His previous matches say: Absolutely!”
“Take me seriously!” Videl insisted, “I’m not someone you can just play around with!”
Gohan raised an eyebrow. “You want me to treat you rougher than my other opponents? You realize my mother is watching, right? If I give you special treatment, the first words out of her mouth when I go meet her is to ask who my new girlfriend is.” He had absolutely zero doubt that the fact that she was introduced by the announcer would impede this.
Videl blushed at the frank admission, but shook her head. “Don’t try to distract me!” Hm. It was cute. Reminded him of Mitoko, actually. She always had a bit of a chip on her shoulder whenever she was compared to her incredibly accomplished parents, and it took her to the Hokage seat.
“BEGIN!” The announcer, whose name Gohan still didn’t know, shouted.
Videl launched herself forward, faster than she ever had, but to Gohan’s perception, she might as well already be falling on her face. Oh. There’s an idea. Gohan grabbed her face with his hand, using dulled ki claws to extend his fingers, and slammed her head onto the arena, cracking it. Naturally, he had also created a cushion of ki so she wasn’t actually harmed.
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The crowd gasped at the brutal takedown. Meanwhile, Gohan focused his telepathy and connected to the girl. “Listen to me.” He sent. “If you want to make this a fight that’s worth watching, let me unlock your energy. The Grand Elder of Namek did it to me, so it’s only fair.” This was, of course, hyperbole. The Grand Elder did send information about the magical technique of unlocking potential, but Gohan never bothered putting in the effort to hone his magical potential enough to actually pull it off, mostly due to the time pressure that is the incoming killer cyborgs. He can, with some effort, do Materialization, where he can create objects magically, but he wasn’t very good at it.
What he did do was teach it to Fortune Teller Baba, who used it on Piccolo, Tien, Yamcha, and Chiaotzu. No, instead what he did was do a bit of a telepathic knowledge dump (mostly muscle memory stuff that she won’t process consciously) on how to use ki, and just enough of a ki infusion to… well, if this was his last life, he’d call it priming her chakra network, but it isn’t, so it was more of a… cleaning out? Hard to describe. Nevertheless, it should let her do something immediately. He threw in some magical energy as well, in an attempt to make the improvised awakening more effective.
The whole process took about two seconds, the benefits of Time Bubble, so when Gohan dramatically stood up and started walking away, the announcer started counting, as he should.
On the count of five, Videl finished processing the information and exploded with power, literally flying to her feet. “You…” She said, angrier than Gohan had ever seen her. Distantly, Gohan registered the sound of Dad laughing his ass off. “How did you do that?” She eventually asked.
“Telepath.” Gohan explained. He took a proper fighting stance, his fingers coated in ki claws so dull they were literally just there to look cool. “Are you ready to put that crash course into practice?”
Videl roared and launched herself at twenty times the speed as before. Just fast enough to be exciting at the low-power state he was keeping himself at.
Gohan grinned. Now this was what he called fun!
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Dad won the tournament easily, with only Tien in the semi-finals managing to put up a good enough fight that the outcome was in question. The three-eyed man seemed disappointed in his performance, as he could not win even with the no-super-saiyan handicap. Krillen lost to Tien in the quarter-finals, while Yamcha got matched with Dad in the first round. No one else bothered to participate.
Ironically, Hercule’s lucky matchups made him lose to Dad all the way in the finals, who lost to a comparatively gentle chokeslam onto the stone arena and a pin for a ten count, done so quickly that it was easily mistaken for the wrestler just jobbing. Tien swore that he was going to rig the matchups next time, and heavily regretted not doing so like he did before.
“Once more, we crown Son Goku the Strongest Under the Heavens!” The announcer proclaimed, bringing his microphone up to Dad. “So Goku, do you have any words of wisdom on how you got to be so strong?”
Dad seemed surprised at the question, and needed a moment to think. “Well, Master Roshi always said: Word hard, study well, and eat and sleep plenty. That’s the Turtle School Way. We must master the way of peace as well as the way of war.” Dad took a moment to think further on the old master’s ancient wisdom. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it!” He then laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head. “Did I say it right?” He asked Master Roshi, tilting his head to where the man was seated.
The crowd cheered at the obvious wisdom, with Krillin and Yamcha working together to hoist the old master on their shoulders (with Krillin flying, of course), both still wearing their turtle school gis. The jumbotron’s camera operator, smartly, pointed it in the old man’s direction so everyone could see the embarrassed geriatric give two peace signs, laughing just like his student. Everyone cheered even louder at the sight of the legendary master.
The announcer wasn’t quite done yet. “Now, for everyone’s enjoyment, the champion of the youth tournament will get their promised exhibition match with the champion!” He elbowed Dad in the side. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you to go easy on your own son!”
Dad laughed. “No way! If I hold back he’s not going to have any fun.”
Videl wandered up behind Gohan, still bruised from the battle. “Hey, good luck against your dad.”
Gohan chuckled, and passed her the senzu bean he’d been holding onto for the last ten minutes. “Thanks, but I make my own luck. Have a magic bean. Eat it.”
“Magic?” Videl asked, curious. With her worldview shattered enough for one day, and also probably because she was only ten years old and was thus not particularly critical to the concept of ‘magic beans’, she ate the bean, fully recovering her energy and healing her wounds. “Woah! Cool…”
Swaggering onto the arena, Gohan grinned as he shaped his battle aura into full armor, his telekinesis both shaping it and providing it structure, while the buildup of energy reinforced the plates with a bonus of exploding to parry anything that compromises the integrity, the synergistic technique giving greater protection than either energy, psychic power and ki, could provide on their own. He wasn’t quite skilled enough in energy control to avoid creating waste in the form of a battle aura when amplifying his reinforcement beyond a certain point, but this allowed the waste energy to be put to a useful end, an acceptable stopgap. The armor didn’t augment his speed like full reinforcement would, but it still enhanced his durability and attacking power without inhibiting speed like the namekian size increasing technique, which only worked to increase muscle mass in a human, so that’s good enough.
Dad grinned widely as he took his own stance, flaring his own battle aura. Unlike Gohan, he instead tried to focus on increasing his energy control so as to lower the amount of waste he generated instead of putting it to a useful end. In the long run, it was probably the wiser move, but given the time pressure of the cyborgs Gohan would defend his decision. Dad’s aura wasn’t particularly large, but Gohan knew that the man had matched his son’s battle power precisely.
This is going to come down to technique. “I see both fighters are excited!” The announcer declared, “Begin!”
Gohan’s opening move was to swipe his claws at the ground, tearing up the arena. If Dad attacked, he’ll be ready, and if he didn’t… well. He’ll see why he shouldn’t give Gohan time to set up.
Two arm-deep fissures opened up in the ground, advancing towards Dad’s position, and he chose option one, rushing forward to stop Gohan’s plan. The fight immediately turned into a brutal exchange of blows, which favored the longer-limbed adult even if their speed was equivalent to each other. The armor’s protective qualities and his energy claws evened things out a bit on that front, but after a few thousand exchanges, or about thirty seconds, they separated, Gohan only managing to stay in the ring by virtue of using his energy claws like shovels to create large rents in the stone surface, which provided enough friction to brake.
“It appears that exchange favored the champion!” The announcer shouted excitedly. “I couldn’t see most of that, but the sponsors didn’t pay for the high speed camera like I told them to!”
With a moment to breathe, Gohan seized the rubble from the arena and telekinetically lifted the lot, sharpening the stone into a series of spikes as he did so. Gohan rushed forward, guiding the stones to attack simultaneously with his own strikes, forcing Dad to defend against both sources of damage. After about half of the stones were used up and he had taken seven bleeding wounds, he flared his aura, the omnidirectional attack breaking the stones apart while flinging Gohan backwards once more. With his temporary increase in strength and speed, he followed Gohan to a point outside the arena, grabbed his son’s waist, and planted Gohan’s head into the ground, the comparatively soft soil giving way as if it was water.
Gohan uselessly kicked his legs as his senses were blocked out from the dirt, as the crowd screamed in approval over the climactic finish. Fortunately, a saiyan’s senses were more acute than a normal humans, so Gohan could barely make out Dad thanking the audience.
After giving the man his moment, Gohan released his armor technique, giving him enough wiggle room to easily fly out of the hole and flip himself over in mid-air, sitting cross legged one meter off the ground as he pretended to pout at his loss.
He couldn’t resist his smile for long, though. That was fun!
---------------------------------
“I’ve heard of this place.” Mr. Satan said, looking at Baba’s mansion. “They say she can tell you anything about the future, if you have ten million zeni.”
“There is an alternative payment method, but we’re not here for Baba’s clairvoyance.” Gohan explained. It was three days after the tournament, two days until the cyborg attack, and Dad had declared training time over after a few extra all-out fights to see where they stood. Gohan took the opportunity to meet up with his new friend, and decided to finish what he started.
As usual, there was already some rich person who considers the payment a trifle getting information that was so trivial that Gohan was reminded of some of Dosva’s more boneheaded expenses and promptly blocked out the memory. “Ah, Gohan. You’re right on time.” Baba said, despite Gohan not bothering to call ahead. He knew she knew he was coming. “Calling in your marker?”
“As useful it would be to imply that I’m consuming some limited resource, you remember the deal: I give you the knowledge on how to perform the spell, you use it on whoever I want.” Gohan replied drily. It was an informal agreement, but they had an understanding vis a vis the limitations of her obligation.
“Too true.” Baba said, giggling. “Two awakenings, one for your girlfriend, the other for her father.” Videl blushed at the insinuation, but did not go to an immediate denial. Unexpected, but also unsurprising. Girls fell into crushes easily at that age. “We’ll do the father first. Otherwise we won’t get around to it.” She turned to the large man. “It’ll also assure you that it’s safe for your daughter, of course.”
Mr. Satan paused, an instant away from objecting. “...Yeah, I’m not going to let you lay your hands on my daughter until I know this is safe.” He said, nodding his head firmly.
The old crone floated up to Mr. Satan’s head, placing her hands on his temples. After a moment, a faint aura of ki surged around the pro wrestler. “Woah, I feel… stronger.” That was thoroughly disappointing.
“Don’t go fighting any killer cyborgs.” Advised Baba. Sage advice, given how soon such beings will arrive. “You didn’t have much unrealized potential to awaken, so while you’re thirty times as strong as before… you’re still going to get yourself killed if you try to be a hero.” The awakening technique didn’t, per se, make you as strong as you will ever be. What it did instead was give you your ‘unrealized potential’, that is, it brought out any potential gains that you wasted by, say, getting injured, losing weight to starvation, training incorrectly, etcetera. It also helped loosen up any sealed power that someone may have, which is why it was capable of unsealing his memories of his past lives and allowed him to be ready for the super saiyan state. “If you want, I’ve prepared a warrior for you to test out your new strength.”
Mr. Satan looked annoyed at the warning, but nodded in agreement. “Alright, I could sure go for punching someone about now.”
Baba led them to an indoor wrestling/boxing arena, where… “Oh Baba, you remembered my birthday?” Gohan asked, grinning widely at the contestant.
The old woman giggles, waving off his enjoyment bashfully. “Well, I know it’s next week, but it’s not every year you turn ten years old, it was time to do something special for my brother’s favorite grand-student.” He was Roshi’s only grand-student, but the sentiment was still appreciated.
“Well, it definitely beats the last winner.” Dacia’s invasion was a really thoughtful gift, but it lacked the personalized catharsis this represented.
Raditz, who glared at the entering people, narrowed his eyes at Gohan. “Wait… are you… my brothers spawn?” He asked, his halo following his head tilt.
“Yep!” Gohan chirped, “Hey Mr. Satan, this man kidnapped me when I was three and locked me in a ball for two hours.” Videl gasped in shock.
Mr. Satan’s aura redoubled with anger. “What? No kid deserves that kind of thing! Why, imagining that kind of thing happening to my little girl…” He leapt onto the arena, clearing the top rope with ease. “You’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’, bucko!”
Raditz sneered. “A human? You send a human to face a Saiyan warrior?” He spat to the side. “Pathetic.” He triggered his scouter. “...two-thousand one hundred?” He asked in a much quieter tone.
The following one-sided beatdown, watching the literal joke of a warrior overpower and wrestle the man that, before Gohan remembered his past lives, featured in hundreds of nightmares, was the only possible thing that could hope to be superior to beating down the man personally.
Videl and Gohan cheered at every powerbomb, chokeslam, and suplex that Mr. Satan inflicted on Gohan’s very bad, no good punk of an uncle.
In the end, Raditz tapped out to a complicated submission hold that included his tail being gripped by Mr. Satan’s feet, and he was dismissed back to the outer world. “Please tell me you recorded that.” Gohan said, grinning ear to ear.
“I have to put something into that gift box I’m bringing to your party, ne?” Baba asked rhetorically. Gohan pumped his arm in victory.
“Okay, now for the girl.” Baba said, as Mr. Satan did some cooldown stretches. Gohan handed the man a senzu bean and instructed him to eat it silently while Videl steeled herself. “Okay… yes, as expected, there’s a whole lot of potential here. Of course, your immediate affection for her was no coincidence, young Gohan.” Baba said cryptically.
Videl’s aura exploded with power, and an energy that Gohan hadn’t felt in lifetimes bloomed within his mind’s eye. Wait… is that… Videl looked confused for a moment, then her face twisted in disgust. “My family name is SATAN!?” She screeched.
Gohan laughed. “Christianity doesn’t exist in this world, Mary.” He said, even happier. “The local divinity is just an old green guy who reports to an older blue guy who wants to be a stand-up comedian.” At least, that was Gohan’s understanding of Kami and King Kai’s relationship. He was also unclear on where Enma fits into things. He should ask Kami for an org chart…
“What’s going on?” Mr. Satan asked, very concerned.
“I woke up the girl’s past life memories.” Baba explained, “You know how in cheesy romance novels the couple knew each other in a past life?” Mr. Satan nodded. “They actually did.”
“Woah.” Mr. Satan said, but given that he just gained so much strength and was then healed by a magic bean, his ability to be critical of new information was shot.
“Mary was my sister two lives ago.” Gohan clarified, “Have you had another life since we last met?” He asked.
“Yeah.” Videl said, “You don’t have to call me Mary this time, Gohan. It’d be weird if only one of us used the other name.”
“Did you end up meeting Being X?” Gohan asked.
“He… wasn’t happy with me.” Videl said, saddened. “You were right. He didn’t care at all about all those people you helped. None of your good works mattered to him.” Tears welled up in her eyes as the memories of hurt surged back up.
Gohan hugged Videl, patting her back consolingly. “I know what it’s like, to be disappointed in someone you respect.” Not to the same degree, of course, he never held the same amount of esteem for anyone as much as Mary had for Being X.
“Afterwards, I was born in a weird fantasy place.” Videl said, “I joined a guild of mages, and made a lot of friends. Then I got my heart eaten by someone who wanted to upgrade their magic. I hope my friends are okay.” Ouch. Tanya never did find Mary’s body, assumed destroyed by the alien invasion’s opening ortillery strikes, but that makes two lives that ended with heart-ripping.
“Well, I promise I’ll protect you.” Gohan said softly. “I’ll make sure you get to the end.”
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The real stand-out for this lifetime wasn’t the occasional fighting-for-the-planet, which was mercifully spread out enough to be entertaining diversions from slowly developing the planet into a player in interstellar politics. It wasn’t even the local divinities not only taking an interest in the planet but the Son family in particular. Channeling divine power, ‘god ki’? It was technically new, but adding a fourth category of exotic energy that he has experience producing and manipulating wasn’t that big of a deal, on the scale of lifetimes. Although he was very curious on how another encounter with Being X would go with this new ace up his sleeve.
No, the thing that will let this life stand out is the same thing that will let the fourth one stand out: He got to experience fatherhood. Videl tried to find someone she could feel a spark with like she could her first husband, but the weight of years prevented her from making a real connection. So Gohan volunteered, as he knew well that the affection he felt for her wayward soul was at least as solid of a connection as the reinforced childish crush he felt for Sasuke.
It wasn’t as empty of regrets as his first marriage, Gohan couldn’t quite provide everything Videl wanted out of the marriage, but they made it work. It was nice, having someone who understood you as completely as anyone else could, who understood what it was like to wear a different face and accept it as your own.
At the end of her life, Videl decided to get her soul fully cleansed rather than join Dad and the others on Grand Kai’s planet of eternal warriors (also known as the Kai’s backup army of troubleshooters).
As for Gohan?
Well, his soul never arrived at the check-in station. As he always suspected would be the case.