"You want to send them to King Kai?" Kami murmured. "Snake Way is dangerous."
The Snake Way was not easy to get through. Nearly everyone who tried to cross it in search of King Kai ended up falling off into Hell before they made it across. Going by official records, the last person to make it all the way through was King Yemma himself.
"Relax. Trust these young martial artists. They can do it." Naruto's confidence in the Z Fighters was absolute.
"And you?" Kami asked. "You don't want to go train under King Kai?"
"King Kai has nothing to teach me," Naruto said matter-of-factly.
Everything King Kai knew, Naruto already knew, the Kaio-ken, the Spirit Bomb, all of it. And Naruto knew things King Kai didn't. So going or not going made no real difference either way.
But the Z Fighters still needed to make that trip. Because the protection of Earth shouldn't belong only to Goku.
"I'll ask around." Kami nodded. "I don't know why you're in such a rush to raise your own strength and theirs, but my gut tells me you're right."
Maybe it had something to do with Earth's unique position, but the Kami of Earth held significantly more authority than one might expect. He could even go straight to King Yemma and pull strings to open a back door. This might also have to do with Majin Buu being sealed on Earth, leading Supreme Kai Shin and Kibito to check up on Earth every couple of decades.
Of course, that arrangement only worked if the person in question wasn't evil. Otherwise, it was a one-way trip to Hell.
As for living people walking around in Hell, that wasn't anything unusual. Fortuneteller Baba did it all the time.
The Z Fighters' training could be left to Kami to arrange. That just left the question of the warriors who fell outside the good-aligned camp, and how to handle their strength.
Naruto's eyes shifted toward Piccolo.
Honestly, arranging that wasn't too hard either.
"Piccolo. Want to get stronger?" Naruto found Piccolo after the wedding.
He didn't wait for a reply, just raised a hand and slashed open a passage of dimensional space in the air.
"If the answer's yes, then follow me."
"My King!"
Piccolo was about to move, but Shura stepped forward from behind to stop him. Shura stared at the floating passage, every line of his body rigid with wariness.
Piccolo brushed Shura's hand off his shoulder and spoke, his words carrying absolute, unquestionable authority.
"I am the Demon King. The Great Demon King who will destroy the world."
"The one who you should be worried..."
"...isn't me."
He finished speaking and leaped straight into the passage.
Behind him, his subordinates exchanged glances. In the end, only three stepped through, Devilman, Mummy, and Wu.
The moment Piccolo and his group stepped into the space, a crushing force slammed into them, their bodies became impossibly heavy. All of them except Piccolo collapsed to their knees with a sickening thud. Some fell flat on the ground.
"Welcome to the Gravity Space. This will be where you train from now on."
Only Naruto moved as if the gravity meant nothing, walking around without a trace of strain.
He brought both hands together and slapped the ground. "Summoning Jutsu."
White smoke erupted. The Hell Imp Beast materialized before them, Satori's Ultimate Form.
Whether it was a quirk of the summoning contract or not, Naruto's combat power had risen, and so had Satori's. The jump was nowhere near as extreme as Naruto's, only about 10%. But even a 10% was more than enough to give Piccolo and his people a real fight.
"If you need anything, get in touch with him. He'll let me know." Naruto pointed at Satori's Ultimate Form, then waved his hand and tore open another passage.
"Wait, "
Piccolo didn't even finish the word. Naruto was already gone.
"You never told us where to sleep or what to eat." Piccolo scanned the barren landscape, nothing but bare rock and empty sky, and felt a genuine chill at what was coming.
He could survive on water alone. The question was: where was the water?
"Bastard." Piccolo spat the word. Then he looked at Satori. Satori looked back.
"Can you understand what I'm saying?"
Satori peeled its lips back over its fangs and gave Piccolo a truly horrifying smile. "Rawr!"
"Guess that's a no."
In that moment, Piccolo felt his future dim so hard it went pitch-black.
After setting up the immediate training plans for Earth's heroes and villains alike, Naruto had his own plan in mind. He intended to push himself relentlessly over these four years, train hard, and find a way to match the Saiyans' exceptional rate of growth.
And the reason he had rushed through all the arrangements? There was another uninvited guest inside his body.
Same as Goku's before it, it had just appeared, out of nowhere.
Actually, calling it an uninvited guest was wrong. It was an uninvited object.
A sword.
So heavy that even Adult Goku, inside the Seal Space, found it a struggle to lift.
"Why would something like this show up inside my body?"
*'Still, with this thing around, looks like I'm going to be busy for a while.'*
Naruto stepped up to the sword, crouched down, and gripped the hilt with his right hand. He pulled hard. The blade did not budge. He added his left hand to the hilt and heaved with everything he had.
Still nothing.
At his current level, Naruto could lift immense weight. The fact that he couldn't lift this sword was all the proof needed, the blade was far more than it appeared. In fact, it wasn't just Naruto who couldn't lift it. Adult Goku couldn't either.
Naruto quietly let go, straightened up, and stood there as if nothing had happened.
Kurama, freshly awake, caught the whole thing.
"Ha! Stinking brat. You slack off your training and now you can't even pick up a beat-up sword." Kurama's mockery had zero mercy. "This is what you humans are like. Weak. Let up for a little while and your strength plummets. Unlike us Tailed Beasts, a thousand years pass, and we're still just as strong."
"We Tailed Beasts got the power, hey, we got the power!~"
Kurama slipped into a singsong without even realizing it.
Naruto stepped aside, looked straight at Kurama, and said with pure provocation, "You're so tough, you try."
"Tch. Let me show you what real muscle looks like." Kurama extended two fingers, pinched the sword hilt like he was picking up a toothpick, and said, "See? Easy."
He pulled. Nothing happened. The sword lay there, still as stone.
Kurama assumed he just hadn't put any real effort into it. He pulled again. Still nothing.
Sensing Naruto's skeptical stare, Kurama's pride flared. He fluffed the fur on both paws, tensed every muscle to the max, and gripped the sword hilt again.
"Up!"
"Up!"
"Up, damn you!"
Kurama clutched the sword like he was yanking a giant radish from the ground, face red with effort, every muscle straining. His paws clawed at the ground, carving two deep pits, which repaired instantly.
No use. The sword didn't budge an inch.
"Big Fox, what are you doing?"
Adult Goku sat up, roused by the noise, eyes still blurry with sleep. He blinked at Kurama, full of sleepy curiosity. "You trying to lift this sword? Even I can't budge it," he muttered, spotting Kurama wrestling with the hilt.
Kurama stared, completely speechless. He'd been napping earlier when Adult Goku tried and failed to budge the blade.
Kurama jabbed a paw at Naruto. "Naruto, you set me up!"
Naruto rolled his eyes. *'Set you up, my ass. You just wanted to show off.'*
"Definitely cussing me out in your head right now," Kurama grumbled.
"Let me give it another try."
Adult Goku cracked his neck, then shook his body loose. He reached for the hilt, but this time, he shifted into his Super Saiyan form.
This time, Kurama watched, wide-eyed, as the sword finally budged, slow as molasses. Adult Goku heaved it up, inch by inch. "So heavy," he muttered.
"No surprise, that's the Z Sword for you," Naruto said, awe in his voice. Then he shifted gears. "Gotta figure out a way to snap it in half."
At the same time, in the Sacred World of the Kais, a voice cried out, panicked and loud, almost all of the Sacred Land heard it.
"Calm yourself, Kibito. What is it that has you in such a state?"
A young man's voice answered instantly. A purple-skinned man with a mohawk sat poised, sipping black tea. "Do not forget who you are now."
"What happened?"
"Gone. It's gone."
The other man pointed frantically toward a mountain peak, unable to form a full sentence. One look in that direction showed the mountaintop flat, with a hollow, like something had rested there, then vanished.
"You mean... the sword?!"
The young man stared, confirming the meaning behind those words. The other man nodded frantically.
*Clatter.* The teacup hit the floor and shattered. The once-calm mohawk man was no longer calm, his face twisted in panic, matching Kibito's terror.
"That is a sacred relic!!!"
Chaos erupted as Shin and Kibito ran around the planet like headless chickens.
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