The Other World was nothing less than magnificent. The vast realm radiated a brilliant, welcoming glow. As far as the eye could see, gargantuan, sparkling clouds covered its entirety in an ocean of gold. Here and there, the tips of heavenly structures could be seen cresting the surface.

She hated looking at it.

Her weathered face twisted into a wrinkled sneer from her perch on her crystal ball, and she looked down on the cloudscape dispassionately. Over two centuries worth of visits, and the place still looked like blindingly bright, lemon flavored cotton candy stuffed with cheap toys made of stone.

"Tch." The old witch scoffed. "Honestly, they have more style down in Hell." Grumbling the way only a centenarian could, the renowned fortuneteller Baba floated down toward and into to the gaudiest building of them all, heedlessly jostling the procession of souls through the ridiculously large front door, ignoring the disordered queue she left in her wake.

"Yemma!" she squawked. As she rapidly zipped through the halls, many ogres tripped and stumbled, shouting as their careful routines were abruptly disturbed and their paper stacks sent flying. "I'm here, you old demon. What is it you want? We don't have that appointment until next week!"

"Hold your tongue, witch!" King Yemma's voice reverberated throughout the palace in a booming echo, causing small tremors and startling many into shouting in fear. She scoffed again and continued to mutter expletives under her breath, eliciting scandalized gasps from a few doddering ogres.

When she finally came to a halt, she unceremoniously snapped at a fearful soul standing at the bottom of an absolutely massive desk to "move out of the way!" and looked up to give the enormous ogre king a droll stare. After a long moment of tense silence, King Yemma abruptly pounded a fist on the wooden desk, making several ogres jump in fear. "Don't you look at me like that, Baba! With your record I could send you straight to Hell, this instant!"

"For a hundred and fifty years you've threatened me with that drivel, Yemma. Now tell me the reason I was torn away from making the biggest fortune I've seen in a decade! That foolish noble was about to pay top dollar for a silly love fortune!"

"You just wait, you old hag." King Yemma snarled. "One of these days you're going to finally kick the bucket, and then! Ohohohoho, then you're at the mercy of my judgement!"

"Enough of this nonsense, you old fool," Baba snapped irately, "And tell me why I'm here!"

King Yemma leaned back in his chair with a gruff exhale, and turned his head to look behind him, then back again, now serious. "You," he ordered an bespectacled ogre with two horns and a perpetual smile. "Clear this room immediately."

"Yes, your majesty." Tens of souls complained and shouted when the ogre began to camly escort them out.

"What is this! I've been waiting for three years for an audience with you!"

"Please, please your Highness! I just want to see my family! Please don't do this!"

King Yemma's eye twitched, and he bore the annoyance until a vein began to throb in his forehead. The rising cacophony of wails, outbursts and complaints proved to be too much for him, and he stood up so quickly his gargantuan chair was knocked over to the side, crashing to the floor and making the room tremble.

"ENOUGH." he boomed, and the noise was silenced immediately. "THE NEXT WRETCHED SPIRIT TO UTTER ANOTHER WORD WILL BE SENTENCED TO AN ETERNITY IN HELL!"

They scattered faster than the ogre servant could escort them, and so he amicably shrugged and waited until the last soul turned tail before closing the doors with a loud boom. He bowed. "It's done, your majesty. I'll leave you and the witch to your business."

"Good. Thank you."

Baba, who had watched the chaos with an indifferent expression, finally spoke up again when they were left alone, asking flatly: "What business do you have with me, Yemma?"

The ogre king put his chair right and sagged in it, exposing his exhaustion. He sighed gruffly and rubbed his eyes. "First real break in over 30 years straight...pardon me while I collect myself." Baba silently complies, and after a minute or two Yemma straightened up and turned his chair with his back to his desk, gesturing for Baba to come closer. "Look here."

The old witch floated up and over Yemma's desk and up to hover over his shoulder, and finally laid eyes on what he meant to show her.

The cloudy form of a spirit floated before them, but it was nothing like a spirit Baba had ever seen. While most were colored some shade of white, this one shone a brilliant gold, and emitted sparkles.

"What is this, Yemma?" Baba immediately shoved the entirety of her person into Yemma large face, ignoring his look of annoyance. "You had me summoned from earth to look at a measly Other World ghost? What, did that blasted genie finally drop dead after all those years of being useless?"

"You know Other World natives are immortal, foolish woman."

"Then?"

"That," Yemma drawled, while pushing Baba by the crystal ball out of his face with an enormous meaty finger. "Is the spirit of a human."

This revelation, along with Yemma's tone (which left no room for argument against his expertise) stopped Baba cold. "What…?"

"Look closer. Listen." They both leaned in, Yemma resting his arms on his knees. Baba peered closer at the shimmering spectre. A low, forlorn keening sound could be heard coming from within the soul in a long, continuous sigh.

She straightened up and crossed her arms within her sleeves with a hmph. "Not a death from natural causes, I'm assuming."

"No. That much, at least, I'm certain of. Otherwise it wouldn't be making such a noise." Yemma leaned back in his chair and linked his hands together over his large belly."This is nothing like I've ever seen before, not in all my time." He studied the sparkling ghost, his eyes sharp with intense scrutiny. "An enigma if I've ever seen one; not murder, nor an accident."

"As...interesting, as this is, I fail to see what this has to do with me."

They looked at each other then, and Baba did not like the solemn look on his face.

Not one bit.

It's in age 733, when he has to stretch his legs a little longer after waking, and takes tea to ease his joints, that Son Gohan realizes he's getting old. So of course, he intensified his training to stave off the creeping mortality. Sometimes he does this by doing countless katas until sundown, and other times by taking long walks in the surrounding jungles of Mount Paozu.

When he finds the little girl wandering around the jungle, dangerously close to a cougar's den, Gohan receives the strangest sense of an imminent change.

She's in nothing but a simple white dress, as pristine as a child in their Sunday best. She displays no indication of wandering for very long; no dirt on her face or tears in her clothes, and her wild black, springy curls aren't matted from the humidity of the deep jungle. They stare at each other for a good, long moment, until Gohan breaks the ice by introducing himself, and then asking just what on Earth a little girl is doing here so deep in the jungle. He wonders why the cougars (starving and vicious as they always were) didn't immediately sense prey so close to their territory and pounce when they had the opportunity.

"I just got here and started walking." She says plainly. Gohan notices how her eyes look not quite as innocent as a girl her age should be, but she tells the truth, as her bare feet are somewhat smudged with dirt.

She answers as many questions as she can. She is five and does not remember what her parents look like, nor does she remember her own name. She woke up on the jungle floor about mile from here (Gohan knows because of the ravine by the river she describes), and she does not know where she is. He notes how eloquently she speaks for a child, and it makes him curious. But she is alone, with nowhere to go.

It's without a second thought that Son Gohan takes her to his home.

She stays a while, and does everything she is told without fuss. She's demure and calm, but not without temper. Her bursts of anger seem to stem from frustration at her own limitations, as if her mind was years ahead of her body. In time it's revealed that she is in fact wise far beyond her years.

Gohan discovers many things in their time together; she knows how to clean, and cook simple dishes. Yet she cooks the noodles for too long and insists with a very strong conviction that they're meant to be so, and she oftens leaves the tea to boil on the fire rather than steeping it in hot water, making it much too strong. Gohan is baffled one morning when he wakes to find she had spilled flour all over the floor, in an attempt to make some sort of breakfast pastry he's never heard of. Much to his amusement she immediately and furiously blames her tiny body and lack of muscle mass for the accident, but makes an effort to clean up her mess regardless.

"I'm sorry," she says contritely, after working in a long and sullen silence alongside him. Gohan chuckles and helps her up, and leads her to the washbasin where he tenderly cleans her powdered face.

"It's no trouble. We have plenty for more noodles, and I appreciate your kindness."

"It's half gone...I really thought I could lift it." Her face is scrunched up in the most adorable manner of disgruntlement, and Gohan takes to the opportunity to playfully poke her nose and dust it in flour. Her expression changes to one of such bewilderment that the old man can't help but laugh out loud.

They both end up covered in flour that afternoon, a mess of giggles and white powder.

She's very sweet, Gohan muses to himself a month later while he watches her collect small sticks for wood for a fire. In the middle of her task she ends up in a scowling match with a playful wolf cub, adamant on leaving with her collection despite the baby canine attaching itself to one stick with its teeth. He chuckles. And perhaps a tad bitter.

The tug-of-war continues until (with a grunt full of clenched teeth and a mighty pull) she prevails, landing on her rear. The cub yips and runs away, but her smug smile quickly drops when it returns with a pack of its siblings, and she is buried in wolf cubs. She cries out in dismay as her collection of sticks are strewn about, but it soon becomes a string of strangled giggles as she struggles with the cubs constantly tickling her with their fur and licking her face. The mother lopes forward and sits next to Gohan, and the two of them watch on as the children play.

"Adorable, aren't they?" He remarks. The she-wolf huffs.

That night, when he tucks her in to sleep (in her brand new futon) after a warm meal of dumplings and soup, something miraculous happens to his heart.

She smiles sleepily up at him and moves forward to give him a hug. "G'night, grandpa…"

That night, when he hugs her back, he gives his new granddaughter a new name.

"Good night, Coco."