AN: For the curious, this fic is rated M primarily for later chapters when 'violence and coarse language' will be more prominent than they are so far, but honestly with Master Roshi around it'll probably earn M sooner than that. (If I'd kept the Ranfan fight in, that probably would have made M already)

The Next Dimension Over

Chapter Thirteen

The giant creature threw his head back and laughed, arms spread out wide. "I win!"

"Goku!" Krillin shouted over the din of the crowd, as the child in the ring struggled without success to break the strange yellowish substance that entrapped his arms and legs.

"Now, you're no different from a puppet without strings." The creature chuckled as he reared up an arm over his head. "And I'm gonna have fun before I win!"

She grit her teeth in frustration. Standing on the sidelines and watching other people fight was always difficult, even when it happened in situations like this. If she could just touch the film for a moment, she could crumble it away. It wasn't as if Gilan's strategy wasn't clever, but...

It didn't help that she'd contributed to his loss. It wouldn't teach Goku the same lesson if he lost because his concentration broke in the middle of the battle.

As the lizard batted Goku back and forth across the ring, she took a step forward, and then another.

"You stupid boy..." If he kept up...

A hand touched her arm. "Don't." That woman, the one who'd lost just the round before, had appeared from wherever she'd been hiding to watch the battle before. "If you walk out, you'll be disqualified. He has to finish it before he kills Goku, or he'll be disqualified too."

She...knew that. She knew both of those things.

Still...she'd already gotten involved on accident. She should have been able to do something to fix what she'd influenced. But if they acknowledged that she'd been involved at all, most likely he'd be disqualified anyway.

The monster lifted Goku up above his head, looking off into the distance. "Now...time to throw you out like the trash!"

"H-hey! Can't we settle this fairly? Hey!" Goku kicked in frustration, struggling in vain to slip free of the strange fluid holding him still.

"It looks like it's over, folks! There's nothing Goku can do now but be thrown out of the ring! It seems the battle is all but decided!"

She growled in frustration and punched the decorative tournament wall, cracking the engraving there.

It was enough. The tremor passed through the wall, down the stairs, and then rumbled across the ring. The vibration was slight, so small that the din of the crowd drowned out the sound completely. It didn't need to be much, though. In Gilan's unbalanced state, just as he pitched forward to throw Goku, the shift in the ground knocked him off balance.

"Ga-ah-yah!" The unstable beast tumbled backward, and Goku fell out of his hand, bouncing and rolling across the ring with shouts of alarm.

"Unbelievable!" The coordinator placed a hand to his cheek in shock. "At the last, critical moment, Gilan overbalanced himself and tripped! But will this opportunity be enough to turn it around? For the moment, Goku is still trapped in the unbreakable gum!"

Said child had rolled just to the edge if the ring and, fortunately, stopped. As the man said, though, the action had only saved him moments more. Already, the enraged looking lizard began to climb to his feet again, growling in anger. "I hope you enjoyed that trip, because it won't happen again!"

"Goku!" Krillin shouted again, looking more frantic than she'd ever seen him before. "Come on, Goku! You can do it!"

"-Yeah!" Yamcha called out, hand cupped over his mouth. "Come on, Goku! Show this guy what a student of Muten Roshi can do!"

The lizard paused, looking up at Yamcha then with a look of shock. "Muten Roshi...?"

"That's right!" She shouted, holding up her fist over her head. "Show him how strong you are!"

In the crowd somewhere, she heard a female shout for Goku as well, and then others in that same section of the crowd cheered him on. The lizard, apparently still shocked by the revelation Goku's teacher looked slowly between the competitors section and Goku on the ground, expression a mask of confusion and astonishment.

Goku grit his teeth, clenched his fist and shouted, bolstered by the encouragement. The sight of his renewed struggling snapped Gilan out of his stupor, and he started toward Goku once more, forming a scaled fist. "What a disappointment of a student! This time I'm going to send you out the old fashioned way!"

"N-Na...Nnnot..." Goku's expression screwed up in concentration and effort, face as red as the gi his old deadbeat of a master had gotten him, and with an almighty scream, his arms and legs snapped outward, bursting through the confining gum with explosive force. "Not yet!"

The crowd roared in excitement, and it was possible she might have shouted as well, as Gilan stumbled backward in shock. "That's-that's not possible!"

The small kid pushed himself up to his feet and brushed the last of the debris from the gum off his clothes, before frowning up at Gilan. "That was a good trick...but I'm not gonna fall for it again! Now time for my counter attack!"

He sprinted forward with a burst of speed, and leaped into the air.

Gilan lunged backward, but much as Yamcha had, underestimated Goku's strength. His kick failed to land square in the middle of the lizard as he'd clearly meant for it to be, but it still just managed to contact with one of Gilan's over-sized shoulders.

The giant creature gave a pained shout, and spiraled out of the ring, body lifted through the air from the force of Goku's kick. This time, when his wings spread out to catch himself, the tip of one of them grazed across the grass of the ring.

"Ring out! That's a ring out!" The coordinator shouted the announcement with surprising speed. While it seemed like the man primarily spent his time stating the obvious, he must have also been watching the fight much more closely than it seemed. "What a surprising comeback! That's the power of the god of martial arts, Muten Roshi's teaching, folks!"

...'god'?

(*)

He huffed as he dropped to the ground. For a little bit there, he'd thought that girl had intentionally sabotaged Goku's battle just to get rid of him. Which wouldn't have been a bad plan, but Goku was his (pretty much only) friend. He couldn't approve of that when they were supposed to both be in the finals of the tournament.

Well, that, and if she were going to use some kind of a low down dirty trick like that, there was no telling what she'd do in their fight. She was scary enough if she didn't cheat. Doing something to eliminate him without even giving him a fair chance would just be...

Ugh. He didn't like that idea at all.

But...Goku hadn't been defeated, and there for a bit he was pretty sure she actually cheered for him. Maybe she just didn't want to fight a dinosaur, either. Well...

He refused to allow that to matter. Because no matter what, she wouldn't be fighting either of them. He'd be advancing, because that was his plan. When he was in the preliminaries he was sure of it, and he made it through his first real fight in the tournament pretty easily. He'd make it through his second one, too...and then it'd be him against Goku.

He could definitely do it.

Yeah.

He spared the girl a nervous glance as he walked past her toward the ring, trotting out for the impromptu interview. Despite the fact that their fight would be the next one, she didn't seem concerned with him at all. She just kept watching Goku.

Geez...

"That was a real close one this time, Goku..."

"Yeah, I know! That stuff was really sticky and thick! It took all of my effort to break through it."

The man that had called him out there beamed down at the two of them. "You're both so young but so strong! You're only thirteen, aren't you, Krillin? And what about you, Goku? How old are you?"

He leaned down slightly, and held the microphone out, expectant.

Goku...squinted up at it in confusion, and reached up to poke it with his finger. Naturally, the man deftly dodged the attempt, which...apparently only made Goku more confused. Which...why? What the heck was even confusing about a microphone?

"Uh...what are you trying to give to me...?"

"A-are you kidding me?"

(*)

The two of them really were strong. She hadn't seen Krillin's battle, but the speed in which he'd dispatched his opponent was enough to indicate it. If his skill level was anything like Goku's, though, they both were incredibly wanting in style. Brute force wouldn't always win their battles. If he hadn't gotten a second chance with Gilan once he was captured, he would have already been knocked out of the tournament, despite all of the strength and speed he'd built up in his months of training under his...divine master.

God of martial arts. That old man?

It reminded her of the way they spoke of the sannin, or of Hashirama Senju and the Sage of Six Paths. But...those people (at least those she'd met of them) lived up to that veneration. They may have been human, but their power was just as terrible and amazing as the legends indicated.

That old man...he shouldn't have had any kind of reputation like that at all.

"You get pretty invested in other competitors' battles, huh?"

She looked over her shoulder in surprise, the voice jarring her out of her thoughts.

Ah, it was Yamcha again. Digging again, for some reason. "Well, it was deciding who I'd be fighting. Smart participants keep track of their competition."

"So you really thought Goku was weaker than Gilan?" He squinted at her, suspicious.

"No." She turned toward him, finally, placing a hand on her hip. "I like a challenge. You weren't one, but I'm sure someone in here is."

"Yeah?" He crossed his arms, radiating challenge. "So if you wanted to fight him, what about when you almost disqualified yourself when he was in danger?"

..She crossed her arms as well, mimicking his stance, and glared back up at him. She honestly wasn't certain what he thought he was digging up...but he was bumbling his way toward the only thing she actually needed to hide for the moment. Or...catching her own mistakes on the matter, anyway. "What the hell are you trying to get at?"

He frowned, and then shook his head, letting his arms fall to his sides. "...I don't know. But you know what I do know? You've got an awful lot of concern over what happens to Goku for someone who he's never seen before."

She squinted up at him. "Yeah? Do you keep track of every person he's ever met?"

"Nah..." He shook his head, and then turned away from her, moving toward where Goku was returning from the stadium again. "But he hasn't called you his friend yet."

"Hey!" Goku waved over at her from the entrance. "They're calling you up now, it's time for your next round!"

He tugged at Yamcha's wrist once the taller man made it in range, and sprinted off to his favorite vantage point.

So then. Rounds went much more quickly in this tournament than the Chuunin Exams ever had. As much as she knew it was for the best, she still couldn't help a small twinge of regret over the matter. It would have been nice to give the two boys a chance to square off. Considering they weren't rivals.

Then again...maybe it was best not to give them any ideas after all.

"He's really interested in you, huh?"

"-Eh?" She blinked, and looked over at the other female competitor. When had the woman made it over to her?

"That Yamcha! You know, when I tried talking to him, he didn't say a word. He just ran away." She huffed, and pursed her lips. "Maybe I should have tried beating him up a little."

She frowned, and shook her head.

Somehow...she doubted very much that his insistent interrogation had anything to do with what the woman was thinking at all.