AN: Attacking other reviewers, and making reviews with the sole purpose of arguing with other reviewers without even the thin veneer of also reviewing the content of the story will no longer be tolerated. Your review will be immediately removed.
As a reminder, because this was mentioned many chapters ago now and some of these details would only be known by people who read/watched both canons: Chakra and ki are the same thing, accessed in a different way. In Naruto, all creatures have chakra networks whether they access them or not and can be drained to death from them, in Dragonball all living things possess ki and can be drained (most likely to death) of it whether or not they know how to manipulate it. In Naruto, chakra is the result of transforming physical stamina and vitality into energy. In Dragonball, Ki is the user's life force/vitality, drawn on directly, though there's no need to transform stamina into ki, replenishing stamina usually correlates with replenishing ki. They are the same thing. As another reviewer observed, chakra takes much more effort to use but has a much wider variety of use than ki. Ki is easier to use and packs a bigger impact, but is a raw force of energy and can't be made to do intricate things.
For the purposes of this fic, Ki is essentially a purer version of nature energy, lacking the danger of transforming a person into stone by using it due to the difference in how it's utilized.
And that is all. Anything else stated about ki and chakra in databooks that make them any more distinctively different from each other is irrelevant because this fic will not be including them.
...Look at that paragraph. I got that down to a few lines in the fic.
The Next Dimension
Chapter Twenty
"Ah!" Goku twisted in place, looking over his shoulder, expression surprised...and then delighted. "My tail!"
His...tail?
He stood up on the cloud, and then jumped off into the snow. For a moment, she expected him to disappear into the white fluff, but it seemed the cloud had moved them on beyond that particular drift, and he sank only to his knees. The brown tail curled and uncurled around and behind him, and he spun in a circle, pleased. "I thought it'd never grow back!"
"Goku..."
He stopped, and looked up at her, eyes wide with expectation.
"Why do...? You have a tail." She meant to make that a question, but in her attempt to keep her voice level with the small boy, it fell flat and came out as a statement instead.
He shrugged slightly. "Well...it just grew back. I don't know why. It must have been something you did."
"I didn't make you grow a tail!" She was, maybe, starting to lose control of her tone. But he did grow a tail. Not even a fleshy one like a human might. A furry tail. Grew back. "Why do you have a tail?"
He blinked and looked over his shoulder. The tail twitched lazily in the air. "Well...if you didn't do it, I don't know. Maybe it just wanted to grow back now."
...She probably wasn't elaborating on her question right, he was after all still a child. A child like a civilian would be, not like a shinobi of his age would be. She crossed her arms and stared down at the cloud for a moment to gather herself again, then sighed. "Why did you have a tail in the first place?"
When she looked back up at him, he rubbed at his head and frowned. "I dunno. I was born with it."
"Is that normal for people here?" She would doubt it, as she'd yet to see any human-looking people with tails...but then there were walking, talking, fully clothed dogs of large size. The side dimension of Kaguya's was strange indeed. If she hadn't long abandoned the idea that she was trapped in a genjutsu, those creatures would much more cement the idea that her mind was simply dreaming and coming up with things on a whim.
"Um...I don't think so?" He shrugged. "But it's normal for me! And now that it's back I feel much better!"
He ran in a circle around the cloud, bouncing and flipping off of the ground, using his tail to balance in places, or to swing off of his red staff in the ground. Just from observing him, he did move and use it like someone who was very comfortable and familiar with the tail. And she really had no reason to believe he'd lie to her.
...So apparently, among the other differences in this strange dimension she was trapped in, sometimes people were simply born with tails.
For no reason at all.
He stiffened suddenly, and then scrambled back onto the cloud, teeth chattering, arms clutched around him. "I-it's still c-c-cold!"
After running around like an idiot in the snow just because he'd regrown his tail, his skin felt almost as cold as the snow to the touch. She huffed, and pressed him down by his shoulders to the cloud again, just to keep him from bouncing around. "Sit still then, idiot."
His shivering slowed back down a bit once she opened the circuit between them again. But...it really wasn't a permanent fix. She might have had plenty of chakra to spare, but eventually if she kept burning it up to keep herself and him warm (rather, to repair the damage the cold made, as she couldn't risk using elemental chakra with him) she'd eventually run out. And she couldn't keep up this connection if they actually moved. As any proper search for a small round thing in a very large building would require.
At this distance, she could barely even make out the shape of the structure in the distance. If it was abandoned and crumbling, the temperature would only barely improve inside the building. Even if it was in good condition, if it was empty (as she assumed it would be, considering its position) it would be too cold for his summery clothing and his tiny form.
No matter what, they just weren't prepared for collecting this dragonball. Especially if there were others lost in mountains due to their height. She huffed, and glanced down at the cloud. "Hey...Nimbus...do you happen to know where any villages are nearby? We need to get more clothing before we can go to that tower."
Goku frowned. "What, why?"
"We'll freeze if we stay like this and have to go searching through a crumbled building when it's so cold."
He tilted his head slightly, thoughtful, and then finally nodded. "...I guess you're right. Nimbus! Let's go somewhere we can change clothes!"
The golden cloud arced slightly up into the sky again, and then dipped off to the right, swerving away from the distant structure at a faster pace than it had been going before.
She knew it was impatience, absolutely unreasonable considering the difference from this and ten years of waiting...but as she watched the structure vanish into haze, she felt a painful longing tug at her heart. In her mind, only for a moment, it felt like Sasuke and Naruto were slipping through her fingers as she slipped through Sasuke's when she stumbled and fell into this world in the first place.
Her fingers twitched and one hand lifted slightly, before she securely placed her hands against his shoulders again, and forced herself to look ahead instead.
She didn't need to look far. Just ahead, a small grouping of houses appeared and then solidified into a tiny...snowy village.
"Ah, there it is!" Goku pointed, and the nimbus sank down to the ground. "There's people here, so there must be some kind of clothes we can borrow here!"
She doubted very much that anyone would let strangers borrow clothing, particularly in such a harsh and secluded place as this. But if there was a village, there would be a shop of some sort hidden away inside it. And even if she had no zenni to be found on her, Goku would almost certainly have some stashed away by at least one of his friends. He did, after all, live in this world. Unlike her.
(*)
The village had a shop.
Goku didn't have a zenni on him.
The lady in the shop, run down as she looked, was surprisingly understanding of this. For some reason.
"...Well..." The woman sighed, and shook her head. "I suppose I may as well give up on being paid for my services by now anyway."
Sakura frowned and crossed her arms. Even with a small village, there ought to be some sort of economy or currency. "What do you mean? Why wouldn't you be paid?"
"Well...it's obvious, isn't it?" The woman shook her head. "The Red Ribbon Army simply takes what it wants. And since it's taken away all of the jobs most of the people in the village used to do, there's hardly anyone around with anything to spend."
Goku looked up from the mirror where he'd been making faces into then. "Red Ribbon Army? What's that?"
"You don't know what the Red Ribbon Army is?" The woman looked between them in confusion. "But they patrol the roads. You'd need to go through a check point of theirs just to get here."
"Oh, that's because we-"
"-Took an alternate path through the hills." Goku's method of transportation might have been a nonissue in this strange world (though she doubted it even so, given the lack of other people using it) but there was no need to announce that they had such a thing anyway. "Our transportation broke a little while ago and we had to walk here."
"Heavens." The woman tutted. "You're lucky to have found us. If you wandered any further to the east or west, you'd have wandered into emptiness and surely died. Worse, you might have run into Muscle Tower and been apprehended by the Red Ribbon Army."
Muscle Tower...
So then the building they'd seen wasn't uninhabited? And an 'army' of some sort, quite possibly, had possession of a dragonball? At least...unknowing possession.
"And the Red Ribbon Army is what?" She prompted, arching an eyebrow.
The woman shook her head. "All that we know here is that they're a dangerous military power. One day they appeared in our village and demanded that we help them find something called a dragonball, when-"
"A dragonball?" Goku cut in, eyes wide. "They're looking for the dragonballs too?"
"Er..." The woman frowned, a nervous expression flickering across her face as she looked between the two of them. "That's...that is what they said."
Sakura huffed. If they really did grant wishes (how that worked she still had no idea) then it wasn't a surprise that eventually a military power would want them. She'd be more surprised if she found out none had done it before.
Goku scratched at his hair, thoughtful. "But...what do they want to wish for?"
The woman was quiet for a few moments, and then shook her head. "...All that they've told us is that we must help them find the dragonball in this area."
The 'or else' in the matter was fairly obvious.
She spoke again, with that in mind. "Their base is in that tower down the way?"
The woman nodded. "At least...the one that they have here. They must have come from somewhere else as well..."
"Well, don't worry!" Goku thumped his chest with his fist. "We'll go beat them up and scare them away for good!"
"Besides that, whatever it is they want to wish for that they're willing to go to this extent for," obvious as it was, "we'll make sure they don't get it."
The woman's expression turned to one of concern. "Don't be ridiculous. You're only a small child and a girl. I didn't mean to have the two of you run off and get yourselves killed! Truly...we'll be fine on our own. Eventually they'll leave, and things will go back to the way they were before."
She clicked her tongue and propped her hand on her hip. "Don't worry about us. I know we don't look like much...but trust me." She lifted her hand then and clenched it into a fist in front of herself. "They won't be the first army I've destroyed with my bare hands."
AN: More notes at the end because the first notes got wordy. I'm looking forward to using Sakura's other ninja techniques! Look forward to them with me. As for the flying on nimbus situation, it's something I heavily debated with myself. Sakura is secretly a pervert, obviously...but it's only toward one person, with the exception of Reverse Harem Jutsu, which was a whole lotta beefcake to take in at once.
On the other hand, Naruto is a massive pervert who only gets pervier as time goes on (until he kind of drops off as the comedic elements fade into the background) but is considered pure of heart once he purges himself of his hate. In general, Team Seven is considered to be a team that is pure of heart. Sasuke is pure hearted in his view of the world and his goals, Naruto is pure hearted in his optimism and determination (and...etc), and Sakura is pure hearted in her love for Sasuke and her support of her team. (And Sai is pure of ROOT's taint. Poor Sai. Always Team 7's afterthought.) As for those in the dragonball universe considered 'pure enough' to ride it, Chichi, Gohan, and Trunks ride it. It's not as picky as it seems to be.
Also, I already had her fly on the Nimbus in chapter one because it was too inconvenient for her not to.
Thus, Nimbus lets her ride. Need a databook for all this info I don't wanna have to shove into the story.