AN: It may have been a little unclear last chapter, so just in case I'll clarify here - Sakura was injured by the bullet, but she was actually playing much more injured to get him to talk and neutralize any possible worse threat that the gun could pose. If she wished to, she would have easily gotten up and continued on as if she weren't shot at all. She was worried about Goku because he is, in most other things, on a level she considers genin or chuunin.

It's worth noting that early-Naruto Kishimoto said that guns don't exist because if they did there would be no shinobi (ie: guns would just kill ninjas when used properly), and so her assumption that someone on Goku's level wouldn't be able to handle a gunshot well isn't completely without basis, even though it's quite clear they can handle worse things as they get stronger.

I didn't update for a couple days because...Kumoricon. Have an art as apology, since someone wanted to see it. .tumblr com/9fbf74e34c70976ba953f03e200a50cd/tumblr_nucwa6n7481srolsro1_500 png

The Next Dimension Over

Chapter Twenty-six

He groaned after a moment, apparently roused by her presence, and rubbed at his head. "Oww...that really hurt..."

She...stared down at him. Exactly how did he manage not to be harmed at all? Maybe if she'd been prepared for it she could have ensured it did minimal damage, but those were skills much beyond his, and as far as she could tell, he couldn't have known it would happen.

"Goku..."

He blinked up at her with a dazed expression. "I'm getting really hungry after that fight...can we go eat after the bad guy is gone?"

It had been a fair amount of time since either of them had eaten. That wasn't really the most pressing matter at that moment, though. Unless he really was, somehow, completely unaffected by the gun. But...how would that be? Just what part of that training had toughened up his body to that level?

If she weren't about to leave, she'd want to find answers from that old man about it.

She shook her head quickly and stood, holding out a hand to him. "Yeah...soon, anyway. He's gone now, but we've still got the village elder and the dragonball to find first, right?"

"Oh..." He sighed, and pushed up to his feet, mumbling to himself. "I'd rather eat the food first..."

Still, he had the energy to jump back up to the room, and she followed after him, looking around for their large companion. He stood at...another hole in the wall. Well, at least it had nothing to do with them this time.

"Do you know where the village elder is?"

The big man slowly turned away from the wall toward them, and then nodded. "I...think so..."

When she'd glanced it from the floor, she'd thought the cell next to the door might have been what held the elder...but on closer inspection, as they passed it by, there wasn't actually anything in there. Interesting.

"It is...here." He gestured at a door without a knob. "But...I do not know the combination to open it."

"Well, that's easy." She took a step forward, and Goku spoke up.

"Hey, I could open it, too!"

She glanced over her shoulder at the small boy, who still looked no worse for wear after the gun attack than before. He did look a little fatigued, though. Bouncing into a wall and falling down a floor twice probably did that. And using two kamehameha waves might have sapped him of energy, too.

"Do you want to do it and make yourself more hungry than you already are?"

He hesitated, and then frowned. "I...guess not."

The door was much easier to punch through than the wall had been, being made of much flimsier metal than the brick-stone of the outer tower walls. It was also considerably easier to bust through than the front door had been. Really, it wasn't that well made for a prison cell.

The man inside gave a startled yell when the door burst inward from the middle, and turned around toward them, eyes wide. He was presumably the village elder, given his clearly advanced age. Nothing about him looked the least bit dangerous: small eyes were barely visible through the thick lenses of his glasses, his limbs were spindly and undersized for his clothes, his hair - what hair he still had - was wispy and white and standing out at odd angles, and he appeared to be missing much of his teeth when he spoke.

"Wh-who's there?!"

Goku appeared around her leg. "Are you the village elder?"

He ruffled his hair. "I'm the chief...I don't know if I'd like to be called 'elder'. I'm not as old as I look, you know!"

She doubted that. But that wasn't the point. "The chief?" Well. No wonder the village was under the grip of the military force without any visible signs of battle in the village or the tower.

The man pulled himself up to stand as tall as he could. "Yes. I am. Not just an elder, the chief. A...and..." he shrank down a bit more then. "You...you haven't told me why you're here yet. Or...are you...Red Ribbon Army?"

She waved her hand. "No."

"We beat all those up!" Goku chipped in, before gesturing over his shoulder. "Except for Eight, but he wanted to join us."

"...Hello." The big man rumbled behind them.

The old man looked...somewhat wary about all three of them. She couldn't really say she was surprised. Everyone in this dimension other than Goku seemed determined to be wary for some reason. "W-well then...then...I'm free to go?"

She nodded. "If you want to. We have something more to do here."

"Uh?" Goku glanced up at her, as if the fall (or his hunger) was addling his memories a bit.

"The dragonball?" She arched an eyebrow down at him.

"Oh! Right!" He nodded and straightened, immediately turning to dig the radar out of his pocket bag.

"Dragonball?" The old man spoke up suddenly. "You two want the dragonballs too?"

Eight turned toward them with a frown. "Do you...want to do bad things with the dragonballs?"

Goku spoke before she could. "No! Sakura just wants to use them to get back home, because she comes from somewhere so far away she can't get back on her own."

The two men stared at her. The bigger one seemed to simply be considering Goku's words, and the old one seemed suspicious. As was usual from people she'd encountered in this dimension so far. Maybe it was a product of whatever connection they had with Kaguya.

She placed a hand on her hip. "The Red Ribbon Army plans to use the dragonballs to wish for world domination. The best way to keep them from doing that before we stop them without endangering innocent people who hide them is to collect them ourselves and make the army come to us."

"That...is true..." The old man muttered to himself.

"That sounds...dangerous." Eight frowned down at the ground for a few moments. "I should come with?"

"Yeah!" Goku lifted his hands. "We can all go together!"

"You already had to fight someone once. If you come with us, you'll need to fight a lot more. Sometimes you might need to fight enemies all on your own."

The large man blinked, and then shook his head. "I...I don't like fighting. But I don't know where I will go."

The old man, who had been quietly considering the three of them during their conversation spoke up again, voice somewhat hesitant. "Well, you did help save the village from the Red Ribbon army, and rescue me. If need be, you can stay in the village with us."

Eight looked over at the old man in surprise. "Really? Then...I think that I will."

"Aww..." Goku frowned, and drooped down in disappointment. "Well, at least you have a place you can stay."

The large man nodded, then, after a moment of hesitation, dug around in his pocket and withdrew a golden glowing orb. In his hand, it looked barely bigger than a smoke bomb.

"A dragonball!" Goku gasped and sprinted forward a couple of steps. "Eight, when did you find it?"

"It was in the snow outside one day...but the General said he would kill the village when he found the dragonball, so I decided to hide it instead."

The room fell silent for a moment, and then the old man patted Eight's arm. "On second thought, I like you a lot! You can stay with me if you want! You're a really good person!"

A shy smile curled along Eight's face and he ducked his head. "Thank you..." He held out the dragonball to Goku, who carefully collected it and returned next to her side.

"See, this is a dragonball." Goku held it up to her.

When she held it in her hand, the light that faintly glowed from it made her expect it to be a little warm, but it was simply as cool as the room. It did give off a very slight vibration, though, like it was emitting a silent hum of some sort. The orange color swirled slightly in the ball, and the red star in the center seemed to be at once in the very middle and on the outer edge of it. It felt a little heavier than its size should be, and perfectly smooth.

Honestly, looking at it, it was a little mesmerizing...and more than a little fascinating. Was it some sort of crystallized chakra?

She frowned slightly, clasping her fingers around it. Just what exactly were they supposed to be summoning, other than a 'dragon'? Was it some kind of tailed beast of this world? Or was it possible that this gathering chakra could actually summon Kaguya? Her heart skipped, and she drew in a breath.

As dangerous as that would be...it would bring Naruto and Sasuke, too. She'd have a way to get back where she belonged, as long as they all left before Kaguya could do any damage to this world.

Maybe she needed to summon it at a distance, to ensure Goku wouldn't be pulled into things and harmed.

"Sakura?" Goku's voice broke into her thoughts.

"Hm?" She glanced up. Eight and the elder...chief, had vanished from the room, leaving only herself and Goku. Had she been lost in thought very long? It hadn't felt like it.

"I'm really hungry now."

She blinked, and then nodded. "Right. Let's get moving. We'll probably pass some places with food on the way to the next dragonball." Also, hopefully something to pay for that food with as well. Doing missions like liberating villages from tyrannical military forces for free didn't do much for the pocketbook.

He dug around in his pockets, and then pulled out the radar device. "...Aw no." He grimaced, and turned the device toward her. Probably from the impact of one of his falls from the uppermost floor, the glass on the front of it was completely shattered and broken inward. He pressed the button on the top...but all that it did was spark.

"...Ah."

Well. A fragile device like that wasn't the best design for a dangerous mission like collecting wish granting orbs.

He sighed. "I guess we'll have to go back to Bulma's and get it fixed again."

She rubbed at the back of her head, tugging at the too-long hair there. "If we need to do that every time we find one, that's going to slow us down..."

"Well, I'll be more careful next time!" He nodded. "And the other ones are probably nowhere near the Red Ribbon Army anyway."

She frowned, as they started back out of the room, toward the convenient opening in the wall, down the stairs from the actual door to the level, she spotted their two companions already trudging out of sight. "They must not have had something like that..." she gestured down at the device in his hand. "If they did, they would have figured out that Eight had it by now. But...to build something like this, they must have been confident the dragonball was somewhere around here. How could they have known?"

"Uh?" Goku glanced up at her, and then scratched at his hair, thoughtful. "...Huh. Maybe they made a really good guess?"

She doubted that, though.

"Nimbus!" He shouted through the opening in the wall. "Let's go back to Bulma's! Come on!"

She frowned to herself as she settled onto the golden cloud and stared down at the gold-orange orb in her hand. The concept that the army had some sort of less precise method of determining the general vicinity of dragonballs wasn't a pleasant one: it meant they'd need to be careful of more soldiers every time they looked for a dragonball, and it meant they'd probably eventually be hunted by those people and whoever else might have a similar method of searching. After all, world domination wasn't a very original wish. Anyone else with the right resources would want them, too.

But...it was the question of what exactly these things were, and what exactly they summoned when put together that worried her more. After all...if one could simply wish to rule the world, why was it only now that a military unit had organized itself enough to seek out such a wish? What was it about the dragonballs that must have prevented earlier seekers from making such a wish, if - as Goku and Bulma had both insisted - they really did grant these impossible things.

And...just what was it that could simply will things into being the way they chose?

Although they already were moving out of the frozen tundra, she felt a fresh chill run though her.

This 'dragon'...was almost certainly a manifestation of Kaguya herself.

AN: Muscle Tower is finished! Which means that we can stop being the Sakura and Goku buddy cop chronicles for a while.