AN: So I just found a thing that said Madara was Nappa's strength. Which puts Sakura currently around the level the Z fighters were at during that confrontation. Nifty, right?
Not very relevant to the matter at hand, but nifty.
The Next Dimension Over
Chapter Thirty
"Are you sure this thing leads to the Dragonball?"
It was the first time he'd asked the question, but it had hung in the air almost since they'd entered the cave. Other than where the lights at the front of their submarine shone, the underwater cave was completely dark...and the further they went, the closer the walls around them grew.
"I'm looking right at the dragon radar."
"I just don't remember it being able to see walls..."
"So I made improvements! Am I not allowed to do that?"
Krillin flinched slightly from where he sat at the hatch. It was a tense atmosphere inside the vehicle. Being stuck between the feuding two didn't help with the cramped spacing. Even she found her jaw set. Goku was the only one who seemed unaffected by it, staring out the windows in wonder and apparently ignoring the conversation within.
"It doesn't really matter. Even if there were something in the way, we could just move it." Presumably, the tension still traced back to the mix up when they left Bulma's home, but she didn't want to ride along in any worse tension than there already was.
"Well...if we're careful, I guess." Yamcha shrugged slightly. "Ah! Guys!"
His tone changed to one of pleasant surprise as the submarine surfaced above water in...another cave. One which was above ground, and surprisingly not flooded. Clearly, there must have been levels of rock above their heads that blocked the water that would have flowed in through the crack.
Which meant that the dragonball would be...up. On foot.
Goku blinked, looking around. "How did we get outside?"
Krillin stood quickly as the top of the vehicle swung open. "We're not outside, this is some kind of underwater cave, right?"
Bulma nodded, as they began to migrate over to the patch of dry land that led into another dark cave. "We're just in a portion that's got air trapped inside. Hopefully it'll keep up like this to the dragonball."
Yamcha planted a hand on his hip and the other shaded his eyes as he peered off into the darkness. "Should we put the submarine back in the capsule just in case?"
"Well...I guess we can. But even if we run into another wall of water somewhere along the way, it doesn't mean it'll be big enough to fit this through."
Sakura rolled her shoulders and started down the hallway. If it wasn't enough room for the submarine, then she'd just swim the rest of the way to the dragonball. Frankly, she was a little more concerned with getting this ball and moving on to another one before that army found more. The less that army had when it came time to deal with wherever they were storing them, the better. It lessened the chance of them somehow accidentally getting a hold of that wish.
Goku appeared next to her after a moment, followed quickly by a more reluctant looking Krillin.
"It's a cave in a cave on the bottom of the ocean...it's a good hiding place for treasure."
She glanced down at him. "If they could get it down through that tiny opening."
He frowned, and said nothing. It was difficult to see his frown, though, as the further they went from the submarine, the darker the cave got. She frowned, and came to a stop, searching the area in the dim light.
"What is it?" Yamcha asked, as he walked up to them.
The light from the submarine remained in the cave, and Bulma stood not far from where Yamcha did. Maybe they'd decided to keep it there just for the light? It wouldn't do much help for very much longer, though.
"Do any of you have anything like a stick?"
"My power pole?"
She shook her head quickly before Goku could reach for it. "Something disposable. Something that can be used as a torch."
"Ah..." Bulma spoke up, and turned back toward the submarine. "There's some drift wood near where we came up!"
"Do you have anything to light it with...?" Yamcha rubbed at the back of his head, awkward. "Because I know plenty of ways to do it, but there's not really anything around to do it with here."
"As long as there's something to burn." She'd used enough chakra as it was just swimming. She wouldn't literally burn it just for an enduring jutsu of some sort.
That she'd pretty much have to come up with on the fly, since ninja were generally always given the supplies required to light their paths well enough on any mission where darkness and the night would be a thing they weren't meant only to sneak through.
A few moments later, Bulma returned holding an uneven piece of driftwood. It wasn't very thick, but it was big enough to do for a while. "This is the best thing there. Most of the rest just dissolved when I tried to pick it up."
She nodded and took the wood from the other woman. Fire was not an element she excelled at. Honestly, she didn't even think she was passable at it: controlling fire required more than simply controlling the flow of chakra through the jutsu like most elements. Like lightning, it took on a life of its own...and controlling it without special instruction was difficult.
But she only needed something simple and small in this case. A simple, academy fire jutsu would do fine.
She formed a few quick signs around the plank of wood and blew out a small fan of flame across the wood. It was an unimpressive amount...but a small amount for a brief time was much easier to control than a large amount for any extended amount of time. And she didn't need any more than that, anyway.
When she looked up at the others, ready to press forward...all four stared at her in varying shades of stunned silence. Krillin looked a little bit frightened, and Goku looked...wowed. The other two simply seemed surprised. Then again...ki was a raw and unfiltered form of chakra. She'd yet to see any sign of nature transformation from it.
A moment later, Goku's expression screwed up in consternation and he mimicked her gestures (surprisingly well). He blew out as she had...and only air came out. "Uh? Why didn't it work?"
"What was that?" Yamcha frowned over at her, apparently spurred on by Goku breaking the silence that fell after her jutsu.
"Ah..." She blinked, and then turned and started down the cave, rather than explain.
"Hey!" Yamcha shouted from behind her.
"I can explain things, or we can look for that dragonball before this light runs out!" She glanced over her shoulder at the others, the smallest two already having started following her.
An expression of annoyance flickered across Yamcha's face, and thoughtfulness across Bulma's, before the two began to follow.
Goku was not content to have just one or the other, however, as he looked up at her while they walked. "Why couldn't I do it? I copied just what you did! I wanna breathe fire, too."
"...I kind of want to do that, too." Krillin mumbled from her other side.
Her lips twitched. Honestly...the two of them would probably greatly improve if she did pick up their teaching where the old man left off. But there just wouldn't be any way to teach them from the basics up, and how to develop their chakra networks, in the time she had before she'd be going home.
Her gaze turned to the darkness ahead. "It's because I was using something more advanced than ki." At least in the manner of complexity and difficulty. In any other manner...she had yet to completely decide on that.
"More advanced than ki?" Yamcha spoke from behind her, unsurprisingly listening into the conversation.
"I can't teach you." She shook her head. "It's not possible to learn it and use it in less than ten years of training."
"Old man Roshi said something like that about the Kamehameha wave!" Goku puffed out his chest. "I bet I could do it, too!"
Well...of course the old man was wrong: if she understood how ki worked (and she couldn't actually be sure, not being able to master it yet) mastering techniques wouldn't require building up one's chakra network.
"Well...you could give it a try on the way to the next dragonball." It probably wouldn't hurt to at least give him some basic training, even if he wouldn't be able to do anything with it. Maybe he would figure it out one day...
"Wha..." Krillin sighed in annoyance. "How am I supposed to learn anything, then?"
"Lift the torch up more." Bulma cut into the conversation suddenly, leaning over her shoulder and pointing up. "There's something on the roof."
She blinked and glanced up, lifting her arm slightly.
"Are those...lightbulbs?" Yamcha's voice wavered slightly in confusion.
Krillin's voice, however, was simply excited. "It is a pirate base!"
(*)
"First, it's not a pirate base." The doubter insisted, in her doubting voice. "Because that's stupid. No pirate would have the ability to get this low to hide his booty, anyway."
He snorted. Smart people like scientists always thought they knew everything. Then they just missed things that average guys like him could see.
Or things he just really wanted it to be, because if it were a pirate base at least he wasn't wasting his time hunting a dragonball and listening to Sakura and Goku talk about tracking down others just so she could go back to her magical world where people breathed fire and punched giant boulders across islands like it wasn't anything important.
Bulma went on theorizing about what she thought it was about, but he didn't pay it any mind.
When he found that pirate treasure, everyone else would feel pretty dumb worrying about that unfortunately named artifact.
Goku ran up to a wall suddenly, and reached up to some kind of a button fixture.
"Hey, Goku, wait-!"
Naturally, Goku did not.
Fortunately, the only thing the big red button in the middle of a hidden underwater base did was turn the hallway lights on. (At least, the only thing it apparently did. Hopefully it didn't also go and open up a floodgate somewhere...)
The party blinked up at the string of lights that ran off into the distance both in front of and behind them, and Sakura lowered the board, making some sort of gesture that blew the fire out like a large candle.
Seriously.
What the hell.
He'd lived with the strongest martial artist in the world for almost a year, a legend. He'd seen and heard of some pretty amazing things, in his opinion. Someone manipulating actual elements like utilities anyone could just push around when they wanted...
That made no sense.
On reflection, maybe it was for the best she wanted to go home. If she really was some kind of monster or demon, then if she wanted to terrorize some other place than Earth, all the better.
Movement caught his eye, and he realized belatedly that Yamcha had walked ahead of him, investigating something on the wall opposite to where the button was. "Well...this is ominous."
He turned toward them, holding up a half of a ribcage and a skeletal arm still clad in the remnants of some kind of mostly rotted shirt.
"Gah!" He recoiled immediately. That was...that was real, wasn't it? Actual bones? From an actual person? And their actual body. Where they actually died.
Right here.
And that person's
actual
skull
was wedged into the wall not far from Yamcha's feet.
"Hey, Krillin, those skulls you wanted are actually here after all!"