AN: In fact, my friend, power levels exist purely to show they are garbage. They are totally unreliable in pretty much every way.

Sakura gotta get her head back in the game, man.

The Next Dimension Over

Chapter Forty-one

As it happened, it wasn't all that difficult to find Yamcha and the others. The trio was already on their way to the camp when they went out looking. Bulma had faint bruising on her neck, and Yamcha limped along with his arm in a makeshift sling (that clearly used to be his shirt). Apparently they, too, encountered some resistance.

"Is everyone alright?" She frowned between the two injured humans.

"Yeah, it's not so bad..." Yamcha winced slightly as he shifted his shoulder. "I think it's just a broken arm."

Bulma waved her hand. "I'm alright. What about you?" She nodded and pointed at...

Sakura blinked, and looked down at herself. She hadn't actually thought about it, but...when the tree ripped through her, it also tore through her shirt, leaving a ragged and gaping hole over her abdomen. It was...probably good it hadn't been higher. Not just because it would have been more difficult to heal with a collapsed lung or damaged heart.

"Ah..."

She wasn't quite certain what to say. Admitting her ability to heal herself wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She trusted these people. It was just...years of training made it difficult to reveal anything she didn't have to.

"We fought the guy who destroyed the village." Goku spoke before she needed to explain herself, expression darkening into a scowl. "He got away."

Yamcha immediately looked around the forest nearby, as if he expected the man to appear just by being referenced. "How badly did you guys get him?"

She shook her head slightly. "Goku used that Kamehameha. After the General had been knocked through a tree or two. He must be pretty injured...but he's throwing off his trail." Somehow. If only she'd been able to pick up a few sensory jutsu...

"So you came here because we have the dragonball." Bulma frowned, and gave a small nod. "I guess he would go looking for that before he tried to escape."

"If that's the case...he's probably got some way to track his guy. Which means...he'll be back that way first." Yamcha turned back in the direction they'd appeared from. After a pause, he spoke again. "So...he took one of Goku's kamehamehas? And went through a tree. And he's still on his feet?"

"Yeah." She frowned and walked up next to where Yamcha stood. "How about the guy you fought? Is he still out there?"

The faint, hopeless smile that lingered on his expression vanished. "No."

Chances were, now that they were together, now that her focus was on the General and not on saving Goku's life, Yamcha's injury wouldn't play into the battle very much at all. She probably didn't need to heal him at all. He could go back home and recuperate after they retrieved this dragonball.

She didn't really need to heal him.

She bit her cheek in frustration and turned toward him. "Let me see it."

"Huh?" He blinked, and looked over at her in confusion. "See what?"

"Your arm." She nodded toward the injured arm in the sling.

"Ah...no, it's fine. Really!" He shook his head. "I mean...I can fight with one hand. It'll only slow the Wolf Fang Fist a little bit."

She reached out to grab his shoulder before he could walk ahead and ignore her. "Don't be stupid. Fighting like that is going to make it worse."

Bulma frowned from the other side of him, suspicious and...more than a little irritated. "Hey, what do you think you're doing, huh? That's my boyfriend you're manhandling!"

"If you'd sit still!" She snapped, glaring up at the taller man, who'd begun to shy and tug away from her grip. "I'm going to fix your arm. Unless you like having a broken arm?"

"What...?" Yamcha frowned, looking at her and then down at Goku. "What's she talking about?"

Goku's brows knit together at he looked up at her as well. "...Is it your secret technique?"

"It's...something like that." She lifted her hand over Yamcha's arm and gave him a warning look. "If we're going to fight, we need all the arms we have."

His expression was uncertain, and static irritation flowed off of Bulma's silence. Even Pu'ar's fur looked a bit on end. At least Goku's expression looked confident and expectant. Possibly that was because he'd already been healed by her before, but...she liked to think he also had faith in her.

She dispelled those thoughts and closed her eyes for a moment, summoning chakra. The injury wasn't too bad, though it had been aggravated somewhat with what was probably the battle after the break. A soft hiss came from Yamcha's clenched teeth as his bones shifted back into place. A moment later, she finished and took a step away from him.

"Better?"

He frowned and lifted his arm, flexing his fingers a few times and then lightly swinging his arm. "...That was the same thing you did to manipulate the earth and fire, wasn't it?"

Bulma moved in quickly, expression fascinated. "It's healed? How is that possible?"

Yamcha squinted over at her, expression faintly suspicious. As...usual. "Just what is it that you use? More advanced than ki?"

"There's no time." She shook her head and turned toward where the general must have been already. "If he's not coming after us, I'm not going to let him escape while we talk!"

She broke into a sprint without any further warning. More advanced wasn't even the right word for it. Chakra was...refined. It was something shaped out of ki and funneled through the body. It wasn't easily explained. It was something she still couldn't decide if she should explain. Nothing made sense when she tried to think about how and why she was here, what this world was.

It was better to focus on getting out.

It was better to focus on destroying the person who'd slaughtered an entire village for a bauble.

(*)

It was still a little hard to believe, but there wasn't even any lingering fatigue in his arm. The rest of him felt a little bit refreshed, too. He'd never seen or even really heard about any kind of technique that would up and heal someone. Ki was almost always destructive. It could protect, but...to reverse damage after it had been done?

The more he got to know about the strange pink haired woman, the less he understood.

If she hadn't run off as soon as he'd started asking reasonable questions, he would have...probably tried to get Pu'ar and Bulma back to some kind of safety. They didn't have much in the way of vehicles to escape in, since the Nimbus had left...but with the watch at least they would have been hard to find by anyone trying to hurt them. And the dragonball might actually disappear off of radars completely if it were made small, too.

Instead, he ended up carrying Bulma right back into danger again.

He grit his teeth in frustration.

Why was she here? He could have read the dragon radar just fine on his own. He could fend for himself just fine. The dangers that came with a dragonball quest, they didn't bother him. Why would she throw herself into that danger again?

What the hell was he going to do if they met someone he couldn't protect her from, even if he stayed on guard all the time?

(*)

For a little bit, she worried that finding the General was a hopeless quest. He might be anywhere in the forest by now. If they were wrong about his priorities, he might have made it to some sort of escape already, and they wouldn't be able to find him again until they made it to the military base.

And that soldier he protected escaped.

She hadn't thought about it until they were long in the forest. He'd distracted her so completely she hadn't ever thought to double back and deal with the last one in his camp. By now, if nothing else, that man would have gotten away. Right now, they were waging a war against an entire military force and they weren't even managing to do it stealthily.

Just what would they find at the next place the Red Ribbon went first, if the military knew she and Goku were coming for them now?

A short distance away, the general stood above the body of who must have been the one sent to retrieve the dragonball. His shirt had torn off at some point, and his pants were ragged and hanging on to his body primarily due to the leather belt he wore. Something had caused a deep gash across his face, and blood ran down his cheek and neck like slow drying paint. His ruined hand hung limply at his hand, a bruised and discolored mess.

Something dangerous glinted in his blue eyes as he turned toward them, good hand clinging to a smaller version of the weapon General White had held. "So...this is all of you. What a pitiful force to challenge the Red Ribbon army with!"

"I don't care about that!" Goku shouted, stepping in front of the rest of them. "I just wanna challenge you!"

"So...you truly did make a liar of me." He clicked his tongue in something that was...either disdain or disgust, lips curling into a snarl for a moment. "How distasteful."

The man started toward them with slow, steady steps. As if he weren't really harmed by their earlier battle at all. "The Colonel would not have returned without the dragonball. So...which of you is carrying it?"

"You don't need to worry about that." Yamcha shifted slightly, readying to fight the blonde general. "You're never gonna see it anyway."

"Don't you think so?" His lips curled into a smile. "But I already know which one of you has it."

She started to run before he truly began to lift his arm. Yamcha gasped and turned toward Bulma once the General's arm lifted, moving to pull her behind him. Goku burst into action as soon as he saw Sakura move.

Her hand collided with the back of his just as the explosion of noise rocked the small wooded area they stood in. The red pole eternally strapped to Goku's back slammed into his gut. Bulma screamed. The General stumbled backward, expression twisted in pain.

She pressed the advantage immediately, refusing to look back and see what he'd hit. Dealing with him was important. Before he could escape, before he could do any more damage, she was going to end it. If Goku wanted to help do that, he'd have to be able to keep up.

She stepped over a metal object on the ground, lifting herself into the air, and dropped down on him, fist lifted.

Blue eyes met hers, and...her breathing stopped. Her hand stopped. She couldn't move at all.

A moment later, his fist collided with her stomach, and she found herself flipped onto the ground, feeling and movement returning to her limbs all at once with the painful crash.

It was...genjutsu? Was it? It had lasted so briefly she didn't get the chance to break it.

Goku slammed into him a moment later, and then-almost surprisingly-so did Yamcha. Yamcha kicked through the air over Goku's head, colliding with the general's jaw, and Goku punched into the general's stomach hard enough to lift his feet off of the air.

She shook herself, gathering her wits about her again, and pushed off of the ground again. Yamcha's kick sent the man flying toward her. She drew back her fist as he flew in her direction, and struck just as he turned his face up to look at her.

She decimated his nose. She hoped the impact might also break his neck.

Judging by the way he writhed on the ground when he finally hit it, though...she didn't put in quite enough. Obviously, she was getting too used to holding back.

She flexed her fingers as she walked up to where he curled on the ground. Wherever Goku and Yamcha were, they made no attempt to step in the way or finish the man off themselves. That was just fine with her. He'd done enough damage while she let other people deal with him. She'd had about enough of that.

"You...You..." The man growled and slurred his words, shaking in what was undoubtedly a mixture of rage and pain as he struggled to push himself back up.

"The rest of you. Step back." She straightened the damaged glove on her wrist as she looked down at him.

He spat blood at her and hissed. "H-How dare you! Do you think you can fight me alone?!"

She didn't bother to respond to him.

Her seal flared to life as he pushed himself up to his hands and knees and swayed unsteadily.

She ensured that she did not hold back this time.