AN: Has it been twelve chapters since we've had a wind-down chapter? Will this one count as one?

Red Ribbon Army/Quest for the Dragonballs saga is intense, even with company.

The Next Dimension Over

Chapter Forty-two

Her strength...it wasn't human. He'd heard a few stories, but...that wasn't normal at all. After the general had been hit, it was entirely possible there was something left of him. There was no telling for sure, however, because the impact of her hit looked a bit like a bomb had gone off, and drilled straight into the ground. Trees collapsed into it and covered up the body by the time the shock waves calmed.

And she simply stood on the jutting piece of rock and earth that her punch had lifted into the air. She didn't looked disturbed at all when she walked back to join them.

Whoever she was, whatever it was she did before befriending Goku...it worried him. And yet, before killing someone without a moment of hesitation or regret, she somehow used an ability that completely healed a broken arm.

He shook his head slightly, and crossed his (now unharmed) arms. While the military force had been ousted, they still only had three of the four dragonballs necessary to bring back the village. Or...send her home. There was only one wish, after all. She didn't seem to take any issue with Goku's offer to return the village back to life when he made it...but when it came down to it, which one would she expect to wait?

The trouble with being so efficient, if it could be said to be a trouble, was that the Nimbus still wouldn't be back for another day. Or more. And neither the village nor the encampment was in any state for them to shelter in or find vehicles home inside. The best they'd managed was to salvage a couple of undamaged tents from the encampment and set them up at the base of the...

Whatever the hell it was in the ruined village that disappeared up into the sky.

It didn't take long sitting there before both the pink and blue haired women made their way up to the base of the structure. Bulma slowly circled it, leaning in to look at it closer and then looked up into the sky, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun. Sakura wandered even closer and ran her fingertips along the intricate designs.

"This is so elaborate..." Sakura spoke in a voice that sounded almost as if she expected one of them to answer why.

"It looks like it just keeps going on up the same." Bulma craned her neck back and squinted. "It's even painted."

"They must have painted it and then made it stand up?" He figured he'd say something, since Goku didn't look like he had anything to say on the matter, and...well. Obviously that's what they did. No one would be crazy enough to try to carve and paint the thing so elaborately when they could fall off and die.

Sakura looked down at the base of the pole and pursed her lips. "Maybe..."

Bulma glanced over at her. "Even if they did, can you imagine how far this would have reached?"

"Are you sure there's no legends about this at all?"

Bulma shrugged slightly. "No. I haven't heard a single thing about it. Even when I was looking into the legends about the dragonballs, this never came up."

"...How far up does it go?" Sakura pressed her hand to the pole again and stared up into the sky, as if she could see something more than anyone else could have standing and looking up at it.

"I'm not going to check, if that's what you're implying." Pu'ar huffed. "It gets too cold to fly up there!"

Bulma glanced over at Pu'ar. and then toward Goku. "Well, we can go up and see once Goku's Nimbus cloud gets back. Right?"

"Uh..." He blinked. "I guess so..."

"Hey. Goku." Sakura looked at the youngest of their group as well. An...uncommon smile curled across her lips. It wasn't quite a smirk, but it held more mischief than he was used to seeing from the woman. "Let's climb up and see for ourselves."

Although the offer was directed at Goku, not himself, he still couldn't help breaking into a coughing fit in surprise. "What?"

(*)

Something about the pole...the monument...there had to be something about it, to go through so much trouble to build it and design it. It wasn't made of earth or stone as Earth jutsu would be, and it was painted. If Upa were still nearby, she could simply ask him. As it was...if she wanted to ask the child about it, she would have to wait until the cloud made it all the way to West City and back, and then detour away from their quest for dragonballs to make the trip herself.

Or, she could climb up and see if there was an answer up there.

Maybe there wouldn't be. It might have no discernible purpose. But then, it might also give a vantage point that would allow her to figure out where that last soldier might have escaped to.

And part of her just wanted to know how high up it went.

If they had to wait around anyway, climbing a giant pole into the sky had to be more interesting than staying in an empty village and thinking about the people they weren't present in time to save. Not only that, the climb might be good for Goku. Lady Tsunade had her climb a few walls during her training that were nearly as sheer, and without her chakra to help her stay.

"Yeah!" Goku grinned and ran up to the structure. "I wanna see what's up top, too!"

Yamcha's expression was more than a little bewildered. "You're both crazy. It's just a big rod sticking up in the sky, and you wanna climb it?"

"Yeah!" It didn't really surprise her that Yamcha's statement didn't faze Goku at all. It didn't seem to surprise Yamcha, either.

Bulma frowned. "You could both die if you fell from that."

"I used to climb things like this in my exams." That was an exaggeration, but she did walk up trees quite often once she became a genin. Honestly, if the worst happened, she'd just run up the damn thing. But climbing would take more time and effort, and presumably help pass the time better.

It also would be useful for Goku, as she hadn't had much opportunity to train with him since the tower.

Yamcha scoffed. "Are you trying to tell me wherever you trained had things like that people were supposed to scale?"

Obviously not. She was still going to do it, though.

"If you don't think you can do it, you can stay here." She wasn't actually sure if he could. Besides, if he did, it would leave Bulma alone in uncertain territory. Just herself and Goku would be fine.

She carefully selected a good handhold and pulled herself up off of the ground with it. On the other side, Goku jumped, and grabbed onto something a little lower.

"Hey! Let's race and see who gets to the top first!"

"...No, be careful." From where he was, it would be hard to get to him in time if he slipped and fell, and there was no telling what the state if the engravings would be up nearer to the top. If they existed at all. "Until we know what's up there, we'll take it slow."

He huffed in disappointment. "...I guess...but next time we'll do it!"

Yamcha sighed.

(*)

They'd been out of sight for a little bit now, above the trees, and he felt like...an idiot. Increasingly like an idiot. Bulma glared up through the trees in the direction they went, and kept mumbling to herself in irritation. He stood too far away to make out the words, but that might have been for the best. It kept him from being pulled into it.

"...Your neck is gonna start hurting."

He blinked, and turned over to where Pu'ar floated. Was he looking up again? He hadn't even noticed this time.

"You know, if you want to go, I think you could make it."

"Hey." He gave a slight chuckle, summoning a bit more offense than he actually felt. "Come on, we've climbed stuff like that before, too."

"I know." Pu'ar glanced up at it. "That's why I said you could do it."

He huffed. "...What makes you think I want to? It's just some stick in the ground."

Pu'ar's expression looked much more offended than his had. But then...Pu'ar was right. No one knew him better, honestly. He might have been in love with Bulma, but...Pu'ar had been his friend, had gone through so much more, for much longer.

"...Yeah, okay. But what about Bulma?"

"What about me?"

He tried not to jump too visibly when he realized she somehow crossed the distance between them without him even noticing it. "Ah-Bulma!"

She planted her hands on her hips and puffed out her cheeks, frowning up at him. "You're not planning to start climbing up there too, are you?"

"Uh."

"Don't you know how dangerous that is? We don't know how high it goes up, or what it's like up there!"

"Yeah..." He scratched at his cheek. "But...I mean...it's not like I'd leave you behind here, anyway."

"You could carry her!"

"He could what?"

(*)

Somehow, no matter how high they climbed, the patterns remained distinct, intricate, ever changing and well painted. It didn't look particularly ancient, either. Had the village itself really managed to find a way to make this? And yet still they were completely destroyed by that small army.

She couldn't help but think it was almost entirely due to the General and that strange jutsu he used. Whatever it was. She'd felt it briefly, and Goku had described it happening. Possibly, he never had the chance to use it to its fullest potential against them. Maybe if he had, they'd have ended up more like the village below.

Well, maybe they'd have had to fight a bit harder, at least.

And maybe she hadn't been entirely truthful about the reason she wanted to climb it. Once she'd gotten her hands on it, once she'd gotten close enough to examine it...it wasn't made of stone. It also wasn't simply wedged into the ground somehow. This 'pole' was made of wood.

And it wasn't buried into the ground to keep it there. It was planted.

The only time she'd seen wood jutsu was from someone with Hashirama's DNA. The only time she'd seen a tree as large and intricate as this from a jutsu was from Hashirama himself. Or the thing that Madara...Obito claimed would unleash the global genjutsu.

That one worried her the most.

That tree shouldn't still exist, even in her world. She shouldn't be in this one.

Every few feet, the same rings jutted out from the tree. The designs carved into it were ever changing, mostly incomprehensible to her, but the handholds seemed to be reliable. No matter how high they climbed, that didn't seem to change. The trees broke apart for them, then fell off below them, faded into a distant green haze, and eventually vanished entirely.

The sun crawled across the sky as they climbed, and eventually, it vanished over the horizon.

Above, the tree disappeared into the distance just as much as when they started.

"I guess we couldn't have raced up here after all." Goku hadn't spoken much as they went. The climb wasn't all that hard for her, even without chakra to help, but it probably took a good bit of focus for him to climb it.

She summoned a small smile, even though he couldn't possibly see it. "Are you saying you're getting tired?"

"...Maybe...but..." He trailed off for just a moment, before his voice strengthened again. "I just wanna see what's up top even more!"

He reminded her a little of Naruto. He reminded her a little of Rock Lee.

She was pretty sure she simply projected familiar things onto him and anyone, anything around her. And that was why she climbed a giant tree in the middle of the freezing night, determined to reach the top just to see if there were a flower on the top.

Or, perhaps, a way home.

She'd fallen out of the sky, after all, hadn't she? She didn't need a wish to get here, and that meant somewhere, somehow, there had to be a way to get back where she belonged without needing to summon some magical creature and get something impossible out of it.

Her gaze swept across the designs on the tree.

In all the world, only one person was left who might know what it meant. After all the time and effort that went into its creation, no one would be left who knew what it was for, and only a handful of people would even know it existed. This was an entirely different world, not the Shinobi world, not even recognizable to the world of the Shinobi.

Something as terrible as this still existed in it.

It didn't really surprise her. She never thought this world was an escape. She never wanted one, when her team was left to fight that monster all alone without her.

Her fingers tightened on one of the rings until a fine crack ran through it and split into the tree trunk itself.

...Damn it.

Just how long would it take before she made it home again?

AN: Some renditions of the tower made it look painted, and that looks nicer to me than the plain colors it usually has. Thus, it is painted. There is good enough reason for it to be, so there.