AN: Oh ho I am super excited about the Saiyans. You have no idea. But yes, you are correct. Sakura is not completely static in her growth and abilities. As time progresses, she will continue to improve herself, as she always has. We'll see how much that's effective as time goes on and the bosses leap in strength.

And depending on how things continue to get out of control due to her interference.

I'm not sure if Goku would know what a godmother is, honestly. It's a concept he'd probably grasp quite easily once introduced to him, but at this (or that) point, he probably hasn't encountered it yet.

The Next Dimension Over

Chapter Forty-eight

She watched as the two struggled for the water through yet another day. At one point, Yamcha ducked down without warning, and Goku used his back as a boost to leap for it further than he could have normally done so. His fingers grazed the vase holding the water and nearly knocked it from the staff Korin had transferred it to.

Their teamwork was improving, without any solid instruction she found that pretty impressive.

More important than that, however, was what Bulma had said. What she'd been thinking before that, as well. So far, she'd assumed this was some sort of trial to earn the water by someone who was willing to allow them to improve and train as they went until they reached it. Presumably because he had some interest in giving them the water, and the water could do nothing without being earned.

But then...he'd went out of his way to make it more difficult, by forcing Goku to work with a teammate. He'd pointed out Goku's increased strength and speed when Goku hadn't noticed it himself.

He was allowing two people to compete and work together to get the water when only one would be able to drink it, if what he said was true.

She glanced over at Bulma, who stood with crossed arms, watching the display with open suspicion.

"Goku!" Yamcha shouted suddenly.

The smaller boy spun as he sprinted in the direction of the cat. As they met, Goku grasped his wrist and flung the man toward the cat. Rather unsurprisingly, Korin lunged out of the way of the human missile, and Yamcha landed harmlessly on the ground a foot beyond him, rolling to a crouch. Goku, meanwhile, drew his red staff and charged the cat. The swing of his staff wasn't to much effect, as Korin managed to side-step the attack in time regardless.

In the thin air, Yamcha's accelerated movements made almost no sound at all. Most likely, that was the reason Korin didn't notice the action at all. That, and the remarkable speed that Yamcha seemed to achieve whenever he used his technique. Rather than attempt to grab the vase, however, he connected the back of his heel with the top of the staff, and sent it flipping out of Korin's hand and through the air.

"Got it!"

"What are you doing-" The cat shrieked as Goku jumped.

Two things happened at once. Yamcha, having pushed himself too hard in the thin air of the tower top, collapsed to the ground in a wheezing fit, hand clasped to his chest. Goku, having jumped after the vase at high speed, dove off of the edge of the tree right along with the vase.

Damn it!

She sprinted across the room, ducking around the cat, and very nearly flung herself over the edge after him.

She very nearly slammed her face into his.

"Ah!" Goku stared up at her in surprise, barely halting his upward movement in time to keep from headbutting her.

For an unreasonable moment, she thought he'd somehow learned to fly, and that was the actual reason for the nimbus-like rescue experience the day before. She'd very nearly moved on to the more reasonable answer of the nimbus simply catching him when she dropped her gaze and noted his...tail.

Ah.

He must have caught his fall by wrapping it around the tall railing as he fell. Well, it was rather useful, having a limb like that.

After a moment, he grinned and pressed a hand on her shoulder, using their respective positions to flip over her onto the ground behind her. "It's okay! See? I've got the water now!"

She was about to turn around and smack him upside the head for doing something that risky...but the moment she turned back around, she spotted Yamcha on the ground, still struggling to get a full breath. His breathing didn't sound nearly as worrying as it had when he first collapsed, but Bulma still knelt over him with a tearful and worried expression. Pu'ar too, who had been dozing off a moment before, floated close to him.

Korin moved closer to him at the same time she did, and held out one of the small beans. "Give him this."

"He can't breathe!" Bulma hissed. "How is he going to swallow?"

"Carefully! Now hurry up and give it to him. It'll fix him."

The woman still looked suspicious, but finally nodded and took the bean from his...paw. With some hesitation, she pressed the bean between his lips, and Yamcha struggled to swallow it.

Sakura knelt down next to him just about the moment his breathing began to level out again, and what color had still faded from his face (his breathing had, after all, already been beginning to get under control again) returned with a pink flush.

"...Ugh..." He made a slow attempt to push himself up, then.

"Yamcha?" Bulma spoke, voice as worried as her expression. "Are you...?"

"Still...feelin' kinda dizzy." He gave a weak laugh. "Pretty sure that's normal for up here by now, though. Guess it's no more Wolf Fang Fist tricks while I'm here."

"Well..." Korin huffed. "A senzu bean won't help you with the presence of air."

"Exactly what did it help him with?" She frowned over at the cat. His reaction had nothing to do with hunger or depleted energy, so what would a bean with extra energy boosting effects do for him?

The cat gave a knowing nod. "It's a home remedy."

Goku, who had been silent since he'd realized the distress Yamcha was in, quietly walked up to his friend, and held out the water. "Here. You drink it first. You're the one who got it away from him!"

Yamcha shook his head slightly. "Nah...you've been trying longer. I can wait."

Goku squinted down at him for a moment, lips pursed in disappointment. Eventually, he gave a little shrug. "...Okay, but you drink it next! Then we can both be strong!"

He hesitated then, and looked over his shoulder, squinting at the cat. "...I can drink it now, right? You won't attack me."

"You got it fairly. Of course I won't."

"Okay!" He nodded quickly, and then unstopped the bottle. With some small amount of excitement on his face, he tipped the ornate looking vase up and took a few gulps of the water. When he finished, he set it down firmly in front of Yamcha, looking quite proud of himself.

Yamcha reached out for the vase next, and Bulma's gaze turned sharp, watching him closely.

"...Huh..." Goku frowned down at himself as Yamcha started to drink it as well. "...Nothing feels any different." He spun in a slow circle, looking down at himself. He jumped. Korin ducked his head, trembling slightly. Goku spun the other way, and then frowned over at Korin. "How come I don't feel any different?"

Finally, the soft sounds the cat made strengthened to outright laughter, and Korin tipped his head back slightly, snickering and laughing rather loudly. "Because it's only water!"

Yamcha broke into another coughing fit in the middle of drinking the water. "What?"

(*)

Damn.

Stupid.

Cat.

Honestly, he didn't even care that he felt stronger or faster. He didn't care that he understood Goku's fighting style better and could fight alongside him better. That was totally immaterial. He'd just spent days of his life-days-struggling to get tap water!

He rubbed his hands over his face in frustration.

He felt like a fool, even though he wasn't the only one not to figure out what was going on. At least if he'd known it was just training from the start, maybe he'd have applied himself differently! He probably wouldn't have ended up with that whole fit of almost not being able to breathe, too.

"Ugh." He thumped his head lightly against the trunk of the sadistic tree. Climbing down had, admittedly, been less of a terror than he expected it to be climbing up it. He was still pretty damn tired from the ordeal though, and as happy as he was to be in a normal amount of oxygen...the charred remains of the village around them just reminded him of what they could have been doing instead of wasting time training with that cat. It wasn't like they couldn't just come back if they wanted to.

Bulma stretched and fiddled with the watch on her hand, and Sakura stood near where Goku was playing with a tree, testing out his new strength and speed. The bright side of their delay was that the Nimbus certainly wasn't busy with the kid any longer. The nimbus still had taken a few minutes since Goku called it to appear.

Was that normal? Did it only rush up if he were shouting it in a worried voice? He honestly had never really looked into that before, given that...he couldn't ride the thing anyway. That, and Goku always seemed to have how it worked down just fine.

"Where are we going next?" Sakura was the one who called out, and her attention was on Bulma.

The woman looked up in surprise, and then dug around for her radar for a moment. "...Well..." She frowned, just as the cloud floated down into the clearing between them all. "There's three dragonballs to the south east of us. It must be someone else trying to collect the dragonballs."

"So...it's the army." He sighed.

Bulma also sighed. "...It's probably the army."

Goku pumped his fist enthusiastically. "Alright then! Let's go!"

(*)

They'd already spent a portion of the day training and climbing down the tower. She found it somewhat unsurprising that, after also waiting for the Nimbus to arrive, they couldn't make it to the base of the Red Ribbon Army (or at least wherever they stored their dragonballs, which was likely one in the same) on the same day they set out from the towering tree.

Still, the cloud moved faster than any of them could go on foot, and moving horizontally at all was an improvement over what they'd been doing for nearly a week. It had been useful enough to help store chakra while using a minimal amount of it (though it would have been wasted had she needed to use it when she fell), but it did little to advance their cause of collecting the dragonballs.

If Korin could read their minds, perhaps that's why he'd fabricated the lie of the water. Simply offering to improve Goku's skills would have been tempting, but...the promise of a quick boost had kept him even when he would have wanted to resume his search. Or at least it kept the rest of them.

She shook her head slightly. In the end, it hardly mattered. They were nearly finished collecting the wish, if it worked as it claimed to. The people they were looking to help were already dead, and not in any pressing danger of worse. Her way home...

That route wasn't a possibility anymore...so she would have to find another way. Chances were, she had plenty of time in which to do that.

The capsule house deployed with a puff of smoke, and their two miniature guests appeared a moment later. Pu'ar immediately moved to Yamcha's side once he was of appropriate height.

"There isn't much room...but it's still more than what was in that tower."

Bulma ran her fingers through her hair with a sigh. "More importantly, it's got a bathtub, right? I could use twenty." She offered a flirtatious smile toward Yamcha. "What about you?"

His face turned more than one shade of red, and whatever he stuttered, she couldn't quite make out from where she stood. Goku, naturally, ignored it completely and wandered toward the house with his hands behind his head. "I wonder if there's any food left..."

"Aren't you full?" Pu'ar gasped, moving after Goku as the other two also started toward the house.

"Uh...I guess..." Goku turned slightly to look up at the floating...animal. "But beans taste boring. I wanna eat something better."

As the others disappeared into the house, she settled down on the grassy hill they'd dropped it on top of. After this outcrop, the land they'd been flying over ended, and in the haze of the night, she couldn't make out any other land past the water. Somewhere in that direction, though, lay three more dragonballs. And the heart of the army that terrorized the world.

This fight...it wasn't really hers. She had one to fight. One that she missed, one that she failed her friends and teammates on when they needed her. One they might not have needed her for beyond that point...but she wasn't there anyway.

Honestly. The lives of some small...settlement, not even a proper village? What people thought or did in this world, why should it matter to her? It was just another dimension, right? Was it even real? Was it just some strange projection of Kaguya? A genjutsu so powerful nothing she did disrupted it at all?

Her gaze stared down at the grass, and her fingers dug deep into the ground.

Was anything even real? Did it even matter?

Didn't she have loyalty to her village, to her friends, to think about? Damn it, what the hell kind of a ninja was she, giving up the one opportunity she'd been presented to go home and be of some use to her village for the sake of some other village whose welfare was of no consequence to Konoha.

She slammed her fist into the ground, and watched it split violently down toward the sea.

Strength...isn't important at all.

She slumped onto her back, and stared up at the unfamiliar night sky.

All the strength in the world wouldn't do a damn thing to bring her home again.

Not one.