AN: Sakura can't have taught Goku how to fly yet, because she doesn't know how to fly. Sakura wouldn't have an opinion about a world without wars, because as it stands she hasn't encountered that. After all, the Red Ribbon Army already tried to take over the world and terrorized the whole place in the year that she's been there.
Whew. An inventory day, sprained ankle, sickness, pneumonia, and a holiday later I finally have time for another chapter!
...Yeah, okay, I totally lost track of time there for a while. And this saga is not the easiest to write, lemme tell ya.
The Next Dimension Over
Chapter Seventy
She'd heard of quite a few 'demons' before, but a king of them, that would be new. Although, she hadn't seen many kings at all, as they were somewhat outdated, and only remained in scattered civilian nations that predated daimyos or wished to pretend that they did.
She squinted up at the over sized gate before them. It looked out of place, not sculpted out of the rock face around it, but built. A tailed beast could fit through the gate, and that...was a little concerning over the size of what might be inside.
She couldn't say for sure what was in there, though, because the doorway was unnaturally dark, a wall of black standing at the threshold of the towering gate. Which was more concerning.
"Beyond those gates...is the domain of the Demon King Shula." The voice of the king spoke from behind her. "As you can see, the gate has been held open by the sword of the king himself." The man rode next to them and gestured down to a wicked looking blade jutting from the rocky ground, wedging the heavy door open. "As long as he lives, no one can pry it from the rock. His strength is too great."
"Wha?" Goku frowned over his shoulder at the man and then quickly sprinted over to the sword, eager to try his strength against the unspoken challenge. The small boy tugged and groaned, shifting about to get better leverage, face turning red from effort...and managed to move the sword not at all.
If what the king said was true, then somehow the weight of the sword in the ground was tied into the strength of the demon. If Goku couldn't lift it, that said unpleasant things. Potentially.
"...Without defeating Shula, it is impossible to remove the sword." The king gave a soft sigh as Goku frowned down at the sword. "But perhaps that is best for now."
She turned her gaze over to the monarch on the horse. "What? Why?"
"If the gate were closed before my daughter were retrieved, there might be no way to retrieve her in time."
"...What are you talking about?"
"The gate only opens with a key."
She frowned and crossed her arms as she watched Goku make a second, no better fared, attempt. "How was it opened this time?"
"That...is not known."
She pursed her lips, and walked toward the door where Goku stood. "I have an idea."
Goku glanced up at her as she approached. "Do you wanna try?"
"Step back a little." She walked forward as he took a step back, and - gathering a little bit of extra chakra, just in case a jutsu might be involved in the sword's placement - slammed her fist into the ground next to it.
With very little fanfare, the ground collapsed inward, and the sword clattered violently down into the pit, crashing with weight the metal itself shouldn't have held.
"Don't let the door close!" The king shouted with scandalized urgency.
Goku, who still stood near to the heavy structure, immediately turned and slammed both of his hands against it, stopping its inward swing after only an inch or two, heels digging into the ground. "Uh! This is gonna be hard...to open!"
"We can't open it once its closed. Just hold it that way instead."
Goku looked up at her in confusion. "What? Why?"
"When I come back with the princess, be ready to let it close behind me." She sprinted toward the door then, before he could come up with any further arguments.
"Hey!"
His indignant shout echoed as if it were disproportionately distant, and the light that poured through the doorway from the daylight outside faded into shadow far more quickly than it should have, as if her feet took her much longer distances than they should have.
In the end, it only indicated that she made the right choice.
Whatever this place was, and whoever the demon king happened to be...it was too dangerous to risk Goku's life for.
(*)
Shenanigans.
He'd never heard of anyone calling shenanigans on a venerated teacher before, but he was about to call it on this old man. He'd been accepted initially as a student. It was actually easy, considering the kind of recluse he'd heard the man was.
Then he'd called the old man out about pushing giant rocks without actually doing it himself, and now he found himself out wandering the wildnerness to the west of the old man's island looking for 'someone pretty'. Honestly, he wouldn't have been able to tell if it was direct punishment preying on his fear of women, or if the man was just being exploitative.
He wouldn't have, if Krillin didn't make it clear this wasn't the first time such an ultimatum had been issued.
Krillin grumbled to himself as they walked down the empty road. The road which had been empty the entire stretch they'd walked along it. "Maybe we should have taken the helicopter..."
He sighed. "Yeah, but if we were up there, we'd miss anyone that we passed anyway."
"I don't know about-" Krillin's response cut short at the sound of a scream in the distance.
(*)
The only things she could contribute to Team Seven had been small and insignificant. Even all of her strength paled next to the power that Sasuke and Naruto held, all of her smarts fell far behind Kakashi, and eventually Naruto outgrew the need for even her healing. By the end, she'd been unable to even help, except to stand by and watch. She couldn't save them, and in the end she watched them die because of it.
But here...she could do something. She could face danger and deal with what needed to be dealt with while Goku remained somewhere safe, out of danger, far away from gourds that could devour him or beings of ultimate power that could destroy him before she could do anything.
Maybe this demon king was only about as threatening as anyone else they'd met, maybe the king out there was wrong about what held that sword in place. Maybe he wasn't wrong. Besides, one of them needed to be ready to close the door when the angry army tried to follow them out with the liberated princess.
She sprinted through the darkness until the dim light of torches ahead of her brought with it the hazy visage of a large amphitheater. The columns stretched off into the darkness above far enough that none of the light seemed to reach the ceiling. Pathways stretched off in front of her, to her left, and to her right.
A spear nearly the length and width of her body flew from the darkness toward where she ran. Clearly the darkness hid more than just the height of the room. She flipped over the weapon and spun toward the direction of the attack. With three paths...perhaps it would be better to ask which direction led to the king (or the princess).
Before she could decide what to say, a sword almost the size of the spear swung from the darkness. As she ducked under it, the figure holding the weapon now stood close enough that she could just make out its form in the gloom. A massive figure.
"You don't belong here!" The male voice boomed off of the pillars and floor around her, making her head hurt a little.
"I agree." She clenched her fist and settled back on her heels, waiting for another attack. "But neither does the princess."
The sword swung again, and this time she leaped onto the blade itself and raced up toward the figure itself. Metal clattered to the ground as he dropped the blade, and she bounced off of it, fist pulled back. Knocking him out was obviously not the ideal answer, but keeping him from continuing to swing at her with something that could cut her in half with one swipe was a good idea.
Another hand contacted hers before she could, small and from the entirely wrong direction, pushing her strike to the side, and causing her to flip through the air away from both of her attackers. She tucked her feet under her and slid along the ground in a crouch, stopping her momentum before she could hit one of the solid looking columns.
"Hey, if that's the best you've got..." A slim woman appeared in the torchlight, hair flowing around her in a dramatic manner that should have required more than the light breeze present in the room. "You've got no chance against Shula anyway. Go back where you belong before the two of us have to kill you."
Two, then? That...was probably the best she could have hoped for, considering how many others the large room could have accommodated.
She straightened as she watched the tall woman in front of her. "That's not gonna happen."
The woman gave a soft scoff and crossed her arms. "If that's your choice. Don't say I didn't warn you, human."
Metal flashed through the air, and she ducked just as a kunai flew by where she stood. Her leg lanced out, and the woman flipped off of the ground, landing lightly on the same pole that the kunai stuck into. She stood horizontally on the side of the pillar.
...Huh.
No one else had managed that in this world yet.
She spun on her heel and slammed her fist into the column, decimating most of the structure up to where the woman stood, and sending dangerous cracks racing through the rest of it. Just one of them probably wouldn't be enough to send the roof down on them, but it would discourage the woman from using height as an advantage in a place where she could so easily vanish into the darkness.
The woman gasped, and behind her she could hear that giant stumble a few steps backward.
She couldn't help a little grin. Honestly, she still hadn't grown out of showing off a little. "Like I said. That's not gonna happen."
The woman was silent for a few moments, and metal whistled through the air again, as the brute swung his sword. Before Sakura needed to move, though, the woman spoke, voice harsh. "Stop, Gola!"
"..Uh?" The figure behind her - Gola, apparently - grunted heavily in confusion.
"I guess maybe I underestimated you." The woman gave a little shrug. "But it's going to take more than just brute strength if you think you can beat Shula."
She straightened slowly, gaze still on the woman, ears still listening for another strike from the brute behind her. "I've got a little more than that on my side."
"Yeah? Well...we'll see." The woman gave another huff, and then pointed off toward one of the hallways. "If that's who you're looking for, you'll find him down there. The marriage ceremony should be starting just about now. But don't say I didn't warn you if he kills you."
"Worry more about him." She turned, and sprinted off in the indicated direction. Normally, it'd probably be better to just defeat those two so she could escape easily...but if the king was already starting the marriage ceremony, she had limited time to work with.
And she didn't need to worry about Shula killing her. She couldn't die. Not until she'd brought everyone back.
The hallway wasn't as long as it'd seemed from the dark room, and the soft glow of strange looking circular lights that floated above her head lit it more than well enough for her to see everything around her. The hallway ended in another large room, this one packed with various twisted looking beings in many colors. Some looked humanoid like the woman in the other room had. Others looked like a cross between humanoid and strange, unidentifiable animals. One or two hulking beasts that stood on the far end of the room were...probably what she'd almost fought back there.
In the middle of the room was a small circular ring that looked quite similar to the tournament ring. Near to that on an elevated dais sat a frightened looking girl in a nightgown - the princess - and a tall purple man in lavish robes. The demon king Shula. Guards flanked either side of the throne, and the girl had been tucked in quite close to where he sat.
...Possibly, she could run in and get her before anyone could react.
Or, that king was as dangerous as everyone kept telling her.
A green figure with horns shouted out at the audience in the room about some sort of feat of strength to celebrate the marriage. She slipped through the rowdy crowd with...probably less shoving than she would have needed if they weren't all so strangely shaped.
Maybe, with the distractions, she could sneak close enough and ferry the princess away.
In fact...she ducked behind one of the bigger looking figures and quickly summoned a shadow clone, disguising it into...something close to one of the figures she bumped by. If it went out and distracted the crowd with a good fight, she might just be able to get the princess away before anyone ever landed a hit on it.
She wove through the crowd a little more carefully then, as her clone walked into the main ring and volunteered to fight. She couldn't pay much attention to it, but much more than a simple script probably wouldn't be necessary for a short exhibition match.
Her other self slammed one of the creatures through the ring, causing the crash to reverberate off of the walls of the cavern, and the crowd gave shocked shouts. She pressed her back to the wall, and crept slowly to the dais, utilizing all of her skill to slip through the shadows and not disturb the air around she or the guards she snuck by.
Slowly...carefully.
She knocked the princess out.
Because it was much easier to substitute the girl with an illusion when the girl wouldn't fight and scream because an unfamiliar woman just grabbed her in a hostile and frightening situation. Hopefully the other king would forgive the necessary roughness.
The crowd roared, rowdier than ever, as the figure of herself taunted challengers. Soon enough the men would probably riot, and it would become difficult for anyone to know exactly when the princess escaped at all. If things went well, the gate would be long shut before they came for it.
A brighter light than the rest of the room shone on the doorway only a few feet from her. She ducked immediately, shielding the unconscious princess, and a blast of ki exploded against the wall in a burst of purple flame.
"If you leave before the end, I'll take it as a great offense." Ahead of her, the figure of the king materialized right out of the shadows left in the hallway. Directly in her way. "If that were to happen...I'd have no choice but to kill every single human in your world."