AN: I'm getting tired of the hostility in the review section. There are six hundred Naruto x Dragonball fanfics written in English on FFnet. Whether you want to watch Naruto become a Saiyan and abandon chakra to become a Super Saiyan Kitsune God, or whether you'd like to watch Yamcha go to Konoha and sort out the world's problems on his own there are stories to suit your tastes (Kidding- the Yamcha one doesn't exist. The Next Dimension Over seems to be the only story to list Yamcha as a main character. Poor guy. But still.) There's tons of stuff to show how much weaker one or the other is.
This story is not that, and it isn't ever going to be that, because I think that's boring. Sakura will get stronger as the story goes on because that's what she does, not because she's been blessed with ultra ki hax. If you don't approve of that kind of story, that's fine. If you want to read it anyway, even knowing it will never be the way you want it to be, you can do that, too, even though I don't see why you'd want to. Attacking people who like the story, though? No. Not okay, and I will not tolerate it further.
The Next Dimension Over
Chapter Eighty-One
She brushed away a trail of blood that ran from her split lip down her chin. Of course she could have healed it, but it wasn't necessary. Showing off that she had healing abilities wouldn't be the best idea. As it was she already had to discard most of her reservations about holding back to hide her identity from Goku. Revealing her regenerative or healing abilities would just make it worse.
Besides. He looked bloodier than she did. His cheeks were bruised and cut open, wrists and knuckles scraped raw and bleeding, and by the look of the bruising, something in one of his feet were probably at least fractured.
It might or might not have something to do with why he floated over the ring now.
"Do you think you'll be as good at dodging as that other guy?" He smirked down at her, well out of reach.
She glared up at him, one hand clenched into a fist. "Want to see what will happen to you when I do?"
He laughed, pointing down at her with one hand. "I'd love to see what you think you can do."
She flipped backward out of the way of one of the beams that Chaotsu littered the arena with the previous battle. Unlike those, the stone and cement shattered outward where it contacted, sending a spray of debris through the air and leaving a small impact crater.
Letting him pelt the arena with those would make future rounds more difficult.
He wasn't as fragile as Chaotsu. If she'd ever doubted that, their battle so far made that clear. Even if he didn't expect her to possess a technique like Yamcha's, there wasn't any guarantee he wouldn't recover and continue the fight just the same.
She needed to find a way to get up there. Or drag him down for good.
Just how did he bend ki in such a way that he flew? It was such a complex and secret jutsu, how could someone who only used ki manage to master it? How did anyone learn advanced jutsus if he were using chakra? It didn't make any sense.
"Hey, look out!" Yamcha shouted from behind her. Not far. Tien had been pushing her back toward the wall with the rain of beams.
A larger one shot down at her. If she dodged wrong, she'd land outside the barrier of the arena. If she did it right...it would back her into a corner and make the next dodge almost impossible, and a hit would probably be worse.
Damn...
She grit her teeth.
Her seal flared to life, facing safely away from Goku. For this, she needed much more chakra than usual. If it worked at all.
There wasn't time for doubt.
She took a half step forward, and punched the beam of energy with all of her strength.
Her scream of effort echoed almost as loudly in her ears as the explosion.
Brilliant light flared in her eyes, and the beam scattered in several directions around her: the wall, the ring, the grass. The air between her hand and the blast lit on fire briefly, before the shock wave smothered it out again. Her body ached, her lungs burned.
The man in the air looked genuinely surprised.
In truth, the air and her chakra disrupted his ki. She could never have summoned enough ki to disrupt his, not on short notice, but she knew very well how easily it could be disrupted and lose cohesion. Chakra and Ki were merely two forms of the same thing, so...well, it was lucky her guess worked, anyway.
But it probably looked like she just punched his attack into nothingness.
She seized the opportunity provided by his brief surprise. Two quick steps, and a powerful jump closed the distance between them quite well.
(*)
"What!?" His voice might have cracked a little there, but honestly. It took a moment for him to even manage to say anything. Did that...? What just happened?
He glanced over at his companion briefly, as if the younger one might have a better answer.
Goku gripped onto the top of the broken wall, as if he were either contemplating running out there right then, or that he was attempting to suppress that urge. Rather than confused, he merely looked excited and impressed.
...It wasn't all that surprising a reaction from him.
"I wanna learn how to do that!"
He squinted up at the woman. She'd made a pretty impressive leap for barely moving before she went. The performance she showed today was...on a different level from the tournament before. This time...she didn't seem to be holding back.
But why not? Just anger? Over someone she barely even knew?
"...I'd like to know that, too." It was pretty awesome. Punching away an energy blast would be pretty useful if future tournaments decided to all turn out like this one.
Or another evil army wanted to collect dragonballs some day.
But he'd never heard Master Roshi mention anything about that kind of thing. Some strange woman who wasn't an ex-student of the old man (apparently Sakura was the only female he'd taught. Aside from a half-hearted and ultimately failed attempt with the crazy bandit woman). If she wasn't a Turtle student, what student was she, that she had so much skill, and even techniques he didn't recognize?
All that and he still couldn't even figure out where she was from, or anyone who knew her.
Who the hell was she?
(*)
It was a little bit satisfying to actually hit him after having to dodge around his attacks - and having him dodge most of hers - for so long. That it was a full body collision wasn't really enough of a demerit to matter. Her force and weight knocked him off balance, sending both of them spinning through the air.
Toward the ground, but it wasn't as if he wasn't already quite a distance from it when they started.
She managed to land two punches before he twisted and sent her spinning away from him.
If she lost control, it would send her spiraling out of the ring, and there'd be nothing she could do.
She clasped a hand onto his wrist and anchored herself there with chakra. The impact yanked on her arm hard enough it nearly pulled her shoulder from its socket. At least the flicker of discomfort in his expression meant that it likely did the same to him.
So they both fell.
If he stopped himself, he'd stop her. If he kept dropping, they'd both hit the ground.
He spun the both of them, free arm lancing out in an attempt to knock her away. Obviously, she just gripped onto his other wrist.
An inch above where the ring would be, they stopped. At least, he did. It took considerable effort to keep rigid instead of falling down to the ground, which must have been the plan with his sudden halt. The way his eyes widened in surprise when she didn't cemented that.
"...You might as well give up, now." His lips quirked up into a mirthless smile. "It's the only opportunity you're getting to end this fight with a little bit of dignity left."
Well, if he thought her endurance would run out any time soon, he was very wrong. Whatever he was doing to hold himself up, she could probably stay this way longer than he could stay floating. But if they were to suddenly drop...she'd need to be sure he didn't do something underhanded to ensure she touched the ground first.
And it wasn't nearly the way she wanted him beaten.
"Funny."
She pulled on his wrists suddenly, tucking her knees under her stomach. As expected, the action caught him somewhat off guard. However his ability worked, it did allow her to successfully pull him closer, too. Above her. With just a second, he'd undoubtedly be able to slam her down into the ground and end the fight.
She didn't give him that.
Legs slammed into his gut as she twisted the both of them. The force of her double kick served two purposes simultaneously: sending him toward the wall of the competitors, and propelling her back to the arena itself. She skidded along the stone to safety, and strands of blonde hair partly obscured her vision of his form.
"Amazing!" The voice of the announcer rang out through the area. Had he been silent all this time, or had she been too distracted to hear him? "By only millimeters, Tien managed to stop himself before impact! What a thrilling twist in this exciting battle!"
Damn.
Well, she'd expected to pay that price.
The air stirred through her chopped short hair.
She slapped away the fist that came for her face so narrowly that the disturbed air from the near-impact sliced through the skin on her cheek where it missed.
"Nice try." His open palm slammed into the middle of her chest, and quite abruptly she found herself flying through the air in an entirely different manner than moments before.
Stone and wood cracked behind her as her back slammed into an already damaged wall. Not a surprise. His ultimatum would have been a bit silly if he'd followed up her rejection by immediately trying to knock her out of the ring again.
...Probably.
She'd have to be more careful.
"Hey, you can do it!" Goku called from over her shoulder.
For someone who wanted to fight her opponent, he sounded pretty determined.
She stomped her foot into the ring as he shot toward her. One of the stones dislodged and lifted up just in time to trip him up. Of course, he only stumbled a step or two, but she was already in the air again. Her leg connected solidly with his stomach and sent him flying away again.
Obviously, he'd stop himself before he hit anything outside of the ring. Their last clash made that obvious now. So, she didn't wait for that. Another quick step and a jump into the air, and her heel slammed down right in the middle of his stomach.
The ring exploded. Dirt and stone showered outward in every direction, and he vanished into the crater beneath it.
She narrowly managed to lurch backward out of the way of one of those brilliant ki blasts, aimed from somewhere at the bottom of the pit.
"That's the match!" The voice of the announcer cut through her thoughts, and she stumbled a step. "And what an amazing showing it was!"
"Wha-?"
Wait, what had she done? Had she broken a rule?
"You can't-!" Tien appeared out of the crater of the ring, face red with irritation, expression twisted into an outraged scowl.
"I'm afraid you made contact with out of bounds beneath the ring. That's a ring out." The man's sunglasses gleamed as he watched the pair of them. Or perhaps just Tien. She couldn't make out exactly where he was looking with as tinted as those lenses were. "Although it's certainly the first time such a feat has ever been achieved at this tournament! Let's give these incredible participants the applause they deserve!"
What...?
"No-"
The crowd's enthusiastic cheers drowned out her protests, and the man continued on with his enthusiastic announcements as if neither of them had said anything at all.
Tien glared down at her, having finally climbed out of the pit left in the ring. "See how well that technicality works out for you next time."
He brushed off excess dirt and stalked away, hopping from the ring and making his way toward the crowd.
Damn it-
"Get back here! I'm not done with you!"
He hadn't learned any kind of lesson yet!
He actually did stop at her shout. For a moment he simply stood still, and then he looked over his shoulder with a smirk that was far too irritatingly smug for a man who'd just lost.
...Rather than say anything, though, he rocketed off into the sky. The crowd cheered just about as much as if he'd been the victor.
She gripped a hand into a fist, just to suppress the urge to damage the ring any more than it already was.
"Bastard."