AN: So I'm kind of tempted to make a tumblr account to house things that wouldn't go here. Art made for this story, snippets of things that might expand on scenes by showing alternate POVs, or alternate stories that wouldn't fit in The Dimension After Next (you know, fanfics of a fanfic. Shippy stories or smut or things that just won't go here or fit on FFN). They'd be my creations, but there's no reason that submissions couldn't also be allowed. Would that be an interesting thing to do?

Not gonna lie, Tien/Sakura was not one I actually thought about while writing it, but I can see where that would come from now. Hah.

I can't answer many of the questions that address the future: either because it isn't decided or because I know, but it'd be spoilers. I will say though that this story will not hit any dead ends. Unless it's because I stop writing. But I mean, a change will not happen which results in a Sierra Ending, where there is no escape from death due to an earlier change. That's the only amount of course corrections I'll take that aren't purely an outgrowth of IC behavior or ripples.

It's also worth noting that through the Tournament arc, the boys have been dealing with 'Ino'. They don't know they're dealing with Sakura. They're not as friendly to Ino.

I think someone communicated surprise about Goku still having his tail weakness despite training and the lack of it in this point in canon. Remember that in canon his weakness was so comically abused that it was literally ripped off once by abusing it. In canon he had no choice but to get over his weakness. In this story, it hasn't been used on him...I think since Pilaf's castle, which he doesn't really remember. At most it might have been used on him once or twice during this story, but it's definitely not 'need to fix this ASAP'. Sakura simply didn't know to train him about it, and neither did he.

Finally, a reminder and slight change to review rules - do not fight in the reviews section. I understand refuting points, but if I see a back and forth about power levels, I'm deleting it. Take it to a forum. If your review literally does nothing more than attack a reviewer for liking the story when you don't, I'll also delete it, because that's way too hostile an environment for reviews. If your review has literally NO SUBSTANCE and is just 'wtf this crap' I'll probably delete it. If you want to anonymously complain, put effort into it. If your review is not a review and doesn't even touch on the story, such as purely being 'whoops autocorrect' and nothing more, I will delete it.

Essentially - don't spam up the review section and make it impossible for people to actually read it. Reviews and refutations of reviews which include information useful for someone reading reviews ('she did this' 'no she did that' kind of thing) are fine. Things that are NOT REVIEWS or are nothing more than angry trolling are going to probably get deleted because I am bored of it. Reviews are not a chat room, don't send five one or two line reviews of the same chapter when you could have fit all of your thoughts into one review. Cool? Cool.

The Next Dimension Over

Chapter Eighty-five

She couldn't really expect to hit the lizard creature. How could she even try for accuracy when all she saw was blood and fire and red? Seeing him saunter in so arrogantly, behaving so dismissive and flippant, the rage and the guilt were so great inside her that she was almost afraid she'd explode.

Part of the wall did, instead. And two more walls in the distance.

Maybe she should hold back more. After all, if she decimated the man in one hit, how could she make him suffer? She couldn't tear him into bloody pieces and punish him as long as possible if there was nothing left of him to break.

Yamcha jumped into the creature's path with a speed that was a definite improvement over what she'd seen in their match a year ago. Air sheered into the curtains behind him from his sudden burst of speed, and perhaps due to the lizard's distraction slipping away from her, Yamcha landed a punch right in the creature's face, forcing the lizard to stagger backward a step or two.

"You know..." The man rasped, utterly unconcerned. "I'm just a little impressed! As pathetic a fight as that other one put up, I thought you'd all be as boring."

"DON'T YOU DARE INSULT KRILLIN!" Goku gave an enraged scream of his own, flying through the air, leg outstretched.

For just a moment, he lifted his hand, ready to grab the younger boy's leg out of the air and counter attack.

It really was a stupid thing to insult Krillin. But it wasn't his worst mistake of the day. A burst of chakra flooded through her limb as her own hand shot out, seizing his wrist and crushing it into nothing. Goku contacted with the man's stomach a moment later, sending him flying into another wall, and tearing the wrist and hand off of him completely.

First piece down.

The creature howled and hissed in pain as it held it's arm in its only remaining hand. "Wh-what is...?! How could you-?!"

"So you just busted in here and underestimated the strongest fighters in the world after you killed one of our friends, huh?" Yamcha growled, advancing on the man. Goku threw a flurry of punches at the lizard, who managed to deflect and dodge most of them for the moment, dancing out of the way, movement hampered considerably in the small space and without his wings.

"Well you know what? I was already pretty pissed off today, and that was before you killed my friend."

The lizard turned and jumped through the air to avoid a double attack from Yamcha and Goku. As he went, one of those bright lights zapped out from his eyes. Just slightly, it grazed one of Goku's arms, burning a stripe of his skin and earning a pained cry from him. Not nearly as pained as it was enraged, however.

Another one of Yamcha's lightning fast strikes flew through the air, causing the creature to try to twist to avoid it again, in mid-air. It succeeded...but at the cost of landing badly on the ground. He stumbled on the uneven ground, just a step, and she seized his arm and chin. In an instant, she snapped his arm, shattering his shoulder so completely that it hung uselessly by skin alone. It would have been easy to kill him. Right then and there. Her teeth grit, and she growled in a voice deeper than she'd needed to use in...a long time. "You're just full of bad decisions today."

Her fingers dug into his neck. The urge to rip his throat out right then and there was so strong an urge to do it that her whole body trembled. Damn it. She wanted to kill him. She wanted to tear him to pieces. She wanted him to suffer. He wasn't suffering enough, and everything burned and ached.

It hurt. Everything inside her and every part of her hurt, like she'd been the one to take whatever attack had burned Krillin. Was this what it felt like to be devoured by hatred and grief? This last straw, losing someone here, after she'd lost everyone already? Failing to protect someone because of her own mistakes again, was this the darkness that Naruto had somehow overcome? Because...she...she wasn't completely sure if she could.

Light flashed, and electricity lanced all over her arms, spreading quickly through her body.

Her scream of pain was automatic, not even something she had any control of, triggered by the electricity itself - some sort of sudden lightning jutsu she hadn't even seen him start from where she stood behind him. For a few moments, her legs ceased to work.

"Sakura!"

Quite a few things happened at once. Or at least they seemed to. Her vision was a bit blurred. Her perception of time was likewise fuzzy as she fell. Already, her chakra was gathering in her body, seeking out the damage to fix it. It wasn't really a danger. Hands and arms that were slightly leathered and charred from the direct contact already began to heal even as she fell.

The lizard man moved to escape - away from all of them to the doorway. Maybe he knew the damage he'd taken was too much to handle them and needed a distraction to flee. Goku and Yamcha both shouted - rage, horror, surprise, she didn't know, because it was a bit too distorted to tell. They moved at speeds that they should be proud of.

Her head whipped backward enough to strain her neck slightly, but somehow didn't connect with the floor.

Arms.

Ah. She'd been caught.

Goku flashed by her vision, contacting with the retreating man, and the hands of the other...Yamcha, then, cupped her cheek, expression worried and concerned to an extent that it might have been panic. Like the man didn't know she could heal far worse than this easily. Idiot. He should have been dealing with that man, not her.

Quite a few powerful thuds rang out just outside of her vision, restricted as it was by his hand holding her face in place. Once her chakra network reoriented itself she'd be able to knock his hand away and look properly, but for a moment it was just giving him what she hoped was a frustrated and angry expression.

Goku called out indistinctly, no longer distorted, but drowned out by the ringing in her ears. Light flashed, but-damn it, she couldn't see. Yamcha looked up briefly and then back at her, mouthing words of concern he really, really didn't need to do.

"-Okay? Damn it, Sakura, are you alright?! If you're hurt, you're the only one who knows how to do your healing tricks!"

She groaned, finally regaining tingling control of her limbs - which quickly smoothed away into nothing. Her hands pressed against his chest and she stumbled to her feet as she shooed him away. The concern for her was wasted, really. Something like that might hurt, but it didn't do any real damage. If she'd been paying better attention to him instead of her own anger and pain, she wouldn't have even been distracted and surprised by it.

Her gaze turned to around the room, seeking the enemy.

...The charred remains outside the building through the broken door was probably him.

Her hand gripped into a fist for a moment. She...really shouldn't be angry or disappointed. The man was dead. He'd been punished. And she was there to make sure no one else was hurt after she'd failed Krillin. If Goku killed him...it didn't really matter if he did it, Yamcha, or her. She just...

She shook her head quickly, as Goku made his way over to where Krillin's body was left. Fortunately, the battle had gone away from that spot almost immediately. The body was still intact. If that...mattered. It did. It had to.

She...

"Damn it..." Yamcha growled and shook his head. He'd stood at some point, hands clenched at his sides as well, and his gaze turned between the remains of the attacker and Krillin. "Damn it. We don't even know why. He just...waltzed in here, killed someone, and we have no idea who he even was!"

All the anger and the grief and the helplessness...it just left her feeling empty. And weak. The one who'd been there to cheer her up, give her hope when she'd lost her world...

Now he was the one she'd failed.

She shook her head slowly.

"Wha...what the hell was that thing?!"She blinked, glancing at a matching expression of confusion from Yamcha...and turned her head toward the somewhat familiar in the corner of the room, safely away from danger or bodies, was the announcer for the tournament.

...Just when did he get there?

(*)

In the chaos of the sudden attack...or, rather, in the chaos of one of the participants ending up mysteriously killed and the others attacked, no one could figure out what happened to Ino Yamanaka. It was possible that she'd run away from that guy, and it was possible she'd been killed somehow by him when she'd left to do something else.

She might have done her disappearing act and forfeited again, but he didn't really care. Getting crowned 'champion' by default was about as hollow a victory as he could appreciate anyway, when his friend was dead for no discernible reason by some freakish monster that came from nowhere.

Bulma was the first one to offer any kind of a reasonable comment, but maybe that's because...she was that kind of person. Just because she was suffering didn't make her any less of a genius. Or maybe...traveling with and living with Krillin less gave her a little more distance, and made it a little less...personal.

Maybe he was being uncharitable and angry because he'd wanted to avenge Krillin twice, and in the end couldn't even manage to protect his friend, instead.

"I'll put him in a special coffin. It will preserve him until you can get the dragonballs." Bulma gave a slow, shaky nod. "It...it'll be alright. Whatever that was...well, you guys killed him, right? So we can just gather the dragonballs and fix this all like it never happened."

Sakura frowned, and Goku shook his head. He agreed. Even when they brought him back - and they would, dammit - it wouldn't be like nothing happened. Guilt didn't just disappear that easily. He knew that one pretty damn well.

Master Roshi shook his head and slowly made his way over to the corpse of the culprit. "It...just...doesn't make much-"

The old man's voice cut off suddenly, and Yamcha quickly turned his own head to see what it was. A part of him was a little afraid yet another threat had appeared - or Tien might have returned to cause more damage. The latter was...more of a hope than a fear.

Neither was so.

Instead, his old teacher bent over the burned remains and sifted through the pockets in the torn and charred pants. Which was...actually kind of a good idea. If he'd been thinking straight, he'd have gone searching for identification and a reason for the attack, too.

"This..." The old man straightened. He held some kind of paper, charred on the edges and burned slightly inward. A symbol was clearly visible on it still, though. Some...kind of circle? With the word 'devil' in it? Was it some kind of cult, maybe?

"This can't be...possible." The way his master's voice trembled was...

It couldn't have been just a cult.

"Master...what is it?" He made his way closer to the Turtle Hermit, so that he could get a better look at it. Maybe there were more details to see to explain the uncharacteristic reaction. "What have you found?"

"This...this is...the most dangerous thing the world has ever known."