Where's Son Goku? ~ 33

The morning sun was beginning to filter into the deadly forest, as three genin trekked ever closer to the tower located in the center of the training grounds. From where they were, they could see the tower in walking distance, and a smile crossed Shikamaru's otherwise stoic face. He turned to look at Ino, "We can finally relax until the next portion of the exam." He said, as all three of the genin dropped down from the branch and started walking toward the tower.

There was no one camped outside the tower plotting to take scrolls, since everyone else in the forest had moved to part that Vegeta and Gaara were fighting in. Their curiosity made it easy for Team Asuma to run straight to the finish line while everyone else was distracted. If things would have went normally in the forest, despite how good at hiding they were as a team; they would have been set back because someone would have likely overpowered them for their scroll. Thank kami for Vegeta's freakish strength.

Shikamaru had to admit, he was almost sucked into watching the fight, but his team had an objective at the end of the day.

"Sheesh, I'm so hungry after all that running," Choji rubbed at his belly and furrowed his brow as they approached the doors of the tower.

Each genin team, should they make it this far had an assigned entrance once they finished the exam. It was the same number of the gate they entered from, and Ino wasn't hesitant to push open the set of double doors that led inside the tower. She walked in with her hands on her hips, expecting more, but Shikamaru grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back to him and Choji.

"Don't be stupid, Ino," Shikamaru furrowed his brow, looking around cautiously, but it truly was an empty room. "This could have been a trap that was apart of the test."

Ino's eyes traced along the room, only seeing hallways on a higher level that led somewhere else, and then plastered on the wall was a message. She pointed at the message, "This isn't a trap, Shikamaru, read that."

Shikamaru read it quietly, while Choji read it out loud, "Without heaven… There's word missing, I'm confused," He looked back at his teammates and they had mixed reactions on their face. Shikamaru nodded in understanding, while Ino was still trying to piece things together.

Shikamaru pulled out all the scrolls they collected and tossed the excess ones to his partners, "I think it wants us to open our scrolls." After finding the portion of the forest full of dead bodies, they found five more scrolls to go along with the one they already had. After giving one of their extra Earth scrolls to Mao, which left them with three heaven scrolls and two earth scrolls. "I'll open mine first."

Ino and Choji watched in anticipation of what would transpire next, as Shikamaru hastily opened both of the scrolls expecting something bad to happen once he did so. There was no initial reaction, which made Team Asuma's shoulders slump collectively, but when smoke starting flying out of the scrolls; Shikamaru dropped it to the ground and jumped away.

Ino and Choji did the same, the blonde hair girl pulling out a kunai in case something was about to go horribly wrong.

When the smoke cleared, all three genin were on high alert, so when the two of the laziest Chuunin Konoha had to offer appeared out of the smoke; they all sweat dropped. They couldn't believe they thought a threat was coming mere moments ago, but when Kotetsu and Izumo were seen standing there scratching their heads with a grin they all visibly slumped.

Kotetsu grinned at the disappointed genin, "Why the long faces, fresh meat?" He asked with a raised brow, as he stepped forward to give the trio thumbs up. "You guys managed to pass in a day."

"Not quite a record, but still damn fast," Izumo complimented Team Asuma with a small smile. He held the open scroll he was summoned from and held it up for them to see, "You all will move along to the third test. You guys have four days to rest, and depending on how many people finish you'll probably be back to fighting the moment the rest of the kids pass."

Ino and Choji threw their extra scrolls to the duo, "I don't think a lot of people are going to make it out the forest alive," Ino said with a wary tone and folded her arms over each other. A shiver went up her spine while she recalled what she saw in the forest, "We found four teams dead within the first few hours, and then with the monster attacking at night; there had to be even more casualties. There can't be that many survivors."

Kotetsu tilted his head in confusion, "I heard about the monster attacking the forest last night, but you said you found a lot of dead bodies?" The whole team nodded in response, and he stroked his chin. Death was common in this part of the exam, but a cluster of dead bodies was rare to say the least.

"We found a girl still breathing, she said it was one kid doing all this, who knows how much more he got done since last night, and there's still four whole days," Shikamaru shook his head thinking about it. He started counting on his hands, "Twenty six teams entered, only half of them can truly pass, and with the extra scrolls we had two more teams are automatically disqualified. At this rate, only a handful will advance."

"Damn kid, you're smart," was the only thing Kotetsu deduced from Shikamaru's explanation and he silently nodded in agreement. "That'll make things interesting for sure."

"Yeah, the exams would go straight to the final round if only a few teams make it," Izumo informed the whole room.

"That sounds troublesome…" Shikamaru said under his breath.

"You better hope for that option, you'll get a whole month to rest," Kotetsu recalled with a smile. He didn't get any better as a shinobi during that time, but damn was he well rested.

Tired of the conversation, Choji finally spoke up, "Is there something to eat in this joint?"

. . .

(Forest Of Death)

Vegeta leaned against the base of the tree, staring into blank space, while his teammate Mai was wrapping bandages around Raditz's newly created nub. The Prince lowered his head, because despite how much he didn't want to admit it; he was exhausted. Fighting a Jinchuriki and walking away from the battle was no laughing matter, and it was starting to take a toll on his body.

He didn't need any dire medical attention, having already run damage control. His broken bones had been tended to, and by way of the highly illegal senzu powder purchased before he entered the forest; he would be up and running in no time. His partner on the other hand didn't have the same medical fortune bestowed upon him. Vegeta planned on keeping all of his secrets to himself.

Raditz was just as battered as Vegeta, broken bones, and a lot of internal bleeding. Was it mentioned that his own teammate cut off his hand to 'protect him'? He hadn't been able to move since the fighting cease, the only thing keeping his battered body going was the adrenaline of dodging deadly attacks from a tailed beast. Now it felt like his body was shutting down for the worst, "Hurry up and make this pain go away girl!"

Mai rolled her eyes as she finished wrapping the saiyan boy in bandages. She stood up and looked down on the 'almighty saiyan' who had his ass handed to him by a prepubescent boy, albeit possessed, but her point still remained, and shook her head. He was so stubborn, "As long as you don't move, you should be fine by the time the test is over." She turned to look at Vegeta, who was quietly staring at the morning sun as he himself recovered from his injuries. He had more reason to complain than Raditz, "How are you doing big guy?"

"I'm the strongest being to walk this planet, I think I'm going to be fine," Vegeta boasted as he pushed himself to a stand. His torn muscles and now brittle bones were starting to recover, but a stinging pain that nearly made him buckle over had to be held back in order for him to save face. He walked up to Mai, looking past her to stare at the disappointment that he called a partner in Raditz, "We can't waste anymore time."

"You're right," Mai saw how much struggle went into Vegeta getting off of the ground and grinned lightly. She reached into the boy's equipment pouch, showing just how weakened his defense truly was, and pulled out both scrolls they needed to pass. She put them in her own equipment storage and placed her hands on her hips, "You're weak as hell right now, but I think we're strong enough to pave our way to the tower, and we have that whole fear factor working for us now since you beat the Ichibi."

"Since were you declared the leader?" Vegeta asked with a snide tone and pushed her out of the way. He didn't give a damn about the exam anymore. He came to shed blood, "This exam means nothing to me, I'm a high ranking officer in that damn village in everything but the title. I'll be promoted regardless; right now we're going after Kakarot. He'll pay for running away from me in battle."

Mai's blue eye twitched, "I don't even know who Kakarot is, and Raditz is in no condition to move rig-" Her skin crawled when Vegeta stomped his foot hard enough to make a imprint in the forest floor. His oppressive energy nearly made her crumble, but he eased up once he had the girl's attention.

"Enough of that, you listen to me," He grabbed Mai by the arm and started dragging her across the ground toward Raditz. He tossed her right into the boy, "You watch over this sad excuse for a saiyan until I return. When I come back, we'll advance to that damned tower you care so much about." Vegeta jumped into the sky and flew off before Mai could interject and left her speechless.

"His ego will be his own undoing," Raditz said prophetically, before letting his head rest against the base of the tree.

"You're not really one to talk right now," Mai rolled her eyes and had no choice but to wait for Vegeta to come back.

. . .

After nearly being swallowed into the raging river, Chi-Chi had to make the executive decision of moving both her and Mao into the forest to find Goku. He still hadn't returned to the rendezvous point by the time the morning came, and at the point there was no more time to wait for him; they had to find him themselves.

The duo bounced from tree-to-tree in the search of their missing teammate. Mao's jutsu was constantly scanning their part of the forest for any traces of Goku's chakra, and she wasn't far from falling over from exhausting her energy, "If you don't mind me saying, Chi-Chi, we've been searching for hours," She said as she felt reserves getting close to empty. "I think we need to take some time to rest." Between Shukaku's rampage during the night, and the searching for Goku through the morning; she hadn't gotten any sleep since they had arrived in Konoha.

There were bags under Chi-Chi's eyes but she shook her head, "We can rest once we find Goku and get to the tower, we have the scrolls," She couldn't fight back the yawn that escaped her lips and the girl quietly sighed to herself. "Now we just need to find the boy," She said in reference to Goku.

The whole forest was still stirring back to life after a good portion of it had been leveled by Vegeta's fight with Shukaku, and a lot of teams still needed ample time to recover. She and Mao were some of the few people to not go and directly watch the fight up close and get turned into a casualty.

Chi-Chi balled her up fist tight, as she actually took a minute to gain her bearings, "Where the hell is Goku?"

. . .

Another team of genin stared at up the encrypted message on the wall of the room. The three of them looked confused, before the leader of the squad ripped the scrolls out of his teammates hands. The hot head also known as Kin groaned, "Fuck that, let's just open these bad boys up." He examined the scrolls once more and then smiled. "That Goku kid was useful for thing at least, we didn't have to scramble for five days looking for a fucking scroll."

"Shut up and open it already," Airi complained.

"Before I do that," Kin held up his index finger, which made his teammates furrow their brows in frustration. "You two are complete pieces of shit for not helping me beat that kid's ass."

"Open the scroll," Isamu spoke up with his own frustration written on his face. "You had the scroll already, that was your own fault."

Kin grinded his teeth, holding back a screaming match for another time. They would have plenty of time since they were about to pass this part of the test, "Okay, let's get this over with." Kin handed his Earth scroll back to Isamu and slowly started to open his. "We'll open it on three."

"One."

"Two."

"Three."

The boy unraveled the scroll he got from Goku, and everyone in the room's eyes widened when smoke started filtering out both scrolls. He dropped it to the ground, but the moment it hit the floor, an explosion rocked the whole room, and he had taken a brunt of it; his body smashing against the wall like a bug after being hit at point blank range. Kin's head snapped up quickly to take in what just happened.

He knew opening the scrolls had some kind of consequence, but they damn sure weren't supposed to explode in his face. "What the fuck!?" He yelled out to his teammates, but got no response. The entire room was continuing to fill with smoke and he couldn't make out Airi or Isamu, but he did see a cloaked figure slowly walking through the cloud of smoke that continued to erupt from the scroll.

"A fake scroll," The masked man laughed to himself as he inched closer to the downed Kin. He kneeled down to the boy's face, and the Iwa genin started to make out the distinct features of the Konoha ANBU's mask. He couldn't move a single muscle while a chill ate away at his spine, "Sorry kid, you fail."

Everything went black once he uttered those words, and the exam was over to the team of Iwa genin.

All thanks to Goku's fake scroll.

. . .

(Forest of Death)

Two of the able bodied genin stood guard over their make-shift campsite, while the other three were still sound asleep after being exhausted the first day of the exam. The boy with the pupil-less white eyes couldn't break his stare at the downed body of his cousin, Hinata. While there wasn't any true physical damage to her frame, she had bandages wrapped around where her eyes used to be. The thought was beginning to break Neji's mind, since someone managed to get away with the sacred eyes of the Hyuga clan and he had yet to put a face to the person capable of doing so.

He had accepted his position within his family a long time ago, attributing it to destiny, or fate, but there was a sliver still in his mind that didn't believe that to be true. Of the whole generation of main and branch house kids, he was the smartest, strongest, and overall most talented in his family. He had the most potential, but due to a matter of birth; he was placed in the branch house of the Hyuga clan, and the girl deemed to be the future head of the clan was lying on the ground in the weakest state he had ever seen her in.

The very purpose of the branch house was to protect the main family, and due to her own lack of skill; he would be chewed out for the actions that happened in the forest. There was no seal protecting the Byakugan placed on the clan heir who couldn't defend herself when it mattered the most, yet he had a seal placed on him that could turn his brain to mush in mere seconds, and he was obviously better equipped to deal with problems than his younger cousin. The whole situation was tearing his brain apart, how would anyone be able to explain that Hinata Hyuga was robbed of her vision in the Forest of Death?

There were no rules stating that a Hyuga's eyes were off limits. A shinobi had to do whatever it was that was needed to survive, and destroying Hinata's only advantage in battle was actually fair game. The Hokage could do nothing about it, and at that point it would be personal vendettas between the Hyuga clan itself and whoever was responsible for snatching her very eyes out her sockets. While he never felt too strongly about the branch house protecting the main house, he was beginning to feel a need to avenge his cousin's plight.

Ten-Ten looked over her shoulder and frowned when she saw how lost Neji looked at the moment. He was generally quiet on missions, but this was a new thing for her to see the most cool and collected person nearly at his breaking point. She bit her lip from saying anything, since he needed time to sort things out for himself, but they had been sitting in silence for the whole night, and now the better part of the morning. The girl was starting to get antsy.

Luckily Kiba started to shift uncomfortably, and eventually sat up once he realized he wasn't fighting anymore. Akamaru was sleeping soundly at his feet and he scratched the side of his face, after taking the ass whooping of a lifetime; he didn't necessarily know how to open conversation. He looked over at Hinata, and then his eyes slowly went up to the icy glare of Neji, "W-What happened?"

"Who did this?" Neji had been waiting to ask that question for hours now, and once Kiba opened his lips he wouldn't be holding back any longer. When he found them, there was Kumo shinobi present, and the only reason she wasn't deemed hostile was because of Akamaru hovering around her like the lost-pup he was at the moment. The long-haired genin stood up, never averting his eyes from Kiba, "Tell me who did this, right now."

"It was that weird ass team from Otogakure," Kiba started to slightly growl as he remembered the three genin they tried to ambush. They were in too deep once they realized how strong they were, "It's like no matter what I hit them with.. they just kept coming. The only other person I've seen with that much energy is that Naruto kid." His inadvertent killing intent managed to wake up his ninken, and he balled up his fist. He wanted a rematch so desperately.

Shino was the next to return to his senses, pushing up his sunglasses as he woke up. He caught wind of the conversation as his senses returned to him, "They were very formidable opponents," He added to their exchange, as he fully sat up and looked between Hinata, Kiba, and finally Neji. "I tried to drain my opponent of their chakra the moment the fight began, but it was futile effort. Their reserves ran too deep."

Neji nodded, remembering the odd team of Otogakure shinobi that were very offsetting during the first part of the exam. He turned his back on Team Kurenai and walked out of the hollowed out tree they were resting inside of. The Hyuga walked past his teammates and they both looked on with confused expressions, since the boy was just about to kick it to high gear, until Shino called out to him.

Shino came out of the hollowed out tree, pulling out a scroll from within his coat and placing it in Neji's grasp. There was a moment of silence between the two and he nodded toward the pale-eyed boy, "Due to Hinata's condition, we cannot continue." That was too much dead weight for an already weakened squad to carry. The time it would take for her to get acclimated to being blind wasn't enough for them to pass the test and her be useful. On top of that, almost all of her chakra had been drained, and it was honestly a surprise that she was still breathing. "I know what you intend to do, and I would like to help. Our chances of passing have been destroyed, so I have nothing to lose."

Ten-Ten shook her head and started stomping out toward Neji and Shino, "No! You're not going out there alone to fight those guys, Neji!"

"Yes, that would be very un-youthful of you!" Rock Lee proclaimed as he backed up his female teammate. "This is not an encounter one can take on alone, through teamwork anything is possible!"

Neji looked at his teammates, as he quietly pocketed the scroll Shino gave to him, "I understand that, which is you and Ten-Ten will be coming with me." They both of them were shocked at how quickly he was abandoning Hinata, but he was exacting revenge so it wasn't that bad. He figured they were better equipped to face off against the trio of Oto shinobi, "Shino will lead us to their location, and from there we'll get Hinata's eyes back."

Ten-Ten placed her hands on her hips and looked at Neji in disbelief, "What makes you think Shino knows where they're at?" She knew Team 8 specialized in tracking, but it had been a long time since they fought the Oto genin.

"The Aburame boy placed a good amount of his bugs on them the moment they started fighting, I'm sure it's still alive," Neji looked at Shino for confirmation and got the nod he was expecting. The boy let a small smirk appear on his face, "Very well then, let's move."

Kiba was slack jawed, watching all them leave him and Hinata alone. It was like they wordlessly gave the order to watch over the unconscious girl, and he had no choice but to comply, "It's just you and me Akamaru.. and Hinata."

Akamaru barked in response.

It was going to be a long day.

. . .

Lapis kicked around the severed head of a shinobi, trying to ease the insatiable boredom that came with 19 draining the life out of an unlucky genin. Another team was dead, but that seemed to be the least of his concerns. He finally punted the head of the boy he just killed and groaned out loud. He stomped over to the boy 19 was absorbing and kicked him in his already limp head, and sent the lifeless husk flying across the forest, "Dude, how much more of this shit do you need?"

Lazuli was quietly kicking her feet from her position, having watched 19 dismantle a team of Amegakure genin with ease, and then drain their chakra one by one. It was a repetitive process, since this wasn't even the first team they had killed today, "Yeah, I'm getting tired of watching you drain the life out these poor pups, 19."

"Orochimaru-sama strictly ordered that we eliminate all Otogakure competition, so we can bolster the village's chances of getting work beyond the Chuunin exam," 19 was given other reasons, but this happened to be one of the more logical and prominent things he had been instructed to do. Kages entered their genin into exams to show off the talents of their villages, and if the three were to wipe out all competition they would come off as a newer, stronger village that could start to take over work in their region, as opposed to Konoha. "We need to set ourselves apart from the rest, twins."

"Twins? That's a new one," Lapis said in reference to the new nickname 19 came up with to address both him and his sister. They were twins, yeah, but he liked to think he had his own identity. "Look, it's cool you want to bend to the old snakes every whim, but let's have some fun 19."

"Fun? What could we possibly do for fun during times like this?" The incredulous genin asked with a furrowed brow.

Neither of the twins expected him to respond in that manner and scrambled to come up with something, "The first person to make it to the tower with the highest body count wins…" Lapis tried to come up with the ultimate prize.

"That's a useless challenge; I've killed 21 of the 78 participants already. You'll never be able to catch up given that there will be deaths among the other examinees," 19 shot down Lapis' game quickly and the boy slumped his shoulders. The chubby boy's icy blue eyes locked on Lapis and he frowned, "We will eliminate whoever crosses paths with us on our way to Son Goku, there will be no branching off for petty games."

"You're such a buzzkill," Lazuli rolled her eyes at the strict 19.

"Once I drain Son Goku of his chakra, we can go to the tower and be done with this test."

. . .

(Forest of Death – By The River)

The quaint sounds of nature were the only things filling one Kabuto Yakushi's ears. He was currently burning fish for him and the rest of his squad while they were out doing reconnaissance of their section of the forest. It would be a while before they actually put their feet to the pavement so to speak and tried hunting down genin to get the scrolls they needed. For now he would enjoy the surprising tranquility that was a 'Forest of Death' morning.

It was quite peaceful when you weren't being attacked by murderous pre-teens or about to be mauled by one of the many deadly animals that lived in the forest. Peaceful was relative in this instance, as he was silently cleaning blood off of a kunai that he used the day before. While he quietly cleaned his equipment, a snake just as quietly slithered out from the thick of the forest and dropped a scroll at his feet. He stared at it in disbelief for a moment, sighing as he stabbed his kunai into the dirt for the time being.

Kabuto opened the scroll and there was only one line of kanji, which read, 'Change of plans.' He pushed his glasses up and nonchalantly tossed the scroll into the fire, watching it disintegrate into ashes with a stale expression. The message he had just received wasn't unexpected, nor untimely, but definitely unwanted on his part. Though no one man ever lived after telling Orochimaru 'no.' He sighed to himself as he started to gather his chakra so he could do a quick scan of the area, "How unfortunate."

He stood up and used a stick to poke through the cooked fish and set it down on the ground to cool off. Kabuto repeated the process until all the fish were in the process of cooling off, and a smile started to cross his face when the smell of cooked food caused a stir in his new friend. He bent over to grab the kunai he stabbed in the ground, and cut up pieces of fish for his guest, "So you're finally waking up."

The last thing the boy remembered was being apart of a fight, so hearing the voice of a stranger wake him up was worrisome, "Who?" He started to sit up and process things, his eyes still hazy from just waking up. His back was wrapped up in bandages, and as his senses were slowly being restored after a full night of sleep; he might have even said that he felt better than when he was stabbed in the back the day before. The last thing he remembered was him about to drown in the river, "You saved me?"

Kabuto nodded as he offered the fish with a polite smile, "Yes, Goku-kun, I saved you."

Goku accepted the fish graciously, nearly sucking it up like a vacuum and then moved on to the next pressing matter. He scanned his person and slumped when he found out his scroll was missing, "Did you steal my scroll guy?" His memory was a bit jumbled after being out for so long.

"No, your scroll was no good," Kabuto revealed as he walked away from Goku so he could finish preparing the fish. "You don't pay attention to detail much do you?"

Goku didn't know what to say in that instance.

"The scroll your teammates gave you was fake, they wanted you feel involved, but still didn't trust you not to lose it," Kabuto informed Goku, who now had a look of disbelief on his face. The silver-haired genin nodded to assure Goku his information was true, since he kept close watch on everyone participating in the exam. Goku was definitely the muscle of the group, he was intelligent in his own right as well, but his happy-go-lucky outlook was his downfall at the moment, "Which is why the scroll exploded when someone tried to open it."

The spiky-haired saiyan chuckled upon hearing that his fake scroll was nothing more than a explosive, "I was going to open it once they got far enough." He never got the chance to because Kin's summon stole it from him before he got the chance to do so. Thank god for that. "So you found me in the river?"

Kabuto simply nodded.

"Why did you help me, aren't we supposed to be enemies?"

Kabuto nodded once more, lowering his head as he grinned, "Yes, but you serve a greater purpose in the grand scheme of things, Son Goku." When a nervous bead of sweat rolled down Goku's face, Kabuto's grin turned into a full smile. "You are all the nourishment that the rabbit goddess needs."

"I'm a carrot?"

That didn't sound like something Goku wanted to be apart of.

. . .

Goku is a carrot, Next Chapter: Change of Plans.