Change Of Plans ~ 34

Ok, Kabuto was officially spitting out nonsense, and Goku started to back away from the glasses-clad shinobi, "I'm a carrot?" He had to ask to make sure he was hearing things correctly. Goku had been called Kakarot by Vegeta, but a straight up carrot was another thing. "Have you lost your mind?"

"No, you're the key to a lot of things," Kabuto pressed on about the whole 'carrot' thing and Goku dropped a nervous bead of sweat. The creepy grin on his face slowly faded, as he looked over his shoulder and then back at Goku, "but that's a conversation for another time, Goku." He shooed the boy away as he turned to head back into the forest. "Our paths will cross again, Goku, and I won't be as a cordial. For now, you should be thanking me for what I'm about to do."

Before he could truly 'thank' Kabuto for whatever he was going to do, he disappeared into the forest. He let out a heavy sigh and started to push himself off of the ground. It seems like creepier news continued to be dropped on him as time went by. First he discovered his alien heritage in Iwagakure, his grandfather's death in Hoseki, and now he was the 'key' to a lot of things; being the 'carrot' to nourish the 'almighty rabbit' among others. When was it going to stop?

He didn't know how long he had been separated from his team, so that was his main focus for now. With the little chakra he did have, he decided to cross the river and to the other side of the forest. His senses were dulled as his body started to recover, and he couldn't take a step without letting out a pained groan. If he even took a misstep, he would probably sink to the bottom, so he chose his steps wisely.

Little to his knowledge, the moment he flared his chakra; nearly everyone searching for him instantly had a pinpointed location for the missing in action saiyan. He paid it no mind, and made it across safely, taking a slight break upon putting his feet to actual pavement. The boy stared at the dense forest ahead of him and sighed.

For now, he would head back to location of their rendezvous point and go from there. Maybe he'd be able to find a trail.

. . .

(Forest of Death - With Kabuto)

Kabuto stepped forward with his arms wide open, "You can come out now, I know you've been watching." He said to an empty clearing, and out from the shadows came the trio of Oto genin that had been tearing up Forest of Death. Kabuto smiled at the kids, "It seems you're a sliver too late, our new friend has already left."

"Yakushi, you let him go?" 19 didn't sound at all satisfied.

"Direct orders from Orochimaru-sama," Kabuto explained his reasoning, and all but 19 eased up in anger. The normally pale boy was getting red in the face as he stomped forward and looked up at the tall genin. Orochimaru's right hand man pushed up his glasses and snickered while looking down at 19, "It seems as if you don't believe me, 19, but I am not one to lie about orders."

"Give a real reason," 19 furrowed his brow, killing intent starting to leak through his pores now. Orochimaru was a perceptive person, so for him to change his plans for him so suddenly meant that something was going wrong, and he hated being out of the loop. When Kabuto said nothing in return, 19 lashed out at Kabuto, which made the older genin jump away from the boy.

"I didn't know acting on your own accord was apart of your genetic makeup," Kabuto leapt away from the strike and brandished a kunai since he could see things were about to get serious. His eyes moved past 19 and looked at Lapis and Lazuli, who were standing there with smiles on their faces. "Orochimaru-sama will be pleased to know his creations have gone above and beyond expectations, evolving into beings with complex human emotion. I would have never guessed an artificial soul to be capable of this much."

There was brief standoff, as Lapis stepped forward and threw his arm around 19 with a wide grin, "Yeah, about that. We were all actually wondering our purpose in the whole grand scheme of things," He looked at his highly irritated partner who was ready to tear Kabuto to shreds. "It seems like you and the old man like to keep secrets from us, so until you start telling us the truth; we're no longer working for you."

Lazuli joined the two other genin and threw her arm around 19 as well, "The only thing holding back this killing machine from you is us, so it's best for you to cough up what we want to know." She pressed on the issue, "Who are our parents? Where did we come from?" Her whole life was spent in Otogakure, but there was still a lingering memory of something else. She didn't know what, but it was something telling her there was more than meets the eye.

"You think have a real parent, that's cute," Kabuto laughed to himself, getting a frustrated look from all three kids. "You can thank Dr. Gero, a man from Kumogakure for your creation. He desired to create the perfect foot soldier by combining the cells of some of his villages strongest shinobi in a synthetic embryo, and voila! Lapis and Lazuli, the gemstones are born. However, the body he created had no soul, so through impure means he summoned the soul of the deceased and placed it in your bodies." 19 still had a look of confusion on his face, since there was still no explanation for him.

Lapis stared at his hand, but then smiled. He was an undead badass, "That's… awesome!" He balled up his fist as he now looked up at Kabuto. "So I'm basically every great ninja from Kumogakure packed into one."

His sister didn't look as pleased; being something of a zombie made her uneasy, and felt less attractive. How her brother was dealing with such news so easily disturbed her, and made her believe that he might truly be fucked up in the brain, "This explains a lot." There was always a lingering feeling of a past life clinging onto her brain, and it was all making sense now.

Kabuto saw the unease in 19's face, "Now you," He smiled lightly at the chubby boy and held his kunai in front of him defensively. "You were created by Orochimaru-sama, based off of the data we took from Dr. Gero. We were able to make an artificial body, as well as an artificial soul, and placed fake memories in your brain. You are far greater than Lapis and Lazuli, being able to absorb any chakra among other things."

His entire life, he was led to believe that he was an orphan in Otogakure, and Orochimaru had showed him the way, but it was all false. His entire existence was false, and he could no longer take it. 19 hated being lied to, "The end goal in all of this, from what I see," Kabuto raised a curious brow upon hearing him speak. "Is that Orochimaru is trying to create the perfect being, so he can take their body."

"You're right, to a certain degree," Kabuto was still anticipating battle, since the killing intent never ceased.

"I'm fine with that," 19 followed up, but it didn't relieve Kabuto like he thought it would. "However, not being privy to the situation because of an unwanted middle-man is not something I enjoy." The twins let go of their hold on 19 and the boy charged forward at Kabuto, the man swiftly dodging the precise strikes from the artificial human.

Kabuto flipped backwards, "Now I present the question to you," He continued to dodge a string of swift attacks, "What do you plan to achieve from fighting me?" Eventually he was getting tired of avoiding strikes and parried an open palm strike from 19 with his forearm, and intended on breaking away from the exchange, but he was stuck. He tried to rip his arm away, but 19 now had an iron grip around his arm.

19 grinned when he caught Kabuto and started to leap backwards, the twins moving out of his way as he did so. As he trekked backward, his arm started to extend to inhuman lengths, "I know Orochimaru-sama better than you think," He explained as he flipped up a tree and landed in a branch, his arm still extending its length, "He is a snake in every nature possible, and if prove to be stronger than his beloved right-hand, then he'll replace you with me."

Kabuto had to hide the surprise that came with a pike stabbing through his arm, he didn't know about 19's hidden blades in his hand, or the ability to extend his limbs like Orochimaru. He merely snickered in response, "The fact that you think you can defe-" The moment his muscle twitched when he was about to break the hold, his body suddenly shot forward and got dragged across the forest floor, and slammed against the base of the tree. His body was now being dragged upward, scraping against the rough texture of the tree, his skin starting to split open against the wood.

19 lifted the older genin all the way to his level, grabbing his throat with his free hand, and twisted the pike that was in Kabuto's arm repeatedly, "I wouldn't do this if I didn't know I could win." With his hand firmly around Kabuto's throat he squeezed down and started to close the double agent's airways, "You see, even as Orochimaru's right hand; there are things even he won't tell you. You don't think he knows I was supposed to evolve? I'm going to be the ultimate being!"

The silver haired ninja's face twisted in horror at being betrayed by what was supposed to be his subordinate in the pecking order, "W-Why you—" He couldn't choke out anymore words, the bladed pike from 19's other hand shot through his throat and the boy mercilessly dropped to him the ground so he could choke on his own blood. He still had a decent amount of strength left, his hands starting to glow a bright green color as he tried to heal himself in a last ditch effort. Kabuto refused to die this easily.

19 furrowed his brow upon seeing Kabuto trying to survive, and he jumped from the tree branch and buried his feet into Kabuto's chest. The former Oto spy spat a great amount of blood in 19's face in response, and the fat genin wasn't at all bothered by it. The artificial human continued to press down until he saw the life fade out of Kabuto's eyes, and then he smiled.

Lapis grinned upon seeing the way his teammate ended Kabuto's life, while his sister looked on in silent horror. 19 was changing, and it wasn't for the better in her opinion. That sense of humanity the otherwise robotic boy had was slowly fading, and got replaced with a bloodthirsty monster who planned on working his way to the top of the food chain. She hid her discomfort for such a morbid act quickly, "We've wasted a lot of time, we should just go straight to the tower."

19 nodded and wiped the blood away from his face, walking forward to his teammates, and siblings to a certain degree, "For once, I agree, I have a feeling we'll have a surprise waiting for us when we arrive."

. . .

(Outside of 19 v. Kabuto)

Rock Lee looked back with a confused expression, his eyes locking with the lone Hyuga in their squad, who had his hand locked around Lee's arm to prevent him from jumping in to ambush the trio of Oto-genin. The boy furrowed his brow, "It is very un-loyal and most importantly, un-youthful to let a fellow Konohagakure shinobi be killed by an enemy village." The bushy-browed genin had only met Kabuto in passing, but regardless they wore the same headband, and he would always help a comrade.

When he felt Rock Lee wasn't going to run off and tried to pounce on the Oto-genin, Neji let his arm go. The pale-eyed boy shut his eyelids and sighed, "Were you not listening? Yakushi Kabuto was a traitor, who was conspiring with Orochimaru. He will not be missed." It was harsh, but it was truth they were all going to have to accept. Apparently Lee hadn't heard the conversation, but Neji at least read their lips with his Byakugan. "I looked all three of the genin over; there were no signs of sealing the Byakugan eyes. He must have destroyed them."

Ten-Ten groaned, "We came all this way though, I thought you wanted to avenge your cousin?" She asked with a raised brow, and got a shake of the head in return from her stoic teammate.

"The plan was to fix this," Neji corrected her and stood up on the branch. "If he truly destroyed Hinata's eyes, there's nothing I can do, and believe it or not we no longer had the element of surprise. They sensed our presence but chose not to engage, and it had to be for a reason." The boy started to leap away from the scene, leaving the remainder of the make-shift squad to revel in what had just happened.

Shino looked at Ten-Ten and Rock Lee, "Believe or not, Neji is right, why? Because during our first encounter, they had great enough sensory ability to indentify us all the way down to our bloodlines without even seeing us." His eyes shifted toward the direction Neji disappeared to, ignoring his team slumping upon being shot down so easily. While it was true what Neji told them, he still left out some major points. Neji was confident in his strength, and Shino knew that, but he saw something inside 19 that made him not want to engage.

The bug-user's kikaichū sensed it as well and couldn't identify the anomaly either. Just what exactly were those kids?

. . .

(Forest Of Death – With Goku)

The spiky haired genin bounced through the trees with a worried expression on his face as he tried to get back to the rendezvous point his team set. An entire section of the forest had been leveled while he slept, and he couldn't help but wonder who was unlucky enough to be caught in that blast. He shook his head of the thoughts of his teammates being caught up in that, and dropped out of the trees.

The entire section of the forest was devoid of any animals, let alone shinobi trying to slice his throat open. Where the hell was everybody? Did he sleep through the entire test? The boy walked through a patch of land and tried to navigate, ignoring the high pitched noise that was constantly fading in and out of his ears.

As he walked, the sound only got worse, and the ringing was beginning to make his head hurt. Goku placed a hand on the top of his head and rubbed soothingly, but it did nothing to ease the irritating noise that was about to make him explode. It was like listening to an idle radio with the volume all the way up and he just wanted to make it go away.

'Is this some sort of genjutsu?' He asked himself, forming a hand seal when on top of the ringing noise came a bit of static. Goku looked around for any possible enemies but couldn't see a single soul around trying to pounce on him. He arched his brow and continued to walk forward, and the noise only continued to get worse.

'aetoisfakjsalkfjea~~oksafijefaifj….'

A mixture of static and gibberish filtered into Goku's ears and he took a few cautious steps forward. He smiled when the unbearable noise started to get quieter, "Are you trying to say something?" He asked absolutely no one, not even expecting a response.

'xaicjai~~is thaniteijteijsk…'

"Is thaaaaa?" Goku responded to the weird voice that was calling out to him.

Was he talking to a ghost right?

"Grandpa Gohan?" Goku asked the air with a glint of hope in his voice. He would love to talk to his Grandpa one more time.

'safsojfdai~~no baka… it's mao.' Things were finally clear between Mao's communication jutsu and Goku.

The boy scratched his head, the voice that was interacting to him sounded more computerized like Shidō than Mao, but he'd believe the voice for now. He wasn't even sure he was hearing the voice, since it didn't make a noise other than the terrible ringing in his head that had long since faded once he was in range, "Hey Mao, long time no see!" He yelled out in the empty clearing. No one was there to see how crazy he looked.

'If you don't mind me asking, Goku, where the hell have you been?'

"I don't know, I got jumped by some Iwagakure kids, and I woke up by the river this morning," Goku recalled and smiled when he remembered that he had given Kin a fake scroll for his efforts. "At what point were you going to tell me that my scroll was fake, Mao?"

'Look, Goku, that's not important right now, you need to meet up with us. We have all the scrolls we need, so we can go to the tower now. Keep going straight from where you're at, as long as my jutsu is active you should be able to track our location.'

With a new found vigor Goku picked his pace back up and jumped into the trees. If Mao's directions were right, she and Chi-Chi would be waiting on him not too far from where he was. Mao's chakra was very potent and easy to follow, and it was to the point that he had to wonder just how deep her reserves ran. It was almost inhuman, but that was something for another day.

He needed to get there quicker than a potential enemy, since she was giving away her location to help him find her. Anybody with a brain would be able to track down Mao in a matter of seconds, and he wasn't exactly in the condition to be fighting off waves of enemies. Luckily he was close by, and they didn't have to scramble around the forest looking for scrolls.

If his mental clock wasn't wrong, it was only the second day of the exam, and they were bound to be finished before the beginning of the third day. It wasn't remarkable time, but it was damn good, and the sooner they could rest as a team the better, since they all knew what came next.

Goku could feel that a lot of the remaining participants had moved to this part of the forest after whatever happened in the section he was leaving from. He remembered when the exam first started, and how lively the forest was, but now it felt like he could run through an open clearing unarmed and not have to worry about fighting. Even the animals were disappearing.

He knew death was apart of the test, but just how many people had died while taking the exam?

He shouldn't have been able to travel as hassle free as he had been, and he knew that. The boy wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth though, and dropped out of the trees when he started to hone in on the chakra beacon that was currently Mao. His ears perked up when he heard two females talking, and knew they couldn't be that far from where he was, "Hey guys, I'm back!"

When he ran into the patch of land his team was at, his feet stopped running so eagerly. He looked at Chi-Chi, who looked sort of relieved to see after being separated for an entire day, and then to Mao; whose eyes were currently full of fear. Tears of joy rolled down her cheeks when she saw Goku for the first time since yesterday. She thought he would never make it in time. His own eyes went wide upon seeing what was going on, and he balled up his fist.

A prideful voice sounded off with a laugh, "Did you really think you could go this long without seeing me, Kakarot?"

. . .

The end of the Forest Of Death is coming next chapter, because it is so hard to write for me, and there's an actual plot I'm prolonging by keeping this going, but it'll at least go out with a bang. Next Chapter: Goku The Genius II