Licking Wounds and Regretting Mistakes
Goku returned to his group and after one look Bulma and Oolong with worried faces rushed over to him. Bulma immediately asked, "Goku are you ok?" Oolong chimed in saying, "Yeah kid, you look worse for wear!" Goku looks a little confused which is when Bulma points out his dirt covered clothes and his bloody cheek. Goku feels his left cheek and winces at the pain and yells out, "Ah!" He groaned from the pain and said to himself, "That's strange I didn't feel it earlier." Oolong chimed in saying, "You gotta be more careful Goku, bleeding is a real problem, especially a clean cut like that." Bulma angrily said, "Darn it, If only I packed a First Aid Kit before I lost my Dino Caps."
Oolong paused for a moment and then adopted a nervous expression. He thought to himself, "I do have one but that would mean showing them my stuff. Bulma might get mad if she finds out." Bulma noticed it immediately and asked, "What are you all worried about? I was the one tackled and nearly shanked, not to mention robbed." Bulma suddenly paused, having realized she's forgetting something important. She looks at Goku and asks, "Goku, where are the Dragon Balls?" Goku pauses and then feels for his pouch and then brings out his four-star ball. She immediately asks, "But what about my bag with the other one?" Goku thinks for a moment and then remembers, "I didn't see it…" Bulma yells out of frustration but then stops herself and pulls out her Dragon Radar and turns it on. Her screams of anguish turn into cries of joy and shows it to Goku.
She then says, "They didn't get far with them, I hate to ask after you got cut and all, but can you go fetch them before they get farther away?" Goku threw out a simple, "Sure." He then quickly grabbed the radar and yelled out, "Flying Nimbus!" Suddenly a puffy yellow cloud flew down to him which he then jumped onto. Goku then used it to fly above the top of the trees after which he looked at the Radar and yelled, "That way Nimbus!" Goku pointed in its general direction which eventually took him to one end of that same forest he fought Naruto and Sasuke in. However, Goku was puzzled when he found Bulma's bag on the ground behind a tree. There was no one in sight so Goku just assumed they gave up on stealing it, he wasn't sure exactly why, but he took it but nonetheless he made a beeline back to Bulma and Oolong.
However, when he got back to Bulma and Oolong, in their place stood a massive motorhome, not that Goku understood what that was. Bulma immediately left the vehicle and waved Goku in, afterward Oolong explained that he had Dino Caps all along and that he wasn't sure he wanted to show them since he didn't trust him. Bulma was able to get Oolong to fess up and after this Oolong apologized for not bringing up his Dino Caps sooner and they then drove off in the direction of the next Dragon Ball while Bulma treated Goku's cheek and other injuries with the first aid inside the Motorhome.
Back with Naruto and Sasuke, right after Goku left, the Anbu team drops down and checks the unconscious Shinobi. Fox-1 and Fox-2 check the pair's pulse, and both confirm that they are alive. Eagle-1 immediately says, "Good, it would have been a major problem if either of these two died on a simple C rank mission." Cat-1 chimed in, "It would have been just as big an issue trying to explain this outcome to Kakashi." Fox-1 then said, "It's hard to believe how strong the kid has gotten." Fox-2 added to this statement, "Even if they were Genin, they are still Shinobi, one of which is one of the last Uchiha." Cat-1 interjected, "They will live, we need to get back to the boy before we lose him." They all nod and leap into the trees above them, leaving Naruto and Sasuke behind. A couple hours later and Sasuke begins to stir in his sleep, he then awakens.
He begins to pull himself up only for his body to hurt in response, Sasuke pauses for a moment before gritting his teeth and forcing himself to sit up, his body screamed at him all the while. By the time he reached a kneeling position he stopped and waited for the pain to subside. His whole body felt sore, but he didn't care, he weakly called to Naruto, "You awake?" Naruto groaned out of pain and said, "Five more minutes." Sasuke halfheartedly said back, "We've wasted enough time already." Sasuke winced as he said, "We…need to get back to Sakura." Naruto groaned out of pain, which is when Sasuke said as he forced himself to his feet, "If we take too long then Sakura might come back to look for us. She'll have a heart attack if she sees us like this."
Naruto lets out a groan and says, "Alright, alright, I'll get up." Naruto hesitantly moves his arms into making a hand sigh and weakly calls out, "Shadow Clone Jutsu." Suddenly four Shadow Clones appear out of thin air to help the two wounded Ninja and bring them to their campsite. On the way Sasuke says, "Did you notice anything strange about that guy?" Naruto immediately replied, "Like how he beat us single handedly?" Sasuke shook his head and said, "Not that, how he had a tail." Naruto looked confused and said, "You feeling ok Sasuke?" Sasuke yelled back, "Shut up, you saw the fight, you had to have seen it while I fought him!" Naruto thought back and then shrugged his shoulders and said, "I was busy thinking of a way to beat him." Sasuke grumbled but their conversation was cut short when they got to camp. The second they get there they both get a bad feeling from the look of it alone. The camp has been trashed, their tents are damaged and the makeshift fire they set up is in shambles too. The clones sit the real Naruto and Sasuke down and look around the surrounding forest. Sasuke says out loud, "This can't be right."
One of the Naruto's said, "She has to be around here somewhere." Sasuke immediately interjects, "She isn't here." The real Naruto yells out frantically, "How do you know?" Sasuke immediately replies, "There's no sign of her Naruto, if she did return, she didn't leave anything behind before leaving again." The clones come back to the real Naruto and Sasuke but one of them is carrying something. The Clone Naruto is holding the Artifact tracker that Pilaf gave them."
He gives it to Sasuke who examines it and says, "Sakura had this." The real Naruto began to look worried, Sasuke then said, "I gave her the balls and she already had the tracker… this tracker." Sasuke's palms began to sweat as he slowly turned the device on. Once it activated the image on the screen made their hearts skip a beat. There was no signal, so Sasuke slowly and hesitantly increased the range until they got a signal. It was the exact same number of balls as the ones they just stole from Goku's group. This moment felt like an eternity as they stared at the screen for over a minute before Sasuke turned it off.
Naruto released his clone Jutsu and asked, "How'd he get them back?" Sasuke interjected, "I don't know but the signal isn't far enough away to be Pilaf so…" Faced with a dilemma, Naruto didn't know what to say. After a long moment Sasuke finally said, "Let's save our strength until tomorrow." Naruto angrily yelled out, "Like hell I'm just gonna wait around, where's Sakura? Did she get taken; did she escape? She could be dying in these woods for all we know!" Sasuke interjects, sounding equally agitated, "And we won't know for sure until we start looking for her." Naruto immediately interrupts him and says, "Then we should go out and…" This time Sasuke interrupts him, saying, "On what feet Naruto?" Sasuke attempts to stand up but falters, he then says, "I can't even stand up on my own and I doubt you can either.
You expect us to go out and search for her just like that?" Sasuke lowers his tone and says, "We won't be able to keep up with them let alone plan a rescue mission." Sasuke finishes up by saying, "We have the tracker, we just need one night of sleep, and we'll be well enough to track them down and figure out what happened." Naruto looks hesitant but soon relents and says, "Ok, until then I'll have some of my clones search the forest just in case." Sasuke then sighs and says, "Go ahead, wake me up if they find her." Sasuke weakly crawls over to one of the least damaged tents and crawls into a futon and immediately falls asleep.