Hunt for Son Goku
A day and a half passes and Sasuke and Naruto get up feeling much better, most of the pain they felt the day before is gone and they feel well enough to begin their hunt. Naruto and Sasuke pack up their camp and head out following their radar. On the way Naruto calls Pilaf and asks if Sakura has tried to contact them. He tells them he hasn't seen her and asks if something happened. Naruto refuses to elaborate and just tells them that they will have their artifacts soon. Right then they enter the Diabolo Desert, after two days of trekking through the desert they track the balls they are looking for at a Motorhome that has parked for the night.
Sasuke pulls out a pair of binoculars and peers into them, he examines the Motorhome closely. Sasuke then asks, "Naruto check the radar." Without the hint of opposition Naruto grabs the radar, turns it on and says, "It's right up ahead." Sasuke then examines the Motorhome further and then says, "I think that Motorhome has them." Naruto immediately asks, "Uh… what's a motorhome?" Sasuke groans out of frustration and says, "They're a type of vehicle Naruto, mainly made in the west." Naruto then says in a sheepish tone, "Oh, right!" That's when Sasuke took another peak with his binoculars and said, "Someone's coming out."
Naruto listened intently as Sasuke's tone shifts to a more serious tone, "It's them." Naruto let out a confused, "Huh?" Sasuke then says, "It's the same girl I took the orbs from." Sasuke then hands the binoculars to Naruto and as he's checking Sasuke makes a comment, "If she's here then the guy from earlier has to be in the vehicle too." Naruto then asks, "What's that, a watch?" Sasuke became curious and asked for the binoculars back after which Sasuke took a better look at Bulma. She was holding a flat, circular device with a green screen. She then pressed a button at the top of it and Sasuke could hardly believe what he was seeing.
He was suddenly overwhelmed by an intense anger and he said out loud, "That's how." Naruto was confused by his vague statement and asked, "What, Sasuke?" Sasuke threw the binoculars at Naruto and said, "It's a tracking device, just like ours!" Naruto almost dropped the goggles and then looked at the device with them. The green screen of the device showed several orange figures and a line that spread across the whole screen. Naruto bit his lip and said, "That's how they got her." Sasuke then said with anger in his voice, "All they had to do is use their own tracker." The image of Sakura just waiting at camp popped into their minds. Naruto added to Sasuke's statement, "She wouldn't expect anyone else but us… so that's why the camp was trashed. They were searching for the balls Sakura kept there." Naruto then asked, "Then do you think they are keeping her in that Motorthing?" Sasuke put the binoculars away and said, "Let me check."
Sasuke closed his eyes for a moment but when he reopened them his eyes turned red with a pinwheel design circling the iris of his eye. Naruto recognized it as Sasuke's Sharingan, a special ocular Jutsu only Sasuke and those of his family can use. Sasuke was not only able to see the Motorhome and Bulma as clearly as with the Binoculars, but he could also see the Chakra that was emanating from Bulma and those inside. He saw the Pig person's chakra but he stopped on Goku. He saw Goku but he was puzzled by Goku's aura. The spiritual energy he saw coming off of Goku didn't look anything like Chakra. It was like a swirling mass of ethereal energy shifting inside of him. It was bizarre and mysterious, Sasuke made a mental note to ask Kakashi about it when they got back.
Sasuke let out a disappointed sigh and said, "She's not there." Naruto questioned, "How do you know for sure?" Sasuke looked at Naruto and said back, "I know what her Chakra looks like. Even if she was drained, there would be enough there for me to recognize her." Sasuke then turned his Sharingan off in order to conserve his Chakra. Naruto immediately asked while fearing the worst, "Maybe they left her somewhere else, Is she still in that forest? Did I miss her?" Sasuke motioned for Naruto to calm down, Sasuke said, "Calm down, they might not have her, but they will definitely know where she is or what they did to her." Naruto paused for a moment but then said, "Alright let's go!" Sasuke looked at him confused and asked, "You mean now?" Naruto repeated himself but added some clarification, "Let's go after them, they're right there." Sasuke shook his head and said, "No, there isn't a chance we can win."
Naruto looked shocked, he said, "What do you mean? They're right there, they're probably gonna sleep soon!" Sasuke immediately argued, "We don't have a plan and we haven't fully recovered." Naruto yelled back, "Come on, we'll never save Sakura if we stay out here and do nothing!" Naruto gestured to the Motorhome which is when a flash of pain stopped him in his tracks. He grabbed his gut and groaned. Sasuke, now growing more irritated, said, "We couldn't beat him in a fair fight when we were at full strength. You can't even move that well yet, we need time to heal." Naruto angrily slammed his fist on the side of a rock and despite getting a wave of pain again, he said, "Dammit it, fine. What do we do next?" Sasuke looked at the motorhome and said, "We'll watch them until night. They seem to follow a regular sleeping schedule but we better stay alert. Eventually we'll get better and we'll find our chance. Eventually we'll see something that might give us an edge."
After making a plan they spend the next two days and nights watching them until one day they wake up and they find out they left early. Naruto and Sasuke start following their signal when they find the Motorhome destroyed. Something hit its left side pretty hard and it had toppled over, the door on the right side had come off. Naruto and Sasuke checked the vehicle but it was empty, they then scavenged what was left behind and continued to follow their tracker. Eventually they left the Diabolo Desert and came across some green plains, grasslands but for some reason it was starting to get hot again, almost as hot as the desert.
Eventually they started seeing ruins of an old town filled with brick roads and brick housing. They finally saw the reason for the bizarre weather. There was a massive mountain in front of them which was somehow on fire. For a few seconds they thought they were looking at a sunset, they couldn't believe their eyes. Sasuke said out loud, "What Jutsu could have done this?" Naruto stammered through his words, "I-its like your Fire Ball Jutsu but t-ten times as powerful!" Sasuke immediately said back, "Ten? More like a thousand." This is when Sasuke noticed several individuals in the village nearest to the castle. Sasuke looked at Naruto and asked, "Does the radar say the artifacts are with the people down there." Naruto checked the tracker and said, "They're there and then some." Sasuke looked at Naruto with a confused expression and asked, "What do you mean by that?" Naruto immediately clarified, "There's one more and… I think it's on the mountain." Sasuke immediately asked, "How did Pilaf's artifacts wind up there?"
Naruto shrugged and asked, "How are we supposed to get it? As Sasuke brought the binoculars out he said, "Maybe we don't have to." Sasuke watched from afar and spotted Goku's group along with some new arrivals. Sasuke then put the binoculars down and said, "Let's get a closer look." Naruto nodded in agreement and they made their way down into the ruined town and managed to get close enough to see the full group and hear their conversation without getting spotted.
They now had a full view of the three newcomers, the first was a man many times the size of the others. Naruto described him as a literal giant, he wore a purple and yellow vest with a red cape that covered his back. He wore a helmet that covered the upper half of his face, it was yellow and had two horns at the top with goggles built into his helmet. There was a massive ax in the ground next to him and given its size it must have been his. The second newcomer was actually a young girl who wore a pink and blue bikini armor? It was an odd outfit but she didn't seem to care, what's more she wore a pink helmet which had a blade sticking out of its forehead.
She had long black hair and black eyes and she seemed to be the same age as Goku. The last newcomer was a bald old man with a white beard wearing sunglasses. He wore an orange and white button down shirt, untucked over his blue pants and purple laceless shoes. Lastly he held a brown staff that's top was shaped like a blunt club. The old man suddenly smiled and yelled out, "All Right-tee, time to douse a fire!" Naruto whispered to Sasuke, "How's he gonna do that?" Sasuke shushed him saying, "Quiet moron, we're too close to them to talk." Naruto immediately pressed his hands in front of his mouth and quietly apologized. Goku yelled out "This is gonna be great!" Goku's cheerful voice caught Sasuke off guard, it sounded too innocent and genuine to be from the people who trashed their camp.
It's been bothering him since he lost his fight with him, his seemingly innocent and joyful behavior contrasted too much with the presumed crimes of his group. Sasuke chocked it up to a mask, Sasuke thought back to his brother who was the kindest person he ever knew until he killed their family. Sasuke believed that this Goku might just be the innocent kind of evil but something about his behavior didn't feel right to him. Like he was missing a piece of the puzzle, regardless he continued examining him during this interaction to see if he could spot some kind of weakness he could exploit. The giant yelled out happily, "Oh, Master, Master, how can I thank you!?" The little girl yelled out happily as well. It would seem that these two are invested in the fire to be extinguished.
Suddenly the old man unbuttoned his shirt and threw it off revealing a very scrawny body with two bandages on his back. The man got atop of a stone wall with Goku's help after which the old man started to groan and make other noises as he seemed to begin to concentrate. Curious of what the old man was doing, Sasuke activates his Sharingan. He expected to see Chakra but it was very similar but also very different from his time when he looked at Goku with his crimson eyes. The old man's body had that same ethereal energy that Goku had only when Goku's aura was circling around him, the old man was producing even more. It was pushing more and more of this mystery energy out until suddenly all of that energy was suddenly sucked into the old man.
Suddenly the old man's scrawny body bulked up, massive muscles covered his entire body and through Sasuke's eyes he could see all that energy concentrated into the core of his body. It was shaped as a blue ethereal ball that exuded a different energy which covered the old man's body. Naruto and especially Sasuke was dumbfounded by the sudden change which is when the old man began to do something with that energy. He crouched down and placed his arms way to his side while twisting his torso to the right and as if grasping something he began to cup his hands together before pulling his cupped hands behind him where he began to chant, "Ka…Me…Ha…Me…" It was only through Sasuke's eyes that he could see what the old man was really doing. The blue sphere that was within the old man's body had begun to seep into his palm turning from a ball to a line of energy until that ball appeared in the old man's hands. The old man suddenly pushed his palm's forward firing a massive blue beam which was shot straight at the mountain which soon exploded in a blinding white light.
When the light faded everyone was shocked to find that the mountain itself was completely destroyed with only the ruins of a castle in its place. As for the old man, after the blast he deflated like a balloon back to the scrawny look he had before his mighty blast. No one could believe what they saw, the group looked mildly upset about the circumstance but Sasuke was amazed by what he saw. All that energy he had, had gone to destroying the mountain and now there was only a single piece of that energy that remained in him.
Sasuke had many questions to ask Kakashi when he returned but for now it was not the time to gawk at the destructive power of an old man but it was instead time to gather information. Sasuke watched Goku as he talked to the old man. He said with a joy-filled voice, "That was cool, teach me how, will ya?" Goku seemed interested in learning this technique but the old man chuckled and laughed out loud and said, "Dream on, lad! It takes fifty years of hard trainin to learn the Kamehameha-wave!" The information didn't just disappoint Goku but also Sasuke who was hoping to add it to his arsenal. Goku spoke in a low tone, "Fifty years, huh…" Goku then looked at his hands with a blank expression and while the giant thanked the old man for some reason, Goku began to mimic the hand motions that Roshi was doing for his Kamehameha wave.
With his Sharingan still active, Sasuke watched as a small fraction of that unrestricted energy that surrounded Goku began to move itself to Goku's palms as he fired off a smaller Kamehameha wave which hit a car next to him. Sasuke and Naruto were astounded by the feat despite the fact it was nowhere near as impressive as the old man's. The Giant suddenly muttered, "Eesh, he is Gohan's Grandson, isn't he?" The old man suddenly looked at the Giant and said with surprise in his voice, "What, Gohan you mean, Son Gohan?!" The name didn't mean much to Naruto but Sasuke remembered his mother mentioning someone by that name but he barely remembered why she mentioned him.
Whoever it was, the old man seemed to know him as he calmly exclaimed, "Now I get it…" The old man then said, "Y'know I do remember once Gohan mentioned a kid he'd picked up with a tail." This is when the old man approached Goku and asked, "So how's old Gohan doin' laddie!" Goku suddenly looked a bit sad when he said, "Oh, he died a long time ago." The old man yelled out of surprise, "Dead, oh… I'm sorry for your loss." This news saddened Naruto a bit but he shook the feeling away and remembered that he should keep an ear out for whatever happened to Sakura. The news sounded familiar to Sasuke but again it was so long ago he doesn't remember why it sounds familiar. Regardless, the old man put out a sudden proposal, "In that case, m'boy. Would you like to move in with me? You might outdo me, one o' these days!"
Goku smiled happily and said, "Really?! As soon as we get the last two dragon balls I'm there!" This is when Sasuke realized that they were running out of time. This means that there were two more orbs to collect. Sasuke wasn't certain what would happen after that but he did know for certain that Goku's group was searching for the rest of the orbs. However the second he realized this Sasuke made a much more grim realization. With his Sharingan still active he saw another source of that same energy the old man and Goku possessed. Worse yet it was right behind him and Naruto. Sasuke suddenly whispered, "Naruto we need to move." Naruto was confused and he let out a, "Huh?" Sasuke quickly said, "I think we've been spotted, we need to go now!"
Naruto nodded and soon both he and Sasuke using the grace of a ninja slipped away.