Jaded

Disclaimer: I don’t own DB/Z/GT or any of the characters found in this fic. They are the property of TOEI ANIMATION in Japan and FUNimation in the U.S.A. I am not making any profit from this.


Rating –NC 17
Warnings – For the whole story: Language, whips, chains, knife play, character death (of a main character), torture, non-con, yaoi, M/M. OCs. Lemons, limes. OC/Goku, Goku/Vegeta, Goku/OCs, Kakarott/Vegeta, Vegeta/Goku.

A/N: THANK YOU PIXELGODDESS FOR BETA’ING! On a side note, A.P. is ‘after promise’.


Jaded 2 - Journey

3 months A.P.

Goku found the landmark Baba had pointed out in the middle of a jungle, but he still could not find the forge the turtle hermit believed should be in the area.

If there were people, he should have been able to detect their ki. If there had been a forge, he should have been able to at least smell remnants of it. But there was nothing. Even after four days of searching the area, and coming back here to camp each night, he had not found what he was looking for. It was enough; time to go in search of something other than what must now be ruins reclaimed by the jungle.

Tomorrow he would leave, and go look for one of the forges Yadjarobe had mentioned were in Japan.

That settled in his mind, Goku went to inspect the object that dominated the unnatural clearing. It was oddly molded, and certainly didn’t have any artistic appeal: chunks of raw metals fused together haphazardly.

The first night he had been here, he had poked and prodded at them, feeling their textures and their surprisingly different signatures. Today something instinctual drove him to lean forward and sniff at the cluster. Each section ionized the air around it in a different manner. He leaned in to taste a bluish tinted one for no other reason than he wanted to…

PANIC Goku’s head jerked around to the east. He had been employing his empathy as well as his ki sensing abilities while searching the area, and had forgotten to shield himself in this place; it hadn’t seemed necessary with no one else around.

Someone was in mortal fear of his or her life very near by. Whether it was an animal or a person was hard to tell with such a primitive emotion. The jungle was full of predators, and the emotion he was reading was the same as an animal felt when being hunted and finding itself cornered…

PANIC PANIC A double dose of the emotion hit him. This one twisted around his heart as it gave impressions of fear for another. The second one had been the same as the first, but…they felt like the same person…it was certainly a person…or persons now.

Goku took off in the direction he had searched the first day. His five senses may have been fooled, but his empathy, curse though it may sometimes be, would not be denied.


~o0o~

He’d had time enough to propel Touyen clear of the flames before the front half of the building collapsed.

Now he held his breath as the water in the barrel heated up around him. It was just a matter of time before he either boiled to death or drowned. The only reason he was even in the barrel instead of welcoming the forge fires head-on was because Vinh depended on him to stay alive.

~o0o~


“NO…no, no, No…TRUNG!…Let me go DAMN YOU! He is stuck in there. TRUUUUUNG!” Vinh’s vocal chords strained as he struggled against the people holding him, preventing him from going to his brother’s aid. Didn’t they understand? They weren’t saving anyone if Trung died in the fire.


~o0o~


Master Nabuo had his hands full while augmenting the barrier around the barrel one of his students had jumped into. He didn’t have time to focus on blocking the strange one’s senses any more…it wasn’t worth the eldest sibling’s life.


~o0o~


He blindly followed the emotions guiding him like a beacon through jungle he had already explored, knowing full well there was nothing in this direction but more jungle. Still, the panic continued, and was now accompanied by a crowd of lesser emotions: anxiousness, fear and guilt.

Then Goku ran into a courtyard that hadn’t been there days before, and his five senses were exposed to the blaze.


~o0o~

Students who weren’t restraining him had started a bucket brigade. They focused on the buildings around the forge instead of the forge itself. Vinh seethed with hatred. His brother wasn’t dead. Their logic had no heart.

Everyone suddenly stilled. Even the newest student was able to detect ki to some extent, and this was the same pulsing ki that had been hounding their perimeter for days. Now it was amongst them.

~o0o~


Goku closed his eyes…as soon as he had hit the courtyard it became difficult to tell the difference between the two escalating panics. He concentrated harder, quickly realizing one was festering to hatred…the other was still in the flames. He kept his eyes closed as he took a deep breath and headed for the feeling of the second.

The fire was unbearably hot despite his natural strengths. He threw up shields one after another as they proved too weak. He finally had to drop them completely to reach for the other that was oblivious to his presence, and fight off a totally foreign barrier to get a hold of the person. He prayed he had been fast enough and the flames had not had more than a taste of either of their flesh before he turned in the direction of the growing hatred and sorrow.


~o0o~


Master Nabuo fought to hold his shields for a moment not believing someone was actually close enough to be warring against them before dropping them in gratitude at the miracle that presented itself. The stranger with obviously too much fire in his chi had gotten to the trapped student, and was pulling him out.


~o0o~


The hands restraining him loosened as the stranger appeared out of the flames with his brother in his arms. Vinh twisted away from them before they could react, and raced towards the pair.

Goku looked down at the person he was carrying. “You can open your eyes now. We are clear,” he said as he dropped his shields.

Trung did so and took a dearly needed breath.

Vinh had thought to tackle his brother, but stopped short at the sight of his already peeling skin. “Trung!” he cried out.

“Ssssh…it’s alright, Vinh,” Trung said wearily.

Goku knelt and set the man on the ground and then reached inside his shirt, drawing out the pouch containing senzu. He dropped one into his hand and placed it in the other’s mouth. “Chew” he instructed.

Goku’s eyes glanced up and then back down as the bean took effect. They-they were the same!

A body suddenly pressed against him and lips engaged his. The gratefulness that came across clear and true, rather than the weight of the person, nearly threw him off balance. He caught himself before he fell backwards. “Thank you,” Vihn said quietly before he turned back to his twin.

Vinh proceeded to give his look-a-like an earful in their native tongue.

Goku took the opportunity to stand up. He wondered at the lack of questions or caution his actions would have normally brought about. No fear…just a simple ‘thank you.’ These were reactions he would have expected out of his close circle of friends a year ago, but not from a total stranger.

Something tapped his shoulder and he turned around to find a man he was positive was as old as Roshi (if not older) looking at him. “There is still work to do, young man,” the elder said, tipping his head back towards the fire.

Goku grinned and put a hand behind his head; he got the tip of the walking stick in his gut for his action. His brows pinched together and he rubbed at his stomach, even though it had not hurt. “What did ya…” he received another poke. One more and he was going to take the man’s toy away! He growled.

“Ah, that’s better. More true to yourself. Now, if you would be so kind as to follow my lead,” Master Nabuo instructed as he dropped the walking stick and focused on a building spaced two away from the now ruined forge.

Goku could see the ki barrier the old man threw up between the buildings. Students started throwing water on the smoking shingles of the single story building.

Goku mirrored the old man’s actions on the opposite side. Then he placed one between the closest building and the inferno. He willed it to stretch over the fire and make contact with the second the elder had placed up, to match his second one.

The fire quickly used up the oxygen left to it. The red glow faded as nothing but heat and smoke billowed in the confines of the ki shield.

Goku extended his shield over the elder’s as he felt the old man waver. He caged the second building on fire, and then the third with separate pockets of ki.

Master Nabuo stood back and checked this new student’s handiwork. “Well done my boy,” he said as he stooped over to collect his walking stick.

Goku grinned, earning him another poke. He couldn’t do much more than growl again as he kept his focus on the three separate ki shields.

Nabuo stepped forward and started yelling instructions to his students. He could tell the fires were out, but the ki shields the stranger was keeping in place were confining the smoke. Once he deemed the closest buildings wet enough, he called his students back to him.

“You can let them go now,” he turned and addressed Goku.

Goku let the shields go along with his first transformation. There was a slight stilling from the group at large as his hair bled from blond back to black. It didn’t last long as the students started talking amongst themselves. People were going to have to bunk up because others had had their beds burned.

Goku shuffled his feet, not really knowing how to go about asking where and if he could stay the night.

The dilemma was solved for him. “Master Nabuo, he can stay with us,” Vinh said.

Nabuo gave the stranger a penetrating stare. He had heard about beings able to hold enough ki that it changed their appearance, but they weren’t human. “Very well,” he gave his permission. He’d ask questions in the morning.

Vinh grabbed Goku’s hand. “You’ll be staying with us then. We are over here,” he said, pointing at one of the buildings.

“Can…do you have somewhere I can bathe?” Goku asked as he was dragged in the direction Vinh had indicated.

Trung smirked at his brother. Vinh grinned back. “Yes,” Trung said, turning from their current destination.

Goku didn’t understand what was being silently communicated, but he did understand the brothers were up to something.

“I owe you more than a bed,” Vinh said as his brother slid a door open to a bathhouse.

“And I owe you more than a bath,” Trung said as he stepped inside and started stripping.

“Uh….” Goku didn’t quite believe what they were leading up to. Skilled, deft hands started removing his clothing for him. Teasing touches warned him what they had on their minds. “I can do that myself,” Goku stated.

“Yes,” both twins agreed at the same time. They didn’t stop what they were doing.

~o0o~


Goku woke when the birds in the area became too loud to ignore any longer. It was a very difficult thing to do. He was comfortable, calm…had a warm body next to him. He jerked to full alertness as he remembered the night before.

A gentle hand pressed into his chest. “Relax. Vinh has gone to talk with Master Nabuo.”

“A-about what?” Goku hoped the twins weren’t second-guessing their decision last night.

“Hmmm,” a sleepy, content reply, “We want you to stay with us…if the Master is willing to let you.”

“Ah.” Goku couldn’t help the pleased smile that stretched across his face.

~o0o~


“Son of Bardock! One block! I said, ‘one block at a time,’” Master Nabuo ordered.

Goku huffed. When the old man had asked for his name and he had introduced himself as ‘Goku’ he had gotten another poke in the stomach from the extremely-annoying-walking-stick. When he had said ‘Kakarott’ he had gotten the same. In frustration he had blurted out the only true thing he knew to be…even if it were second hand information.

So now Master Nabuo called him ‘Son’, or (if the old man was disappointed in him) ‘Son of Bardock’.

Goku placed his burden down to some groaning from the rest of the students. Most were more than willing to let someone who could carry the whole stack do so. Touyen trotted by him carrying two blocks. The mischievous woman stuck out her tongue on the way by.

Goku growled before picking up ‘one block’ and carrying it to the site the new forge was going to be built.

When he turned away from setting down his burden Master was standing in his way. “Come, Son, you need to talk.”

The sayian followed the man a distance away from the hustle going on in the center of the complex. When Master Nabuo sat on one of the benches outside his home, Goku followed suit. For a long time, there was silence between the two. Finally, “I said ‘you need to talk’, so start talking.”

“I can do more than you are allowing me to do. Everyone wouldn’t have to work so hard, and it would be done faster, if you would just allow me to do what I am capable of,” Goku stated his frustrations.

Master Nabuo smiled, but the look on his face said he was thinking about something else that had relevance to this situation. “Yes, you could do so, but there are students that are building muscles they don’t have by doing more of the work. You have plenty of muscle.” The old man poked his shoulder with an aged finger to prove his point.

Goku smiled faintly, “Yeah, that’s true.”

“What you don’t have plenty of is patience,” Goku blinked at the old man’s statement, thinking it totally false, but Nabuo continued before Goku could say anything, “The forge will be built at its own pace, and in its own time. Plus the forge needs to belong to everyone. If I let you build it by yourself, which you are more than capable of doing, there would be plenty of students here that would start thinking of it as your accomplishment instead of the whole complex’s. I am not in the habit of building testaments to peoples’ deeds, and I certainly won’t let the forge become one.”

Goku’s face took on a thoughtful look. Had he been looking for some sort of reward?

“Individual testaments come out in a student’s work. There will be plenty of time for you to prove yourself once everyone can start smithing again.” Goku nodded, and Master Nabuo smiled, “Go, hunt…there will still be plenty to do when you come back.”

Goku looked up in surprise; the students here were vegetarians, and he thought it was a requirement. “What will balance you is different from the rest of the students. I understand,” Master Nabuo addressed the unspoken question.

Goku’s mouth started to water at just the thought of fresh meat. He stood faster than he expected, his body already forcing its needs through his actions. “Don’t forget to bathe before you come back!” Nabuo shouted as Goku passed the walls that held the jungle at bay.

“You’re making a lot of exceptions for that one,” Nabuo heard his most accomplished student say behind him.

“There are going to be a lot of exceptions concerning that one,” Nabuo stated.

“Is it worth it? Why not just leave him lost out there, before he comes back?” Xing asked.

“It is a matter of debt,” Nabuo answered simply. He let Xing think what he may on the matter, but the truth was, this ‘Goku’ wielded the power to destroy this planet, and he had used it to save it instead, over and over again. He wasn’t as cut off from the rest of the world as the students liked to believe he was.

“His chi is what caused the forge to become unbalanced in the first place,” Xing argued his grievance, “The twins have already paid him back.”

“The twins continue to keep him balanced, Xing. He is not a threat to you. You are my most advanced and devoted student,” Nabuo said. This answer seemed to calm Xing’s anxiety, as he bowed low before walking back to supervise tasks.

Nabuo hoped he would never have to inform the young man that he was competing with a god.


~o0o~

4 months, A.P.


Pacing…pacing…pacing…

The twins glanced at each other. Goku had been with them for a month. Their roommate was usually so calm…but he had been doing this caged animal act for almost an hour now.

“Do you need to hunt?” Trung asked.

“No” Goku answered curtly. He needed to see Vegeta…no, he wanted to see Vegeta. He had hoped the twins would help dispel this insanity.

They hadn’t though….

Pacing…pacing…pacing….

There was a knock at the door and all three jumped. Who ever had paid them a visit invited themselves in.

Master Nabuo held the door wide as he took in the energies in the room. “Son. Go.” He said, as he was reminded yet again why he had accepted so few warriors in the past.

Goku looked back at the twins. They both smiled at him, giving him their unspoken blessing. He grabbed his jacket before running into the night-cloaked jungle.

“You know you can’t keep him?” Master Nabuo asked the twins.

Vinh and Trung looked at each other before turning back to the forge master. “Yes” they said in unison.

Master Nabuo walked away. Trung shut the door behind him. Vinh smiled sadly at his brother.

~o0o~

2 years, 3 months A.P.

Heat blazed all around him, but the effects on his body were minimal. He was able to focus on the rhythmic pounding in this environment: steady, piercing and soothing. It distracted him from consuming thoughts like nothing else could.

A hiss jolted his absorption, and he set his hands back to work. He poured red-hot liquid into the custom mold he had infused with his ki, finally setting the last cuff aside to cool down.

He had set out to learn how to forge metal three months after he had made his promise. Two years after having started to learn the techniques, he had managed three decent blades, several chains and now the cuffs. All were enhanced with his ki. The blades would cut without dulling or cauterizing. The chains would hold anything with a lesser ki than his…which meant EVERYTHING. The cuffs…those had been an after thought.

“I see you have finished, Son,” the elderly man’s calm voice said from behind him.

The sayian smiled in appreciation of a tough job completed. “Yes,” he stated, turning around.

The old man’s features were composed, although Goku could detect the concern that lay under the surface. “You don’t have to go. You have great potential, but so much more to learn,” Nabuo had no idea what use Son intended these items for, but it wasn’t going to be pleasant. Of that he was certain. The last time someone had gone through the trouble to make something remotely close to this strength, it had been to entrap King Piccolo. He had learned years later his pupil had succeeded, but had perished in the process.

Goku looked around at the many hopeful students and apprentices. Strong bodies accompanied with strong minds, working together instead of against each other. The balance of all five elements in one place was a healthy atmosphere. The challenge to continue to tame the dragon of the forge instead of the demon in his own soul was tempting…and the easy way out. “I have other things I am committed to,” he said quietly.

He reached out and grabbed the rapidly cooling mold with tongs, plunging it into the water barrel. Steam blurred his vision as he dropped his third transformation. When the vaporized water cleared the Master was no longer there.

~o0o~