--

"Talking"

'Thinking'

"Demon/Monster Talking"

'Demon/Monster Thinking'

"God/Goddess Talking"

'God/Goddess Thinking'

--(Scene Change)--

A/N: Chapter 2 here we come. The story will probably be darker than the books. I found the books to be rather childish in a lot of places. Humor was added in really dire situations and where it didn't really belong was to often. Another thing that I hated was this. The freaking war took up one book with one battle! Seriously, wtf? Kronos had been building power for thousands of years, yet he was beaten in a year? LAME I say. I'm making Naruto a bit younger than he would be if I followed the canon timeline. Nothing major, maybe half a year.

The chapter ended up shorted than I would have liked, but I have finals this week and next and I don't know when I would find the time to do more. I wanted to give you guys something.

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Chapter 2 : The divergence point.

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"Naruto, the Ichibi no Shukaku has been spotted near Suna"

"Hokage-sama, how can we ally ourselves with Kumo? They killed my father!"

"Naruto, its okay, myself and Tsunade-shishou can handle this"

"Yosh, don't worry Naruto, we'll show them the power of out youth!"

"Che, Naruto, you're to troublesome."

"Boss, I can beat them, have some faith in me."

"Naruto, its been a pleasure being able to call myself your sensei, even if you were the most annoying student ever to grace the academy."

These voices were going through Naruto's head as his body and spirit were in turmoil. His body would always heal sure, but his spirit was another story, and right now, it was on the brink in insanity.

"I failed you guys" he felt himself say, though his voice came out as more of a muffled whisper. "I couldn't protect you!"

"You never failed us, Naruto" the voices of his friends argued in unison. "We made our sacrifice for our village and our loved ones. It was for the betterment of the Leaf and it was onto you that we placed our faith in. In the end, our faith was well placed. You defended the Leaf, and the will of fire like we knew you would. We will always live on in your heart and that is all that matters."

As those words were being said, Naruto couldn't help but let tears fall freely from his eyes. Eyes that had once been so dry, so far gone into denial, had returned to their state of months previous. "I don't think I can ever live up what you gave me" he said as light began to flood into his vision.

"Don't worry" the voices said, fading as the light became brighter "We trust you, always."

As those words left their mouths, Naruto's vision exploded into light, and his body slowly opened his eyes.

Unknown to him, three balls of light also appeared in the flash. "That you for allowing us to talk to him" the voices of the fallen Leaf ninja said. "He really did need it didn't he." they said before they dissipated. The three lights merely gave what looked like a nod as it looked over the improved mental state of the human. Sure, they had bent a couple of rules, but it was worth it in the end. They couldn't have the human commit suicide or anything. The Fates weren't above some minor manipulation after all.

--(Outside)--

"Hey, he's breathing more normally" Naruto heard a voice whisper beside him. He knew he was sitting, in a rather comfortable chair at that and he could feel a little sunlight hitting his face, warming it slightly.

"This is like when Jackson got here" another voice spoke up, though Naruto was unable to determine the gender of either voice. He was still rather out of it.

"Yeah, did you hear Chiron? This guy broke like twelve bones, and they've already healed! Even ambrosia and nectar couldn't do something like that." the first voice said, and Naruto could just imagine the person waving arms around in excitement..

"He must be really powerful" the second voice agreed excitedly. "I wonder who he is."

Naruto could hear the voices more and more clearly as he become more and more coherent. Gathering some nature chakra, he tried to determine who was outside, and the threat they represented.

As soon as he gathered the chakra, he knew something was not normal. Dozens upon dozens of people could be sensed some normal people with genin level energy levels as well as quite with a few with chunin and jonin levels, though they were not as numerous as the genin level people.

'What the hell.' he thought, bewildered. 'With this amount of nature chakra, I should only be able to sense a few meters around me. I can feel the energy of people at least a kilometer away, is the potency of the natural chakra in this world so much more potent? And what kind of chakra do these people posses? It feels so different, not like normal chakra at all. If anything, it feels more akin to elemental chakra.'

"I wonder when he'll wake up" the first voice, which Naruto could now tell was male, spoke up.

"Who knows" the second voice, 'female' Naruto deduced. "Chiron says his body is healed, maybe he just needs some rest."

'They don't seem threatening.' Naruto thought, analyzing the situation with the thoroughness of a kage. 'This Chiron guy seems to have helped healed me. Twelve broken bones though, sheesh, I didn't think Madara did that much to me. It begs the question though, how did I heal so fast. The damn kitsune is gone, I don't sense any of its chakra at all. How is my healing factor still active?'

Before he could ponder this further, a third voice entered the room, along with what sounded like the rolling of wheels across a wooden floor accompanying it.

"How is he?" the voice, that of a middle aged man if Naruto could tell correctly questioned. By the sound of wheels, Naruto deduced that the man was in a wheelchair, though he wasn't fully sure.

"He seems better Chiron" the first, male voice, said. "His breathing is more normal than before."

"Oh?" the middle aged voice, apparently belonging to Chiron asked in surprise. "Interesting, I mended his ribs the best I could, but he should still be breathing rather labored for the next couple of days. The breaks were rather severe." he said, humming to himself slightly as he gazed at the body in front of him, watching as the boy's chest went up and down in steady breaths. "Thank you, Michael, Katie, you can retire to your cabins." he said, in a tone that obviously signaled dismissal.

Naruto could hear the two sets of feet shuffle out of the room and he focused his attention on the man, Chiron who was the only one left in the room.

'His energy is at a high jonin level' he mused to himself as he sensed the man and tensing slightly. This man was a lot more dangerous than the other two. 'But it feels much more...primal than the other two. Its weathered, extremely so; It feels as if he's fought for his entire life, and then some.'

"I know you're awake" the man spoke out suddenly, breaking Naruto out of his thoughts. "You're good, very good, that's for sure, but you're about two thousand years to early to fool me with such a trick" he said, internally chuckling at his own joke about his age, not that Naruto knew what it meant.

Slowly creaking his eyes open, and seething on the inside that he got caught (was he really that pathetic?), he was able to see the man in front of him. He looked slightly younger than middle age, maybe thirty or so with brown hair and eyes with a rather full beard. The most notable thing was the fact that his entire lower half of his body was encased in a wheelchair and by encased, he meant encased. It was rather strange looking. He appeared jovial and enthusiastic, but Naruto could tell that behind that facade led a very dangerous man. Living on the cusp of destruction fine tuned your danger sense after all and right now, it was screaming at him.

"Err...Hi" he said sheepishly as he opened his eyes to look at the man. "Do you mind telling be where I am?" he asked politely. It wouldn't do to offend him after all. As soon as he had woken up he could immediately teel that he was not in top condition, even though his healing factor had seemingly stayed with him. His chakra levels were pitifully low, and all the muscles in his body ached. In his current state, he would likely not be able to defeat this man.

"Of course" the man, errr...Chiron said politely looking at the boy with a soft gaze. "I am Chiron, a counselor here at Camp Half Blood. May I ask your name?"

'Camp Half Blood?' he thought to himself, brain filing away the information for later use. 'Weird name.' "Uzumaki Naruto" he said, responding to the mans question.

"Uzumaki Naruto" the man said, seemingly pondering the name. "That sounds Japanese" he mused, thinking about Apollo's recent trip to the island country, the man wouldn't stop talking about it. That added with the haiku's made him shudder slightly. "That means your first name is Naruto correct?" he asked.

"Yup" Naruto replied with a smile, without a clue what Japanese was.

Chiron took a little time to study the boy in front of him. He looked fifteen, maybe sixteen years of age. He had a slightly tanned skin with blond hair and brilliant blue eyes. He knew from treating him that he was in tremendous physical shape. 'There something about him though' he thought a little warily. 'Part of me just screams to run away when I look at him. It is...disconcerting.'

"Could you tell me how you ended up in your condition Naruto?" Chiron asked. He was very curious about this. There were no signs of a fight, and if it was a monster attack, they would have killed him, not left him with such injuries. There no signs of a trophy in the area either, which pretty much eliminated the chance that he had managed to slay a monster.

"I don't remember" Naruto said slowly, hanging his head down to look at his feet and mentally applauding himself on his acting abilities. For the first time in awhile he was grateful for the acting skills imparted to him by the Spring Country daimyo prior to the war.

"That is alright young man" Chiron said warmly. It wasn't that abnormal for those to forget traumatic events, it was a fate all to common with demigods. "Tell, me, how do you feel?"

"Fine, I think" Naruto replied, stretching his arms above his head. Sighing almost blissfully as his joints popped back into a comfortable position. "Everything feels right, thank you for healing me." he said, graciously.

"Of course, of course" Chiron said quickly. "It was my honor, there is no way I could leave you in your condition. I am surprised at the speed of your recovery though, I had anticipated it would take a couple more days before you were able to move about."

"Yeah" Naruto replied with a forced chuckle, "I get that a lot, I've always been a fast healer." he finished, trying to end the conversation as he began to stand up.

Chiron didn't press the issue as he heard the rising panic on the boy's voice. It wasn't unusual for new demigods to view their powers as abnormal, there was no need to distress the young man any more than necessary. He was about to change the subject when his ears heard another set of footsteps approaching him.

"Hey Chiron" a familiar, at least to him, female voice called out through the morning air. "What's up? You missed breakfast."

"Ahh Thalia" Chiron replied, catching sight of the dark haired teen. She was wearing a orange Camp Half Blood shirt with some faded jeans and was munching on a biscuit. "I was just going to look for you, would you be willing to show young Naruto here around, I'm afraid I have an archery class in fifteen minutes."

"Eh?" The girl, apparently named Thalia questioned before shrugging her shoulders "Sure I guess, its not like I have anything else going on. It's dreadfully boring here. So, where is the new guy?" she finished, looking around.

"Right here" Naruto said, somewhat dryly as Chiron moved to the side to allow the girl a better look at him.

"Hey, you must be that one kid" Thalia said, looking at him with curious eyes. "Mr.D was rambling on about a blond causing him all sorts of problems."

"Mr.D?" Naruto felt himself questioning. 'What kind of name is that?' he asked himself.

"Don't worry about it." Chiron cut in abruptly. "Mr.D is just a little cranky about some restrictions his father placed upon him. Well, I must be off, I'll leave you two alone." he finished, before he wheeled himself away, towards what Naruto presumed were the archery fields.

"So, err...My name is Thalia" the girl in front of him said lamely.

"Naruto" Naruto replied shortly with a mental roll of the eye. After dealing with seasoned ninja for the last few months, this conversation was laughable.

"Well I guess...I'll show you around" Thalia said uncomfortably, the blond was really annoying her, sheesh, how cold could you get. 'Stupid Chiron' she thought to herself as she motioned the blond to follow her 'I feel a headache coming on.'

As Naruto trailed behind the girl he took a little more time to study her. She looked about his age, maybe a bit younger. She was wearing a bight orange tee-shirt that had the words "Camp Half Blood" printed across the middle. She had fairly short black hair and he really couldn't tell her eye color. Once again gathering a bit of nature chakra, he was surprise to note that she had higher level chunnin energy reserves.

'Interesting' he thought, brows furrowing in thought as he took careful note of all the sights she pointed out, it wouldn't do to get lost. 'She's stronger than she appears to be. Her energy seems to be somewhat aligned to the lightning element as well.'

"And there are the basketball court" he heard her say as she gestured over to a rectanglar area of paves space with some strange poles with hoops attached to them. A few other people, who Naruto assumed were campers, were playing with some other people...who had donkey legs?

'I'm not going to say anything' Naruto thought to himself as he caught sight of the pair of...unique legs. 'Nope, nothing'

"And these are the cabins" Thalia said they came into a horseshoe formation of cabins. "The two in front are for Zeus and Hera, and from the left to the right it's Poseidon, Demeter, Ares, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Hermes, and Dionysus." she finished with a slight pant. Somehow she had managed to say that all in one breath.

"Okay..." Naruto said, trailing off at the end. Those names held absolutely no significance to him. "What do they mean?"

"You don't know" Thalia asked surprised, looking at the blond with wide eyes. "Their the Greek Gods!" she exclaimed.

"Okay..." Naruto said again, though something in the back of his head was telling him he was in trouble. "What does that mean?" he asked.

Thalia looked at Naruto like he was an idiot. "This is Camp Half Blood" she said slowly. "This is a camp for demigods" she finished bluntly.

As she said this Naruto realized what the voice on the back of his head was telling him and he could only think one thing. 'Well shit...'

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And...end. Like I said, this chapter ended up shorter than I would have liked, though it isn't too bad. How is it? I apologize for any typo's there might be. Please review, I really would like to know what you think of how I'm doing, character personality, etc.