Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the Naruto or Percy Jackson franchises. Comments/Criticism is fine as long as it isn't straight up hate or flaming. If you do not like, no one is forcing you to read and you can just leave.

Thank you for reading and please enjoy

From the Other Side

PS: From now on, whenever Artemis speaks using Naruto's mouth it'll look "Like this."

-Chapter 9-

"Owwwwww… Hey Ten-chan, I think I found something," Naruto groaned in pain, but still lucid enough thankfully to take notice of the fact that that cavern wasn't naturally made. Not unless computers, cages, and light fixtures grew underground.

"Hold on Naruto! I'llgo signal the others real quiIIIIK!" Tenten shrieked as she unfortunately got too close and the ground also crumbled under her before she could react…

*Crash!* "…Owwww." "Sorry." And ended up landing right on Naruto.

-And Now-

'Why can't I ever have anything I'm doing go like planned? Is that too much to ask for just one time?' Naruto wondered as he lay half-buried in rock and a certain bun-haired girl currently using his gut as a landing pad.

"Are you alright Naruto?" Tenten asked as she quickly climbed off her orange garbed companion and began moving the rubble that he was partially buried in.

"Ugh, been better," Naruto said with a grimace, a small trickle of blood running down the side of his face from a cut on his forehead while one of his hands weakly held his stomach where the bun-haired girl landed. 'What about you Arte-nee?'

"Annoyed but fine."The goddess of the hunt said huffed out, not happy about being sent back into her confinement prematurely. "Now where in Tartarus are we?"

"That's a good question," Naruto mumbled with a grunt as Tenten pulled him to his feet and he managed to get a good look at his surroundings. "I don't remember annoying creepy underground rooms in the mission description."

"That's the life of a ninja for you. You should always expect the unexpected." Tenten said, getting Naruto to nod in agreement before they both turned their gazes to the ceiling at least two stories above them, or more specifically the hole they had fallen through.

"The ground is too unstable to go back that way, attempting so would most likely result in a cave in. We'll have to find another way out." Artemis said through Naruto. Her words were punctuated by an ominous crumbling sounds followed by some small stones and dust falling from above.

"Alright, I'll send a message to… Kuso!" Tenten swore as she reached for the summoning scroll she'd been carrying, only to come up with a useless piece of ripped up parchment. "Looks like we're on our own."

"Let's look around then. There should be another way out of here cause I'm pretty sure that wasn't the front door." Naruto said while he dusted himself off, getting Tenten to laugh a little before they started to explore.

Unfortunately for them, they never noticed the same grumpy turtle Artemis had been holding earlier wiggling helplessly upside-down as a florescent green liquid from a broken test tube poured all over it.

As they looked around the place, all three of them kept their guards up in case there was any additional nasty surprises waiting for them. However, it didn't take long for their caution to be subsided by an overwhelming amount of intrigue and curiosity at what they were finding. Several computers were set up all over the place, either displaying large amounts of technical gibberish that none of them could make heads or tails of, or hooked up to large glass containment units that held several different types of reptiles such as lizards, snakes, and of course turtles.

…At least, some of them held those.

The majority contained horribly deformed and disturbingly humanoid looking and sized creatures or giant eggs as large as a child that were either half hatched or dissected open to show the monstrosity within. "By Kami, who would do something like this?" Tenten wondered, shivering as they passed by a particularly disgusting container. Its content looked like a horribly injured man who had two tiny hands bursting out of his stomach, a mouth that took up over half the face filled with dozens of jaded teeth, and two large limbs sticking out of its back that ended in large bone scythes.

"I have no idea, and I pretty sure don't want to." Naruto said with a green face as he saw another man who's entire chest cavity, lower jaw, and stomach were missing and had a disfigured snake head for an arm. "I'm just glad these things are dead." Each canister had a life support monitor and number ID on the side of it, with every single one flatlined.

"By Zeus, this place makes Hades's domain look like a spring paradise." Artemis muttered in, utterly horrified at the sick and demented twisting of life. "I'm guessing this was Kemak's doing. The princess said he'd been absolutely insistent on having the sanctuary set up and that no one but he go on it…"

"And this just happens to be within the property limit." Tenten finished, getting what the goddess was getting at. "He probably used the turtle fanaticism as a ruse to keep this place under wraps. But still, why would he do all of this?"

Spotting something in the corner of his eye, Naruto turned his head towards the source before pointing. "Maybe those will tell us."

Looking in the direction he was gesturing too, Tenten found herself looking at a moderately sized alcove where a large workbench that was covered with various notebooks, papers, and a small glass box. "That's convenient… too convenient." She said with narrowed eyes while reaching into her weapon pouch and pulling out a trio of kunai.

Acting fast, she tossed them at the table before tackling a surprised Naruto behind a container holding a giant lizard with a human face.

*Thunk, thunk, thunk*

"Huh, guess it wasn't a trap after all." Tenten said as she lifted head up and looked through the glass to see that nothing had happened at all. "That or it has a more complicated trigger mechanism, possible a pressure plate or…"

"Get. Off." Tenten was broken from her thoughts as she heard Naruto's muffled words under her. Remembering that she was still on top of the him, she glanced down to apologise while getting up… and rapidly developed a bright blush on her face. In her rush to avoid the trap she had expected to be triggered, the bun-haired had forgotten the fact that her companion was easily a head shorter than her, so when she tackled him to the ground the whiskered blonde ended up with an unexpected face full of developing teenage breasts.

'Must resist dirty thoughts… must resist dirty thoughts...' Naruto repeated in his head desperately with a twitching eyebrow as Tenten quickly climbed off of him, only for his brain to keep replaying the moment and a small trickle of blood to run down one of his nostrils. 'DAMN IT!'

"If it wasn't for the fact I was in here, I would think you were somehow setting these accidents up somehow." Artemis said with a facepalm.

"Ehem, sorry about that… let's, let's just go look at what's on the table." Tenten said awkwardly, quickly changing the subject as she stood up hurried over to the said place.

"Yeah, sounds good," Naruto said, wiping his nose clean as he got back up and followed after her. Keep a cautious eye out for any possible traps, the duo approached the table where Tenten pulled her Kunai free and put them away before they slowly started going through the various different documents and sheets.

And boy were the contents unpleasant.

Specimen 11: Formula A-03. Subject was stabile during incubation, but shortly after hatching experienced rapid cellular death and molecular instability that resulted in accelerated aging and organ failure. Further study revealed the cause to be a compatibility failure between the crevice snake and lake gecko DNA. Kabuto-san was most displeased with this but refrained from punishing me this time for my failure.

Specimen 67: Formula D-52. Subject perished during third week of incubation. Autopsy revealed that the embryotic sac had mutated into a cellular structure similar to the human digestive track that resulted in the subject being dissolved by the extreme acidity. The cause was revealed to be due to human tissue sample being contaminated with bacterial growth. Need to request new samples during Kabuto-sans next review period.

Specimen 294: Formula G-10. Subject prematurely hatched during eighth week of incubation due to the unexpected mutation of massive clawed forelimbs. Despite this, the partially developed fetus survived an impressive two hours and thirty-five minutes before perishing. Unable to identify the cause of mutation at this time. Despite this, Kabuto-san was highly pleased with the results during his monthly review.

Specimen 300: Formula J-117. Subject successfully went through full incubation and survived an astonishing three weeks before finally perishing due to sudden respiratory failure. My theory of integrating avian DNA has paid off. Autopsy on the subject revealed the cause of death to simply be the common flu virus as the subject hadn't developed a proper immune system yet. In light of this success, Kabuto-san has requested a fully developed live subject to be transported to the labs in the Land of Rice Paddies. Unknown at this time on how to accomplish this task without breaking cover.

With each report they read, the looks of disgust and revulsion on both Naruto and Tenten's faces grew. Whoever wrote these made sure to put down every single detail they could, including how many 'successful' minutes they survived and how violent or gruesome the deaths of the 'subject' was. Putting them aside, Naruto grabbed the glass box with curiosity. It looked just like the rest of the containment chambers, only smaller and more portable version, lacking the aforementioned life monitor, and the number 301 etched hastily on the side.

While he was focused on this, Tenten had switched to the journals."Ugh, Artemis was right, Kemak was the one who used this place. He was trying to develop a formula that would give someone the perfect blend of reptilian abilities." She said as she flipped through several pages before pausing on one in particular. "Worse yet, he had the support of a hidden village. Though it must be pretty new cause I've never heard of Otogakure or this Kabuto before."

When her statement was met with silence, the weapon addict glanced up to see Naruto holding the container up to the light as he looked closely at the perfectly white fist sized egg that it contained. "What is that?"

"Don't know, but whatever it is, it's still alive," Artemis said with narrowed eyes as she and Naruto saw a faint outline of the creature wiggling within its shell prison. "And ready to hatch."

"Okay, I've seen enough horror movies to know how this goes. Do not let that thing out of sight while I seal these up, there is no way we're leaving this." Tenten said with dead seriousness as she pulled out some blank scrolls and ink. Neither Naruto or Artemis argued with her as they kept their eyes firmly on the unusual egg.

It only took the brunette a minute or so to seal away the clutter of paperwork and to stuff the finished scrolls into her equipment pouch. In that time though, the cavern around them shook again, though much more violently than before.

"Let's get the hell out of here, this place is ready to fall apart." She said, getting a nod from the blonde as he was about to put the box back down only for Tenten to stop him. "Keep it, I'd rather not risk whatever it is possibly getting out when this place crumbles." Seeing her point, Naruto tucked the container under his left arm carefully before they both sprinted off.

"This is what you get for building a base like this under a marshland without any kind of support structure. I can just imagine Athena ranting about the stupidity of it now." Artemis said with a nostalgic sigh as the place shook once more, before shaking her head suddenly with a look of confusion. 'What in Tartarus? Why do I suddenly feel… sad all of a sudden?'

So lost in her thoughts, she didn't even notice as her 'host' and his partner found finally found a way out in the form of a stone staircase built into one of the walls. This in turn led to a large stone wall that held a complex looking seal that Tenten identified as a user specific chakra lock while slapping several explosive tags over it then dragging Naruto behind cover as the papers ignited.

Artemis only snapped her from her thoughts when the resulting blast caused her to fall over in her prison with a splash. "What the hell was that?" She demanded as she got up, ignoring the muffled snickering of the fox behind her as she shook water off of herself.

'Tenten blasting the exit open, duh.' Naruto thought back with a raised eyebrow. 'How could you have missed that?'

"...The seal tightened up a bit and I was cut off briefly." The moon goddess lied, making Naruto nod in acceptance.

'The fox tried something?' Naruto asked, his mental voice shaking slightly as he spoke of the beast he held. The truth had been revealed to him shortly after Tsunade had 'diagnosed' Artemis, as the Third had figured there was a very likely chance that the trapped Olympian would end up telling him about it anyway.

The revelation had been pretty hard on the enigmatic blonde and Naruto had spent several days in an unresponsive state of denial. It had taken Shizune, Iruka, and Hiruzen combined efforts to both get him to accept his condition and believe that he wasn't the fox itself turned human or other such malarkey.

Anyway, back to the present, Artemis simply a short "Yes," before falling silent again as she contemplated her compulsive reaction, though this time making sure to stay aware of her surroundings.

Stepping through the still smoking gap that had been created, Naruto and Tenten found themselves inside a small sparsely decorated room with a plain futon, a kitchenette, and a sliding door that had been knocked off its hinges to reveal the marshy outside with hundreds of turtles milling about and the hillside the building was attached to.

'Must be the weirdo's home,' Naruto thought as he took a brief glance around, spotting several turtle-based trinkets and such lying around in random places as they walked outside.

"Let's head back to Omocha, we need to report this to the princess and our senseis right away." Tenten said while patting her equipment pouch.

"Then what are we standing around here for?" Naruto asked rhetorically before jumping up into the canopy and tree-hopping away.

"Oi! Wait for me!" The weapon fanatic called after him as she rushed to catch up.

After they left, the tremors settled down again and a calm silence filled the area. Birds started to return to their perches, tweeting their songs to each-other while the turtles on the forest floor continued to waddle about in search of food.

The peace was swiftly shattered again not even a minute later though when yet another quake shook through the area, this time followed with a series of large spiderweb cracks that spread across the earth rapidly. The land then started sinking down as the weight of the earth was no longer able to support itself.

Just before it could fully collapse though, and in turn bury the lab underneath along with it's horrific contents, something suddenly burst through the ground. Whatever had done this was mostly from view by the resulting cloud of smoke and dirt, with only a hulking shadow roughly thirty feet tall in view alongside a glowing orange eye full of bloodlust, and insanity.

"RAAAAAA-"

-With Naruto and Tenten-

"-AAAAAH!"

Both genin stopped in their tracks as the powerful roar reached their ears, making the hair on the back of their necks stand up as a literal wave of malice washed over them. Turning around, they were only just able to catch sight of the massive dust cloud that had formed behind them before they were forced to jump out of the way of a massive torrent of fire that completely obliterated everything in its path.

Unfortunately, Naruto hadn't managed to react in time to escape unscathed and his right arm was ever so briefly engulfed by the passing inferno, roasting off the sleeve of his jacket in seconds and scorching the skin underneath. Crying out in agony, the pain caused him to lose focus on his surroundings and he ended up harshly smashing into the branch he'd been aiming for. The force of the impact snapped the branch with ease, sending him tumbling through the underlying canopy until he hit the muddy ground below with a *Splat*.

Then, as if to add insult to injury, just as he slowly lifted his head up to see something massive and reptilian crashing through the incinerated landscape and towards the village, the case he'd been carrying landing on his head with a cracking sound before landing in the mud next to him completely unharmed with its contents intact.

-End Chapter-

AN: This was originally going to be part of last chapter, but I ended up not liking what I had originally planned to happen and doing an overhaul on the whole segment while posting the first half. If you are a dedicated reader of this story, then I'm pretty sure you already figured out what is in the egg Naruto has and those that haven't will probably feel like kicking themselves when they do. Also, there are seven different Easter egg references to different shows, games, ect. Internet cookie to whomever can find them all. Thank you for reading and please review.