NOTICE : In desperate need of a beta-reader.
Hello people!
This chapter would've been out a lot sooner, but I managed to fracture my left ankle jumping down from a staircase in my school, and I was stuck in the hospital for a few days.
Also, I would like to clear something out first. THE PAIRINGS ARE NOT DECIDED. THEY HAVEN'T BEEN FINALIZED. I am quite stuck with who to go with. If I said Rhea was at the top of the 'Probable Pairing' list, it did not mean that she was finalized. Honestly guys, I might as well go with Artemis or Aphrodite in the end. But as of right now, Rhea is leading in the polls. And because of the enormous amounts of PMs I got requesting me to add Artemis in the poll, and some doing quite a lot more than requesting, I decided to relent and she has been added to the poll.
Review responses :
SkeenTheDream : Hestia is just too much of a mother figure in my opinion. And she wouldn't be as much 'FUN' as some of the other choices.
XenoLucifer : But her 'adventurous' personality is where all the fun stems from ;)
YuukiAsuna-Chan : She is in a relationship with Leo, but since I've decided to omit the Roman aspect completely from the story, she is fair game.
Azrael : Prolly only gonna have Naruto and Kurama in the PJ Universe.
The Name of Love : It would really suck if Naruto was weaker than your average demigod. Hell, even a Chunin from Narutoverse would be enough to beat your top demigod from PJ Universe. And if you compare that with the power levels Naruto was at as we neared the end of the series, it is only fair that he would be massively OP.
Also, fun fact : I had a scene where Naruto chops off the toes of Gration in the previous chapter. Then I promptly realized that giants have snakes for feet and changed it. Kind of curious as to why no one noticed it before I did, or if they did why they did not point it out.
And sorry about the whole Aretmis/Athena confusion. It was an error on my part, and has been fixed.
Anyways, here you go, Chapter 5 of some more bad-ass Naruto :
His eyes morphed into a shade of red, the color of blood, with three tomoe surrounding it. He jumped up to eye level of the giant, and stared him in his single remaining eye.
'Genjutsu : Sharingan'
Gration's little quarrel with the little blonde had been going on for quite a while now. He was as persistent as a pesky rodent, but far more dangerous than a rodent could ever hope to be. The fact that Gration was covered in his own golden immortal blood bore proof to that.
And what surprised him the most was the fact that the blonde hadn't even shed the tiniest drop of his red, mortal blood during it all.
He was not a half-blood, which was clear enough by his scent. He was a perfectly normal, perfectly mortal human. How a human managed to not only survive, but also cause unimaginable pain to a thousand year old giant in a battle was beyond him.
The tides of the battle had not been in Gration's favor since the moment the blonde pulled out his dark blade, which was akin to a needle in front of the might of Gration. However, this statement did not quite hold as much value fifteen minutes into the battle as he proceeded to split his palm into two, pop one of his eyes out, rip out a finger of his hand, and chop off his feet. Not necessarily in that order.
But when the blonde flew right up in front of Gration's remaining eye, and his eyes morphed into a color as red as that of mortal blood, the whole damn ocean flew into his favor.
This mortal had given him almost as much, if not more trouble than Hercules had in the Gigantomachy himself.
The moment his eyes turned crimson, Gration was suddenly not on Hamlin Peak.
And wherever he was, it was not pleasant in the least.
Artemis thought she was done being surprised by the blonde, but he had a tendency to keep surprising, as she would promptly find out the moment he jumped up to Gration's lone remaining eye.
A split second after Naruto had stared right into the giant's eye, he had stopped moving.
He had frozen right where he was, and the blonde fell back on the ground. She was surprised yet again, when she saw that his eyes weren't blue, their usual colour, but rather the crimson shade of blood.
"He won't be moving for a little while now."
His crimson eyes held none of the usual lightness that his blue eyes held. And with him staring right into her own silver eyes, she felt like she had not felt a sterner gaze.
But the little sly smile gracing his lips was in stark contrast to all the seriousness his eyes held.
Pulling her gaze away from his smiling lips, she stared right back into his eyes, "How long until he moves again?"
Naruto sighed, as if he himself was not aware of that particular fact.
"Honestly, I have absolutely no idea. He ideally should be paralyzed for at least half an hour, but I can't say for sure, since I don't always get to have my staring matches with 30-foot giants."
"A staring match that only lasted a second." She remarked.
"Was that a compliment, Lady Artemis? I am not sure I heard you right." Naruto spoke, his smile widening.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, mortal. We don't know for how long he is out, best make the full use of the little time we have."
No more was needed to be said. Artemis pulled out arrows and started shooting down earthborn faster than one could blink. Naruto shot off in a blur to the nearest thing with more than a pair of arms.
Not long after, the summit of the mountain was completely full of random piles of mud every here and there. The only ones left were Artemis, her hunters, the strange blonde, and the frozen giant.
As soon as the last earthborn collapsed into a pile of dust, courtesy of a particular blonde shoving his blade up its groin, Artemis started firing explosive arrows at the wall that surrounded them.
"Zoe, getting the hunters out of here is our first priority right now." She spoke to her most trusted lieutenant.
"Yes, my lady," she said respectfully, and then spoke more loudly to the hunters, "HUNTERS! AIM FOR THAT BRICK IN THE WALL! WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE AND QUICK!"
With that, the entirety of Artemis' troop of hunters started shooting arrows, all aimed at a singular spot on the wall. Cracks spread out like a spider web on the wall under the continued relentless assault.
"Can't you just build them a wooden ladder considering the fact that you are also the goddess of forests?" Naruto asked her.
Artemis scoffed, "That was the first thing we tried. Nothing can leave here until there is a breach in the walls itself. The barrier forbids anything from leaving."
"And what a splendid job your girl scouts are doing of breaching the wall." It was Naruto's turn to scoff.
Artemis looked at him sternly, and so did all of the hunters. Every single one.
Naruto shook his head, "Watch and learn."
With that, he calmly walked towards the spot in the wall where the cracks had been originating from. He then proceeded to arc his fist back, and punch the wall. As soon has his fist made contact with the wall, it shattered like a pane of glass being dropped onto the ground.
The bricks fell apart and the barrier collapsed.
A little basic chakra manipulation always beat flashy techniques and complicated jutsus after all.
"It was already weakened from our arrows." Zoe said with her eyebrow twitching, and Naruto pretended to not hear.
Soon as the barrier was down, Zoe commanded the hunters to move out, and they did.
"Leave now, Naruto. We are grateful for your aid, but I will need to go into my Divine Form to battle Gration. Divine Form of an Olympian can kill any normal human being who lays eyes on it." Artemis said to the blonde when she noticed he wasn't trying to leave via the break in the wall.
"We've all seen I am not quite normal, no?" Naruto asked her with just a hint of a smile.
"Then what are you?" Artemis asked with a raised eyebrow.
"A human who can kick some ass…?"
"…"
Naruto grinned sheepishly, but a groan was heard from the direction of the previously paralyzed giant. He was twitching ever so slightly, hinting at the fact that he was coming out of his paralysis.
"LEAVE, MORTAL! NOW!" Artemis shouted, already gathering the energy to transform into her Divine Form, thinking Naruto had heeded her warning and left. A bright energy engulfed her, a thousand times brighter than the sun. The whole summit was illuminated by the glory of the divine being. She was completely surrounded in the unbridled power of her divine essence, and she struck at Gration.
She knew a giant couldn't be slayed by a god's hand alone, and their boon needed a half-blood and a divine being to work together. In the Gigantomachy that had taken place eons ago, she had fought alongside Hercules to slay Gration.
Artemis also knew that she had no demi-gods at her disposal right now, as she herself had sent her hunters away. But you needed a demigod to slay a giant, you didn't need one to cripple and incapacitate one. She had sent her hunters off, with two purposes in mind. The first was their safety ofcourse, and the other was that so Olympus could be warned. And Artemis was more than enough to stall a giant such as Gration until aid arrived from Olympus. If they were lucky, maybe they could even capture Gration.
In her Divine Form, she was almost as large as Gration himself. She notched a massive arrow and let loose. The arrow itself was as large as a small tree. The sound it made as it was released could only be akin to the sound of a sonic boom.
The arrow streaked across the air at blinding speeds, leaving a golden glowing trail behind it. It struck the giant's left knee with an astounding boom, forcing him to let out a pained scream and fall to the ground.
Naruto chuckled, unnoticed by Artemis, as she believed he had left.
'He used to be an adventurer like me, but then he took an arrow in the knee.'
Artemis walked around the fallen giant slowly, another arrow notched, fingers ready to let loose the moment the giant tried to make a move. However she missed a horde of leaves rising behind her, and just a moment before she heard the swirling of leaves, she was surrounded. The leaves blew in a tornado with her in the center. The twist, however, was that the edges of the leaves themselves were as sharp as Stygian ice swords.
Gration pulled the arrow of his knee and rose, leaves already rising to heal his wound. With a gruesome, ugly smile, he arched his massive hand back and threw the arrow in the direction of the tornado with just as much velocity as Artemis's bow.
It had enough velocity to penetrate the superfast winds of the leaf tornado and maybe even fatally injure Artemis, and would've done so, if those same leaves had not accumulated together at a single spot in the blink of an eye and intercepted the arrow mid-flight.
The leaves formed a sort of cushion on the point where the thrown arrow would have struck, and it was stopped dead in its tracks.
"You are not the only one with the ability of chlorokinesis, Gration." Resonated the powerful voice of the Goddess of Forests, as she emerged from the dying down winds.
Gration looked mildly surprised. He knew that Artemis possessed the ability of chlorokinesis, being the Forest Goddess, but he knew not that she possessed it to this extent. Even though she had supreme authority over forests and their trees, her ability of chlorokinesis paled in comparison to her aunt Demeter's or her half-brother Dionysus's. Gration would never have thought it would be powerful enough to override someone else's ability of chlorokinesis, considering the fact that said someone else was Gration himself.
But he did not allow himself to be surprised for long, and wasting no time at all, he lunged at Artemis. He tried to make a grab for the goddess's neck, but she was quicker. She jumped behind, and away from his hands. However, she was not quicker than the terrible snakes all giant's had for feet. A massive snake wrapped itself around her left foot, coiling around it with enough force to crush it.
Trapped, Artemis had nowhere to move. Gration took advantage of this and went for a punch to her head. As his massive hand soared towards her face, she bent sideways to let it harmlessly fly past her head. Quick as lightning, she pulled out another arrow from her quiver, and notched it. Just as quick, she let the arrow loose, and it embedded itself deep into the junction where Gration's scaly knee grew out into a serpent.
Gration grunted loudly, and time seemed to freeze for a moment.
A small electronic beep disturbed the sudden calm that had settled over the summit.
Another beep.
Then, a smile appeared on Artemis's glowing face, as the arrow in the giant's foot blew up with another beep. The explosion itself wasn't massive, but the sound was. And the effect was, as well.
Gration's snake-foot flew through the air, severed from his knee in a shower of immortal blood.
Artemis's joy was short lived however, as the giant's hand shot forward and grabbed the Goddess's neck just as he was losing balance and falling. Using his falling trajectory, he grabbed the glowing goddess with both hands, and brought her down headfirst into the ground as he fell to the ground himself with a smack. The resultant crater had a diameter of twenty foot, but no one told Artemis that as she jumped up and away from the fallen giant, nimble as a dancer.
Her lip and forehead were bleeding immortal blood, but Artemis had realized something. Her power was slowly being drained by some unknown force. It was powerful, immensely so, but yet so subtle she had only noticed it now. Soon as the moment she had stepped foot onto the summit, something had been draining her strength, sapping it away like those disgusting creatures mortals called leeches.
But along with it, she also realized another fact. Her intelligent and tactical mind did not miss much. Sure, Athena might have had a reputation for being the smartest goddess, but Artemis was no joke. Her power was only sapped away when she was in direct or indirect contact with the ground.
Such powerful magic, it was doubtlessly her.
Gaea.
The earth itself, working against her, and supporting her disgusting, horrendous offspring.
Artemis knew she couldn't stall Gration if this kept up. Sure, she could fly around, but every time she came in contact with the ground, or even if she got hit by Gration while he was standing on the ground, it would sap away her power through the giant.
She had to slay the giant, but how?
She had no demigods at her disposal. She knew this was a lost battle if she fought here. And she had no way of leaving.
Unknown and forgotten by her, the breach in the wall she and her hunters had made had mended itself, and the magical barrier had reformed. If she had to take a guess, she would say it was from her own stolen power.
It did not matter however. Even if the ancient forced themselves were working against her, she would go down fighting. She couldn't let her hunters down and bring shame to her honor by giving up or not trying.
Hell, she might even be able to pop a few more arrows in Gration.
She jumped up from the ground, but she was slow. Much slower than she had been before. Her strength was being sapped away faster every second. Gration rushed at her, and punched her down into the ground with all his might before she could even rise 10 feet into the air, his leg already healed.
She smacked into the ground, hard and slid 30 feet on the ground, cracking and making deep gashes in the ground as her fallen form skidded to a stop. It had been a long time since the Goddess of the Hunt had her breath knocked out of her.
In her fallen state, Artemis still managed to notch another arrow and let it fly at the giant standing a few feet away from her. But before it could impale itself between the giant's eyebrows, his hand shot up and grabbed the arrow, stopping it mid flight.
He laughed, and it was the ugliest sound Artemis had ever heard. The ground was sapping away at her strength even now as she lay in the ground.
Gration threw the arrow at Artemis, putting all his might into it. As it left his hand, the air itself seemed to distort around the arrow as it flew towards her with hypersonic speeds. The resulting sonic boom was almost as scary as the thought of what would happen if the arrow hit her.
It seemed to cover the distance between her and Gration in no time at all, but funnily enough, time seemed to slow down as the arrow was just a few feet away from her face.
It seemed to fly through the air lazily as if mocking her. Everything slowed down and all she could see was the arrow which was just half a foot away from her face.
Just as it was a few centimeters away from impaling into her head, a hand grabbed the shaft of the arrow, and it stopped.
An arrow moving over five times faster than the speed of sound, stopped.
Just like that.
Her eyes tracked the hand up its wrist, the elbow, the muscular biceps, toned shoulders, and an excessively handsome face. His long, golden hair fell around the sides of his face, and there it was.
The ever irritating smile.
"You look like you need a hand." Naruto smiled, as he turned around, holding the arrow in his left arm.
Gration's eyes widened, and he screamed, "YOU! HOW ARE YOU EVEN ALIVE AFTER HAVING SEEN THE DIVINE FORM OF AN IMMORTAL?"
"If I lived after seeing your face, then limitless divine power can do nothing to faze me," Naruto laughed and asked the giant, "You love throwing things, don't you? I bet your mama threw you when you were born cuz you were so ugly!"
Gration let out a growl of rage, and Artemis had the urge to face palm at the kindergarten-level insult.
'Apparently not.' Artemis thought, thinking about Gaea doing her best in trying to make the fight as hard as she could for her, despite being only subconsciously active.
Then Naruto's expression turned dead-serious.
"Try catching something for once."
Standing over Artemis, he turned in a full circle with his body, mimicking the motion of a discus thrower and threw the arrow at the giant.
There was another massive boom, followed by a huge crash and a scream.
The arrow had glowed slightly blue for some reason, and struck Gration at the center of his chest, impaling itself deep within the center of his sternum, and blasting him away into a section of the wall surrounding them.
He offered Artemis a hand. She had turned back to her human form. Gaea had siphoned off enough energy off of her to render her unable to go into her Divine Form for a while.
She took it, and he pulled her huge form up with ease.
"H-How?" She asked him, standing close to his tall frame.
"Hm?" He asked, not understanding what she was asking.
"H-how are you still alive?" She asked him, getting over her initial stupor, then added sternly remembering the blonde's habit of avoiding questions, "And do not bother giving me a pointless answer."
"As if I know myself," He groaned, and then spied Gration trying to get back up.
"And we should probably stop him from doing that." He said and was off in a blur. He suddenly appeared in front of Gration and planted a kick in the arrow buried in his chest, impaling it further in and making the giant roar out in pain and fall back to the ground.
Artemis decided to put an end to it once and for all.
She plucked out another arrow from her quiver, and hopefully the last one she would need. She wanted to incapacitate the giant before all of her power was drained away, as she knew he couldn't be killed.
It was a beautiful arrow, to say in the least. It looked like it was made of gold, with a swan's head at its tip, its beak forming the head of the arrow. The swan's eyes were made of red gemstones, rubies if Naruto had to guess.
"I would advise that you step back." She said, not looking at Naruto but obviously referring to him.
He raised his hands up with a shake of his head and a smile, and backed off.
The arrow soared through the air with no sound, as graceful as a swan with flying with its wings outstretched. Artemis sharp eyes did not miss the sudden bluish glow it acquired as it soared past Naruto.
No sound did it make when it impaled itself just above Naruto's thrown arrow on Gration's chest.
The only sounds were those of Gration screaming as his body glowed and fell apart like a sand-castle in a storm.
"So you are telling me that you slayed Gration, with the aid of a human?" Ares asked, with a grin on his face as if he found the notion funny.
The whole Olympian Council looked at him, seated in the throne room, but the eyes of Artemis held the most anger.
"Are you implying that I would lie to the Council, Ares?" Artemis asked in a stern voice. So stern, in fact, that it was enough for him to shut up. Artemis was an enemy even the God of War wasn't foolish enough to want.
"Are you sure that it was not a demi-god?" Zeus asked his daughter, again.
"I would've known if he was, Father." Artemis replied, again.
"But we know the boon of the giants. The only way a god can slay a giant is if they are aided by a demigod." Poseidon decided to add his own two cents in the conversation.
"Yes, I am aware. But this human, he wasn't normal. The skill with which he fought, no human should have been able to do that. His strength equalled, if not exceeded the might of Hercules himself. Although his style of fighting was quite different." Artemis informed the Council.
She had stormed into the throne room and had summoned an Olympian Council. The notion of a giant rising was of utmost importance. She had then proceeded to inform her fellow Olympians of how she had tracked the giant to Maine, thinking he was just a normal monster. She then laid down her entire battle with the giant, complete with the details of how the blonde had managed to mutilate Gration even without her aid. She than then informed them of Gaea siphoning off her strength, and how Gration managed to plant her face in the dirt, although quite hesitantly. This part had earned an outright chuckle from Ares and a joke from Apollo, but they had shut up the moment she sent them a glare. She then told them how the blonde had stopped the arrow with his bare hands, and how she had slain Gration with her Swan Blessing arrow.
"Yet, we have seen even the most powerful of gods, including us, were not able to do any harm to the giants in the Gigantomachy until the heroes had answered Zeus' call. So how did a simple human manage to aid you in slaying Gration?" Poseidon asked Artemis, a puzzled look on his face.
Artemis shook her head, "I have no idea, Uncle. But perhaps, Athena might…" She trailed off as she turned to look at her trusted sister, the Goddess of Wisdom.
The whole Olympian Council had a habit of turning to Athena when they stumbled upon something they couldn't quite comprehend, and that was what they did. Every single one of them, turned their gazes upon Athena, hoping she had an answer to the situation.
Artemis was so observed in thought that she didn't realize that everyone was looking at her at first. They could quite literally hear the cogs turning in her head. When she did notice that everyone was looking at her, she cleared her throat loudly, preserving her dignity.
"Ahem, this is quite a situation indeed. I do not have a definitive answer, but I do have a theory." Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom spoke.
"Pray, do tell." Apollo said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
After a brief glare in his direction, Athena said again, "We know that for a god to slay a giant, the hand of a demigod is required as well. However, there exists no boon that the giants have which makes them immune to death from human hands, or just demigod hands for that matter. If a demigod had the strength to slay a giant, then according to my theory, they could. It is the same for a human. However, since no human or demigod can achieve the power to slay a giant alone, and only the gods possessed the power to do so during the time of the Gigantomachy, Gaea blessed them with the boon that the gods would need the help of a demigod to kill one."
When Athena finished, the looks on the faces of the Olympians was one of absolute surprise.
"So, are you saying that it wasn't Artemis who actually killed the giant, but rather the human himself?" Zeus asked, catching her meaning.
"Yes."
"Impossible." Ares said loudly. Too loudly.
Athena fixed him with a death glare, "You have a better theory?"
That shut him up nicely.
Athena turned back to Artemis, "That blue glow you saw on your arrow, Artemis. That was perhaps the cause of Gration's death, and not your arrow itself."
Artemis nodded. The theory did sound impossible, but it was the most likely solution. Rare were the times when a theory of Athena's was wrong.
That was the moment when Dionysus chose to appear in his throne in a gust of wind, carrying the smell of grapes and wine.
"Ah, what did I miss?" He asked, putting his head on his palm, which rested on the armrest of his throne.
"You're late, Dionysus." Athena pointed out.
"Again." Zeus added with a grunt.
"Yes, yes, I know. Do not extend my exile to Camp Half-Blood for another hundred years, please. These demigods are unbearably troublesome." Dionysus said lazily.
"How does a hundred and fifty years sound?" Zeus asked with just a hint of a smile.
"Not good at all." Dionysus complained, "Anyways, was it something important?"
Ares asked him, "You remember Gration?"
"Yeah, from the Gigantomachy?"
Ares nodded, and then continued, "Apparently, he was back somehow. And he fought Artemis, and managed to beat her-"
Artemis cut him off with gritted teeth, "Almost."
The war god snickered and continued, "Yes, he managed to ALMOST beat her. But that was when this guy, SUPPOSEDLY human-"
Artemis cut him off again, "If I say he was human, then he was DEFINITELY human."
"Yeah, yeah okay. So that was when this human appeared and apparently gave Gration one hell of an ass-kicking, and then they both managed to slay him." Ares finished.
"A human, you say?"
"Yes."
Dionysus looked like he had swallowed a fly.
"Perchance, did he have blonde hair?"
"Yes," Athena replied, but then her face became puzzled, "How did you know that?"
Dionysus groaned, then sighed, then massaged his temples as if he had a headache.
"We might or might not have a problem."
There, done!
So, how was it? Did you like it? Did you not like it? Regardless, leave a review!
Thanks a lot for all the support people. And also, I would really appreciate if someone would be willing to beta-read these chapters for me, to give the chapters a much needed last moment magical touch, y'know?