So, I sorta work now and am not used to that so this won't be anywhere near as good as my usual stuff. At least the last half, that is. Not that my usual stuff is all that good. This is sorta an idea, like one of those adoptable ones, as I don't plan on writing more than this. Now to send the link to this to Blaze... a friend of mine... I am so lazy...
Forge meets Sage.
It was a sweltering heat, the metal that was seemingly carelessly left on the floor, seeming to melt before one's very eyes. The walls illuminated in shades of red and orange from the flames and lava that was there.
And, in the middle of it all? A man.
This was no ordinary man, though. This was no human either.
This was a god. Emphasis on "a" and lower case "god".
This was Hephaestus.
And he was up to no good. At least, that's what his mother would say if she found out, but what did he care about her? She may as well die for all he'd care.
He was hard at work, creating what may have been his greatest invention ever—if only because of how it may remove him of his biggest problem in life.
This was the first time in a while that he had built something entirely in his true form, using all his mastery in his craft in the hopes that he may achieve his goal. Although, he technically shouldn't have been able to do it. This was far outside his domain. Very far.
Why was he doing it in his true form?
Well, his true form allowed him to use the power of his domains to the very limits, being capable of crafting that which not even he could craft in his mortal form. Plus, he radiated his divinity like the magma around him radiated heat. Just being in his presence for a long time, especially when his divinity is focused more towards the forging domains, causes nearby objects to be built MUCH better than they otherwise would have been built.
Hell, he could have probably built a car that wouldn't be built by mortals for hundreds of years if he radiated even a second of this much crafting affinity divinity near one of his unbuilt car projects.
Of course, by that point, the finished result would hardly be called a car.
The fact that his current project wasn't building itself when he focused his metallurgy and metalworking affinity to help make and shape the metals for it—divine AND anti-godly—while then focusing as much of his crafting affinity divinity on it in his true form spoke much of just what he was building.
It also hinted at it being impossible to build.
The god desperately hoped it was the former.
Ever since he started this project, he felt what he could only believe was what mortal inventors felt like when they had the bare idea of what they had to make and went into it blindly.
His respect for them increased a lot during these moments if THIS, this uncertainty, this fear that after all of that hope and work, it wouldn't work.
He would have tried to team up with some other god that had domains similar to what he needed for this project but who would help him? Especially when they could risk his mother's wrath? They would out him before he even fully explained what he was doing. His looks wouldn't help.
He snorted. The son of the king and queen with none of the benefits and all the cons.
And Zeus would make sure to punish him greatly too. This could threaten his power, and that was a huge no-no in Zeus's books. It didn't matter that he was Zeus's son. No one would care. No one except, maybe, his mortal kids, the half-bloods, but they wouldn't live long. That would be about 30 years MAX before all the ones on his Greek side died. Then there would truly be no one to care for his current form. By Tartarus, his wife would be glad for his punishment, but that's where it all started, didn't it? His wife.
Taking a glance at his project, he almost felt underwhelmed but that was, in a sense, a good thing.
When he normally looked at a technological object, his domains would instantly give him an instinctive understanding of how it should work, how to take it apart and put it all together again, and much more.
What he got from this, however? Absolutely nothing.
Not
He had a theory for this, however.
He had come across his fair share of existences in his long life. Some of which—he suspected were primordials—he could not even sense. He believed that there was a limit to how much a god could sense even in their domain. If something was too incredibly high-tier, a minor forging god would not be able to be able to instinctively understand how to make, work, or take it apart.
He, unfortunately, wasn't able to confirm this because he couldn't remember a time in his life where he was a minor god.
'Just like I can't remember a time when I looked good,' he chuckled.
But, it sure did explain why minor forging gods weren't creating their own versions of the master bolt upon seeing the one Zeus had, it was too high-tier for then to understand.
Hephaestus, on the other hand, did not have that problem.
He made sure to never let that fact get to Zeus.
Because, sure, Zeus had made laws which stated that gods couldn't steal each other's symbols of power, but he never said anything about figuring out how a symbol of power was designed, and then modifying it just slightly enough that you could claim to have not copied it.
Now, there were probably many gods that were curious about why he was in his true form for about 5 months straight. It was unconventional and a cause for concern.
They were right to be concerned if he had spent these last 5 months actually doing something to betray them.
Fortunately, he didn't.
If he were any other god or goddess that had done such a thing in the mortal world, he would have definitely received a visit long before now, but, thankfully, this is where his ugliness helped.
If the gods thought his mortal form was despicable, then they thought of his true form as an average teenage girl might react to a cockroach.
If she didn't scream, then, well… imagine that cockroach being bigger than her.
She definitely screamed that time.
So, yes, he was literally being stayed away from or even observed by anyone simply because no one wanted to see his true form.
Now, he only had about 6 months of this that he could keep this up for before a lunar or solar meeting, which is why he started the second the previous meeting ended. It was all or nothing. He'd be required to go to the Olympus meetings in a somewhat more cleaned up form than his mortal form at least once every 6 months. That's probably when the other gods were waiting to ask him what was going on with him.
Rather wait 6 months just to avoid his true form's face than to just come straight at him.
'Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you, the Greek gods of Olympus, absolute bastions of courage they are,' he amusedly monologued mentally.
But, then, it all helped him, so he guessed he shouldn't complain.
As he looked at the project that gave his forgery domain absolutely no nudge at all that it was even under the same domain, he was sure that it outclassed him on the tier scale.
It was a simple looking thing, if not compressed, A LOT.
Circular metal—soon to be covered in a thin layering of Celestial Bronze and… some other metals that he had procured with the help of Vulcan. It had been rough getting those—on the floor formed the foundation of it all. On top of the circle was a semicircle, an arch if you will, the back of which was solid and the front of which was hollow, as the front metal pieces were meant to be removed later on and replaced with all sorts of divine metals that he had gotten to conduct his powers through or use to insulate against his powers.
If one were to remove the hollow metal layering, they'd see what seemed to be a solid, white and yellow layering behind it.
Pelts from… well, let's just say there was a reason that Artemis and her huntresses hadn't come across the Nemean Lion for a while.
The white? He may or may not have taken some pieces of bricks from the Titans' base during the Titanomachy. He had found that it had remarkable negation of godly attack abilities and could also be used to stop a god's divinity from piercing it.
These two were used to cover the literally uncountable number of wires behind it. It was a bitch and a half to cover them all up. The spells I put on them made it harder, too, but that's a story for another day.
Why did he do this? Whenever he conducted my divine energy through a wire, it would always move onto other wires. The problem was that he needed it to travel through one wire at a time.
Unfortunately, there are few things that are insulators or godly divine energy and even fewer good ones. He worked with what he had.
Swirling wires around an object on both sides could be used to make an electromagnetic pull of amazing force when just a bit of voltage was applied to it.
The explanation of it all? Well, gods could teleport. All of them could.
This would take it one step further.
But today was not the day for that. Today was the day for more ungodly amounts of checking to see if he could find anything wrong with it.
(6 Days from Olympus Meeting)
He began the process of teleportation.
The power source?
He walked into the center of the arch.
It was him.
If this went wrong, he could fade.
Thankfully, he had countermeasures set in place.
He began the process of teleportation.
Radius of teleportation? Him and the arch with him.
Thing to teleport first? The arch.
The arch didn't teleport. That was a good thing. It meant the teleportation magic WAS conducting through the wires.
He focused more energy into it. He would pour even some of his essence into it if he had to.
Nothing happened.
This was fine, he comforted himself. If people could have done it with that much energy, it would have been done by now.
And then he pushed. So far, he had just been afraid of it breaking down on him, or the gods sensing how much energy he was using, even though ALL exerted energy should have been absorbed by the device, meaning no residue or anything should have been sensed by the Olympians.
He could feel something shifting. The first stage of teleportation, not a sign of success, however.
He figured now was the time to put his destination in, even though the device should do that by itself.
The destination wasn't a destination per say. It was more of a wish that it would take him to where he needed help from.
At maximum output, he could do no more. If only this was back when Greece was around. Back when he had more power.
And then he activated a battery. It was full of Vulcan's divine power that he had convinced him to let him borrow.
Nothing changed.
'So it's not the amount of energy that determines a deity's tier but the quality, in this case.'
Thankfully, he prepared for this.
A second battery.
This one… Well, the less people that know about it, the better.
It was full of Aphrodite's hair.
He could feel himself being judged.
The reason for why he took the hair made it so it was 90% okay to judge him. The other 10% was reasonable.
When he first married Aphrodite, he was a young god. A young god that still had hopes, dreams, beliefs, even with how his life had started. When he still didn't get the love he craved all his life even after marriage? Well, he went into a collecting phase at the time.
The good part of it all? This is the oldest of Aphrodite's hair that is around. Mostly because of his amazing preservation skills.
This meant he had the closest thing Ouranos's essence here.
Aphrodite, back when she was young to this date, has had a habit of leaving pieces of herself behind; this may have been any piece of hair or nails in the past but was now any part of her that she deemed slightly imperfect.
To a human that didn't mean much. To him? Well, those small bits still had a goddess's essence in them.
And the hair from the olden days? Back when she newly got her domains? It was largely left untainted by her now weaker essence. Especially after our worshippers went down.
This is the closest anyone could get to Ouranos's essence, especially when kept in stasis to prevent it from diluting.
This was the only Primordial essence he may ever get his hands on.
The second power started being pulled from the hair, they started disintegrating.
He felt a pang sadness when such perfec—he shook his head. The stronger the essence, the stronger it could affect a god. The fact that the older hair affected him like he remembered her affecting him in the olden days was proof that there was something to his theory.
And then space distorted.
The urge to smirk was strong. His hypotheses had seemingly been right! This was stuff not even Athena knew!
And then he had a sword pointed at him.
He didn't put much thought into it. The mortal who held it at him must have already started dissolving by now.
The sword still poked him.
His eyes went wide. This mortal—because he was definitely not immortal, at least as far as he could tell—could look at his true form without dying!?
The mortal, upon looking at his face, had an emotionless face.
Not even Tyche would want to play poker with a guy with that kind of poker face. By Hades, he hadn't even winced at the god's face or body.
"You must be looking for Naruto."
Why would the mortal assume that? Was this "Naruto" the leader or man above this man's station?
It was about now that he noticed the man's lack of another arm.
"Either go to a Ramen stand or go to the largest tower in the village if you want to find Naruto." And, just like that, the mortal had disappeared.
Disappeared wasn't quite the right word. He had seen enough of his fast siblings to know what fast speed movement looked like. He just hadn't expected such from a mortal and, thus, wasn't ready for it.
Well, he supposed he'll try and find this "Naruto" person.
He walked all of 3 feet from the arch that travelled with him before he froze.
He looked up. Then down. Then he quickly looked up, down, and glanced up again, as if whatever he was looking at would disappear if he kept looking at it and then away.
It stayed.
There was a banana-shaped silver thing in the sky.
He stayed there for who knows how long before realisation hit him. He had watched enough mortal videos to know that this was how they saw the moon!
He himself had never seen it in real life because the mist Artemis's chariot generated was not enough to fool a god, especially an Olympian like him, into believing he was seeing anything other than a chariot.
He stood there looking at it for who knows how long, relishing in its beauty in a way that he had never found advanced technology beautiful.
He stayed until it disappeared from his view, first by clouds, then by the horizon.
And then something incredible emerged from the other side of Horizon. It looked small, was round, and very orange in colour.
"The sun," he muttered out in awe.
Just like with Artemis's chariot, Apollo's vehicle was also one that he saw in place of what mortals normally saw.
This… this was incredible! No wonder mortals had often preferred to worship Apollo instead of him. What were his inventions—the ones he bestowed upon mortals, at least—to this orb that granted light, heat, and life to so many at a time!?
Sure, it wasn't glowing anywhere near as bright as he was, but that was just a visual thing due to the distance. If it really was as far as he thought it was, then it was big. Amazingly big. And far more blinding than him if he were to be near it.
And he watched it make its way to the center of the sky—and what a shock that was! This was no remnant of Ouranos, this was an honest to Khaos sky!—before it went down. He watched it all. Immortality had a way of messing with one's perception of time.
And then it was night again.
After many hours of looking at the sun and not getting blind from it, it was time for the moon to take the center of attention in the sky.
It no longer looked as majestic to him as it did the first night. That may have been because of him seeing something that appealed more to his domains in an amazingly better fashion.
He knew that he would never quite see Apollo or Artemis in the same way from now on, for they simply seemed like pale imitations when faced with the real deal of what they were supposed to embody. Heck, to even call them that seemed insulting. They were knock-offs of knock-offs of knock-offs, and even that seemed to be glorifying them. Honestly, if Apollo actually embodied the sun, like the actual one that seemed to be here, he would be much more scary than Gaia to just about everyone. No one would be able to stop him as he declares himself King of Gods and makes every single thing on Hephaestus's home world speak in Haiku or whatever he is into at the time.
Deciding to try something, he shot a ball of fire and a nearby tree and just watched it.
5 seconds later, he could feel the fire void of the essence that it was made of. He couldn't sense it from his fire or volcano domains. The world made it its own. He could no longer feel it like he normally would with fire.
That thought was troubling if there was an entity like Gaia here.
In fact, he could sense no fire like he normally could. The only time he could was when he first shot his fireball when it was… still in his domain? It was somewhat confusing.
What troubled him was that the fire still had a slight feeling of being connected to a domain. Just slight.
Focusing on it, a name came to his mind.
"A...ma-te-rasu?" His pronunciation may have been off.
It didn't truly feel divine, though. The name certainly didn't invoke anything in the natural order of this world like it would in his world. There was a reason why no one said Kronos's name out loud.
On that note…
"Kronos."
No chill was felt, no feeling like there were eyes on him. He was truly disconnected from his world enough that his grandfather couldn't sense him saying his name. He had to admit, there was a sense of freedom in it.
Going a step further, even though he knew it probably wasn't the wisest of ideas. "Gaia! Ouranos!"
He paused for the next one. "Khaos!"
Absolutely nothing. Even less than what that… Ama-ter-asu(?) invoked from the world.
And then the human from the previous day was back.
He had a somewhat curious look when he looked at the fire before he looked at the god.
"Stop, lessen, or get something to block that glowing of yours, some people in the village are having issues sleeping because of it."
'Village?' Oh, yes, that's where this human—or whatever he was—must have gone yesterday.
Deciding to go to his mortal form, he missed the human's actions.
'Amaterasu,' Sasuke thought before black flames covered the normal flames until they were completely burned/overtaken by the black flames. Then he turned the black flames off.
What? He never learned any water jutsus to help stop a forest fire from occurring.
After Hephaestus turned into his mortal form, he raised an eyebrow at the human that seemed to be bleeding from an eye before deciding to ignore it as something unimportant. If the human didn't care then why should he?
Maybe that was how natural human development would have occurred in a world with no gods—as evidence pointed towards so far in this world.
Maybe they just randomly bled from their eyes several times a day, who was to say?
All the while he ignored the feeling that he just missed something important.
"You are here for Naruto, are you not." It should be noted that this was said as more of a statement than a question. As if the man was so sure that he was here for this "Naruto" person that him 'asking' was just a formality.
This man was so sure that he was here for this "Naruto" person that Hephaestus just decided to nod.
"Then at least go to the village instead of staying here for another 24 hours. It's that way." He pointed down the path that was nearby, and then the mortal slowly walked down it instead of the burst of speed from last time.
Must have been the eye's bleeding messing up his depth perception, Hephaestus concluded.
Deciding to look at the mortal on a deeper level to understand how he functioned, if there was any differences he could note when compared to the humans he was used to, he focused more and more until… were those blue spots glowing on his body? 50 points, 100 points, 15—
"Stop that." The human turned around and glared at him.
Was it his imagination or was his visible eye red for a moment?
"Alright," he replied, curbing his anger at being told what to do by a mortal of all beings.
The man narrowed his eye at him before disappearing in a blur of speed instead of taking the same leasure pace on the path that he was on before.
Hephaestus ignored that and slowly walked down the path until he saw an entire village below him.
It was… very old looking. There was not a modern building within sight.
Finding stairs nearby, he decided to walk down and enjoy this new world instead of just jumping down or teleporting.
As he finally reached the bottom, he once again looked at the moon and decided to just walk while looking at it instead of the floor. He, very surprisingly, made it to a village street without tripping on anything with the amount of focus he had on the celestial body.
Hearing gasps, he was not surprised to see children pointing at him. Looks of disgust on some of their faces.
Wait, some of their faces?
Looking around, he realized that a rare few people looked at him with disgust; hell, some of them looked at him with respect. What was going on?
What Hephaestus wouldn't find out for a while, if ever, is that there had been a war recently. Many of the veterans that came back hadn't come back unscratched, even with the medical jutsus and operations available to the village, there just wasn't a way to fix all of them, so some of them walked around with terrible scarring and other such disabilities around the village. The people had gotten used to it and had respected them for the sacrifices they made for the village and, thus, tried to teach their children to do the same.
Even though he had no Hitai-ate on him, they just assumed he had retired.
After walking for a while, his eyes caught a flash of pink somewhere.
'Aphrodite!?'
After looking at the person, he concluded that it definitely wasn't her. She wouldn't be caught dead in such a form. It was just some pink haired girl—she had probably dyed her hair.
As the woman took a turn to some street, he glanced some of her front from her side.
Green eyes and… a complete lack of chest.
Maybe it was a boy?
Or did a world with no Aphrodite along to try and keep the average breast size somewhat high mean that this would happen.
He wasn't anywhere near as bad as his siblings and half-siblings—when you didn't count Artemis and Athena—but even he found this to be a crime.
After focusing on… him(?)/her(?) a bit more?
Well, the world's flattest flat that he made back home was apparently beaten.
After walking randomly a little more, he came across a graveyard. There were a surprising number of people there.
'Must have been a mass killing.'
And then, to his surprise, one of them took out a knife and stabbed themselves with it. He didn't bother to listen to what he said out loud as he was much more interested in something else.
How would death work with no gods?
He certainly didn't feel Hades, nor did he feel Thanatos.
Deciding to focus, he failed to notice a masked figure on top of the building next to him tense as they seemed to notice something odd about what he was doing.
As, unknown to Hephaestus, his eyes slowly started burning up and turning ablaze, he, for a mere moment—and that was a moment by a god's standard. Much smaller than a mortal's moment—saw what looked to be a monstrous being with a ceremonial knife in the air above the body while another monster with eyes with concentric circles in them lay below the body. The soul did not go to any of them. He couldn't tell where it went as the monstrous being with a ceremonial knife noticed him and, with a cut of its ceremonial knife, somehow stopped his ability to see souls.
What were those things!? Were they gods!? Or did monsters take the place of gods in this world!?
Deciding to leave the place as he had clearly annoyed some sort of being and, judging by its ability to cut him off from seeing souls, it may have been more powerful than him; at the very least it was in this dimension.
Deciding to teleport away from the grave as, even though he wouldn't admit it, he had been shaken with the brief time spent seeing those… creatures.
Only to realise no teleportation had occurred.
Oh, that was right. Just like how the Greek gods had no power over places beyond Alaska because of their lack of influence there and couldn't teleport there because of that, he couldn't teleport anywhere here because of his lack of influence.
Technically speaking, he should have started fading here as well. He had come with countermeasures to help him from fading for a while but he hadn't even used them because he wasn't fading. It was… odd.
He decided to finally walk towards the biggest tower in the village, since he had failed to find a Ramen stand/restaurant.
His way to it almost felt freeing. The air out here did not reek of Zeus's watchful eye or any other such influence. But, then, why did he feel like he was being watched?
The masked figure watching him from on top of a building almost sneezed.
As he walked, he saw some drunkards start a fight. Fascinating.
It wouldn't normally be fascinating because the fight would have been caused by Ares or some part of his essence influencing them towards a fight, but this? There was no Ares. There was no one, at least as far as he knew, that was causing this.
This was pure, natural, mortal combat.
Never had he thought he'd find himself interested in the domain of his elder brother.
As he watched them shout insults at each other while one tried to get a hold of a chair to use it as a weapon, the people in the area chanted at them to fight; he found it all just so beautiful. As he focused harder again, his eyes beginning to burn again, and making his poor ANBU follower tense up again, he saw that the air around every person was acting differently. Not in a literal sense but rather… What was that?
Deciding to ignore it, he looked elsewhere. As he saw one person just laying his head on a count, asleep, he was once again hit by the fact that this mortal was ASLEEP. He wasn't in Hypnos's realm, the dreams he may have had were NOT being given to him by Hypnos. His dreams weren't being given to him by anyone. He could not sense even a modicum of a connection between the man and the sleep domain and, yet, he was undoubtedly asleep.
How did it work? Did he dream? Or did he just stay in that position until his body was mentally and physically well enough for him to wake up?
Upon seeing an annoyed look on the man's face, he concluded that, yes, the man was sleeping.
But, then, where were the dreams coming from!? Surely not from the man's own brain?
Because, if that were so, then wouldn't that mean that with the perfect or more improved mortal, most of Hypnos's work was unneeded? Then again, the lazy god would probably love having less work.
But what did that speak for Artemis or Apollo? In a perfect or improved world, there was no need for their sun and moon vehicles? Did the gods of this world just not exist or rarely exist because most of the jobs that were available for the Olympian gods were just being done here by default?
Did the gods here just fade? Did they do their jobs too well until they were automated and they just weren't needed? Or did most of the Olympian counterparts of gods here just not exist from the very beginning?
Deciding that it was not his place to find such answers—unless he came across something that involved his domains—he continued onwards. He'd leave that thinking for Athena, no doubt she would have her mind blown if she ever found out about this place.
On his way, he noticed that he also didn't notice how the doors or windows were made or anything else that was under his domain.
It was clear that this world did not accept him as a god of anything and, thus, his usual understanding of mechanics and similar things seemed to have been turned off. It was a somewhat surreal experience, looking at a stall and having to guess how it was made—his guess was most likely a better design than the one it was likely made with due to the somewhat feudal Japan vibes the entire place was giving off but, still, the point remained, he didn't instinctively understand how the particular stall he was looking at was made EXACTLY.
It wasn't a completely surreal experience as this is what he had to go through when making his portal device to this place but to see something as simple as a stall and not understand it? That part was still surreal.
Deciding to later on buy—if anything that he had was valuable here for trading/buying stuff with—makeup just to burn it just to spite Aphrodite, since he never could do that before without feeling some consequences from it, he continued onwards.
The sheer number of times his mind had diverted from his main goal today made him somewhat sympathise with his children, what with their ADHD-like attention issues.
And after a while, he found himself at the base of the tower.
As he walked in, the people inside took one look at him and started ignoring him.
Deciding to ask one of them for help, he went and asked, "Excuse me, could you help me with something?"
The man, walking with some papers in hand, paused to look at him.
After a hard second of staring in slight befuddlement, the man replied, "Ah, you must be here for the hero."
If this so-called "hero" was Naruto then Hephaestus already didn't like him.
Years of every demigod being a so-called "hero" had ruined the word and the meaning behind it for him.
Seeing the man looking at him with a look of questioning on his face, he decided to play along.
"Yes, I am looking for the hero." He barely managed to keep the spite out of that word.
"Then go to the top office. Lady Tsunade may help you locate him if you are a friend."
"And if I am not a friend?"
"Fans of his aren't exactly helped as much, but you don't look like much of a fan, so I'll just say that it will depend on the price."
He had to pay to meet this "hero"?
"Of course, you'd most likely have to pay for an S-ranked mission or more to get him summoned to help."
Hephaestus perked up, which was a very odd sight to see with his full-body disfigurements.
Missions. Now, this was going places he liked.
The hero was less a hero and more of a contractor or mercenary. This he could work with.
"Thank you for your help. Here, have this for your troubles." He flicked a drachma at the man. He liked to think of himself as a god that repaid his favour, and this man may have helped him find someone that could help solve a big problem.
The look of shock on the man's face at the golden coin—which seemed more dull than usual, but he just blamed the fact that over here, it was just a golden coin, not a divine golden coin—also happened to prove something. Gold was valuable here.
Well, that or something very similar to gold. He hoped it was gold, though.
He walked past the man before he could formulate a response.
Walking up, he contemplated how outdated the structure looked. It was somewhat growing on him, however, the design by which it was built.
As he walked up, he passed by many people in a green flack jacket going downstairs. They were very interesting. The air around them was different. He almost felt like he gained some of his old sensing abilities when he walked by very close to one of them.
Irritation, that's what he felt.
They could project their emotions?
Finally at the top, he reached a door that looked like the office that was being talked about.
Walking towards it, he found his way blocked by a black-haired woman.
"Sir, I am afraid Lady Tsunade is busy with a very important figure right now. If you would like, you may tell me what business you needed to conduct with her, I may be able to hel—"
Well, now that he had proved that gold was valuable, he may as well just try to buy her over with it. He certainly had enough of it. So he took out the small unassuming satchel at his side and turned it upside-down to reveal the, what one might assume to be very little, contents.
Her mouth stayed wide open at what he did.
Gold coins and other such things started falling at a rate of how water would fall from a jug turned upside-down.
Did he mention that it wasn't stopping or even slowing down? Unlike the water in the aforementioned jug.
The lady picked it up and looked at it, as if that would reveal that it was gold.
"This is real gold," she said in awe.
Alright, then, apparently that was enough to reveal it was gold.
"You must be here for Naruto." Did this "Naruto" work for those who paid in gold?
He waited patiently for when he'd buy her over to his side. He had already been ordered by a mortal(?) with a sword today, he refused to have to do any more similar things with these people.
After a solid ten seconds—
"Alright, alright! I'll tell Lady Hokage about you." And then she was gone.
'Lady Hokage?' he pondered. Wasn't it Lady Tsunade? Maybe Hokage was her last name.
Just in a childish attempt to keep this "Hokage's" attention when she came, he kept the satchel upside-down so that the amount of gold contents on the floor would keep increasing.
He heard some yelling behind the door, whoever was inside was loud. Hopefully, it was the "important figure" and not who he came here for that was loud.
After… a LOT more shouting, the previous woman came out.
And almost tripped on the, now, ankle-deep pile of gold.
'That satchel must have quite a good deal of fuinjutsu done on it. Even from this close, I can't sense any chakra while it unseals the gold.' She'd be annoyed if it weren't for the fact that this could soon belong to the village if they met whatever requests he had.
An annoyed looking Tsunade followed her through the door before her annoyed look changed instantly.
It was all too good that she was busy staring at the gold because she certainly wouldn't have liked where he was staring at.
'Holy mother of Ourano, Hades, Gaia, Aphrodite, and Khaos, would you look at those!'
Yes, he was staring at her… Well, let's just say he was staring at her 106 centimetres.
This totally made up for the lack of chest on that pink-haired girl he had seen before. Was this… universal balance?
Universal balance hinted somewhat at the Fates, though, and that was a thought he did not want to contemplate. Not that there was any doubt about them not being here, he just feared a local counterpart of them existing.
Meanwhile, Tsunade was looking at Shizune to ask if all the valuable items just being piled up on the floor were real, after she attempted to dispel the genjutsu she thought she was in, she was greeted with a nod.
"To ask a Hokage for a meeting even though they are in a meeting with the Fire Daimyo. You have guts and balls of brass to go along with it. Let me guess, you are one of Naruto's friends that he helped in one of his many missions?"
So Hokage wasn't her last name, it was her title.
"I do not know who this Naruto that you speak of is"—he ignored the looks of surprise on their faces—"but if he can help me with my problem, then yes, I require the services of this so-called hero."
"Well, with the amount of valuables you are throwing around at us, I am guessing that this will be a request of considerable dangers? Most of which are odd dangers, the type only Naruto would have the luck of coming across?"
"Well, I suppose? I am not well versed in the dangers your people face when going on these missions of yours. Just know that I am willing to pay this and more than tenfold of this if my request or mission is completed. BUT, I will only allow you to have all of this AFTER the mission is completed."
After a moment of silence during which the woman stared at the piling up of increasingly valuable things, she seemed to contemplate something.
"Give me an additional percent of this and I'll do it for you. I really need the gambling money, anyway…" That last part was mumbled.
"Lady Tsunade! The Hokage can't just leave the village!"
"Well, Shizune, he didn't say the request was outside the village, now, did he?" She gave a smug stare at her assistant. "Besides, a Hokage can totally leave the village if it is done for something that can notably help the village. And this plus the additional tenfold? Why, even the Daimyo would be happy I left him waiting in the office."
In response, the other woman just stared at him, silently asking him to give more details while the sound of gold falling from his satchel continued.
Well damn… he sorta wanted those 106—the Hokage to come along. Surely she was in a high position for a reason and would be able to help. This had absolutely nothing to do with… feeling his eyes gravitate down towards them as if they had their own INTENSE gravitational force, he continued his thought: those.
"It is outside this village"—he ignored the pointed look the assistant gave the… woman with big… eyes—"and may require diplomacy"—the black-haired woman's stare got even pointy-er—"or just a lot of plain force/power. A LOT of power."
This time it was the… big… eyed lady that gave a smirk at the other one.
"I'll go get Naruto, Lady Tsunade."
"Wait! I can do power and diplomacy!"
"You are mostly power, Lady Tsunade. Let's face it, I do the more diplomatic part of your paperwork and you are just lucky that most of the other Kages seem to suck at it, too."
That had to have stung. Getting hit with a blow like that from her own assistant.
There was a brief period of silence where the woman's head had a pulsating vein showing her annoyance at her assistant.
Hephaestus would never see this because his sight was somewhat lower. Just somewhat lower.
"Ahem."
He cursed inside his head. He knew he should have made those mechanical contact lenses that would let a person look one way and have anyone else looking at them think they were looking the other way.
He wouldn't know that a medic of her level in this world wouldn't be fooled by that unless she was drunk. Very drunk.
"You will be paying for that view, you know."
This was absolutely ridiculous. Wasn't his fault she dressed in just the right way to flaunt it all. It was like putting a TV on in a room and telling people that they weren't supposed to look for it.
He supposed this was why Artemis was not cordial with him...
Also… why did… Did she have some mist on her? Before he could try and look more into it, she said something else.
"I am sorry, could you repeat that?"
"I said, you have been awfully quiet about the actual mission itself. All you have given is some bare details, and even that was given while sounding shady. If you actually want the murder of an innocent or anything like that, you may want to have anyone other than Naruto do it. For a ninja, he has way too many morals."
Ninjas? They were ninjas? Interesting.
"Well, I very much need help getting myself divorced."
The blonde's face slowly became a deadpan face. Looking at the valuables still piling up and then back at him, she repeated the motion several times to try and convey something to him.
Sadly, as a god, his common sense was VERY disconnected from a normal person's, even if that person was as abnormal as Tsunade. Also, he was back to admiring her eyes.
Her face lost its deadpan as she apparently saw something in a nearby window.
"And, Naruto's here." Looking back, he was greeted with the sight of a blond human(?) coming in via the window.
That window had to be several stories up. Did he climb up all of that? Did no one tell him about the stairs?
"Hey, Granny—Oh my sage, you look terrible. Did one of my previous Rasengans do this to you? Because that's about the only thing I can imagine that turned your face into… that. I am so sorry if I did this. I can fix this… maybe."
The turnaround in conversation happened when the blond saw him.
Well, he finally met a man here with no tact. Then he remembered the man with the sword from before. Correction: he met the second person here to have no tact.
Also, "Granny"? This woman? Emphasis on "woman". Warily looking at her, maybe he should NOT have checked her out.
Nah.
As he saw the guy walk nearer, he noticed that he was missing an arm. Immediately, designs for mechanical arms went through his head.
Designs that he had already made or conceived of, none that were being given to him through his domain. But, it seemed to have already been established that the only place in this world that counted as "under his influence" was the EXACT spot he was standing on. Even then, he felt the world was just reluctantly giving him that much as he hadn't annoyed… it?
So, this was the great hero? He didn't sense much from him. In fact, he felt even weaker than any other person he had met to the point where it almost felt like the man was just blending into the aura—or whatever it was that was around them and only barely showed itself at times—of the world. THAT'S how weak he felt. At least with everyone else, he could distinguish them as different from the mortals back home in a strength sort of way with his very diminished godly sensing.
Then again, he shouldn't have been able to even climb up the building to the window if he was truly as weak as he felt. He felt like he should be a man seconds from death—no, that was wrong… More like he felt like he was a newborn infant? It was incredibly confusing. These people were confusing.
Also, the boy… the man(?) felt familiar, like something was pricking at the edge of his awareness about what he was. It was irritating.
What he got from the man was so incredibly less than what he got from anyone else here—for the most part. Sure, his face was ridiculously emotive, to the point where it felt like he was watching some of those cartoons some of his half-blood children watched in their childhood.
But his aura? The incredibly slight amounts of emotions these beings practically shoved into the air depending on their moods? It seemed like he constantly felt nothing. Or… his emotions were constantly dampened? Maybe that's how these people ranked people by skill. The more they could dampen their emotions from just being shoved off them—Seriously, though, it was ridiculous how it felt like the air around them literally shifted in incredibly minute ways to show what they felt—the more skilled they were.
But that would imply this "Hokage" was less skilled than him? Every emotion from her was amplified to a ridiculous degree, although he could tell some were fake. Why? Her aura spoke of anger and sadness where she showed amusement at times.
So what did that mean the Hokage was, exactly? Demigods worked under stronger demigods normally, not smarter ones. The only times an exception was made was in quests where a smart demigod was needed or the weak person was announced quest leader. Even in cases where an eldest was supposed to be listened to, they could quickly be overtaken in leadership with a more powerful demigod.
Of course, this was not always the case with Athena's demigods, but their own hubris led to their own problems.
Oh how he disliked Athena's spawns. Unlike with other demigods, their curiosity just went too damn far. Their snootiness when some of them let that hubris get to their heads… When they would, to his face, say that they knew of a better way to build something better than how he was building it. He was building it on a lower level on purpose! To try different things and try different ways to build what was otherwise simple for him to build added some spice to his otherwise boring life!
Not that most of them had a life after saying that to him. He was a god with anger issues, he could admit to that. And he kept the anger away by keeping to himself and not even smiting the demigods when they came to his domain without a sacrifice or an invitation! Many others would do much worse for much less, but even he would not take it to his face when, after doing all that, they would insult him or his skills to his face. He did all he could do to keep himself away from them and away from his wrath, it was they that came to him and invoked it! And like the volcanic domain that he embodied, Mount Hephaestus, when erupted, was a terrible thing to witness. One could say he got it from his mother—she was certainly enough of a terrible, vindictive bitch for it—and he would agree if not for the fact that he disliked the idea that he was, in any way, similar to her.
Focusing on the blond harder, he almost felt like his power or presence was blending with the surroundings, with… the world? If this was back home, he would have instantly smited him. Anyone with any sort of bond with Gaia was one that couldn't be good.
His sudden nervousness showed when his beard burst into flames.
"Wind Release: Vacuum Sphere!" Well shit, that didn't sound good.
(End)
Maybe a literal end, as I never planned on showing how the divorce happened. Maybe a stealing of Hera's diadem the same year the lightning bolt is stolen(or some sh*t—yes, I censor while talking and don't while writing a fic, and yes, I know it is weird), maybe a few dozen years before the lightning bolt is stolen. Hell, maybe this is centuries after the Percy Jackson universe stuff happened. My original idea was pre-Percy Jackson, though. Like, 40 years before? 40 was just a random number I came up with, though.
This was actually supposed to be 300 or so words but then I thought that one shots should at least be 10k in length. And then I failed to get this to 10k. Felt like I was dragging it on. Currently at 8166 or so words. Maybe I'll drag it to 10k after writing this bottom author note? Idk…
Naruto's presence is just residual nature chakra from the war. If you think that isn't good enough, then it is residual 6 paths nature chakra.
Okay, so I couldn't get it to 10k words so here is some Omakes or some scenes that you can imagine chapter 2 would have if it was ever posted.
(Omake No 1)
"Look, dude, I am not exactly onboard with divorcing someone innocent, you know. So, if you don't have a good reason then I am not helping you. And, look, if this is about me—maybe—having Rasengan'd your face in the past, then don't worry about it, I'll try to fix it. If you think your wife isn't into you now because of your face or that she doesn't deserve someone this ugly, then don't worry, I might be able to fix you right up."
Ignoring just how the man had accidentally insulted him in that sentence, he replied, "She has had a thousand kids that aren't mine."
"... She had chiliatuplets?"
"... What?"
"Isn't that where they have, like, 1000 kids at once or something?"
"Listen 'hero', I don't know what the Tartarus you are on, but that is not a thing!"
"Well, what else was I supposed to assume, that she cheated on you with a thousand men?"
.
.
.
"No..."
"Yes."
"No..."
.
.
.
"And you chose until child number 1000 to do something about it?"
"No, numbers like 10, 100, and 1000 seem to hold greater meaning than an exact number to you mortals. That's just a number that is VASTLY below the actual number."
"What are your kids gonna think about this?"
"What?"
"You know, the kids you have with her?"
"I have had zero kids with her."
"Ah... The disrespect..."
Nodding, he asked, "So... Where DID you get that whole chiliatuplets thing from?"
The blond sheepishly laughed. "I kinda remembered something about some 1000 sided thing being called a chiliagon and replaced the 'gon' part with 'tuplets', since that's how kid birthing terminologies seem to go."
"That's... That's a stupid assumption to just confidently go on."
"I know... Kurama told me."
.
.
.
"Who the fuck is Kurama? I only brought you along to my dimension."
(Omake No 2)
"Why is there a chariot in the sky?" A groan was his response.
"Just take these glasses. They give you the rough visual aid to know what you should be seeing if the mist worked on you."
"Mist?"
"It's a long story, so could you please wear the glasses?"
"Alright."
(Some Time Later)
So, what do you say, Naruto? Would you like to join me for an entertaining time?
Naruto squinted as all he saw was a shape-shifting blur.
'Oh no…' Hephaestus facepalmed. The glasses either worked by showing what the mist would show or, to be more accurate than normal, it would take info from the minds of nearby affected mortals on what they saw.
In Aphrodite's case, however, the mist tended to try and make her appear as the most beautiful woman anyone could imagine. The mist not working on Naruto was problematic enough but the glasses had fixed that. However, the glasses could not know what Naruto's perfect woman was as the mist nor the telepathic ability of the glasses or the gods could tell what he was thinking, with his strange negation abilities in this world that, in some places, would be working in a 1m diameter of him. Getting info from nearby mortals wouldn't work as they would each have their own idea of Aphrodite's form. The glasses would short-circuit in such a scenario so he wirelessly turned off the ability to form visual aid for Naruto from other mortals.
"Pffft, Naruto," he whispered, "just imagine the most beautiful woman you have ever seen in her place. Even more beautiful than that, if you can try."
Aphrodite, who had mastered the art of ignoring her husband so much that she didn't even notice the interaction continued, "What do you say, Naruto?"
Naruto turned green in the face.
"Oh boy," Hephaestus muttered.
"Naruto?" The seductive way in which it was spoken was what broke the dam, and Naruto managed to say, "Gross" before he started vomiting all over the floor.
Aphrodite was just shocked. No male had ever had that reaction before. Was he the gay-est man in the world or something?
And then they noticed him trying to say something.
"She looks just like Mom… That's so gross." Hephaestus facepalmed. He didn't think the blond had THAT much of a strong imagination…
Aphrodite, on the other hand? She was hit hard on a level that she had never been hit on before. Yes, including all the hits she had gotten from Artemis. He rejected her because he was a Mama's boy!?
Hephaestus, with the blankest face he had ever made, watched as his 'wife' ran away crying. This might be one of the best days of his life, he thought, before he burst out laughing which caused him to lose slight control over his domain and immediately have the entire place burst into fire.
So, yeah, if I ever edit this fic, odds are that it isn't for a chapter 2 but for editing some mistakes and adding more omakes. Fun fact, in Google Docs I have this named: Can I Get a Helping of Divorce?
Also fun fact, I think posting this along with the two other things I am about to post will be around 20k words total. Toad-pocalypse is at 33k words. I may finally... IDK What I was gonna write there. just found it half-written when I checked on lol. Maybe it was about me finally getting to a total of 50k words across all my stories? Meh.
Anyone else thinks my paragraphs are too short?
