Also crossposting sucks. From Google docs to AO3 to FFN. All of them have different font things. If you copy and paste a bold sentence from one to the other, it won't work. They are tools for making it simpler but most of them are delegated to computer and I use a phone so yeah.
Naruto didn't understand the guy.
He'd boasted that he knew him best but after everything, he wondered if he even knew him at all.
The betrayal was a shock to all of them. Naruto didn't believe it at first. When he'd received word from Shikamaru, he'd looked at him like he was supposed to be at an asylum.
He had a clear set of expectations built from experience about the guy, a map that he wouldn't expect him to stray that far away from.
What he did wasn't just off the map, but off the fucking planet.
He'd questioned how one could leave people you love behind without care. How could it not tear you to pieces.
Naruto didn't understand Sasuke—he probably never fully would, considering he was dead— but he felt that ever bit closer to it.
He had run away from people that cared, despite how much didn't want to admit it, she cared.. somewhat, and he'd strayed away from the map and off the planet.
He understood just that little bit more.
The rage would fester forever and he'd continue to curse those red eyes for taking away his life but he'd also trudge on with the knowledge that he was the biggest fucking hypocrite he'd ever met.
Maybe they weren't so different or maybe it was just what losing your family did to you.
He blamed Sakura. She was the one who called them brothers.
"No," he insisted, turning around and glaring at her. Thalia rolled her eyes in response and placed her hands at her hips.
He stayed with the two demigods for the half a year after he'd met them. They were nice and explained concepts he hadn't understood like the mist and monsters.
"It's a message!" She pressed, "What's your problem with it anyways?" She asked interrogatively. He turned away from her question.
"You're blushing to your tips," Luke pointed out to which he was responded to with a glare.
"I just don't think it's a good idea," he said.
Thalia softened. She knelt to the ground, to his level. Something she was rather fond of, he noticed. "Look, I can't ignore a possible message from Zeus. The gods don't take insults like that well."
Naruto looked to the side and back at the perpetrator of the entire conversation, the goat. "But come on! It's-" He stopped when he received a particularly nasty stare from the goat he was about to address. "- she's a goat, a Pepsi dispensing one at that. Why would Zeus send her to us? Not something we could understand better? For all we know she was sent to tell us not to go there." He pointed at the house at the end of the road.
"And drag us all the way to Richmond for that. Unlikely," Luke replied. Naruto knew he had a fair share of hesitance himself but he trusted Thalia's judgment way more than he did.
"Look I get you," Luke revealed to a very dramatic, betrayed look from Thalia, "—but Thalia's right. We've got to adhere to Zeus's commands." He said, a touch away from mocking.
{Who uses 'adhere' in a conversation. Weirdo}
Naruto didn't ponder on those thoughts for long and instead focused on his argument.
"Why is she even listening to Zeus anymore?" Very aware he was grasping at straws, he continued, ignoring the shaking of the goat as she practically vibrated with rage.
"Zeus killed her, right? What if she's luring you demigods of Zeus and- Ow!"
He was very rudely interrupted as Amaltheia slammed into his leg and sent him toppling.
He landed on his butt. Instead of nursing the pain he looked at the goat like 'see?'
Thalia smirked. "You're afraid."
He physically repulsed at the thought. " No. I am not."
Thalia's smirk turned into a full-blown grin. "Of what I wonder? Is it haunted houses or - or goats?"
He frowned as Luke cackled near him. Even the goat bleated in mocking.
He looked into Thalia's eyes. Despite the teasing, she did not look actually entertained by his fears.
"Ghosts," he admitted. "I don't like ghosts."
The goat bleated and he glared.
Thalia took in a breath, all mirth present vanishing. "It does look creepy but I don't think that place has ghosts."
Naruto looked down. While refreshing that someone didn't argue his fear with claims such as 'ghosts don't exist', it was still being discounted.
"It fits the bill," he proclaimed weakly, already telling that they were going despite his protests. Luke and Thalia shared a look.
Naruto watched as the two conversed with facial expressions. It was something he was not privy to. A sign of four year old trust.
They finally seemed to make a decision around the time he started getting bored.
Naruto raised an inquisitive eyebrow when they didn't immediately force him to go. They had both made good points, he doubted that they would back down due to a silly fear of ghosts.
And they didn't.
"Okay. So Thalia and I will go there but you can stay outside." Luke said softly, "Does that work?"
Naruto's heart melted a bit. These two, who probably had doubts of their own, were allowing him to skip out on something possibly dangerous just because he felt uncomfortable.
A small smile, the first in a while, set itself loose.
Luke and Thalia nodded at each other and moved to the haunted house at the end of the road.
A few seconds passed before Amaltheia bleated very loudly and brought his attention to her but she didn't say anything, just looking at him with her weird goat eyes.
He looked at the goat.
The goat stared back, judgmentally.
Ah, fuck it.
He looked back at the backs of the two children, deciding to follow. He sprinted past the road and to the sidewalk, by the alleys.
He opened his mouth to call on the other two but was stopped by a hand wrapping its way around his neck and clamping on his mouth.
His first instinct was to bite down on his assailant's hand but they didn't even flinch. His teeth shook and a shiver passed through his body.
His teeth had not made a mark on the skin let alone puncture it. It felt like biting into steel, cold and very uncomfortable. Naruto trusted his eyes enough that he knew it wasn't steel he was attempting to chump down on but regular human skin.
He was pulled into the alleyway, his hands being grabbed by the assailant's other hand. Green mist, appropriately dubbed 'The Mist' covered the alley way. Naruto knew that meant the mortals around were seeing what they wanted to see so he could rule out getting help from them.
Not that they could do much, he conceded. This was clearly a mythical being, a monster likely.
He was brought back to the situation as his leg hit an incline in the pavement behind his shoe and almost sent him stumbling backwards.
He immediately slipped into action.
He used the momentum to approach and pushed his head backwards to the assailant's body for an attempt at a headbutt, but they expertly dodged.
He stumbled a bit more into the alley way, arms awkwardly placed now. Fortunately that also meant that the assailant's hand did not reach his mouth easily.
He twisted his head out of reach of the hand, gasping loudly when the sweaty and clammy hands didn't cover his mouth any longer.
He didn't waste any time catching his breath. Instead he opened his mouth for a mighty shout that would surely alert Luke and Thalia to the monster.
He was harshly yanked as a response and was turned to look at the assailant monster.
Except, it wasn't a monster.
The yell in his mouth died before it could get anywhere near its peak.
"Mom?" he squeaked instead.
Her hair was disheveled rather than perfectly braided, the gray streaks present even clearer. Her eyes were green but lacked the brightness of a meadow, rather they had taken the color of the leaves on a nearly dead tree, dull and pathetic.
She looked less like a Persian princess and more like a regular, stressed, mortal.
She smiled. It was brittle and lacked the ability to illuminate the room like it could before.
He almost felt bad for her.
He looked away from her eyes and to the murky gray of the alley floors, trying to grasp the situation.
"Naruto," she said, releasing her arms from holding his hands and moving to cup his cheeks.
He stepped back out of reach, forgetting his previous state of confusion and deciding to take the events happening in stride.
His mother's hands froze and her attempt at a smile faltered.
Naruto was a sympathetic person. It was why he was able to connect with people like Inari and Gaara. He could sympathize.
Faced with his mother, he felt no need to act upon his sympathy.
'Once burned, twice shy,' as the saying goes.
"How have you been?" She asked, tiptoeing around the elephant in the room.
He was not so evasive.
"I'm not coming back," he responded. The brittle smile on her face completely vanished.
He could hear the bob in her throat as she swallowed her anxiety. "We're not going to put you in juvie if that's what you're worried about."
He stopped, turning his head to the side slowly, trying to make sure his confusion was apparent. "What?"
"Well 'cause it was an accident we can—"
She was interrupted. "It wasn't," he said shortly, eyes averted to the ground again. She needed no other words.
He watched as she shook off momentary shock, looking down and continuing with her pitch. "Still you're a child, so assault wouldn't get you sent to juvie and we don't even have to go to the authorities. I can use the mist and obscure the whole thing or- or if you want we could do it more assuredly. Hecate owes me so I can get her to erase it like really well, you dig?" she ratted off without a single pause of breath.
On one hand; Naruto found a bit of solace in the fact she still had a modern lingo issue. It brought him good memories and clouded his brain with nostalgia.
On the other; he was also partly infuriated. Infuriated that she thought the situation was so simple.
Deciding that nostalgia had no place in the conversation, he discarded it.
"You think I'm just out here because I don't want to go to child prison." He laughed mirthlessly. His mother shifted on the balls of her feet. He paid no mind to her discomfort and continued.
"I don't care about that. Persea's death wasn't a 'Oh, oops. I don't want to go juvie, better run!'" he said mockingly, "Her death had an effect on me but it wasn't the reason I'm out here. I'm here because of her absence. She was amazing, funny, smart and most importantly; didn't fucking lie to me about the most important secrets that I would want to know."
His mother didn't say anything but he could see by the indignant face she had, she was dying to.
But she didn't. That earned her some of his begrudging respect.
"I have no one here. My family is dead but I'm going back to them, one way or another."
His mother did interrupt this time, "There is no way back-"
"Someone sent me here," he reminded her, "Through time, four hundred years precisely. That 'person' can send me back."
She didn't need to be Athena to understand who he was referring to. He raised an eyebrow as rage sparked in his mother's eyes. The green of her eyes glowing with anger. "Kronos," she spat, like acid flowed from her tongue just uttering his name, "will not help you."
The world darkened. Clouds formed, lightning sparking in them. Any vibrant or brightness that was present, was seeped out like honey flowing through a hole in a beehive.
"Kronos," Naruto began, not paying any mind to the darkening that the name brought, "will help me. I'll just need to rough him up a bit."
His mother took a deep breath, an attempt at calming herself down. "You speak like he is a mortal. That fucker can't be reasoned with, coerced or forced into anything, no matter your strength. Even if you could beat him to near-death, he would refuse to help you just to hurt you." She seethed, "Not that you can. He is a titan, a being only matched by gods and giants. And he is the king of them too. A demigod cannot beat him."
Naruto smiled. It wasn't his old happy smiles or his 'smile-that-doesn't-quite-reach-the-eyes' that he'd been doing recently. It was a smile that just said 'something is very wrong about this person'.
"You said my family is dead. Going back to the past isn't the only way I could get back to them."
The rage immediately fled from her. "You're not going to… kill yourself are you?"
"No," he reassured. His mother almost deflated with relief, "But if Kronos kills me then that isn't technically suicide."
Except that it was but he wasn't bringing that up.
His mother's face fell. "Wait-" he didn't let her finish.
"Bye," he said, rushing past her and approaching the entrance of the alley, leaving behind his spluttering mother.
She got her grips before he fully got out. "Wait!" She insisted. "Per—Persea's alive." Naruto paused at the mouth of the alley. "She is— I swear!" She finished desperately.
He turned to her, chest rising as he took a deep breath. The clouds overhead thundered. The air smelt of approaching rain and the winds sharpened with cold.
Despite his efforts, he was not able to fully mask his emotions.
His hands stood at his sides, clenched so hard he drew blood. His face turned red and his eyes shone bright blue, like lightning was brewing under it and waves were swirling around it.
A downpour of rain made itself known, quickly drenching them both in water.
He leveled her with a glare. She was lying. Trying to bring him back with this fake bullshit. She had to be lying. He felt her chest for a heart beat, he'd pressed his ear so close to her mouth you would think she was giving him a hickey but he hadn't felt anything but cold lips.
Naruto had let his guard down. He'd listened to her, felt bad for her, questioned his decision.
She'd lied to him about his family, this was right in her ballpark.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
"Fuck you," he whispered and left the alley.
Hare didn't follow.
Naruto turned back to the haunted house, new invigoration burning through him.
At least until the house was struck by lightning.
Naruto looked up at the clouds that he had up until that moment thought had come from him saying the Titan lord's name.
He blinked away the water in his eyes, from the rain and not from the tears and quickly started towards the building.
Thankfully the building didn't catch on fire. Instead the lightning was seemingly absorbed by the building with no damage being seemingly done.
His first thought was Thalia but he dismissed it almost immediately. Thalia couldn't form lightning bolts.
If he remembered his myth correctly then Zeus's lightning bolts weren't made by him but rather built for him by Hephaestus.
Plus Thalia would have used that amount of power if she had access to it. She wasn't one to hold back for any reason.
But if she could… Naruto found he didn't like that thought.
He continued his rush to the building either way.
He stopped at the door, hesitating for a second. He took a deep breath, turning away from the beautiful afternoon sky and twisting the knob.
The world burst into green.
The smell of burning flesh drifted out accompanied by a heavy waft of smoke.
He coughed at the sudden increase of smoke.
The fire crackled louder than any fire he had ever experienced and with an Uchiha in his team, he'd seen a lot of them.
He took a moment to regain his breath after the coughing fit. He peered into the house. The fire had clearly started not too long ago but it spread at incredible speeds. If he had taken a few minutes longer than he would have been able to see it from the outside.
That wasn't discussing the color it was. It was bright green. If not for what it was then Naruto would call it beautiful.
Greek fire.
He was about to yell the name of his friends when Thalia's voice called. "Naruto!" She yelled, waving her hands in the direction of outside as Luke and her ran towards him.
He complied and moved out so that they could get out.
When they had both gotten out he closed the door, hearing the roars of something getting burnt to death.
He turned to his two friends, catching a glimpse of the fire peeking through the windows as he turned. "What happened?" He asked the two desperately gasping demigods.
They didn't respond, Luke motioning to the green flames that were encompassing the building completely.
Naruto got the message, tucking his hands around their waists and walking away from the fire. He would help them walk until they could catch their breath. They weren't having a heat stroke but it still didn't look comfortable.
They got quite far before they heard the building collapse. Naruto turned around.
The fire had finally extinguished but the haunted house remained no longer.
He moved them to an alley, putting both of them down slowly. Thalia breathed out a thanks. Luke just nodded.
"Are you all right?" He asked. Thalia was the one who nodded this time while Luke gave the verbal reassurance.
"What happened?" He asked again once they had caught some breath.
Thalia started. "It was a trap—not by Amaltheia— but some guy called Hal," Her face fell a bit at the name, "Anyways he was luring demigods in with treasure and when they came in, he would talk to them for a while then these monsters would eat them and he would eat whatever in their bags."
Naruto frowned at both the action and the suddenness of the shift.
"But he hated them. We opened the treasure. One was this," she pointed at a weird bracelet that was latched on her wrist, " and the other thing was a vial of Greek fire so Hal decided to make a stand and explode the area with the fire." She finished.
By her downtrodden look she at least liked the guy so he put his arm around her shoulder and brought her in for a little hug, patting her back slowly.
"Oh yeah," Thalia remembered, voice thick with dread. She looked at him unnervingly like she'd seen his death. She took a deep breath, clearly debating something.
After a second she seemed to have picked one and continued her statement, "Hal was a child of Apollo, he could read into other people's future and he read ours and a few people we would be associated with."
Naruto rolled his eyes. He wasn't a fate kind of guy. He preferred being ignorant to his fate and his decisions only being sparked by him. He'd read what learning your prophecy could do to you in Greek Mythology and he wanted no part.
He was about to tell Thalia as much when Luke's voice sounded from the other end of the alley, calling them to meet someone.
Naruto looked up, trying to find his friend. He was by a trash can offering a dagger he hadn't had before going into the building to the person, quietly reassuring them.
Thalia had not caught his dismissal of the prophecy jazz so continued. "He said that you would meet a girl with eyes from your past."
Naruto dropped the complaint in his mouth. While wary of the wording of the prophecy, it was rather tame. Prophecies sounded so fancy. Eyes from his past? That just meant he would meet someone he'd met before. He'd seen a lot of eyes in his seven year life.
He turned to Luke as he brought out the person who he was talking to at the corner and together they started approaching from them, quietly chatting in-between themselves
Her hair was golden blonde like his but with blood red tips at the end and her face was scuffed with dirt.
But he didn't notice that first. He noticed her eyes. White, pale, almost washed out in appearance. No iris but her pupils were larger than average.
Naruto's breath caught in his throat.
Thalia hadn't finished apparently but with the major pause he imagined that what she was going to say would be big..
"And that person would bring about the end-"
Naruto knew those eyes.
"-to your suffering." Thalia finished, immediately sighing like a weight had been lifted off her chest.
Those eyes— the mother-fucking Byakugan.
"Guys," Luke introduced, "meet Annabeth."
~Cuz Baby now we got Bad Blood~