I can't believe MHA is done. That was my shit, y'know? Basically my first anime, maybe except Erased— I don't know, it's been a while.
Also, JJK is ending in 5 chapters? Gege better be in that Malevolent Kitchen cause I have no idea how he is going to wrap everything just like that.
Then, I guess HunterxHunter is coming back. I haven't watched but that's still cool I guess
Naruto had figured as he left the meeting that things would only pick up pace from here— that they would move along; finish up, and Naruto could focus on something other than this— like getting home or something.
It doesn't.
Dionysus leaves for that meeting, and just doesn't come back down.
Chiron paces around a lot, with his hand on his wispy beard. Naruto, personally, doesn't get it. The guy will turn up one of these days, dragged back by Zeus or something. He was forced here and he'll be forced back. Eventually.
Any information Naruto was hoping for is halted. Any help he's gotten from the satyrs is useless. They've sent him out twice and both times it's been a gathering of nymphs, collected together to whisper about gossip and drama. The same exact group.
When Chiron had said all that stuff about great dangers, Naruto didn't expect the biggest threat to him would be flirtatious rivers.
Naruto stops staring at the front of the room. He leans back and tries to smooth out the edges of his vase. It just makes it look worse.
He grumbles with the back of his throat, and Clarisse walks in through the tent flaps
She pushes past the Athena kids at the front, gaining dirty looks and a few flipped birds, and sits down on his desk.
Naruto looks up from his clay vase. "What do you want?"
There isn't a word really that describes aptly what he and Clarisse's relationship is. Friends would suggest they hang out. Enemies suggests that he hates her presence. Frenemies is cringe.
"You're around." she says. Her eyebrows are pinched.
Naruto hums and looks back down at his clay Frankenstein.
He frowns at it. There are finger marks all around the base, the edges are folding in a bit, and it doesn't have a bit of symmetry.
Perhaps he should flatten out the top a bit?
Clarisse narrows her eyes at him. "You seemed super pumped up. Why are you here instead of looking for him?"
Naruto's face goes sour. "The satyrs need time to sniff out a scent." He scoffs. "Who needs time to smell?"
"You're still on your ass though! Find your own trails. You're a ninja right?"
Whatever their relationship is, it allows them to be super direct with each other. No babying, just pure, cold truth.
"Chiron won't hear it." Naruto says bitterly. "He said that I should relax. That I'm a camper so I should do camper things, like watering flowers and braiding Drew Tanaka's hair."
"And you didn't just run away to do it? You listened?" Clarisse asks.
"I can do that."
Clarisse snorts. "I know you Uzumaki and no, you ca—"
"No you don't." Naruto interrupts. His voice isn't especially loud but it's icy. "Because if you did, you would know that I wouldn't run. From anything."
The silence drowns out the noise of the clock striking twelve and the harpies squacking.
The Athena kids pretend like they're still doing their work and not listening in. Naruto ignores the looks and strolls up to the front to wash his hands of the clay.
"See you later, Clarisse."
She blinks. "Jason wanted to talk to you. He asked me to find you."
Naruto nods. "I'll talk to him."
"Clarisse said you want to talk," Naruto calls as he gets in the coliseum. Jason is hacking away at the straw dummies.
Jason looks up. He's got sweat tainting his too-big Camp Half-Blood shirt, and dirt in his hair. He flips his sword and it turns into a golden coin, a bit brighter than a drachma.
Naruto approaches. "Ironing your skills, huh?"
"Just checking that my muscle memory wasn't taken too."
"Didn't seem like it when you tried to stab me."
"Sorry about that."
Naruto purses his lips. "I smacked you with a pan. We're coo— Wait, did you get your elbow checked out?"
Jason rubs his arm. "It's feeling fine."
"Don't underestimate the strength of the pan. You might have a dislocation."
"Sure," Jason says.
A couple of campers are staring at them and Naruto smiles. "Integrating into camp well?I can see you have admirers."
"More like paparazzi. They're trying to find my weak points. To see what makes me tick."
Naruto rests a hand on Jason's shoulder. "The guy's here can come off as cold when you first come here, but they become really inviting real quick."
Jason looks back at his watchers. He looks back at Naruto with a disbelieving look.
"I'm mortal. You're the son of the Greek figurehead. Give it a minute."
Jason shakes his head. "Well, that's not what I wanted to talk about."
Naruto leans on the edge of the coliseum. "What did you want to talk about?"
"Guys!" Someone calls. Naruto turns and it's Ethan Nakamura. "Clear out, we have sparring now."
Other campers start approaching. A few people from the admirers join in while some wave and head off to whatever else they have.
A buff Ares camper stalks in with a box of equipment. He sets it down and the campers crowd over it, pulling out old swords and used shields.
Naruto screws his features up a bit as he tries to remember his schedule. It was arts and crafts, then…
"I think I have sparring too."
"It's on my schedule," Jason says.
"You have a schedule already? Chiron works fast," Naruto says. "We can talk as we spar."
They wait until the class of ten get the weapons they want and Naruto and Jason pair up. The rest of the campers form a circle around them both.
Jason steps a bit away from him, and gets into a stance. Naruto follows suit.
Naruto only waits a second before he lunges. Jason fends him off with his spear. He flips the thing and it turns into a sword.
Naruto's face sours. Again with this type of thing?
For a bit of time, they don't continue the conversation and just spar like they're supposed to do. Naruto might have been on to something because Jason's elbow is clearly a bit messed up and it's hampering him a bit.
Not enough. He's still doing some damage.
Naruto dodges around Jason's blade. He jumps back and throws a kunai. Jason sidesteps it and approaches.
He lets his chakra flow through another one. It's a bit easier than it was this time last Tuesday. Not as good as the ones he had before coming to this world but it works and, well, they hurt monsters. So he'll take it.
"I had a dream last night," Jason says.
That throws Naruto way off kilter and Jason grazes his cheek with his sword. He steps back, dodges under a swing, and parries the next.
He grunts.
"I think it was from Juno."
"Who?"
"Hera, I think."
Naruto thinks really hard for a second. "That's Zeus' wife right? His sister?"
The sky rumbles.
"Her. It was faint but like they were like images of a place," Jason says. "Everyone was wearing the purple shirts I was wearing yesterday but there was this one guy—"
Jason has to stop because Naruto crouches down and punches him in the gut.
He staggers back quite a bit. "—who wasn't. He had black hair. Green eyes."
Naruto stops. "Percy," he whispers.
Jason takes the moment to disarm Naruto. He tucks his leg behind Naruto's and pushes him. He lands on the ground and before he can get up, a spear tip is pointing at his neck.
"I yield," Naruto says, mind far away. He swats away the weapon and gets up. "Where was this place? What did it look like?"
"Like a military camp, but with a city on its backside." Jason says fondly. He shrugs when Naruto once again asks where it is.
Jason leans in and silences his voice to a whisper. "Chiron was acting suspiciously when I mentioned it. He wouldn't talk about it at all."
Naruto rubs at his chin. "Chiron wouldn't hide something if it could help… Would he?" he says. "Purple shirts, reading Camp Jupiter. Another camp?" He starts pacing. "Maybe, if Chiron was forbidden…"
Naruto throws his hands up into the air and Jason startles "Argh! Let's just go and ask him!"
"But isn't there like a process?" Jason asks.
Naruto looks at him weirdly. "What are you on about?"
"But the rules say that to question your pra—" Jason stops, and suddenly the guy looks like he doesn't know where he was going with his sentence.
Naruto gives him a second.
"Whoever took your memories did a horrible job," he says dryly. "Let's go. No such rules here." Then he scoffs.
"Not that I would follow them. That's such a stupid rule."
They corner the centaur at the archery range, where he's plucking the arrows from the target. He must have had Apollo kids because the arrows are nearly at the center.
"Chiron?"
The centaur turns, and the moment he sees them together, he frowns. "Yes, children?"
Naruto looks at him suspiciously. He trusts Chiron with his life… but honestly Chiron is very willing to hide things for the 'greater good.'
"What are you hiding? Hmm?" Naruto asks.
"I knew it would come out. I'm hiding a cassette filled with Norse classics. I know it's blasphemy but—"
"Funny," Naruto says. Chiron starts trotting away. "If you know where Percy is—"
"I do not."
"You're too skittish. I don't believe you," Naruto says with his eyes narrowed.
Chiron sighs. "Did you know that you missed your archery lesson?" he says.
For the slightest second his mind goes Oh, so it wasn't sparring. Whoops, before he snaps his head back.
"Where is it, Chiron?! You tell me and I'll be out of here in ten minutes."
"That's exactly why I wouldn't tell you, even if I knew," Chiron says. "Have you talked to Annabeth recently?"
"Don't deflec— Oh." Jason looks up at him in alarm. "Annabeth. I haven't told Annabeth."
Chiron looks like he's regretting the words coming out of his mouth. "Don't."
Naruto throws up his hands. "Why Chiron? Why shouldn't I tell Annabeth?"
"Was it not Percy himself who convinced her to leave last summer? To give her parents a chance. Do you want to rob him, and her, of that chance?"
Naruto's nostrils flare.
"I'm not going to keep this from her. Who gives a fuck if she misses a few weeks with her 'family' when her best friend is missing!?" Naruto says.
"It's near the summer. Let her keep her ignorance for a few weeks more."
Naruto gets the impression Chiron doesn't want Annabeth to come at all this summer. Naruto wonders why. Percy? Thalia?
"Perhaps," Jason interrupts before Naruto can say things he can never take back. "A trade. Naruto doesn't tell this Annabeth, and you tell us what you're hiding."
"Jason!" Naruto frowns at him.
Chiron shifts his old and brown eyes to Jason as well. "Can I ask why this is of such importance to you, Jason?"
"I just want to get back from where I'm from."
Naruto blinks. That hits home, and he really wasn't expecting that from Jason, who might be the most opposite human being to Naruto.
That softens his heart, and suddenly he finds he has two reasons he has to know where Camp Jupiter is located.
And that's why— "Because I'm not feeling like throwing a fuss, I'll agree. For now," — comes out of his mouth without his consent.
Chiron sighs again, looking at Naruto's determined face with a resigned one. "Gather the counselors. Again."
The centaur trots off and Naruto smiles back at Jason.
Everyone floods in. Everyone except Mr. D, who is still absent.
"Before we begin, I must stress that this is not to be shared with anyone outside of this room."
Everyone nods. Even the Stolls stop shoving each other around and chortling between themselves.
Chiron sighs. "The only reason I'm even allowed to tell you of this is because Hera intends to— well, let me start from the beginning."
"There is another camp," Naruto says. Everyone looks at him. "What? I want to get to the part where he answers my questions."
"Sir?" Katie Gardener asks.
Chron nods, resigned. "A camp for Roman demigods. It's located in the west. California."
Travis Stoll frowns at Chiron."Roman demigods? But Roman gods are just the Roman interpretation of Greek gods," he says. He gets a few looks. "Right?"
"That is… correct." Even Chiron sounds surprised. "But they are also separate. The logistics do not matter. Roman demigods exist and they are different from you."
Clarisse narrows her eyes. "Let me guess, we're kept separate for some reason. Bad blood or something." Chiron nods. "Why is he here then?"
She points at Jason.
"For some reason or rather, Hera, or Juno perhaps, wants him here. She wants to mend the relationship between the camps."
"Why? Why now?"
Chiron doesn't have an answer for her.
Naruto isn't too sure what everyone is talking about. Romans and Greeks? He files that away for his next history read.
Malcolm puts his hand up like he's in a class. "Question; why take Jason's memories, then start giving them back two days after he's been here?"
A pause.
"Of course," Katie Gardener says. "The gods don't want us to find the other camp, but they also do. I love this."
Before any more questions can come up, someone knocks on the door.
The door opens slowly and a satyr walks in. The satyr twists his hair, and shuffles on his feet. He lifts his gaze from the floor and squeaks at the amount of people.
He makes a move for the door but Chiron stops him.
The satyr quivers. "U-um. The scent that was asked for." Naruto snaps up. "It's in Los Angeles. That's the best we could get. It's so far, you see," the satyr rushes out.
Naruto wonders who set this guy up. Someone evil. An evil goat. He would pay to see that.
Chiron raises a hand before Naruto can run off. "This is perfect. Clarisse, didn't you have an excursion to LA soon?"
"Um, yes?" Clarisse says, face scrunched up as she connects the dots.
He meets his frenemies' eyes across the table.
.
.
.
No. It was worse than he thought. He's never calling her that again.
Not supeeerrr happy with this chapter but I think that's just because I'm an insane perfectionist. Tell me if you disagree or agree with my perfectionist self but be specific!