CW: Graphic descriptions of violence for this and the next chapter. Easily my most brutal fight.
Sorry for the late chapter. I was busy like crazy with some volunteer work, school, and football (soccer).
It's quite the horrible experience to see the place you love slowly deteriorate. It feels like someone is slicing off tiny little parts of you and presenting the pieces to you so that you can see them slowly rot. Clarisse hates it.
It starts pretty unassuming.
Chiron gives a little speech to the entire camp about the usual stuff— bravery, not-dying— then takes his leave. It's surprising when it's Drew Tanaka who bursts and starts crying, but it spreads like a wave.
Tantalus steps up next, starts talking, then is interrupted by a particularly loud sob. Rolling his eyes he tells them to shut up.
That's the moment he makes an enemy of the entire camp.
Clarisse barely listens to his speech. She, Jason and Annabeth are on the side. She's leaning on the wall, Jason is floating, like he tends to do now, and Annabeth is silently sitting on the chair that's beside the door. The look on her face isn't grieved, or mad at Tantalus, but deeply calculating.
Tantalus finishes whatever he was saying about bringing honor back to the camp, and Quintus steps up. Before that moment Quintus was staring off towards the forest, with a vacant look, like a doll with its strings cut. But when he steps up he has the charming, pretty-boy smile.
Quintus simply introduces himself. Then he steps back.
Clarisse can't help but think he's a smudge suspicious. Apparently the guy is a demigod, but somehow managed to live to what— early thirties?
Weird.
On the first night, Travis and Conner put a menu in front of Tantalus, giggling. Tantalus tells them that he can't eat, that he's been cursed, and they say that they already know that.
He laughs with them, then the next morning Clarisse finds them climbing the lava wall in their underwear. Connor gets a nasty burn on his shoulder, and Travis never approaches the guy again.
The next day, Drew is found making out with this guy from the Demeter cabin behind Zeus' fist during Capture the flag. Chiron would send a letter or something to their parents, maybe deny them their dessert privileges.
Tantalus sends them into the forest for the night. The same forest that houses drakons and hellhounds. Tantalus also takes a few of the people on border control, you know– the guys ensuring the camp doesn't get invaded if the barrier fails— and gets them to guard the exits of the forest.
(When Drew and the other guy walk out of the forest ten minutes after Tantalus leaves, everyone at camp knows that Katie Gardener just so happened to be looking in a different direction. Unfortunate incident, of course.)
Everything boils over the week after Tantalus and Quintus have come to the camp. The fire is burning pitifully, a sad purple, so small and cold that Silena's marshmallow hasn't started charring and she's kept it over the fire for a hot second.
Clarisse just got back from a shower, which she'd needed after getting whooped by Quintus during sword training, and she sits next to Jason. The guy startles then looks at her with annoying confusion.
She grunts at him, and he passes her a s'more.
Before she can eat it, Annabeth gets up. She opens her mouth, but Tantalus rolls his eyes. "Miss drama queen everyone."
If anyone else had said that, Clarisse would have snorted but Tantalus just irks something at the back of her brain and she can't find nicknames that annoy Annabeth funny.
Then, Annabeth says she knows where the Golden Fleece is.
Small-minded campers just stare but more experienced like her and Lee Fletcher snap to attention. The Fleece is possibly the only thing in the world that could heal the very quickly dying tree.
Once Annabeth has explained all that, the campers chant, "Quest!" and Tantalus raises his hands. The fire is a huge column now. Silena's marshmallow is black.
"Fine," he says, then smiles wickedly. "But I get to choose the questers."
No one wants that. It's obvious as night and day. Everyone would prefer Chiron or even Mr. D to choose (to be here period.) But it's very clearly not a suggestion.
"Clarisse!" He calls first. Clarisse looks up in surprise. Tantalus smiles at her with yellow teeth. "You won the chariot race, girl. It's only to be expected." Then he points to Jason. "Jason Grace. Son of Zeus! Who contests that he is fit?"
"Jupiter."
Jason is ignored.
"Then finally," The child-eater spins on his heel, pauses on Annabeth till the hope can spark, then points to Nyssa Barrers from the Hephaestus cabin.
The girl in question does a perfect impression of a deer in the headlights. Then she rears back like she's disgusted. "Me!?"
Tantalus doesn't announce her name simply because he doesn't know it. Clarisse knows that this was purely to fuck with Annabeth. Again, another person and another time, she would find it hilarious but considering the perilous situation, she finds it stupid. Utterly so.
Chase stands up and says, "No."
A stunned silence.
"Annabeth?" Malcolm asks. The Athena kid looks like he's never met her. Clarisse agrees whole-heartedly. Annabeth is feisty but this is crazy even for her.
"I have to be on the quest," she declares.
Tantalus laughs. "Well, you're not."
"You don't understand. I have to be there. I had a dream and Grover is exactly where the Fleece is." That's where she loses everyone. Grover might be important to her but to everyone he's just another satyr. "A-And Percy. He's heading there! All three of us have these connected dreams—"
Tantalus rolls his eyes. "Percy Jackson this and Percy Jackson that. Don't you know any other human being, girl?"
Snickers.
Clarisse looks at the struggling girl. Annabeth hadn't taken the whole thing well. She's shelved herself away. Not crying (Annabeth?) but thinking and plotting. It got so bad that she forgot to show up for the chariot race.
Jason gets up. "No offense, Annabeth but they're really unlikely to send a probatio on a quest." He gets a few looks. "Oh. Uh, probatio's are the guys who just joined the legion."
Annabeth keeps determined. "I'm going."
Another camper suddenly has an epiphany. "You haven't said the coordinates yet."
Annabeth turns her head, mouth clamped shut.
"You're not going to give. Not unless you're on the quest," Clarisse says unconsciously as it dawns on her. "Oh my gods. Really Annabeth? You think you're so much better because you've gone on one official quest."
Annabeth sets her jaw.
"Now listen here—" Tantalus starts, then stops when he realizes he's not convincing her. "How about this? I cancel the quest if you don't give it. Now, where are your priorities, Chase? Your own interest or the entire camp's?"
Annabeth says, "I can help. Clarisse, you know I'm invaluable." Her voice cracks. "Please."
Hubris. The flaw that makes you think you can do anything better than anyone, and Annabeth practically swims in it.
Clarisse meets eyes with Annabeth. There is begging in her gaze, and Clarisse would never think that would come from her. There is also an unwilling determination that Clarisse can't help but respect. This whole thing, it takes guts.
Clarisse stands up. There's no way she's actually doing this. Standing up for a know-it-all? She's becoming soft. "You know exactly where the fleece is?"
"Yeah."
"Can you navigate, Chase?"
"I can do anything."
She scoffs. Arrogance. She turns to Tantalus. "As the appointed leader of the quest, I have a favor to ask of the camp."
Tantalus raises a brow. "Is it to have this upstart kicked out? I knew you were my favorite for a reason."
"Let me choose my last quester."
No complaints.
Clarisse sits back down. "You're in, Chase. But if you prove to be useless, or worse a detriment, I'll kick you to the curb. Got that?"
Tantalus gapes at her. Annabeth blinks, then smiles. "Got it," she says, and sits back down. Clarisse ignores the looks and cuts into her food.
When Annabeth had smiled, Clarisse had felt… something. Something that's definitely not attraction, feelings, or some shit like that, just… something. She might not know the name of this something, but she does know her father would not be pleased about it.
Clarisse glares at the roasted meat on her plate like it's the one to blame.
Then comes the sound of loud footsteps. Clarisse looks up like, what now?
And it's Tyson. That's what's now. Tyson, the cyclops.
Clarisse hasn't seen the guy the entire week. He's been cooped up in his Poseidon cabin, apparently. Clarisse had completely forgotten he was even at camp.
There is a silent gasp that goes around the campfire. In her forgetfulness of Tyson, she'd also forgotten to tell the camp that there was a cyclops sleeping in one of their cabins.
Tyson raises a big meaty hand. His other hand is around a watch. A half-finished watch.
"Hi!" he says. Stunned silence.
"Tyson—" Annabeth starts.
Tyson interupts her. "My daddy said I should go with you guys," he says cheerily.
Then a trident rises above his head, as if to affirm his statement. The same aquamarine one that had gone above Percy the last summer. The mark of Poseidon.
What?
Clarisse takes a long blink.
What in actual Hades?
Clarisse feels kinship with Athena. The cabin, her children, the goddess herself. Because honestly, fuck Poseidon.
Tantalus does the thing she expected him to. He bends himself backwards and roars with laughter from the depths of his vulgar soul.
Clarisse heard Naruto and Chiron argue before their adventure to the west. She was kind of busy talking with Chris but she'd caught a few words. And because she has a brain, she was able to piece together what they were talking about.
Naruto had protested seeing the oracle. After seeing it herself, she wished she did the same.
The prophecy goes like this,
You shall find what you seek and make it your own
But despair for your life, entombed within stone
Destroy your savior with no chance to atone.
And fail without friends, to fly home alone.
The first line is simple— she succeeds. Nice. She doesn't particularly care if it 'spoils' the adventure. She can leave those stupid thoughts to her younger siblings.
The second line is… ominous. But, it doesn't say that she dies, per se, so that's good.
She has no clue about the third line, though. What does she need a savior? Savior from what?The entrapment? Also, why would she 'destroy' someone who helped her?
Then, And fail without friends, to fly home alone.
That line is the most confusing. Does that mean she'll fail without the help of her friends? Or does it mean she'll fail and her friends will be dead. Flying home alone is another matter too? Why would she do that? She wouldn't abandon her questmates.
Well, she wouldn't abandon them if they were dead.
Clarisse doesn't like the idea. She'll have a total victory, and her quest-mates will be just fucking fine.
(She still tells them about the possibility of them dying, being a little vague on the specifics of the lines but making it very clear. No one backs out.)
Clarisse snaps out of her thoughts as she catches a silhouette coming down the beach. "Finally," she grunts.
The cyclops is the last to arrive. He has the watch again and a little fanny pack with a few things for tinkering. Not a toolbelt; a fanny pack.
Annabeth gets up and dusts herself off. She's carrying a backpack that definitely isn't from camp but looks a bit too Greek to be from the mortal world. On one of its sides, it has a thermos made of bronze.
Clarisse doesn't get to ask before Annabeth starts. "How are we going to travel?" She asks. "They said you can fly, right?" She turns to Jason.
Clarisse knows exactly how they're going to travel, but doesn't say so immediately. reveling in knowing something that Annabeth Chase doesn't.
Jason blanches next to her. "I don't have the stamina or the strength for that."
Clarisse cocks her finger at herself. "Don't worry, dumbasses. Clarisse got you," She says.
She points and they follow the motion. In the distance, the ship she prayed to her father to send her rises from the sea. The CSS Birmingham. Creatures, rust and moss fall with the water. The sail mends itself as blasted bits of the starboard come together.
Beautiful. It'll do them well.
"Jason," she calls. Jason groans but grabs Annabeth, who is batting away Tyson from touching her hair. Annabeth looks at him in confusion then alarm as she's suddenly in midair.
"Brace yourself," Jason says. Then he shoots off to the ship in the distance. Annabeth is not braced.
"Woah," Tyson says, as he sees Jason fly.
Clarisse has to wonder what she did to be stuck on a quest with a kindergarten-brained cyclops that'll just slow them down.
When Jason comes back and tries to carry the cyclops, Clarisse isn't terribly surprised to see them barely float then fall down into the sand.
She turns to Tyson. "What can we say? We goddamn tried." Jason hits her chest then points to the water that is just to her side. Clarisse rolls her eyes. "Poseidon has to see that we quite literally cannot bring him unless he can get onto the boat. Which he can't"
But Tyson messes that all up when he says, "It's fine," and calls loudly for 'Rainbow', whoever or whatever that is.
The water that Jason just pointed at shimmers. It parts around a being that looks part fish and part horse. Its scales are nearly translucent, which makes the sun bounce off it favorably. Making it look like its scales have been dipped in rainbow.
If Annabeth was still here, she'd probably start on a spiel on what the creature was. But Clarisse didn't even know of these particular beings. Simply to her it's a fish centaur.
Clarisse watches silently as Tyson effortlessly slides on top of Rainbow, like he weighs a feather. Before she can say anything, the two of them zoom off to the CSS Birmingham.
Clarisse shuts her mouth, and sighs. She's not ashamed to admit she kind of didn't mind leaving behind the monster that could decide it was hungry and eat them while they were sleeping.
Jason tucks his hands under her armpits and carries her wordlessly. Then they also blast off for the boat.
They go with Charybdis. They don't even discuss it, just veer away from Scylla's cave and towards the whirlpool.
Odysseus had been smart about a lot of things but she didn't consider his actions on that as cunningness. Her stance is simple. Even if it was the only way was Scylla, Odysseus was a coward for going to place where he knew six of his men would be sacrificed
Scylla is always the wrong option but that doesn't mean that Charybdis is the right one.
It's a hard battle. Clarisse nearly loses one or more questers, and the only reason they all breathe after the fight is because of pure, dumb luck.
It should be over then. They're in the Sea Of Monsters.
But, it's not.
One of her bone attendants kindly tells her that the ship is going to blow up. Tyson insists on going to fix it. Clarisse is a mix of being too busy, and not necessarily caring too much about the cyclops, so allows him.
Meanwhile, Jason, her and Annabeth clamber into the ship's lifeboats. Annabeth in one. Jason and her in another.
A few seconds later, the ship blows up. Wood, metal and smoke blast all around them. Shrapnel cuts their clothes, the wind pulls their skin and the ripples in the water start pushing them in opposite directions. It's only because of Jason's wind abilities that Annabeth isn't sent back towards Charybdis.
The remains of the CSS Birmingham sink right back down to the bottom of the sea. The skeleton staff is drowned once again, back to once again being nibbled at by fish
Clarisse feels her lifeboat make contact with another and hears Annabeth shouting some directions at Jason. She can't hear the girl. There is a loud ringing in the back of her ears.
"Do something about this smoke!" She shouts.
"I can't!" Jason responds. "It's too much!"
Gods, Clarisse has probably increased global warming by a fat ten percent in this one moment.
Annabeth shouts again to Jason. This time Clarisse catches her asking for her thermos. The thermos Clarisse had noticed on the beach. If this was anyone but Annabeth, Clarisse would be taken aback by the ridiculousness of the request.
Jason ties together the two lifeboats and Annabeth opens it a smidge.
Through that smidge, a huge gust of wind comes gushing out the opening.
They go forward at breakneck speeds. They leave the smoke and Charybdis in the dust. Clarisse looks down into her lifeboat, finally able to see. She gasps when she sees the cyclops being dumped into her lifeboat by the water. Breathing, unburned, but unconscious from the force.
They're in the water. Poseidon's waters. Clarisse huffs. Guess it makes sense. It would be disgraceful for his son to die on the water.
Everything goes from great back down to horrid. The pressure grows too much for the lid. Before they can do anything about that, it pops off.
They go from fast to whizzing. Another gale comes out. It's so much grander than the last that it makes it look like a sneeze. The boats are thrown around, briefly even rising into the air.
And then, the worst possible thing happens:
The rope cuts.
Horror dawns. Time freezes to a crawl, just long enough for them to make eye contact.
"Clarisse pull An—" Jason starts. But is cut off when Annabeth is sent off towards a totally different direction with loud torrenting wind around them. She never gets to hear the end of that statement though the storm.
Annabeth turns into a dot only visible because of the total lack of anything else around. Anyone else around. Clarisse is with two comrades. Annabeth is alone.
At that point, Clarisse is knocked out cold from the force.
When Annabeth wakes up, she's on a beach. Her clothes are dry on her skin, and she's lying half submerged under her lifeboat.
She looks up. In front of her is something that almost looks like a palace. It doesn't have the towers or a courtyard but it has the grandeur. Above it, the sun is about where it was an hour before the crash.
Wherever she is, it's been at least more than a day.
Annabeth gets up, and shakes off the taste of sand and ocean water. The forest in front of her is so vibrant and green that it's almost hard to look at.
The building that almost looks like a palace but is not is at the top of a hill. Very blue water gushes from streams and cascades down a couple carved terraces in such a way that it looks like an infinity pool.
The building itself has vines on its columns and not a shred of paint. Above the entrance is a gaudy sign that has the establishment's name.
C.C's Spa and Resort.
A spa. A spa?
Well. Annabeth needed a bath anyway.
After Bellona is done talking, Naruto opens his big dumb mouth and says, "So… when are you going to smite me for putting your children in danger?" Naruto says. "That is what you said when you were mad."
Bellona goes quiet. She's once again corporeal and out of his head. He prefers it that way.
"Well, I won't," she says after a while.
"Why'd you say it then?" Naruto asks. He checks his map and guesses they're getting pretty close.
The goddess raises a brow. "What's your point? Want me to grovel and apologize?"
"Kinda," Naruto says honestly.
"Well, I won't," The goddess says again. He thought so. "I don't grovel."
"Of c–"
"But I can apologize," She says. The goddess looks away from him, holding onto the few shreds of pride. "Sorry for blowing up, I was just concerned."
"Color me surprised. The first of your species to be able to."
Bellona looks up to the storm clouds above them that have suddenly formed. "I'm placing a bet when I get back to Olympus. A bet that says Jupiter will strike you down before the end of the year."
Naruto rolls his eyes. "We're getting close now. Guess we should talk about which monster I'm doing." He leans back.
"They both represent sacrifice. Would you sacrifice your men or your belongings?" She looks around at his stuff. "Unfortunately you don't have a lot of either."
"Yeah," Naruto agrees. "If Charybdis takes the boat, then I can't travel to the island. And one sacrifice isn't enough for Scylla."
Bellona pauses in confusion. "Where did you get a sacrifice?"
"Me? That doesn't make sense," Naruto says, "I meant you, of course."
The goddess cracks a smile. "Har har," she says. Naruto is actually joking with a goddess. Wow. "What's the actual plan?"
"I was thinking; you mentioned some other guys entered the Sea Of Monsters at a different time. It was the … astronauts?"
Bellona looks decently surprised at him remembering that. "The Argonauts," she corrects. "Good idea, but they entered through the clashing rocks. It was two rocks that stretched higher than mountains. They would periodically shift to open then close with deadly force."
"Why don't we do that one?"
"After Jason and the Argonauts passed it, it closed forever. It no longer opens anymore."
Naruto turns to the goddess in confusion. "Jason? What does Jason have to do with this?"
The goddess taps his forehead. "The Jason you're talking about is the son of Jupiter. He was likely given this name because of the Jason of old. Who was the son of Aeson."
"Ah. Like Percy, with Perseus."
The goddess nods. "But, regardless," she says, "That isn't an option. You must choose between Charybdis or Scylla."
Naruto thinks about it for a second. "But, like, it could. Nothing will come out of something if you don't try."
The goddess sighs with annoyance. "Why is this of importance to you?"
"I just don't want to sacrifice anything. My boat, or you."
The goddess doesn't laugh this time. "You will have to sacrifice something one day. You won't be able to stay at a crossroads forever."
"I'm not at a crossroads, though. I don't choose between two evils, and I sacrifice nothing. " Naruto insists.
"You will find that your inability to do so will lead to your downfall. When a road breaks in two and a cleaver is between them. You either pick one, or you try to do them both and you split in two, failing in both."
This barely feels like they're talking about this situation anymore. It feels like the higher power, fate bullshit that Naruto despises like the burnt spices at the back of his tongue.
"You will find that I didn't ask. So, butt. The. Hell. Out of my business," He responds heatedly.
The goddess looks at him with her blank eyes and her face that has seen war— that is war. She tsks and leans back. "Decide in your mind that you want the Clashing Rocks, and they will appear as your obstacle," she says.
Naruto does so, quiet and frothing.
A few minutes later, ocean mist parts and he is upon the rocks. He can't see the edges of it so he doesn't quite know how it looks from the side, and neither can he see its tip so he doesn't know how high it goes.
Naruto parks his boat on the rocks. They don't shift. It's just two rocks. Brought together like the gates to one of the important villages back at home.
He can't sail around it, because he knows it'll stretch on forever, like a wall that encircles the globe. It doesn't make sense, but magic makes little sense.
"See?" The goddess tells him. "Insurmountable."
Naruto clamps down his teeth to stop himself from saying some truly vile things that would probably get him smited. He elects to ignore the goddess.
Naruto puts his leg on the rock. He applies chakra to the bottom of his feet and it passes through the sole of his shoes easily. He is decently surprised when his leg sticks. Naruto was kind of expecting it to fail, simply it wasn't intended to be climbed on. Might not make sense, but magic makes little sense.
Unable to control himself, he pitches his voice up and does a crude impression of the goddess. "See?" He parrots. Naruto turns before he can see her reaction, and puts his other foot onto the wall.
He tears the winter jacket Bellona gave him for Alaska frost into two, and uses to strap the boat onto his back. With it securely tightened, he starts scaling.
He starts off slow, and gradually increases the pace as the coat proves to be able to handle the load. It's not long till he's sprinting up the rock like one would sprint down a road. He uses his chakra to bolster him forward.
It takes him slightly over an hour, and he's sweating with a decent chunk of his chakra depleted.
Not even a second after he makes it on top, Naruto stops suddenly. When he looks up, on top of this rock that goes higher than a mountain, he finds a god.
Naruto doesn't think for a moment that this is a man. Unlike every monster he's come upon, all the gods that he's met don't hide their inhumanness. Naruto knows they can, but they haven't. And when they don't; they are easy to notice.
The god looks up with interest, and gets up onto his feet. "You are aware this is not how this is supposed to be tackled, right?" The god asks with a quirked brow. The god is slouched, unafraid.
Naruto studies him. He has muscles on his arm that are the size of Naruto's head. The god is double his height, with a chopped set of brown hair on top of his head.
A gym bro. Through and through.
Naruto might have been intimidated if the lion pelt the man wore wasn't on top of a security vest. The red and green ones that are also shared by construction workers and those guys that signal which way to turn when a road is blocked.
Naruto nearly forgets to answer. "Okay?"
The god claps. "Well. Now you do. Turn around."
"The 'intended' way doesn't work," Naruto says. "They don't clash anymore."
"Well obviously, you should pry open the rocks. Then they'll start clashing again," The god says, "Then you pass and they stop clashing again."
Naruto isn't going to do all that. "Why can't I just pass here? I made it over."
"Well that's not how it's supposed to be done."
"Who cares?" Naruto asks. "Look, the person who put you in this job of standing on top of a mountain obviously doesn't care about you. Why are you being so uptight about the rules?"
"This ain't my job." The god looks offended at the idea. "This is just mandated border patrol."
"Border patrol?" Naruto looks around. "What border?"
The god nods along. "It isn't very apt, but what else is one supposed to call it? For the next decade, I stop you pesky individuals from triumphing over obstacles in unintended ways. Such as scaling these walls, or flying over Scylla and Charybdis."
"Oh, come on! That's bullshit!" Naruto protests. "You're stifling the new generation's creativity!"
The god doesn't move. "I'm not budging," he says, "Better luck with the next person on shift. Maybe they'll be feeling compassionate."
"I just have to wait a decade for their shift to start?"
The god smiles. "See, you get it!"
Naruto sighs. This is going nowhere. "And if I insist that I'm going to pass this way? What then?"
He knows the answer before the god says anything. "Well, I would have to force you back around, then." The god leans forward. His eyes are yellow, like a lion.
"But If I beat you, I get to walk right past you?" Naruto rolls his shoulders. Stretches to his side. "Well, bring it on then."
The god laughs. "You are a fool to think you could beat me."
"I've read up on the Olympians. I might not know your name but you are none of them." Naruto smirks. "Why would I fear a minor god?"
The god locks eyes with him. His eyes are full of rage. A rage unlike Naruto has ever seen, well maybe, except for… "You would do well to fear Hercules. Have you not heard my tales?"
Hercules. Hercules. He's heard of that before. Naruto is sure of it, but right now, he can't remember where.
"Sure," he tells the god. "Totally."
With a war cry, the god charges. No weapon. No magic.
Well then, Naruto will do the same.
He ducks under the telegraphed swing, and slides between another few. Then he strikes back onto the brute's stomach. Nothing. No sign of pain.
Naruto steps back before Hercules can grab him. Naruto knows the type. Strong, but slow. The best strategy against them was never to allow them to touch you.
Naruto jumps above the god's face and strikes down his heel on the top of his head. The god's face does look down, but for, like, half a second, before his manic, angryangryangry expression looks back at Naruto.
The god jabs with his left, and Naruto is too wrapped in how he's going to get the god into a grapple and that's how he'll beat him, that he doesn't notice that this is an obvious feint. One that could only work on an unfocused enemy.
The covered up right doesn't connect fully and simply glances off his shoulder. Naruto counts that as a win.
Hercules smiles, vicious and spiteful. And launches his other fist towards Naruto's midriff.
Naruto expected something like that. Now, he's going to wrap his hand around the wrist and use Hercules' momentum to yank the god towards him where he'll pull off some sort of takedown that restricts air.
Of course, the moment he makes a plan to win, is the moment when everything goes wrong.
Naruto realizes a second after he should, an inch that Hercules' fist comes closer than it should, that his arm isn't moving. It's numb and burning. And hurting.
Hurting like it's never before. Naruto's blood drips down his arm.
Naruto tears his gaze away from his opponent for a second, and looks towards his shoulder. That spot. That spot where Hercules' fist had barely glanced upon.
Right there, his shoulder is missing.
There is a place in his shoulder where flesh, bone and blood has been torn out like it's been blasted out by a shotgun.
Naruto looks back and the fist thrown by the god is nearly on his chest. Naruto is too close. He can't dodge. He can't take it either. Can't roll with the punch. Naruto would die.
Naruto barely manages to weasel his arm between the fist and his chest before Hercules makes contact. "Foolish mortal, don't you know? Never take your eyes off your opponent."
Then Naruto is in the water.
All around him, that's all he can see. The ocean fills his lungs, and Naruto chokes out a startled yelp. A burn passes his chest, then travels down his body.
Naruto can't feel his toes. Can't feel his fingers. Can't breathe.
Naruto pulls his hand out of the water. His shoulder screams. He puts a thin amount of chakra on the palm and uses that to pull him out of the water. It's only instinct that he puts the right amount.
Naruto splutters, coughs and heaves till the water is back down inside the ocean. "What the hell?" He shouts to the water. "I know your son. Fuck you!" He shouts to Poseidon.
Naruto looks to the horizon. He gasps when he sees that the clashing rocks are in the distance. Almost like he traveled back in time, he's right back where he and Bellona had talked.
It's not that. The wounds on him feel too real.
Naruto turns on his back groaning. He brings up his right arm. His intent isn't to survey his wounds or anything. He was simply going to rake his hands through his hair.
Then nothing makes contact with his greasy and sweaty blonde locks. Naruto looks at his right arm, and is stunned into silence, as he sees the mess that is his arm. Logically, he should be prepared for it to look bad because it was the one that he blocked with.
But, Naruto would never expect it to be a stump of blood and bones. His sleeves are tattered and coated in layers of red. Muscles are shredded and drabbled around white and pearly bone that sticks out in weird angles.
That isn't the worst of it though.
There is a sudden stop to his forearm. No more bone, flesh or muscle. Simply there is a strand of skin that connects his forearm to his wrist.
To fully grasp how gross it is, you would need more words than English could give. Simply, it looks wrong. It's inhuman.
Naruto takes a look at it. Then throws up into Poseidon's waters.