Naruto was able to cross the forest in a few minutes with his speed, getting closer and closer to Camp Half-Blood. He moved from tree to tree with such speed that even the normal eye could hardly follow, yet his breath remained the same and Naruto hardly felt any tiredness.
As he got closer to the Camp, Naruto couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like when he got there. Hestia told him about the Camp long ago, since Gods weren't the most responsible parent in the world, their children live their childhood with their mortal parent.
However, those times weren't a very pleasant because monsters would start to hunt them down when they're old enough. The stronger the godly parent, the stronger the demigods and the more they will attract the attention from the monsters.
So the Camp was built. There, the demigods were safe from the dangerous myth monsters, trained and learned how to survive in the world their parent brought them to. Satyrs were sent all over the world to find them and bring them to the Camp
However, not all demigods were able to get close to Camp, some...didn't make it in time and were killed by the monsters.
There was magical protection around the Camp that would stop monsters and mortals from getting inside. Naruto was no exception to this kind of barrier but he already figured out a way get in.
Then, when he was ten miles away from the Camp, something interesting caught his attention.
Naruto stopped, because of his shinobi skills the blond quickly and soundlessly hid himself behind a tree.
Ten feet away from him, there was a dark figure standing alone in the forest, holding a flashlight in his left hand but already turned it off before Naruto could see the face of the mysterious person. A thin mist appeared in front of him.
Iris Message, Naruto thought.
"Did you hide them?" The mysterious figure asked and from the voice Naruto could tell that he was male.
"I already hide them" a deep and grumbly voice could be heard within the mist, Naruto couldn't recognize the voice but there was just something familiar to it "Don't worry, no one will be able to find the Lightning Bolt and the Helm" Naruto widened his eyes in surprise.
'The Lightning Thief' he thought, this man was probably the one who stole his father's weapon.
But what about the helm? Naruto was a little confused at this.
"What happened to your face and your voice?" The man asked, a hint of amusement in his voice "rough night?"
"That damn woman is gaining back her power" the man in the mist scolded angrily.
"You and your lover having a fight? That's unheard of" The man snickered "anyway, we will leave it like that for now, let the gods destroy each other"
"What about him?" the man in the mist spat angrily "the so called Prince of Olympus?" Naruto soundlessly hid himself deeper behind the tree when his title was mentioned.
"My Lord has a special plan for him. If we play our cards right, we can gain a powerful ally, but if not...then we kill him, right in front of his parent's eyes"
With that, the mist disappeared and the mysterious man disappeared. He was fast and appeared to understand the ways around this forest so he already disappeared without a trace.
Naruto walked out from behind the tree and quickly left the area.
For some reason, he wasn't able to sense a single energy signature from that man as well as able to catch the certain 'scent' of demigod, which was very strange because even mortals emitted a 'hard to notice' amount of energy and Naruto could almost instantly recognize demigods when they are around.
Whoever this person was, he knew about Naruto's power and figured out a way to hide himself from Naruto.
And his partner, the man in the mist...looked like he was the one who was keeping the Master Bolt and the 'Helm', he could even be the one who told the man in the dark about him.
He seriously needed someone like Athena around.
Line Break
Artemis scolded hatefully when she returned to her Hunt's camping side.
"That boy...who does he think he is?!" She roared and kicked over a table in her Camp. This was a serious blow to her pride, the proud goddess of the Hunt was outran by a male, a son of Zeus and Hera no less.
Artemis was a hundred percent sure she searched every corner of New York, because it was the first place she would think to look and yet...his freaking kunai just appeared inside Metropolitan Museum of Art, the biggest museum in NEW YORK.
How one of the most idiot boys in the history in her opinion would need to go to an art museum was outside of her imagination, but clearly that boy was toying with her.
"Lady Artemis..." Zoe ran into her tent with her bow and arrow ready, looking around and saw Artemis standing beside a collapsed table "are you alright?" She heard the sound and thought monsters were attacking their camp and was stupid enough to attack her mistress' tent. So she quickly grabbed her weapon and ran to her mistress' tent as fast as she could.
"No I'm not Zoe" Artemis snarled, the immortal lieutenant of Artemis's hunt was surprised when she saw her mistress lose her temper like that "I'm sorry to say this but...we're returning to New York to search for the...Prince of Olympus again" she said venomously, like there was something so disgusting on the tip of her tongue.
"But I thought..."
"Apparently, we'd missed a few places" Artemis shook her head, snapping her fingers and made her bow and arrow appear on her shoulder, fully geared up "Naruto Uzumaki is still at..."
But she suddenly stopped talking when Artemis felt a tingle at the back of her head. Closing her eyes the goddess of the hunt put her hand down to the ground and focused her power into the palm of her hands.
She could hear it from the ground, the sound of extremely fast movements, moving from tree to tree before jumping down to the ground. The target kept on moving, Artemis could even tell how skill this person was from just listening to the sound of their footstep from at least a thousand miles away.
Someone was getting close to Camp Half-Blood and just stepped onto her sensor area.
A bloodthirsty smirk made it to her face when she opened her eyes, which glinted dangerously with the color of silver.
"Zoe, wake the Hunt up" Zoe nodded her head "gather the wolfs, we're going to hunt"
"What kind of Hunt lady Artemis?" Zoe already knew the answer but she asked it anyway.
"Boy hunt"
Line Break
"Excuse me?" Naruto jumped on the massive stopping truck and asked the driver "can you tell me what the way to Long Island Lake is?" The rain had stopped a few minutes ago and Naruto already dried himself.
"The fastest road is cross that forest, but there is a way around it, it will take you longer but a lot safer." The driver pointed his hand to the left "you need me to give you a drive there? What's a young man doing out here at night anyway?"
"Thank you very much" Naruto grinned and was about to open the door of the truck when he suddenly saw a very familiar bright flash of silver.
Multiple energy signatures, one of them was massive; a lot stronger than Naruto remembered suddenly appeared within the forest before parting all around the forest.
From the way they're moving, Naruto could tell that they're a group of very skill warriors.
His eyes suddenly caught a glint of silver and heard the sound of something piercing through the air, his hand raised up and caught the object before it could impale him through his chest with ease.
It was a silver arrow.
"Artemis" Naruto muttered, snapping the arrow with his hand "and her hunt" he finished. The goddess was probably very angry at him right now, maybe it was time for them to settle their differences…"you wanna play? Then so be it" Naruto turned his head to the side and dodged yet another silver arrow, almost unable to notice in the night aimed to his head.
"Oi, kid, where are you going?" The driver poked his head out of the window and shouted but Naruto already launched himself into the forest to the left.
Pulling his forehead protector out from the inner pocket of his jacket, Naruto tied it tightly around his forehead while he was looking around for any sight of the hunters.
They hid it well, but with his sensor power he could already tell where they were hiding.
There were also traps all over the area.
Naruto knew better than anyone just how powerful Artemis was. She wasn't a brutal fighter like Ares and not as smart as Athena, but she was amazingly skilled with her bow and arrow, not to mention incredibly skilled in close-range combat with those massive hunting knife of her.
Not to mention her hunters were waiting for him.
This was going to be a tough fight.
But it wasn't like he couldn't handle it.
Since Naruto was dying to test out the moves he learnt from watching UFC on someone strong, someone like Artemis.
Women or not...he would teach them you should never try to ambush Naruto freaking Uzumaki, one of the greatest pranksters ever.
"Good morning ladies!" Naruto shouted and went into Sage mode, sending a powerful kick straight to a tree with so much force that the place where he kicked exploded.
Two hunters shouted out in shock and they had to leave the top of the tree, where they were hiding before it could collapse down to the ground. Unfortunately for them, Naruto was waiting for them, turning around he thrust his elbow into their gut, knocking them unconscious.
Lying both girls on the ground, Naruto grabbed the bow and three arrows, jumping to the side to dodge an arrow shot at his feet, the blond notched the arrows and fired them with the same speed of the hunters.
Artemis raised her hunting knife to dodge the incoming arrow, how Naruto was able to see her in the middle of the night like this was a mystery to the goddess of the Moon. She knew very little about his powers and almost cursed herself when she didn't think about asking Athena for some advice before facing him, not even once.
Artemis easily pushed all the arrows away with just a simple movement of her wrist, but the goddess of the moon's eyes widened in surprise when she saw the tip of the kunai inches from her face.
Artemis didn't have time to react when the kunai went pass her face and cut her cheek.
Wiping the Ichor away, Artemis gritted her teeth when she saw Naruto grinning smugly at her.
"You're our prey now" she muttered dangerously and put two fingers into her mouth, whistling loudly.
Naruto was grinning in satisfaction when suddenly, the ground underneath him stirred slightly. He stomped his foot onto the ground and pushed himself out of the way just in time, when a net shot up.
But that wasn't the end, Naruto then heard the howling sound of a pack of wolfs, he could feel them moving toward him from behind.
"Yes...run" Artemis muttered with her eyes cold, looking at Naruto who was running with twelve wolfs chasing closely behind him. Her wolfs were the strongest, fastest and deadliest kind of wolfs, trained to catch and kill even the hardest targets, let alone a simple 'boy'.
Little did she know that she was falling into the footsteps of Naruto's previous opponent by underestimating him.
Naruto took a leap, stomped his foot into a tree-trunk, doing a back flip just in time, when a wolf got close to him and tried to slash him with its sharp claws.
"WELCOME TO SUPLEX CITY, BITCH!" (A/N: I'm a fan of Brock Lesnar XD)
Naruto grabbed the wolf around the waist and stomped both his foot on the ground, benching his back backward Naruto then released the wolf, throwing it down to the ground hard enough to crack some of its bones, but not kill it.
"C'mon" Naruto shot up, punching a wolf on the side of its head and sent it flying into a tree "come at me!" He crossed his fingers and created ten clones, each of them took care of the wolfs easily before disappearing into smoke.
This display of power made the hiding hunters a little nervous, but still put up their guard nonetheless.
Naruto then pushed forward again, with kunai in hands he blocked all the silver arrows coming at him.
Two hunters came out of the shadows and charged at him, one of them carrying a hunting knife while the other carrying a spear. Naruto stopped for a second to jump, delivering two hard smacks to the back of their heads, knocking them out.
He avoided all the traps, beat every hunter coming at him with ease...Naruto fought like a storm, pushing through the defensive lines with aggressive attacks. Though he made sure not to seriously hurt Artemis' hunters, just gave them enough beating to knock them out.
All of it was done by his skills alone, not a single jutsu was used.
"Out of arrows already" he asked loudly when the wave of arrows finally stopped.
"Hardly" Zoe jumped out from behind a tree and shot arrows at him with machine guns unloading their bullets speed, but Naruto only moved his body to the side rapidly, dodging them all.
"Prepare for..." but her mouth was shut tight the moment she took out her hunting knifes and readied to face Naruto, who then walked pass her as if she wasn't even there with his bangs shadowing his eyes.
Sweat poured down from Zoe's forehead as she dropped her hunting knife with her eyes as wide as dinner plates. The lieutenant of Artemis collapsed to her knees; fear was the only thing that was on her mind.
In a brief moment, when she looked at Naruto, Zoe could feel a massive amount of blood lust in the form of a gigantic nine-tails fox baring its fangs down at her coming from Naruto. It flashed before her eyes faster than Zoe could blink, yet took away all her will to fight and even broke her spirit.
Naruto put the kunai back into his pocket; the fight with the Hunters of Artemis was just a simple workout for him to stretch his muscles and bones for the upcoming big bad boss. Naruto trained yes, but it'd been two years since his last proper battle against anyone and Naruto knew Artemis was going to bring up quite a fight with her power.
"Need my help?" Kurama asked "She might not be as strong as Kaguya, but Artemis is properly one of the strongest Olympians."
"Thanks, but I can handle myself Kurama" Naruto said, cracking his knuckles.
"This will be fun" Kurama chuckled "Make sure not to get beat around by her"
"I will" Naruto said and stood in front of the Camp's border, which was a clear and enlarged field "I'm already done with your hunters Artemis, if you want to settle our differences than come down here and we will get it done with"
Almost instantly Artemis responded to his call, having the appearance of an eighteen year old teenager the goddess of the Moon jumped down from a tree branch and took off her bow and quiver, throwing them down to the ground.
"First things first" Naruto said "Why do you hate me so much anyway?" he asked.
"You disappeared for two years" Artemis said, her voice cold and deadly calm. Naruto took out her hunters without breaking a sweat and that was something not even an Olympian could do, proving the fact that he stood on equal ground against a Primordial being and was literally stronger than most Olympians. But Artemis knew that she was a lot stronger than before. With the rate of divorce increasing over the past two years because Hera didn't care much about her duty anymore, girls, mainly the daughters of the divorced family were slowly losing their trust in love and decided to choose the path of a maiden. This made her became stronger than ever "brought me so much trouble, hiding in a place that not even I could find, made the other Olympians Gods, even the minor ones look down on me and questioned my ability" she threw the hunting knife away much to Naruto's surprise and got into a stance "and yet...you're just a mere boy"
"You don't need them?" Naruto asked, pointing to the hunting knifes.
"I will beat you with your style" Artemis said "hope you will play fair in this match, because as far as I know..."
"Shinobi don't play fair" Naruto continued her words, nodding "but I will make an exception this time, if I cheat with my ninja skills then you will probably find me again with a hunting knife in your hands" Naruto said and also took a stance, going into Sage Mode.
"Good" if she wasn't looking at him directly with her eyes she would have thought Naruto had completely disappeared. It was like he had become one with his surroundings, became one with nature itself.
"Shall we?" Naruto asked and Artemis was the one who attacked first, launching herself at him faster than the fastest animal jumped on its prey.
But Naruto caught her punch with ease and bended her arm around the elbow, pinning it against her chest before sending a hard punch to her stomach, but like what he did Artemis caught it easily.
"I will beat you so hard that not even your mother could recognize you!" She cried before head-butting so hard that even in Sage mode with skin as hard as rock, Naruto could feel his skull crack underneath the force of her brutal attack.
Artemis took this advantage and charged forward, punching Naruto in his face rapidly before sending her fist straight into his stomach. How she could hit him that hard without feeling pain from his hardened skin, was out of his imagination but from Hestia and the Greek Mythology book Naruto had learnt that God's physical strength is particularly insanely strong. His father could lift a whole mountain with his hands so Naruto expected no less from his half-sister.
And there was also story where his father said he could pull all the gods and the ground up with a rope.
She was fast and all he saw was a silver blur before his face was knocked to the side by a heavy blow, but clearly Artemis wasn't as fast as some of the opponents he fought in the past like the Raikages or Lee, it was just that she knew just the way to move to avoid his eyes.
Ares, a war god and yet he got nothing like Artemis, she wasn't only fast but also moving very gratefully, as if she was dancing around to avoid all of his attacks before countering with a bone-breaking kick or skull-cracking punch.
But that was as far as she could go with him
Naruto smirked when he felt Artemis get behind him, without the need to turn around Naruto sent his elbow straight into her face, knocking Artemis back several steps much to her surprise.
"My turn" The prince of Olympus wasted no time and turned around, starting to attack her aggressively with a torrent of punches of Toad-Kata.
Artemis didn't understand as she was knocked back and forth by Naruto, even with the punches she dodged and already got away before it hit, there was still an invisible force smashing right into her face so hard that her vision became a little blurry. She was able to land a hit on Naruto, even half the force she was using could take out an adult man but it appeared to have little effect on him, yet with each punch he stroked, the more pain she felt.
Little did they know that the sound of fighting had alerted the securities around Camp Half-Blood and woke up almost all the campers up, as they stood watching the fight between the goddess of the moon Artemis and the unknown man behind the border of the Camp with eyes wide in awe.
Naruto and Artemis crossed fist, punching each other's hand creating a small shock wave that nearly knocked the campers on their backside, looking into his eyes Artemis could see that he was enjoying their fight and even though she didn't admit it, she quite enjoyed it as well.
"You are holding back" Artemis said after a moment of silence between them.
"How do you know that?"
"During the fight with Kaguya Otsutsuki, you used a different form than this" Artemis said and Naruto laughed slightly "What is so funny?"
"Nothing" Naruto suddenly jumped on her, with her head sandwiched between his thighs he then twisted his body around, flinging Artemis down to the ground much to her shock "I'm not looking down on you Artemis, even now I'm respecting you and your strength" he raised his fist but Artemis already sent her leg to the top of his head, making Naruto stumbling back in pain.
"How so?" the goddess of the moon smirked before getting to her feet, glaring at him "from what I heard, you give absolute no respect to the authority, then how come you're respecting me" she kicked him, but Naruto blocked by moving his head to the side.
"Just feel like it" Naruto replied simply before punching her in her chest. Artemis crossed her hand together and used it to block Naruto's attack, but she was sent back several feet.
"Clearly with that kind of tone, you're giving me no respect" the goddess of the moon smirked, returning back to her former stance.
"You're a strong woman Artemis, no one can deny that fact" Naruto said, getting in front of Artemis before she could even know it and gave her a hard uppercut "sometime, you might want to know that not every male you see looks down at you because you're just a woman" he took a strong leap and balancing himself above Artemis "you don't need to prove to anyone that you're strong by acting tough or harsh in front of a male, you just need to be yourself" Naruto turned his body around in the air and when they were close to the ground, he slammed his foot in Artemis' stomach just in time for her to back touch the ground, shattering the spot underneath her with his strength.
The goddess of the moon cried out in pain and coughed out Ichor when Naruto gave the finishing blow to her. That attack was harder than anything she ever felt in her life and it made her body numb, refusing to answer the call of her mind.
"I might have to get serious if you decided you want to go all out with the intent to kill me Artemis" Naruto said to her, standing straight up with the orange pigmentation disappearing from his eyes "but for now, do you accept your defeat?"
"I..." Artemis scolded, closing her eyes before crying out "Okay, I accept" she sighed. Next time she fought him, she would pay a visit to Athena to learn of everything Naruto was capable of to form a strategy in order to defeat him.
Artemis felt relief, at least she was able to unleash two years' worth of pent up frustration.
"Okay, I will head to the..." Naruto was about to walk into the Camp when suddenly he saw the campers standing behind the border, looking at him with their eyes wide in shock. At the front was a white centaur and he was Mr. Brunner the Latin Teacher.
No one dared to say a word when suddenly, in a flash of white light Hera, his mother appeared and ran at him, wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.
"Naruto!" she cried out in happiness, tears flowing down her cheeks. Finally after two long years she was able to hold him in her arms again.
"Hey mom" Naruto said softly, putting his hand on her arm and leaned his head slightly to the top of her head. Little did he know that his greeting to Hera made all the demigods' jaws drop to the ground.
Another God teleported to the place, in a lightning bolt Zeus appeared, looking relieved when he saw his son standing in his mother's arms.
"Naruto" he said.
"We're going to have a few words with each other pop" Naruto pointed his hand to his father, saying calmly.
Zeus only nodded his head.
Naruto then returned his eyes back to the campers and widened when he saw Chiron starting to kneel on the ground, followed shortly by the gods' children. They kneeled respectfully around him, with their head bowed.
"All hail Naruto Uzumaki" Chiron announced loudly and strongly "son of The King and Queen of the Gods, Zeus and Hera...the Prince of Olympus."