It was the most painful attack Zeus ever received from anyone with only their bare hand. Naruto didn't only just focus a great amount of chakra when he punched Zeus but he also went into Sage mode, hopefully he would crack his skull.
Needless to say, the campers cried out in absolute shock when they saw the king of the gods eat his own son's punch and sent straight into the gate of the camp.
"Damn, that felt good" Naruto cracked his knuckle, grinning in satisfaction when he saw a massive bruise form on his cheeks "so old man, how does it feel to be punched in the face when you're the all mighty King of the Gods?"
"Hurts like a bitch" Zeus replied shortly. He was expecting this, after all.
"Good, prepare to eat more asshole" Naruto stomped forward and grabbed the collar of his vest, but arms shot out and stopped him.
"Please Naruto, don't..." turning to the side, he saw his mother looking at him with a pleading look on her face.
"Mom, this man, he..."
"But he's still my husband, your father and the King of the Gods" she motioned her head slightly to the campers "the demigods are watching, you really want them to lose their belief in us?" Naruto looked at Zeus for a moment before letting him go, making the King of the gods fall to the ground.
"You're right..." Naruto turned to Zeus and said "this isn't over old man"
Naruto turned on his heels and walked to Artemis, who was still struggling to stand up, looking down at her he asked
"Hey you want my help?" he asked kindly.
"Leave it, a girl can take care of herself" figured, Naruto mused, he was expecting no less from the man-hating goddess. Naruto already beated her in front of a whole camp, so Artemis wouldn't think about getting any more help from him.
Naruto shrugged his shoulder and walked pass the Camp's border while he was still in Sage Mode.
The campers gasped in shock once again and parted to let him pass through with Hera following behind him.
Line Break
Naruto sat inside the big house of Camp Half Blood, the room they called the War Room, which was the main meeting place for the leaders of the cabins for major problems and ideas about how to complete a quest. It was six o'clock in the morning and Naruto didn't even realize that he had fought head to toe with Artemis and her hunters all night, the fight with the goddess of the moon lasted for two hours. Naruto would never think someone would be able to fight with him in Sage mode, a form that increased his strength, stamina and durability dramatically that long.
Said goddess was sitting on the other side of the room, sitting with her legs crossed and her arms folded across her chest. There were bandages wrapped around her abdomen and arms, around her neck as well. The only one who could heal gods was Apollo, her twin brother so she had to wait till the sun rose up to call him, for now she was left with bruises, cuts and broken bones.
But it wasn't something she couldn't handle, the goddess of the moon just returned from visiting her hunters, who were recovering inside Cabin Eight, the cabin built to honor her at Camp Half-Blood. They could recover pretty fast with the help of Ambrosia and Nectar, but some had more serious injures than others so Artemis didn't risk the chance of giving them too much food and drink of the gods.
Zeus was talking with the campers and explaining to them about his son Naruto outside the big house with the help of Chiron. To say the campers were shocked was a huge understatement since all of them didn't expect to see another son of the King and Queen of the Gods, a mortal no less.
And his mother, Hera...
"I'm back" Hera said softly, returning to Naruto with an extra big bowl of ramen in her hands.
Naruto grinned widely when his nose caught the delicious scrent of ramen, his mother's ramen was unrivaled and Hera was the one who could make the best ramen for him so far. It was even more delicious than Ichiraku Ramen.
"Thanks mom" Naruto said and took the chopsticks from her "Itadakimasu" and dug in while Hera sat down in the seat next to him.
While eating, Naruto caught the silver eyes of Artemis looking at him with disgust so he turned to the side and asked, with noodles still in his mouth.
"What?"
"Disgusting, at least have some table manner" Artemis said curtly "typical male"
"Artemis, can you at least let me peacefully enjoy my breakfast?" Naruto asked, raising his eyebrow.
"Never mind that" Artemis stood up, put on her quiver and picked up her bow, and walked away.
After Artemis had left, Hera turned to her son and saw him happily eating the ramen she made for him. For the goddess of family and love, losing a member of her family, especially her own flesh and blood was the greatest pain she could go through. Hera never stopped trying to search for him these past two years, not a single day she didn't think about her son.
"Naruto..." she whispered softly
"Uh huh?" He replied, still eating his meal.
"Were you mad at me? At us gods" she asked. Hestia already told her about the reason why he left Olympus, those stories were something really hard to accept especially for someone like Naruto, who placed a lot of his trust in his family.
"I wasn't mad at you or anyone" Naruto swallowed the pork before looking at her, "I was just disappointed"
"Naruto..."
"You throw my brother, Hephaestus from Olympus down to the ground just because he was ugly, handicapping him forever." Naruto asked, his voice full of disbelief "you tried to kill Hercules by sending two snakes to him when he was just a baby, forcing him to kill his wife and children." He turned his eyes to Artemis, who was shooting arrows toward dummies with great speed at the Archery Field "and don't let me start how you banned Leto, Artemis and Apollo's mother from giving birth on terra-firma, or the mainland, or any island at sea"
"I..." she looked away.
"Because of this, I once thought: 'I'm the son of Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki, not Zeus and Hera the King and Queen of the Gods" Naruto said, thinking about the words Caitlyn said to him about family "but...it doesn't matter now, the past is the past, what matters now is what you will do in the future mom. I won't waste my words on this matter, I already thought about it too many times"
"Naruto...thank you" Hera said softly, using the back of her hand to wipe away the tears at the corner of her eyes.
"Aw c'mon mom, two years are enough for me to think about it" Naruto smiled at Hera "but still, you got a lot of things to do from now on to fix your mistakes in the past, and I will be watching you"
"I know Naruto" Hera nodded her head.
"The same goes with you, dad" Naruto said loudly when he felt Zeus' energy signature from behind him "I won't start with what you did but I think it's about time you be the better king" he turned around and looked at his father "I heard that your master bolt was stolen"
"Yes Naruto" he nodded.
"And you think Uncle Poseidon did it" Naruto said blankly.
"I believe so" Zeus nodded his head firmly, as if he was so sure it was the truth.
"Dad, just what're you thinking anyway?" Naruto asked with a disbelief tone "Uncle Poseidon might have opposed you in the past, but I'm sure he wasn't the one who stole it"
"How can you be so sure Naruto?" Zeus asked, shaking his head with his arms crossed across his chest "You were not even there on Olympus these past two years"
"Because dad, I saw the lightning thief on the way to get to the Camp" Both Hera and Zeus' eyes widened in shock "I wasn't able to see his appearance clearly because he was hidden in the dark and there is some...barrier around him that stopped me from sensing him. But he was talking to his partner about hiding the master bolt and a 'Helm' away from you guys and watch the Olympians tear each other apart"
"Wait a minute, did you say Helm?" Zeus asked in surprise "As in...Hades' Helm?" Naruto widened his eyes in surprise and nearly slapped himself in the face because of this. How could he forget about Hades' Helm, the helm of Darkness which allowed Hades to melt into shadows and pass through walls
"Well dad, turns out you're not the only one whose weapon was stolen" Naruto said in amusement "and whoever did this, they're a member of this Camp and his partner probably a god because I found his voice somewhat familiar." Naruto then turned his eyes to the Camp and said "for now, I will stay here for a few days and try to figure out who is the Lightning Thief"
Zeus nodded his head, he knew that he could place his trust in his son.
"Hera, it's time for us to leave" Zeus told Hera. They wanted to stay here with their son, but still the ancient rules stopped them from doing so.
"Okay Naruto" she then turned to him and put a bag of coins down on the table in front of him "this is drachma, since you're still mortal Iris won't give you free calls, so use this if you want to contact me alright"
"I will, thanks mom" Naruto smiled and pulled out a note from his pocket, giving it to his father.
The King of Gods gave it a look before his eyes widened in shock.
"Naruto, this is..."
"If you want to have my trust back, you should start with what I wrote in the note first" Naruto said, smirking smugly "and you owe Uncle Poseidon an apology, try to contact Uncle Hades as well. Or else I promise you my fist right in your face."
"I will Naruto" Zeus scratched the back of his head while looking at the note "this will be hard" and he disappeared with his wife.
"I love you, sochi" Hera smiled at him before disappearing in a lightning bolt with Zeus. Naruto raised his hand to seal his eyes away from his parent's true form.
Naruto laughed lightly before returning to his bowl of ramen, bringing it up with both hands the blond drank all the soup inside in one gulp.
However, when he was slowly putting the bowl down, he saw the top of the head of a very familiar black hair goddess, moving down slightly the next thing he saw was stormy grey-eyes that were full of calculation.
Athena was standing in front of him.
"Hey, Athena?" Naruto laughed nervously. Athena, in terms of dangerousness was even more dangerous than Artemis, even now he could see that she was calculating the best way to take him down.
"Where did you hide all these years?" Athena asked calmly "even with my calculations, I couldn't find you"
"Um, you nearly caught me twice" Naruto pointed out "but I quickly moved away before you could see me." Naruto then smiled "and believe it or not, I'm now a college student at Harvard University, one of the many places you would think I wasn't able to get into" Athena dropped her jaw in surprise, looking at Naruto like he had just grew a second head.
"You?" she asked "a college student?" He nodded "at Harvard?" he nodded again "impossible" she stood up and shook her head "why didn't I think about that before"
"Surprised?" Naruto chuckled, scratching the back of his head.
"Can't say I am not" Athena let out a forced smile "I noticed that you said our names a lot after you knew about your heritage, then how come we didn't feel anything"
"Auntie Hestia hid me, by overwriting that system I think" Athena gave him a nod. She already figured out Hestia might have something to do with Naruto's sudden disappearance, since for some reason the goddess of the hearth knew about almost anything in the world even though most of the times she sat in front of the main hearth.
"That explains it" Athena nodded and looked at Naruto "What're you planning to do now?"
"I think I will stick to the camp for a few days before returning to Harvard, I got a few days left before the final test of the year"
"A Very smart thing to do" Athena nodded, smiling at him "if you want any help with studying and want to discuss the lessons there, you know where to find me" with that, she walked out of the Big House and teleported away.
"Hm, where can I find a glass of water?" Naruto asked himself, standing up from the seat and looked around, searching for a bottle of water or something like that.
Then, he suddenly felt someone poke his shoulder lightly, turning around he saw a very beautiful girl with green hair, with her clothes only made out of leafs, probably a wood nymph standing with a glass of water in her hand.
"Here is your water, my lord" Naruto nearly choked on his own saliva when she called him that, with a very respectful tone too.
"No need to call me Lord" Naruto took the glass of water from her hand and smiled "thank you by the way"
"Is there anything more you need, my lord?" the nymph asked hopefully.
"Um, no...Thank you by the way" Naruto smiled to her, giving her back the emptied glass of water "again, no need to call me lord, the Prince of Olympus is not that big of a title" he chuckled.
"No my lord, it's not just because you're the son of the King and Queen of the Gods" Naruto raised an eyebrow at that "you...during the fight with Lady Artemis, you gave out the same feeling as Lord Pan, the god of the wild. It was like you're apart of nature itself." Naruto nodded his head slowly, rather surprised by that "say, is one of your domains nature?"
"No no of course not, long story short, I'm only mortal" The nymph gasped in surprise at that "and you go tell the other nymphs, there is no need to call me lord, my name is Naruto Uzumaki and that's all"
Line Break
Naruto walked out of the big house while stretching his shoulders.
"Good morning, Naruto" he turned to the side and saw Chiron, the immortal centaur standing with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Mr. Brunner" Naruto said before correcting himself "wrong, you're Chiron right? The teacher of the greatest heroes"
"I wouldn't be proud enough to call myself the teacher of the greatest heroes, but yes I'm Chiron" the centaur smiled kindly at Naruto "so, what brings the Prince of Olympus to our humble Camp?"
Naruto started to walk ahead and Chiron followed closely behind with his half-horse body. Naruto could see that he was now getting the all too familiar things, which were attentions from the campers, especially the pretty girls who were wearing pink, Aphrodite's children no doubt about that.
"Don't say it like that Chiron" Naruto smiled "you're doing a pretty good job here in training them how to survive" a frown then made it to his face "though, that responsibility should belong to the gods"
"I think you already know Naruto, they're not the freest beings in this world" Chiron said kindly "they have rules to follow, domains to keep and a whole big world to run. So you can see that they're not...the best kind of parent in the world" thunder grumbled in the sky after Chiron finished that statement.
"Then at least don't make more demigods" Naruto shook his head, picking up a basketball rolling to his feet and throwing it back to the campers who were playing basketball at the sports field "Like Aphrodite, she..."
"Hi! Naruto" Naruto almost jumped in surprised when the goddess in question suddenly appeared at his side and greeted him cheerfully "did you just mention me?" the appearance of the love goddess excited the whole camp even more than Naruto, especially the male population.
"Lady Aphrodite" Chiron bowed his head respectfully to her.
"You can go now Chiron, I can take care of him from here" Aphrodite waved her hand dismissively to Chiron, who bowed before walking away.
"Hey, Aphrodite..." but he suddenly found the love goddess' arms around his body as she brought him in a tight hug with her head leaning against the crook of his neck, which was strong enough to crack some of his ribs. Naruto's cheeks reddened a little when he felt her large breasts pressed against his body, and the thin, overly revealing dress she was wearing didn't help at all
"Thank you thank you thank you Naruto" she squealed out happily and Naruto swore that she almost lifted him off the ground "thank you for doing it for me Naruto"
"Um, guess my mom or my dad already came to you eh?" Naruto asked, scratching the back of his head while chuckling.
The paper he gave Zeus contained a list of requests Naruto would like to be done in order to fix their mistake in the past if they wanted to have his trust back. Some of them were quite easy to do but some were quite hard but they're the King and Queen of Olympus, it wasn't something they couldn't handle. Naruto read Greek Mythology everyday for this, sorting out every problem his parents got into in the past and give it to them, hoping that they love him enough like they said to try doing it.
And one of the things at the top of the list was canceling the marriage between Hephaestus and Aphrodite, letting them freely chose to marry the one they love.
Now, he was doing this for his brother Hephaestus not Aphrodite, because his brother no longer loved his wife like the first days of their marriage. This will hurt his mother slightly because she was the goddess of marriage, but this was for the best.
Now free from each other, Hephaestus and Aphrodite were no longer husband and wife and could have a new start, separate from each other. So many problems in the past would have never happened if they weren't married to each other in the first place.
However, he didn't think that Aphrodite would come straight to him like this, he was expecting to have an invitation letter to Aphrodite and Ares' wedding, thinking that the love goddess probably ran to her lover first and asked him to marry her.
Guessed he was wrong then.
"You're rather lively I see" Naruto said after Aphrodite pulled back.
"Thank you Naruto, I nearly screamed out in joy when your mother said she will cancel the marriage between me and Hephaestus as soon as possible" Aphrodite said excitedly while jumping up and down, her large breasts jiggled erotically making the boys watching drool at the glorious sight while Naruto was trying to avoid looking at them "now, I'm free to find my true love"
Naruto looked at her in surprise, he clearly didn't expect this goddess to say something like that.
"Something wrong with that?"
"No, it just that... you got quite the reputation of being a whore" Aphrodite looked like she was slapped a cross her face "and looked at that cabin, they're your children right? So...I'm kind of surprise that you said you are freely to find your true love"
"Listen here young man" she poked him in the chest while saying "men like you will never understand what it would feel like to be married to someone you clearly didn't love, it was as desperate as Hades" she said "I'm the goddess of love, remember that Love comes first and Lust comes after."
"Not only was I married to someone I didn't love but he also clearly didn't love me as well" Aphrodite continued "Until the day I find my true love, I don't care what people think of me, that I am a whore or slut who only knows how to spread her legs for any male to insert their cock into" she said bitterly. She was immune to those insults but it hurt sometime.
"Ares isn't the one" Aphrodite shook her head "even Adonis wasn't the one?" Aphrodite shook her head again "Damn" Adonis was by far the only man in the history that Aphrodite was madly in love with.
"I was cursed you know, by the Fates" Aphrodite said "being the goddess of love I can tell which one is my true love, it could be a minor god, demigod, a mortal or even you" she pointed at him, making Naruto raise his eyebrow in curiosity "but the Fates cursed me, sealed that power away from me, banning me from finding my true love" the goddess of love said "so I try to fall in love as much as I can, until the day I find him, I WON'T STOP!" She said those three words very clearly and strongly. Naruto was rather impressed by her determination; clearly Aphrodite was no joke at all. She could lower herself down to the lowest level just to be with her true love, who might be out there somewhere.
More reason for him to mess with the Fates
"That's complicated" Naruto scratched his chin "but, if you already lost this power, how can you tell which is the one?"
"I don't know" he nearly face palmed when she said that rather casually "I think if I...make out with the right person, I will feel something. The Fates didn't tell me the details so..." she laughed nervously.
"What the hell is that logic? You're impossible" Naruto shook his head "so, what're you going to do now?" Naruto immediately regretted asking that question because...
"I got a lot of free time from now on, so I think I will get a new start for myself but first, spending some unique time with the Prince of Olympus is also a great choice" She closed the gap between them, putting one hand on his cheeks and the other got underneath his shirt, feeling his abs "don't you want it?" her hand moved down lower and lower "I like strong men, you know"
Just before she could have a hold of his crotch, Naruto grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand out.
"Charmspeak won't work on me" Aphrodite pouted.
"Makes me want you even more, after all, I'm now a single goddess with a lot of free time" she then moved to the side and wrapped her arms around his left arm, pressing as much of her body tightly to him as possible "how about I give you a tour around Camp?"
Naruto didn't even have time to agree because Aphrodite tugged him strongly, pulling him with her around Camp.
Artemis stopped her training and turned her head to see Aphrodite and Naruto walking together; she couldn't help but sigh at the sight.
When she thought there was at least a decent male around, the love goddess had to jump in and ruin everything. She might think a little too highly about Naruto Uzumaki, but turned out he was like any male so far. It wouldn't be a surprise for her in the next few years that slut goddess was found with a pregnant belly
Typical male...she thought blankly before returning to train on archery.
Line Break
Naruto and Aphrodite stopped in front of Cabin ten, there was a special reason she left said cabin one of the only three remaining cabins Naruto hadn't visited yet. One of them was Cabin Eight, Artemis' cabin and Aphrodite preferred to stay as far away from that cabin as possible.
Aphrodite's cabin was a wooden cabin with a painted blue roof, pillars, checkerboard deck with steps and gray walls. It also smelt heavily of designer perfume, the same kind of perfume Aphrodite was using right now. This place was like a Barbie's house.
"I thought the laws ban you from meeting your children"
"Believe it or not, I'm also the one spreading love all over Camp so couples so demigods can fall in love with each other. I'm also currently on duty so I am one of the only goddess allow to go to Camp regularly so I take my chance to visit them" Aphrodite said mischievously "Don't worry about it Naruto" she patted him on his shoulder "I might not look like it but I care deeply for each of my children...well, care for the pretty and friendly ones anyway" She said and tried not to remember about Phobos and Deimos, her children with Ares "Girls, boys come out here"
Aphrodite called out loudly and all at once, the campers immediately poked their head out from various windows and the girls cheered out in excitement when they saw the prince of Olympus standing outside with their mother.
The love goddess' children stood in front of Naruto and all greeted him at once.
"Good morning, Lord Naruto!"
"The hell!" Naruto nearly face-palmed when once again, the word 'lord' came up with his name "listen guys, my name is Naruto Uzumaki, I'm even a demigod like you guys, just a mortal so you don't have to call me lord or anything! Just call me Naruto, understand?"
"We understand Naruto!" The girls said before giggling. Naruto could see that most of them were female and very beautiful, almost as beautiful as Caitlyn. Looking at them, Naruto could already tell that they're the kind of kids who sat in front of the mirror for hours in order to look perfect, even the boys.
"Naruto," A beautiful girl with black hair stepped up, she was about Naruto's age and smiled charmingly at him "this is Silena Beauregard, the head counselor of Cabin ten" Naruto offered his hand and Silena took it before shaking hands with him.
"How do you do, Silena?" Naruto greeted with a grin.
"I'm doing fine, Naruto" she giggled, blushing a little
"Good now children, make sure not to play with something that will hurt your body, and remember to keep yourself perfect" Aphrodite announced loudly to her children.
"Yes mother!" They all said at once. Naruto crossed his arms over his chest and gave her a nod, so far Aphrodite was showing herself to be a good mother and cared deeply for her mortal children. She might try to act like this to impress him but Naruto couldn't find any acts or fakes in her voice as well.
So far, she was okay in his book. What she did in the past that was wrong was: cheated on his brother; birthed dozens of gods and minors gods for the other gods, even his father; cursed people to fall in love with their family just because they boast about their beauty that eventually lead to death and ect...and a dozens more things but, at least in some degree she wasn't as bad as some other gods like his father or mother.
Women were complicated, especially the one like Aphrodite. He could only judge gods like his father, but how could he judge a goddess when he didn't even understand them, let alone the way they think? His mother was different because she was a family member, but Aphrodite was of an entire different lineage, in one way or another.
Seeing Naruto deep in his thoughts, Aphrodite grabbed Silena's shoulder and pulled the girl toward her, whispered as softly as she could into her ear.
"He's going to stay here for a few days so tell the girls, don't touch him, he's mine" a smile spread on Silena's face when she realized what her mother wanted and nodded her head.
"Alright Naruto, let's go. We still have one cabin left to see" she said and pulled him away, after receiving a lot of waves from Aphrodite's children.
"The last one is Ares Cabin right?" Naruto asked and Aphrodite nodded curtly "What's wrong?" he asked "you two have a fight?"
"He told me about you guys' encounter at Boston" Naruto nodded his head "but he didn't allow me to tell anyone about it. He slapped me, threatened me if I didn't keep it a secret he will hurt my children" the shinobi growled, more reason for him to hurt the guy "Last night, he comes to my palace and acted like nothing happened. I refused to have sex with him, but he tried to have his way with me but clearly I wasn't in the mood for him to enjoy me as much as he can... so I grabbed the mirror and smashed him in the face, using a broken piece of glass and stabbed him here" she pointed to a point at the throat "I don't think it is fatal, cause he has thick muscles but oh well, send the guy away with one of the biggest blue-balls" she said in satisfaction.
"Wait wait...face and throat" Naruto looked at Aphrodite in surprise. He then remembered the words the mysterious man said to the man in the Iris Message, something to do with his face and throat that made his voice change.
"Um, yes"
"Did his voice change? Become a little raspier than usual? Like Hephaestus' voice but thicker because of the pain?"
"Yeah, how did you know that?" Aphrodite nodded her head in surprise.
"Bingo" Naruto grinned smugly, the problem was solved faster than he thought. The Lightning Thief's partner was Ares and that bastard warmonger was hiding the Master Bolt and the Helm of Darkness.
"C'mon," Naruto put his arm around Aphrodite's shoulder and hugged her tightly much to her surprise "let's just finish with my damn brother's cabin and find something to eat, my treat"
"Okay then" Aphrodite nodded before smiling widely. She didn't understand a thing but all that mattered now was that she was growing closer and closer to the Prince of Olympus.
Who knew, maybe he was the true one for her.
Chapter 14 - Chapter 15 - Chapter 16