Chapter 2: Of Wings and Wrath (Also, Maybe Accidental Manslaughter)
(In which Naruto learns the hard way that park picnics can involve ancient curses, angry birds, and very punchable old men.)
If you've ever had one of those dreams where you're floating in a perfect garden and an ancient primordial being is treating you like her favorite child... well, congratulations, you might be Naruto Uzumaki.
Our golden-haired, chakra-wielding, planet-hopping ninja wasn't dreaming, though. He was actually floating. Not in a creepy-ghost kind of way, but more like the world itself had decided he needed a break and had gently picked him up like a cosmic beanbag. Below him, the land shimmered with emerald forests and crystalline lakes that probably gave environmentalists heart palpitations from sheer beauty. Birds sang. Flowers bloomed. Somewhere in the distance, a deer sparkled. Yes, sparkled.
And in the heart of all that natural majesty stood Gaia—the Primordial Mother, Earth Herself, and the literal definition of "don't mess with mom."
"Thank you, my child, for such a precious promise," she said, her voice like warm tea and thunderclouds. "I, too, will do my best to help you."
Naruto blinked, trying not to feel awkward. He'd had plenty of women hug him in the past—Hinata, Sakura, that one overly friendly ramen vendor—but none of them made him feel quite so cradled by eternity. He smiled, scratching the back of his head, the way people do when they're trying to process a universe-sized compliment.
"I appreciate it, Gaia," he said, voice steadier than he felt. "I don't want to let you down."
Gaia's eyes softened like spring soil after the first rain. "As promised, I will share what I know about the ones who now hold your fragmented power."
That got Naruto's full attention. His spine straightened. The leaves around them seemed to lean in, as if even they wanted to know.
"There are four confirmed bearers," Gaia said, each word echoing with ancient certainty. "And they are children born of chaos and glory."
She raised a hand, and images formed in the air—glowing, living projections woven from mist and memory.
"First is Hercules, the son of Zeus."
The projection showed a man who looked like he'd wrestled a mountain for fun and then used it as a pillow. Muscles for days. Confidence for centuries.
"He holds the Steam piece," Gaia continued. "A fitting fragment, as his strength can boil rivers and shake mountains. He is power incarnate—though more brawn than brain."
Naruto raised an eyebrow. "And he's the strong one?"
Gaia nodded. "Imagine the raw pressure of a volcano… now give it a personality and some daddy issues."
"Second is Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon."
The image shifted to a teenager with sea-green eyes and a sword made from celestial bronze. He looked like the kind of guy who could make friends with a sea monster and then borrow its Netflix password.
"He wields the Water piece," Gaia said. "Smart, sarcastic, and a natural leader among his kind."
Naruto tilted his head. "He seems… chill."
Gaia's lips twitched. "He has been known to be. But beware—still waters run deep, and he has endured more storms than most."
"Third is Nico di Angelo, son of Hades."
The temperature dropped a little. Even the flowers around them seemed to wilt slightly.
A shadowy figure emerged—pale skin, dark eyes, a look that said I've read every tragic poem in the underworld and didn't cry once.
"He holds the Yin piece," Gaia said solemnly. "Darkness follows him, and he does not run from it. He is elusive and burdened, and his path is a lonely one."
Naruto felt something tighten in his chest. He'd known kids like that—people who carried the weight of silence on their backs and called it survival.
"And lastly, Jason Grace, son of Zeus."
Blond hair. Blue eyes. Lightning in both hands. The air practically buzzed with energy when his image appeared.
"He holds the Lightning piece," Gaia said. "A warrior through and through. Loyal to a fault. But duty… can blind, as much as it can guide."
The images faded into stardust, leaving Naruto quiet.
"So… they're not the enemy," he said after a beat.
Gaia gave a long, heavy sigh—the kind that carried centuries of disappointment.
"They are victims of legacy," she said gently. "They have lived under the Olympians' shadows. Controlled. Conditioned. If a prophecy demands it, they will fight. Even if they don't understand why."
Naruto looked down at his hands. Calloused. Scarred. Still trembling from choices he hadn't made yet.
"I don't want to hurt them," he said softly.
Gaia placed a hand on his cheek. Her touch was warmth and stone and stories older than fire.
"That," she whispered, "is why you must be careful. You will be tested, my child. And you must choose—compassion, or conflict."
He nodded. No more questions. No more words. Just a deep, burning resolve settling in his bones.
Gaia stepped back and smiled, motherly and radiant.
"Now," she said, "I will return you to the surface. When you need me, call with your heart. This place will always be your sanctuary."
A gentle light surrounded Naruto. It wasn't the harsh brightness of battle or the divine shimmer of Immortals—it was soft, like sunlight through leaves. Peaceful. Healing.
And just before the world around him faded, Naruto felt arms wrap around him in one final embrace.
Not of a warrior or a teacher.
But of a mother who believed in him.
Then the light took him.
And the ground waited.
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Naruto Uzumaki had fallen from many things in his life—trees, battleships, the sky once—but this time, he fell through realities.
He didn't land with a dramatic explosion or a triumphant yell. No, his body oozed out of the cracked pavement in a quiet New York alley, like a ghost rising from tar. It was not exactly the grand entrance you'd expect from a war hero, demi-Immortal-tier ninja, and former savior of the Elemental Nations.
The first thing that hit him wasn't a monster or a demiImmortal with anger issues—it was the smell.
"Ugh." Naruto gagged, waving a hand in front of his nose as if he could ward off the stench. "Why does this air smell like burnt ramen and crushed dreams?"
This place—this world—was loud. Not just physically loud, but spiritually. The buildings loomed like iron giants, blaring neon signs like battle cries. Cars honked with the aggression of war horns, and people... well, people moved like they were all being chased by invisible ANBU.
He stumbled into the crowd, his instincts making him blend in despite the bright orange hoodie he stubbornly refused to give up. Centuries of ninja training did have their perks.
"This place is so strange," Naruto muttered, eyes wide as he passed a car that growled like a low-level summon beast. "If chakra powered these things, maybe they wouldn't be so... loud. Or smelly."
But beneath the jokes, there was a deep, gnawing weight in his chest. He wasn't just sightseeing—he was stranded. Again.
He tried not to think about it—the fall, the fight, Sasuke's face disappearing into the vortex like a forgotten promise. But memories had a nasty habit of ambushing you when you least expected.
Kaguya's defeat. Sasuke's betrayal. The world tearing like paper beneath their feet.
And then… that green light.
Naruto paused at a crosswalk, his eyes distant. "That light… it felt familiar. Almost like…"
He never finished the sentence.
His stomach chose that exact moment to remind him that while he was powerful, he was also hungry. And hungry Naruto equaled very distracted Naruto.
Ten minutes later, he found himself standing in front of a place that looked like a ramen shop and a tech dungeon had a baby—an Internet café.
Gaia's gift to him—an emergency download of How To Blend In Without Accidentally Punching a Congressman—buzzed at the edge of his mind like a recently learned jutsu. Using it, he hacked into the internet (and by "hacked," we mean he clicked on Google like a caveman discovering fire) and started typing.
Olympians.
The stories that stared back at him were worse than expected.
Manipulation. Betrayal. Immortals turning into swans to seduce mortals. Immortals launching wars over golden apples like children fighting over dessert.
Naruto's fists clenched on the keyboard hard enough to make it creak.
"They're worse than Orochimaru," he muttered, voice dark. "At least that snake had a reason for his crazy. These Immortals? They're just jerks with lightning bolts."
The café owner gave him a weird look. Naruto returned a sheepish grin and slinked out.
New York wasn't exactly Konoha, but the park nearby gave him the tiniest taste of home. The trees were half-alive, the grass kind of crunchy, but it was something. He found a bench and slumped onto it, breathing in the semi-natural air like it might refill his chakra reserves.
He held out his palm. A flicker of fire danced across it. Water coiled around his fingers. Not much, but enough.
"I'll make do," he whispered, resolve setting into his eyes like storm clouds. "Even without full power, I'll stop them. This world deserves better than tyrant Immortals."
A soft sound broke the silence—a flutter, like silk wings catching wind.
Naruto's head snapped up.
A creature glided overhead, feathered wings shining in the sunlight. It looked innocent. Peaceful. Definitely not trying to kill him. For now.
"A harpy?" he guessed, tilting his head. "Or some kind of flying pigeon-human?"
It circled, then darted away between skyscrapers. Most people didn't even notice it. But Naruto wasn't most people. He rose from the bench slowly, that glimmer of curiosity in his expression that usually meant trouble was about to start doing push-ups.
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Naruto Uzumaki had fought monsters made of hate, Immortals drunk on power, and political systems that made a soggy sandwich look efficient. But today? Today, he was chasing a red-haired harpy through a public park.
Not how he'd planned to spend his afternoon.
Feet barely touching the grass, he darted between trees, guided more by instinct than strategy. Something about this chase was… off. Not just the "my prey has feathers and talons" kind of off. The air was too still. The birds were too quiet. Even the squirrels were giving the bench area a wide berth.
And then he saw it.
High in the branches of an old oak tree, the red-haired harpy perched like a wary sentinel. She wasn't like the others—those poor, shrieking bundles of wings and bad ideas flapping wildly toward a picnic table below. She was smaller, more graceful. Her crimson hair cascaded in feathers and fire, and her eyes—golden and bright—were locked on the table like a tactician assessing a battlefield.
Naruto followed her gaze and immediately understood the tension.
At the picnic table sat an old man with a grin so twisted it looked surgically installed. In one hand, he gripped a jagged cane—part stick, part spike, part psychological trauma. Around him lay several harpies, unmoving. Their wings bent at angles that screamed not right.
The man swung his weapon like a tennis racket, swatting at every bird-brained approach with giddy cruelty.
Naruto squinted. Something about this guy… wasn't he cursed by Zeus?
Right. King Phineas. Once a royal jerk with divine punishment stamped on his forehead, now apparently upgraded to "retired sadist with a lunchbox and unresolved vengeance."
"This doesn't feel like justice," Naruto muttered. "This feels like bullying with bonus cruelty."
His fists clenched. The memories stirred—tyrants cloaked in tradition, rulers drunk on power, monsters who called themselves men. This wasn't new.
But then, the red-haired harpy moved.
She sprang from the branch in a burst of scarlet motion, slicing through the air like an arrow of vengeance. Unlike the others, her timing was perfect. She didn't dive blindly. She calculated. Adjusted. Dove with precision.
She was so close.
Then—
Crack!
The old man's cane swung upward with unnatural speed and brutal accuracy. It smashed into her wing mid-flight, the impact echoing like a gunshot.
"Gahhh!"
She tumbled from the sky, feathers spiraling around her like falling embers. Naruto's breath caught as she hit the ground with a thud, clawing desperately to crawl away. Her wing bent wrong—bad wrong—and the old man was already standing over her.
"You wretched pests have tormented me for years!" he bellowed, his voice shrill with madness. "Now it's your turn to suffer!"
He raised the weapon again.
Naruto moved.
There was no thought. Just motion. Rage and instinct braided together in a blur of orange and gold. One second the old man was mid-swing, the next Naruto was in front of him, his fist rocketing forward.
But something was wrong.
The old man dodged.
Dodged.
An eighty-something bird-basher with a knee brace (probably) just dodged a ninja punch.
The world slowed. The man twisted to strike again, but Naruto was faster. With a guttural yell, he delivered a punishing blow straight to the face. He didn't hold back.
Crack.
The old man's body dropped like a sack of bricks. The silence afterward was... heavy. Even the wind seemed to stop to check what had just happened.
Naruto stood frozen.
Blood dripped from his knuckles. The man wasn't moving. Not groaning. Not twitching. Not anything.
"I... I didn't mean to kill him." Naruto's voice was hoarse, stunned.
He looked down at his hand, his breath trembling in his chest. I just wanted to stop him. Just stop him.
The harpy whimpered nearby, dragging her broken wing as she tried to distance herself from the chaos.
Naruto knelt beside her, eyes wide, guilt swirling in his gut. But as he stared at the old man's face—twisted even in death, like cruelty had been his only joy—something shifted inside him.
No.
"He wasn't a good person," Naruto said, quieter this time. "What I did was right."
Wasn't it?
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Naruto had faced a lot of strange things in his life—giant talking toads, sentient chakra monsters, time-traveling Uchiha—but crawling after an injured harpy through a crumbling ruin? That was new.
"Hey, easy," he said, kneeling beside the injured creature who was half-bird, half-girl, and currently all panic. Her brilliant red feathers were matted with dirt and dried blood, and her wings fluttered weakly as she tried to drag herself away.
"Don't worry," Naruto added, his voice dropping to a soft, almost lullaby tone. "I won't hurt you."
The harpy froze. Her wide, unnervingly vivid green eyes locked onto him, narrowed in suspicion but also… confusion.
"You... will not hurt Ella?" she asked, as if the concept itself was foreign.
Naruto gave her a warm smile, the kind that could melt snowmen and defrost hearts. "No. I won't hurt Ella."
She blinked. Once. Twice. Then, very slowly, she stopped trying to escape and settled into the ground, wings sagging like they'd finally given up their protest.
Naruto reached out carefully, gently placing his hands over the torn feathers of her wing. He closed his eyes, channeling what little chakra he had left into a warm, healing pulse. It wasn't medical ninjutsu, not exactly—it was more like wrapping someone in a warm blanket made of sunlight and good memories.
A soft green glow spread from his palms, and the wound began to knit itself back together. Feather by feather. Thread by thread.
Ella twitched, then gasped. "Ella likes the feeling from the light," she said, voice fluttery and small. "The light does not burn. The light… is soft."
Naruto smiled again. "That's the idea."
"Ella also loves books," she added, very seriously. "Books don't scream. Books don't chase. Books have order."
That one hit Naruto like a kunai to the chest.
"You like to read?" he asked, half to keep her talking, half to anchor himself.
She nodded, her beak-like mouth almost curving into something like a smile. "Yes. Ella loves words. Words calm Ella down. Words do not hurt Ella."
Naruto's hands paused over a particularly nasty scar on her back. His chakra flared briefly, his fingers trembling. Not from strain—from empathy.
"Who hurt you?" he asked quietly, though he already knew. The world had.
Before Ella could answer—or retreat back into herself—a voice chimed in from behind.
"Looks like you've made a friend already."
Naruto whipped around, his battle reflexes firing on half a tank. But then he saw her.
"Gaia!"
She was small—smaller than he remembered—barely the size of a housecat and made entirely of earth and flowering vines. Her leafy dress swayed as if caught in an invisible breeze, and little blossoms bloomed along her arms with every step.
She was also floating, because apparently walking was for people who didn't literally grow out of the ground.
"I thought you couldn't move," Naruto said, raising an eyebrow.
"I can't," Gaia replied with a playful tilt of her head. "This isn't really me. Just a body made of mud and wildflowers. It has no power, but I thought you could use a companion."
Naruto laughed—a real one, full of the kind of joy he rarely got to express. "You made a mud puppet just to keep me company?"
"I wouldn't call myself a puppet," Gaia sniffed with mock offense. "I prefer mud-born avatar of eternal wisdom."
"Fine," he said, scooping her up like a mischievous pet. "You're adorable, you know that?"
She rolled her eyes. "You sound like the sun flirting with the grass. Flattering, but unnecessary."
Gaia floated up to perch on his shoulder like an earthy parrot, giving Ella a once-over.
"What do you plan to do with the harpy?" she asked, more curious than judgmental.
Naruto shrugged. "Nothing. I just wanted to help her."
Gaia's eyes softened, and even the flowers on her head seemed to bloom a little brighter. "That's why the world needs you, Naruto."
He glanced at Ella, who had climbed up into a low-hanging branch. She was watching them, head tilted, feathers ruffled, curiosity outweighing fear.
"What about the artifacts?" Gaia asked.
"I'll get them," Naruto said, already turning toward the overgrown path ahead. "But there's no rush. I want to understand this world first. The demi-immortals, the scars they carry, the way they've been forgotten…"
He glanced over his shoulder, meeting Ella's gaze. "You can't fix what you don't understand."
Gaia gave him a proud smile. "Wise words. Someone's been reading more."
"Maybe I should borrow a book from Ella," Naruto joked, waving at the harpy. "It was nice meeting you, Ella. Stay safe, okay?"
Ella didn't answer. But her head bobbed once, and that was more than enough.
As Naruto walked away with a living mud Immortal on his shoulder and the weight of a half-broken world on his back, Ella stared after him, eyes wide, a strange hope fluttering in her chest like a baby bird learning to fly.