Madera ascended the Big House warped steps without hesitation, his Akatsuki cloak brushing damp pine needles clinging to the rotting wood. The door groaned open before his outstretched palm—not magic, but Kamui's spatial distortion fracturing its hinges silently inward. He crossed the threshold. Argus's hundred eyes snapped open along the foyer beams, swirling madly—blue, brown, green—tracking the intruder with frantic vigilance. Madera ignored them. His crimson eye swept the cluttered room: Chiron's precious maps pinned haphazardly to peeling wallpaper, Dionysus's half-eaten cheetos staining an antique ottoman, the eternal scry-pool bubbling with ominous smoke. The scent of stale wine, horse liniment, and desperation thickened the air. He moved toward the ping-pong table—its surface scarred by demigod squabbles and spilled nectar. **"Your command center,"** he rasped, contempt vibrating the dust motes dancing in stale sunbeams. **"A child's playpen."** His gloved finger traced a deep gouge—Percy's blade-work from last summer. **"Where strategies crumble... like ambrosia left too long."**
He circled the pool table slowly, his sandals silent on scarred floorboards. The scry-pool's fumes thickened—tendrils of smoke coiling into the shapes of screaming faces: Zoe's terror-stricken visage, Artemis straining beneath celestial weight, Apollo blinded by golden light. Madera didn't glance down. His focus fixed on the back wall—a mural of Mount Olympus painted in garish, peeling hues. He stopped before Zeus's thunderbolt-wielding likeness, dwarfing Athena's careful tactics beside him. **"Hubris..."** Madera breathed, distortion humming. His hand rose—not to touch, but to *dissect*. Kamui's crimson-black distortion unfolded like jagged petals inches from the paint. Zeus's face fragmented into swirling pixels, revealing crumbling plaster beneath divine grandeur. **"...masked as divinity."** Behind him, the door creaked wider—Chiron and Dionysus stood frozen at the threshold, demigods crowding their backs. Percy's knuckles whitened on Riptide; Annabeth counted exits. Madera's cloaked shoulders blocked their view of the dissolving mural—a god unmade.
**
He pivoted sharply, Akatsuki cloak snapping as spatial distortion sealed the doorway behind Chiron's trapped advance. Argus's hundred eyes blinked rapidly—panicked, mismatched constellations tracking Madera's glacial stride toward Dionysus's throne of tangled grapevines. He paused. **"The Romans,"** Madera began, distortion flattening into icy precision, **"forge blade upon blade beneath their Eagle's shadow."** His crimson eye slid toward Clarisse's spear-trembling grip—her knuckles mirrored Legion steel grit. **"Legions massed, shields locked."** He raised one gloved finger slowly—a mock salute to unseen battle lines. **"Prepared…"** The word hung heavy with Tiber's blood-scent. **"…for battle. *
Madera's arm swept sideways—a blade slicing air. **"The Egyptians,"** his rasp deepened, twisting vowels into desert-dry malice, **"…anoint coffins beneath Ra's dying eye."** The scry-pool hissed—smoke resolving into pyramids crumbling beneath apocalyptic sandstorms. Dionysus choked—visions of broiling Nile, serpent gods rising. **"Pharaohs charter ships…"** Madera's masked face tilted toward Bianca's trembling form near Percy. **"…for the Duat's final voyage."** A Hunter gasped—*Egypt? Impossible.* Madera's crimson gaze pinned them all. **"They ready…"** His gloved fist clenched. **"…for the world's end."** Silena's dagger clattered; Beckendorf's hammer slipped. Distant thunder rolled—Olympus's storm clouds boiling higher.
He stepped forward—one stride crushing Dionysus's abandoned cheeto bag. **"The Æsir,"** Madera hissed, distortion snarling now—a wolf's growl beneath the words. Frost crackled across the ping-pong table. Argus's eyes iced over. **"Sharpen Gungnir…"** His Sharingan-Rinnegan pulsed—reflecting Yggdrasil's ash-lashed branches, Valhalla's gates shuddering. **"…in twilight's deafening silence."** Chiron's bow dipped—old myths echoed: *Odin's ravens circling.* Thalia shuddered—lightning remembered Thor's doomed hammer. **"They brace…"** Madera's voice dropped to a whisper colder than Niflheim. **"…for Ragnarök."** Nico's shadows writhed—Bifrost's fractured light bled into Half-Blood Hill's soil.
Three paces brought Madera nose-to-mask with Chiron. The centaur reared back instinctively—hooves skidding on frosted wood. Madera surveyed the ring of terrified demigods behind him: Percy's blade lowered, Annabeth's calculations stalled, Thalia's sparks dead. His distorted rasp sliced the silence like shattered glass. **"Yet you Greeks…"** He gestured contemptuously at Camp Half-Blood's peeling walls, Zoe's ghost haunting the scry-pool's smoke. **"…stand here."** His crimson eye burned into Chiron's soul. **"…radiating—"** The distortion twisted into a serpent's hiss, **"—arrogance."** Percy flinched—the accusation sharp as Kronos's scythe. Bianca buried her face in Nico's cloak. Artemis's absence thundered louder than the storm outside. Madera's hand rose slowly—palm open toward the frozen demigods. **"Ignorance?"** he suggested softly. **"Or…"** The distortion sharpened to a blade-point. **"…inherited folly?"** Chiron's aged eyes closed. Olympus had failed them—utterly.
**"I see no gods."** Madera's voice dropped—a glacier scraping bedrock. He pivoted toward Annabeth—grey eyes wide as he dissected her tactical desperation. **"I do not see Zeus…"** His masked head tilted skyward—storm clouds roiling without thunder. **"…calling a war council."** Below, Clarisse's spear clattered. The silence screamed—no Eagle of Rome winged overhead; no Egyptian barque sailed storm-winds. **"I do not see Apollo…"** Madera continued, his crimson gaze sliding to Zoe's smoke-image, forever broken. **"…healing the injured…"** Bianca choked back a sob. **"…or blessing the dying."** Dionysus shriveled—his cheap wine-stench souring the air. Madera's cloaked shoulders shifted—a predator assessing trapped prey. **"I do not see Athena…"** Annabeth's knife trembled. **"…and Ares…"** He scanned Clarisse's faux-bravado. **"…riding into battle against the Titans."** Thalia crumpled—her father's cowardice confirmed. No divine host assembled. Only demigod dread.
Madera stepped back—one sandal crunching Dionysus's abandoned cheetos. His distorted whisper filled the Big House like poison gas: **"All I see…"** His crimson Sharingan-Rinnegan swept their ranks—Beckendorf's hammer lowered, Pollux's vine-magic withered. **"…are children."** Percy tasted salt—his own sweat, or the sea mourning their doom? Madera's masked face angled toward Nico, shadows writhing uselessly around Bianca. **"…getting ready to die…"** The words echoed Zoe's shattered gaze in the scry-pool. Annabeth's breath hitched—*he's right*. The Labyrinth. The Princess Andromeda. Kronos rising. Always demigod blood spilled first. Always. Madera's gloved hand closed slowly—a fist strangling hope. **"…for a fight…"** His distortion deepened—a tomb sealing shut. **"…the gods wish to have no part in."** Chiron's bow clattered to the floorboards. Olympus stood condemned. Nico's shadows screamed silently—Bianca trembling against him, Zoe's fate their future writ clear.
The silence that followed was absolute. Argus's hundred eyes froze—blue irises ruptured by crimson reflections. Madera turned slowly toward the Big House's boarded windows—his cloak swirling like spilled void. Outside, Half-Blood Hill's unnatural dusk deepened—Thalia's pine shadow stretching toward the forge like an accusing finger. **"They think…"** Madera murmured, distortion softening to terrifying intimacy, **"…this mountain protects you."** His crimson gaze flickered—past Chiron, past demigods, toward Kronos's throne room blueprint pinned haphazardly on Athena's strategic board. **"It shields… only their apathy."** Percy's Riptide felt suddenly useless—cold bronze against inevitable truth. Madera vanished. Not spatially—he simply **blurred**. One heartbeat at the window; the next, wrist-deep inside Kronos's architectural plans—gloved fingers dissolving parchment like acid. Flakes of ash drifted downward. **"When Titans break those doors…"** His voice emerged from the dissolving map—cold, certain, final. **"…ask yourselves: where were your gods?"** Nico's shadow-cloak tightened—Bianca's whimper the only answer. Artemis held the sky. Zeus watched. Apollo tuned his lyre. And below, demigods stood alone.
Madera's crimson eye fixed—not on Chiron, not on Dionysus shrinking beside his throne—but on Percy Jackson. **"Son of Poseidon."** The distortion slid oily-smooth, tasting salt-sea fear on Percy's tongue. Percy stiffened—riptide gleaming brighter in reflex. Madera's masked head tilted—surveying the camp's panoply through Percy's frozen perspective: Clarisse's spear trembling, Beckendorf's forge-soot fists clenched, Annabeth's grey eyes counting futile escape vectors. **"You fought a god once."** Rasp deepened—dragging up Thalia's tree, poisoned Fleece, Ares's cursed blade on Santa Monica beach. **"Did Olympus cheer?"** Percy's jaw tightened—memories of silence after Ares fell. Only waves applauding. Madera's gloved hand lifted—palm open toward Percy's chest. **"Or did they… rearrange chairs?"** He gestured toward the dissolving Kronos map—golden thrones untouched by Titan fingerprints. Dionysus choked—martini fumes souring to vinegar stench. Truth settled—cold, heavy, suffocating. Olympus hadn't fought alongside Percy then. They wouldn't now. Annabeth's dagger drew blood from her own palm—bronze biting denial.
He blurred—not Kamui, but mortal speed magnified by Sharingan precision—reappearing inches from Zoe Nightshade's prone form near the Big House doorway. Hunters flinched backward like birds scattering before a hawk's shadow. Zoe lay unnervingly still—face pale as moon-bleached bone beneath tangled dark hair. Her glazed eyes stared past Artemis's hunters, past Annabeth's urgent whispers, into a Tsukuyomi hellscape only Madera and Apollo could fathom. Madera knelt—dark cloak pooling around Zoe like spilled ink. His crimson Sharingan-Rinnegan pulsed slower now—rhythmic, hypnotic—as he locked onto Zoe's vacant gaze. **"Lieutenant,"** he murmured—distortion softening to a spider's silk whisper. **"Stand down."** His bare hand—pale, scar-crossed—hovered above Zoe's sweat-damp forehead. Not healing, not comfort. *Command*. The air crackled—ozone and crushed-pine needles thickening as celestial energies clashed: Tsukuyomi's infinite nightmare against Madera's absolute dominion over illusion.
He snapped his fingers—sharp, precise—a sound like fractured glass echoing through Hunters' choked breaths. Zoe's body jerked violently—a gasp shredding her throat raw. Her glazed eyes snapped *present*—focusing with terrifying immediacy on Madera's spiraled mask inches away. Recognition—then primal terror—flooded her gaze. Madera leaned closer—his rasp slithering into her ear alone: **"Artemis holds the sky. Apollo… hesitates."** Zoe shuddered—a sob trapped behind clenched teeth. Hunters surged forward—bronze knives flashing—but Madera's crimson eye flicked sideways. Space warped—blades halted mid-air, frozen by Kamui's invisible grip. **"Heal her,"** Madera commanded—not to Apollo's distant sun, but to Zoe's own fractured divinity. His palm pressed against Zoe's forehead—brief, cold contact that seared like dry ice. **"Wake… weep… witness."** He withdrew—rising smoothly. Zoe collapsed backward—tremors wracking her limbs—tears carving paths through dust-streaked skin. She lived. She remembered *everything*.
Madera pivoted—cloak swirling—and locked his crimson Sharingan-Rinnegan onto Percy Jackson. The son of Poseidon stood paralyzed near Bianca, Riptide's glow flickering erratically like a drowning beacon. Madera tilted his masked head—a predator savoring confusion. **"Son of Poseidon,"** the distortion rasped—saltwater sharpness slicing Percy's nostrils. Percy tensed—muscles coiling—but Madera's gaze pinned him deeper than Ares's spear ever could. **"I witnessed Atlantis's caverns,"** Madera whispered—syllables twisting kelp-strands around Percy's throat. **"Its treasures… coral-crusted and forgotten."** Percy flinched—unwanted memories: Triton's disdain, Amphitrite's cold stare. Madera's gloved hand gestured seaward—toward storm-churned Long Island Sound. **"Your father commands tides…"** The distortion deepened—crushing pressure of ocean depths. **"…yet he anchors…"** Madera leaned infinitesimally closer—a shark tasting blood. **"…*here*?"** Percy's knuckles whitened—betrayal washed ashore: Poseidon's fleeting visits, hollow promises whispered against salt-stained pillows.
**"Tell me…"** Madera's voice dropped—a glacial undertow pulling Percy under. **"Where…"** He paused—letting the silence swell with Bianca's stifled sob, Zoe's anguished weeping, Chiron's stifled intake of breath. **"…is he?"** The question struck—blunt, brutal. Percy's gaze flicked desperately seaward—past Dionysus's frozen martini, past Thalia's lightning-scorched pine. Water crashed unseen—wild, untamed. *Out there*. Always *out there*. Madera's crimson eye narrowed—dissecting Percy's choked silence. **"Not among grandchildren drowning?"** Percy's jaw clenched—visions of Camp's canoe lake flooding blue—demigod bodies sinking. **"Not soothing Zoe's poisoned immortality?"** Zoe whimpered—a dagger-twist. Annabeth gripped Percy's arm—bruisingly—eyes screaming *don't answer!* Percy swallowed ozone—sharp, metallic. Madera's distortion hummed—victory cold as abyssal trench ice. **"Too busy… rearranging sunken chairs?"** Poseidon's indifference—amplified, weaponized—sank into Camp Half-Blood's soul. Percy's sea-green eyes flooded—not tears, but the drowning tide of a god's abandonment.
Madera stepped back—one sandal crunching Dionysus's long-discarded cheeto dust. His crimson gaze swept Zoe's shuddering form, Bianca clinging to shadows, Thalia's impotent fists clenched beside Percy's trembling sword. Air hissed through the spiraled mask—distortion twisting satisfaction into glacial contempt. **"This camp…"** His rasp sliced the silence like corroded bronze, gesturing toward the peeling Big House walls, Thalia's pine weeping unseen toxins beneath its golden glow. **"…is not a fortress."** Percy flinched—the Fleece's warmth suddenly felt like a betrayal against his skin. Zoe whimpered—a sound scraped raw from Tsukuyomi's aftermath. **"It is an orphanage…"** Madera's gloved hand swept sideways—encompassing Hermes Cabin's chaotic sprawl visible through the window, abandoned socks and stolen daggers littering wooden steps. Annabeth's knuckles whitened on her celestial bronze dagger—truth biting deeper than Kronos's scythe. **"…built on divine negligence."**
He pivoted sharply—cloak swirling like spilled ink—locking his Sharingan-Rinnegan onto Chiron's horsehide flank trembling near the doorway. Argus's hundred eyes blinked rapidly—iris constellations fractured by crimson reflections. **"Your gods…"** Madera hissed, distortion flattening into surgical precision. Outside, storm clouds choked Olympus's peak—silent, thunderless. **"…did not weave these borders to shield you."** His crimson gaze dropped to Zoe's tear-streaked face—Artemis's broken lieutenant. **"They wove them…"** Fingers traced the air—etching prison bars only demigods couldn't see. Bianca buried her face in Nico's shadow-cloak—a whispered *no* escaping her lips. **"…to hide you."** Percy tasted salt—sea-spray mingling with the metallic tang of revelation. Not sanctuary. Camouflage. Hunters shifted—bronze knives lowering in dawning horror. Thalia's lightning scars itched beneath her sleeve—Zeus's brand, not blessing.
Madera stepped forward—one stride crushing Dionysus's forgotten martini glass shards beneath his sandal. Ozone thickened—burning nostrils, pricking tear ducts. **"Half-Blood Hill?"** Distortion deepened—a graveyard dirge beneath the word. His crimson eye swept the valley below: pegasus stalls thick with dung-scent, training dummies hacked to splinters, Apollo kids' fading hymns drifting like funeral chants. Beckendorf's forge-hammer lay abandoned—cold iron useless against celestial truths. **"A dumping ground…"** Madera's masked face tilted skyward—past clouds, toward constellations Artemis no longer guarded. **"…for inconvenient progeny."** Percy's Riptide dimmed—sea-green glow guttering like a drowned candle. Annabeth's grey eyes widened—suddenly seeing Camp's peeling paint, crumbling cabins, Zoe's trauma—as abandonment etched in bronze and marble. Protection was the lie. Containment was the design.
**"Your camp…"** Madera's final whisper slithered through Big House dust motes—cold, certain, final. Zoe's breath hitched—Tsukuyomi's cage-memories flooding back. Thalia's jaw clenched—Zeus's thunder a distant dream. Percy stared seaward—Long Island Sound crashing wild and free, Poseidon's absence a yawning chasm. Madera's crimson eye pinned them all: Nico's shadows recoiling, Bianca's whimper stifled, Chiron's bow-arm trembling. **"…is not a shield."** Distortion fractured the word into shards sharper than Stygian iron. **"It is Olympus's… trash heap."** Dionysus shriveled—wine-stench souring to vinegar despair. Argus's hundred eyes wept frozen crimson tears. Truth settled—heavy, suffocating, undeniable. Protection was the lie. Containment was the design.
He blurred—not Kamui-swirl, but Sharingan-precise movement—reappearing inches before Dionysus's slumped form near the splintered game table. Camp Half-Blood's god of wine flinched backward, crushed Cheeto dust puffing from his Hawaiian shirt as Madera's Akatsuki cloak brushed his faded sandals. **"And the only God here…"** Madera's distorted rasp dripped glacial venom as Dionysus's martini glass dissolved into vapor mid-sip, **"…is the god of wine and parties…"** Dionysus's pudgy fingers trembled—empty air clutching phantom stemware. Madera tilted his masked face—crimson Sharingan-Rinnegan dissecting the god's cheap polyester disguise. **"…so surely…"** The syllable stretched—razor-wire taut—before snapping. **"…you must feel protected?"**
Dionysus choked—grape juice dribbling down his chin like cheap stage blood. Madera leaned closer—smelling desperation beneath fermented stupor. **"Right?"** The question hung—a naked blade trembling over Camp Half-Blood's dying illusion. Madera's gloved hand gestured languidly toward Cabin Twelve's peeling doorframe—feet from the Big House porch, its Dionysus kids' graffiti mocking faded Olympian frescoes. **"I'm sure Dionysus…"** Distortion twisted the god's name into a slur—**"…talks to his children."** Dionysus's eyes darted—avoiding Pollux's terrified gaze near the fireplace, Castor's ghost haunting wine-stained floorboards. **"Since his cabin…"** Madera's finger traced Cabin Twelve's proximity—camp barrier thrumming weakly against Kronos's gathering storm. **"…is next to the Big House?"** Pollux gagged—bitter laughter strangled silent. Bianca sobbed—Nico's shadows swallowing her whole. Betrayal wasn't thunderbolts—it was drunken gods playing pinochle while demigods burned.
Dionysus opened his mouth—a cheap retort dying on grape-stained lips. Madera didn't wait. His crimson eye locked onto Pollux—vine curls wilting beneath withering contempt. **"Ask him."** The rasp sliced deeper than Zoe's phantom arrow wounds. Pollux stumbled backward—boots scuffing Apollo's hymn-scrolls abandoned near Chiron's hooves. Dionysus shuddered—godhood flickering like faulty neon. Truth crystallized: Cabin Twelve wasn't closeness. It was exile. Convenience. Containment. Madera vanished—leaving only ozone, crushed pine resin, and demigods drowning in divine silence. Pollux's whisper shattered the stillness: **"…Father?"** Dionysus turned away—reaching for a martini glass that wasn't there.