Gyaran no Honkyochi or the "Home of the Gallant" remains one of the greatest mysteries of history. One might call it the eastern version of Atlantis, a city lost to the sands of time.
It was supposedly located in the middle of the East Sea, most probably back when the latter was still a landmass, thus placing it at an age older than the Ice Age.
What made this city special were its inhabitants.
As found in the Japanese Kojiki, it was said to be a place for everyone and anyone to live, it presented one of the earliest examples of coexistence between creatures of different origins. As it is written to not have only housed humans, but monsters, demons, and other such fantastical creatures.
On the other hand, ancient Taoist texts related to the Tao Te Ching through similar narration chains paint a vastly different picture of the mystical city. What was seen as a symbol of peace and understanding for the Shinto was abhorred as a symbol of rebellion against a divine decree by the Taoists.
Nevertheless, despite their differences, both stories share the same ending: the complete destruction of Gyaran no Honkyochi.
Because no ruins have ever been found, even at the bottom of the East Sea, most historians have considered this city as nothing more than a fairy tale.
~~ Excerpt from "Legends and Wonders of the Far East" by Professor Amanda Perkins~~
National Building Museum, Washington D.C, 30th of June 2000
Zetsu had many siblings over the centuries.
They weren't blood siblings, of course, he never had any of those.
His father, weirdly enough, simply never had any children by traditional means.
He instead, either created them, as was his case or simply took in children that caught his interest and raised them.
They grew up, achieved their dreams and ambitions, and for some, were immortalized in legends.
Amaterasu, the Benevolent Sun.
Māui, the Brave Adventurer.
Quetzalcoatl, the Radiant Serpent.
Anansi, the Cunning Spider.
Miyamoto Musashi, the Strongest Samurai.
These were but a few of his father's greatest children and students.
Unfortunately, humans typically either exaggerated or twisted their feats and biography into something that was often unrecognizable from the original stories.
But the point was, Naruto had a habit of taking in kids and having them join his family.
So it came to no surprise to the green-haired Uzumaki, that his father had taken an interest in yet another one.
'I just wish she was less talkative' Zetsu thought while glancing at Annabeth, the subject of his thoughts.
The girl was holding onto Naruto's hand as she looked around in amazement at everything around her, and pointing at random structures and installations while firing off question after question.
The tiny demigoddess had made a passing comment upon seeing an advertisement for this museum a few days ago when they came into Washington.
Upon hearing her wish, his pops had proceeded to reserve an expensive suite at one of the best hotels in the city, much to the amazement of Thalia and Luke.
Where did he get the money for it?
Well...you tend to gather a substantial amount of riches once immortality truly sets in.
But in any case, it has been almost a full month since they've met and while Zetsu could see that while Thalia and Luke still had some lingering doubts, they were being chipped down daily.
The younger Uzumaki wasn't surprised.
His father had that effect on people, his kindness and gentle nature could reach just about anyone… most of the time.
Bah, there was no need for these thoughts right now, this was still a family vacation, extra-company notwithstanding, so Zetsu would do his best to at least enjoy himself.
Looking back at the girl, he wasn't surprised to see she'd had his father lift her up so she could take a closer look at one of the exhibits.
And then the questions came back in a vengeance...
Zetsu could understand her curiosity, he had once been just like her too… It didn't mean her non-stop badgering and the never-ending wave of inquiries were any less aggravating. He wanted to tell her off, but every time he held himself back for two reasons.
His dad would be unhappy, as he seemed content to humor the kid.
His dad also gave him a look from the side every time the man felt a spike in his negative emotions.
So Zetsu kept his mouth shut on the matter, and instead opted to entertain himself with the other two, who seemed to be uninterested in the exhibits around them, opting instead to bicker on their new favorite subject: Pokemon
Naruto had the bright idea to introduce the two teens to pop culture through a couple of Gameboys he had in his bag, some old games he carried for him and Zetsu to play, and a few older mangas that he had discretely unsealed.
As expected with many in their age group, Luke and Thalia took to video games like fish to water. Since his father was usually finishing off most monsters they encountered, (with the exception of the times Thalia would ask to leave some for them), they had more time to indulge themselves in games and fiction.
Which came down to their present hushed argument.
"I'm telling you Thals, Squirtle is the best starter!" Luke had his arms crossed and a steely glare directed at the demigoddess.
"And I'm telling you, Luke, that only an idiot would pick Squirtle over Charmander!" Thalia, ever the spitfire, responded back with more heat.
"Squirtle breezes through the first two gyms, it gives you the best running start!"
"Yeah, up until you get to mid-game and the fights start taking forever! Charmander might take a while to get used to, but that's only for bad players" Thalia argued, her stormy eyes almost shining in frustration.
"Hah? Remind me again who has the most badges?" Luke smugly replied.
"Ugh! You!" Thalia stammered, blushing in embarrassment before she crossed her arms, and turned her head away to pout.
"Charmander's a dragon, dragons are cooler than turtles, enough said." She said.
"Uh uh, and how is this gonna help your gameplay? Squirtle at least gets the better evolution" Luke doubled down on her.
"Huh? Are you sure you've been playing the same game? I-" the ravenette snapped back.
"Bulbasaur" a voice interjected, making both teens whip their heads to its source.
"WhAt?" The answer came out of left-field, so the two demigods were understandably aghast.
"I know what I said. Bulbasaur stomps all" Zetsu crossed his arms, with a smirk so condescending it wouldn't have been out of place on an Uchiha.
"The hell it does!" the two teens spoke in tandem before turning to each other with fire in their eyes.
"Stop copying me!" they spoke again, this time grabbing each other threateningly, while Zetsu watched in amusement.
"Stop it! Damnit!" the two butted heads, and it looked like it was rapidly escalating towards a brawl.
Zetsu didn't seem to care though. Hell, he wanted to see some chaos.
His lips twitched into a rare smile, a genuine one, at the almost sibling-like moment.
Heh, now to see if he could fan the flames more, they might get kicked out and finally do something fun.
"Oi"
Zetsu froze at the word, he didn't dare turn for he knew the beast was behind him.
The two arguing teens had a similar reaction, with Luke having a tight grip on Thalia's forearms while she rammed the top of her head into his torso in an attempt to push him back.
All three gulped and turned to the sight of the elder Uzumaki, with an oblivious Annabeth standing next to him and still looking around.
His voice wasn't loud, his eyes were closed, and a gentle smile was plastered on his face.
Yet the sheer monstrous aura he exhibited showed the exact opposite of calmness.
Luke and Thalia had switched to holding onto each other for dear life while Zetsu unashamedly ran back behind them and hid.
He wasn't above throwing people under the bus.
Or in this case, the eighteen-wheeler that was his father when annoyed.
"Are you three trying to get us kicked out?" he asked, smile still in place, although his question drew shivers down the troublemakers' spine.
"Bu-" Thalia tried to say.
"Apapap!" the man shushed her, "Come on guys! I bayleef we're still in a museum, let's all have some common decency!" he said with a straight face.
Annabeth looked up at him confused.
The other three looked at each other, with Thalia and Luke gaining cherry-like complexions, and Zetsu peaking out, his face stony.
"Really pops? Now?" the younger Uzumaki threw a disgusted look at his father, who flashed him a grin.
"Hey hey heeeeey! Don't Poke-e at my groove here!"
"Ugh" Zetsu groaned, while the two teens snapped out of their embarrassment, and snorted.
"Ew, who even says groove anymore?" Thalia asked with a smirk.
"Old men, that's who" Luke fired off with an equal amount of sass.
While they didn't believe the man and his son were telling them everything, a month of traveling together had gone a long way in making them more comfortable around him.
"Ack!" Naruto grabbed his chest, acting like he was shot.
"Annie! Save me from the mean kids!" the grown man crouched down behind the girl and used her as a makeshift shield.
The youngest demigoddess laughed in merriment at the group's antics.
Olympus, Athena's Temple
Athena narrowed her eyes, the twin pools of grey shined as millions of thoughts, ideas, and plans formed in her mind. Her hands blurred at superhuman speeds, taking down notes and organizing the mountains of documents she was reading through. There wasn't anything special about that, it was simply standard behavior for her within the confines of her own temple.
In an effort to cope with the insane speed her mind worked at, she had developed a peculiar habit over the last few thousands of years of her existence. If anything caught her interest, no matter how small, she would mobilize that same speed to craft an unearthly detailed analysis of her target. Her latest target, in particular, was something she rarely encountered: an unknown variable.
She had sensed him through her own daughter, a stranger, and his son, who appeared out of thin air and saved Annabeth and her friends. While Athena was grateful for the heroic act and would have likely left it at that, if not even blessed them for making her little Annabeth smile and laugh so much, she had instead witnessed, from the times she kept an eye on her daughter, the man and his son display an abnormal amount of strength over the past month.
'How very curious'
She had thought the two to be demigods, or a demigod and a legacy, based on battle prowess alone, but that theory had been dispelled the second she had gotten a feel of their energy.
While she might not be as good of a sensor as her sister, she could still proudly say that distinguishing a demigod among mortals was an easy feat.
That was not the case here, however.
The energy felt more akin to that of a nature spirit, a little more potent than that of a Nymph or a Satyr's.
But that wasn't enough to raise any alarms.
It was instead, the fact that both father and son were definitely male, and lacked a goat's distinct lower body, which in turn made them an outlier to both species she had initially thought of, and that detail made her so much more invested in their cases.
After hearing their stories, a quick search on the Japanese census, surprisingly enough, showed information in line with what they revealed.
Naruto N. Uzumaki and Zetsu N. Uzumaki (with no mention of a mother, curiously enough) were two Japanese citizens who came to the US on a travel Visa. While the father was an ex-member of the JGSDF (1) and now a humble Ramen Cook (a waste of talents if you were to ask her), it was the son's biography that made her raise an eyebrow.
A high school graduate at the young age of 15? A prodigy in both sports and academics?
'How very odd' she was honestly intrigued, while there always was the occasional child genius, rare were those with an aptitude for both the mental and the physical work.
But then again, if the Shinto were anything like them in that regard, then she could not dismiss the possibility of fraudulent information. Mist manipulation and all...
What was their purpose here? Are they related to the Shinto? Servants? Yokai? Scouts?
The piling amount of questions and the uncertainty of it all bothered the goddess of wisdom. She especially was not proud of the lack of information she had about the more elusive gods of the Japanese peninsula.
Bringing up the piles of books and papers she had on the subject, she was saddened to see the disparity between them and the literal mountains of different literary works she possessed on Western civilization.
The gods of the East were different from them.
They never had to adapt like the Greeks, Norse, or Egyptians to the modern world, by spreading their influence through demigods and subtly directing the progress of humanity in a manner that benefited both their respective domains, and the well being of mortals.
They never had to work to spread their stories and to prevent themselves from fading.
The Shinto, Taoists, and Hindus have retained a large part of their influence over the millennia. The Hindus, especially, have become ridiculously powerful due to the number of followers they had, so much so that the very notion of a war with them was tantamount to suicide in Athena's opinion.
It was almost laughable. The only way they would have a chance at survival if beings like the Trimurti decided to step up to them, is in the unlikely case Zeus, Odin, and Ra managed to put their egos aside and form a temporary alliance between their respective pantheons.
'Something that won't happen anytime soon' mused the goddess as her eyes roamed over the documents.
As for the Taoists and Shinto, while their number of followers had noticeably decreased, many of their old shrines were still being used and many of their practices and traditions were maintained.
Unfortunately, both of those parties had a rivalry going on that goes back thousands of years. This conflict had apparently started long before the Shinto chief goddess, Amaterasu-Ōmikami, had earned her place at the top of her pantheon. The mysterious "Heavenly War" was the trigger for it and it was an event many scholars, god or mortal, wished to uncover more about.
The two sides kept it under wraps and all she had to go off of, are apocryphal texts and unsettling rumors about it. The lack of valuable and concrete data only made ugly feelings of frustration bubble up in the goddess's being.
She had many questions, many worries to be addressed, but could not do anything, both because of the ancient laws, and because she simply could not risk an inter-pantheonic war.
Especially one with the Shinto.
What they lacked in numbers to oppose the Greeks they more than made up in individual strength.
Be it through their very own Big Three, Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo, or through this cryptid that she keeps reading tidbits of. A man rumored to have stood toe to toe with the Jade Emperor, one of the strongest beings even amongst the gods.
As ridiculous as the last notion sounded, she could not help the gnawing feeling that there was more to this story. If in any way, it ended up being real, then that would mean the Olympians would have to face at least a Pantheonic threat, and that wasn't a scenario she wanted to plan for.
It all hinged on the question: Just who was "The Gallant Sage of the East"?
'A question for another time' thought the goddess, hearing a chime from her office clock, and decided to move over to her other duties for now.
She made a mental note to talk to her sister. Hopefully, Artemis can feel the two strangers out and give her a more accurate assessment of their threat level.
She could not act rashly, nor illogically, after all, she is Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom, warfare, and battle strategy.
She would not fail.