At seven years old, Luke was tired of being the only one in the room with his eyes open. For years, he had lived with a mounting list of questions that bit at his heels like a pack of ninken.
If Greek gods exist, why are they siring children in New England instead of the Mediterranean? Why is it that when a seven-foot snake-woman tries to eat me, the teachers think she's a lady with a sneezing fit? What, exactly, is the biological definition of a 'Demigod' in a world without Chakra?
He needed a source. And since May's mind was a fractured mosaic of "Hermes" and "roads," he would have to find one in the field.
He slipped out of the house at 11:00 PM, moving through the window with a grace that defied his small frame. He was seven, but he was currently operating at what he begrudgingly termed "low-tier Chūnin efficiency.
He walked the darkened streets for two hours, his cobalt eyes scanning for any glitch.
He found it near an abandoned construction site.
The scent hit him first: a cloying, burnt smell, like sulfur mixed with cheap perfume. Then, the feeling of a gaze. It was heavy, sticky, and distinctly predatory.
Target acquired, he thought, his heart rate remaining a steady, rhythmic hum. Something is following me. It's taller than the snake-woman, but lighter on its feet. It's been tracking me for three blocks, waiting for a dead end. Let's give it one.
He turned into a narrow, brick-lined alleyway between a bakery and a hardware store. To a monster, it looked like a trap for a child. Luke however had scouted it three days ago. It was now a kill-box waiting for his trigger.
As he reached the center of the alley, he stopped. He didn't turn around. He reached into his pocket and felt the fishing line he'd rigged earlier.
"You know," he said, his high pitched voice echoing off the brick, "it's generally considered rude to follow a child into a dark alley without introducing yourself. Even in a world this disorganized."
Behind him, a feminine giggle vibrated in the air. "Clever little demigod," a voice purred. It sounded like honey poured over broken glass. "You smell so much better than the others."
Luke turned. The creature before him was a nightmare of biological inconsistencies. She had the face of a beautiful woman, but her hair was a mass of flickering flames. One of her legs was made of shimmering bronze, ending in a donkey's hoof; the other was the shaggy, dark limb of a beast.
Empousai, his brain supplied, the Ancient Greek term clicking into place with that frustrating, hardcoded instinct.
"Monster," Luke droned, his eyes clinical. "Mismatched limbs, pyro-kinetic hair, and a distinct lack of stealth. You're a mess of a summon. Now, before I turn you into seasoning like the last one, we're going to have a talk."
The Empousa hissed, her jaw unhinging to reveal rows of needle-teeth. "Talk? I'm going to drink you dry, demigod! Your blood will taste like ambrosia!"
She lunged.
Luke didn't draw his dagger. Not yet. He took a single step back and yanked the fishing line.
Clink.
The alleyway, which had appeared empty, suddenly came alive. From the shadows of the fire escape, a heavy iron grate, loosened hours ago, swung down on a pulley. Simultaneously, two lines of wire he'd scavenged from the hardware store snapped taut across the monster's path, coated in a sticky resin he'd made from tree sap and crushed minerals.
The Empousa didn't even have time to scream. Her bronze leg caught the first wire, tripping her forward, and the iron grate slammed into her back, pinning her against the damp pavement.
"Trap making," Luke mused, stepping over her flailing limbs as she hissed in rage.
He knelt by her head, the bronze dagger appearing in his hand as if by magic. He pressed the glowing tip against the base of her throat.
"Question one," Luke said, his electric cobalt eyes pinning her in place. "Why am I the only one who sees you? Why did the civilians see a 'pretty lady' until you stepped into this alley?"
The monster snarled, sparks flying from her hair. "The Mist, you little brat! The veil that hides us from the sheep! But it won't hide your screams!"
"The Mist. Useful term," Luke noted, his mind already filing it under Environmental Illusions? "Question two: My father is Hermes. Why is he in Connecticut when his home is a continent away? And why are there so many of you here?"
The Empousa laughed, a wet, hacking sound. "The heart of the flame, little hero! The West! Olympus moves where the power is. It's been in your 'America' for a long time. Didn't your mommy tell you?"
Luke's grip on the dagger tightened. His killing intent flared, a cold, sharp anger that made the air in the alley feel static-charged.
"She's seen enough," Luke whispered. "Now, tell me about 'Demigods.' Tell me what I am and tell me how many more of you are waiting in the shadows. Because I have a very long list of questions, and you're the only source I have that I don't mind causing a little pain."
The Empousa thrashed under the iron grate, her bronze leg clanging against the brickwork with a sound like a hammer on an anvil. She was strong, significantly stronger than a human, but Luke had used her own momentum against her.
"The Mist," Luke repeated, his voice devoid of a seven-year-old's inflection. It was the flat, neutral tone of an Anbu Commander. "A sensory-affecting veil. A global-scale Genjutsu maintained by... what? A central caster? The collective unconscious of the civilians?"
"The gods, you fool!" she spat, a glob of blue-tinted ichor landing on the bricks. "The Mist is the breath of the world! It bends the minds of the mortals so they don't go mad seeing the truth. They see a dog where there is a Hellhound. They see a school bus where there is a Drakon. They see nothing when we rip the throat out of a brat like you!"
Luke processed this instantly. A passive reality-warping field. It doesn't just hide them; it translates them into something mundane. That explains my teacher buying the ridiculous lie of the snake-woman 'sneezing.' The human brain in this world has a built-in rejection of the impossible.
He leaned in closer, the tip of the bronze dagger drawing a thin line of golden dust from her neck. "And why can I see through it?"
"You are a Half-Blood!" she shrieked, her flaming hair flickering lower as the celestial bronze burned her skin. "You live in both worlds! You see the monsters because you areone, in the eyes of the mortals! You have the blood of the gods! It calls to us like a beacon in the night!"
"A beacon," Luke murmured. Great. So I'm not just a target; I'm a high-visibility target. I'm broadcasting a scent, an olfactory 'Come and Eat Me' signal just by existing. He shifted his weight, his cobalt eyes tracking the way her mismatched legs twitched. She was looking for an opening.
"You said Olympus moves," Luke continued. "Why America? Why not Japan? Why not the Elemental Nations?" He paused, realizing the last part was a slip of his own displaced history. "Why follow the West?"
"Power follows the flame!" the Empousa hissed. "Western Civilization is the center of the world's fire. The gods go where the influence is. New York is the seat of the throne now. Mount Olympus hangs over the Empire State Building like a vulture over a carcass."
Luke felt a headache brewing, the kind he used to get when dealing with the convoluted logic of the Elder Council back in Konoha. So, a group of ancient, incredibly powerful, and emotionally volatile deities have relocated to a skyscraper in Manhattan. And they are siring children across the suburbs like they're planting a garden they have no intention of weeding.
"Question three," Luke said, his voice dropping an octave. "What is a 'Demigod's' life expectancy? And where do we go when the monsters become too many?"
The Empousa's needle-teeth bared in a jagged grin. "Expectancy? Most of you don't make it to high school. You're snacks. Appetizers. But some... the lucky ones... they find the Satyrs. They find the camp on Long Island. A cage for the little godlings, where they can play hero until we finally break through the borders."
A camp. A training ground? Or a containment facility? Luke wondered. If there's a place for people like me, it means there's a structure. A hierarchy. And likely, more information than a library of dancing English letters can provide.
He stood up slightly, his mind whirring. He had what he needed:
The Mist: A reality-bending veil.His Scent: His own presence attracts these things.Safe Destination: A camp on Long Island.
The Empousa saw his moment of reflection and lunged. Her donkey leg lashed out, shattering the iron grate with a surge of monstrous strength. She scrambled up the wall like a spider, her flaming hair roaring back to life.
"I've told you enough, little snack!" she screamed, crouching on the fire escape above him. "Now, bleed for me!"
Luke didn't move. He didn't even look up. He simply reached into the pocket of his overalls and pulled out a small, round object he'd fashioned from a heavy-duty sparkler and a handful of magnesium shavings.
"You're right," Luke said, a shadow of a smile playing on his lips. "You have told me enough. Mission objective, Intelligence gathering... complete. Transitioning to neutralization."
He struck the magnesium against the brick.
"Wait," the Empousa faltered, her eyes widening as she realized the child wasn't reaching for his dagger. "What is that? That's not—"
"It's science," Luke said.
He tossed the flash-bang.
The flash-bang was crude by Konoha standards, but in the narrow, dark confines of a Connecticut alleyway, it was a miniature sun.
The magnesium ignited with a violent, white-blue glare that turned the shadows into scorched silhouettes. The Empousa, a creature of the night and flickering hellfire, was completely unprepared for the purity of the chemical light. She shrieked, her hands flying to her eyes as the "Mist" she had boasted about failed to protect her from the raw laws of physics.
Blindness duration is approximately 4.2 seconds, Luke calculated, his own eyes already closed and protected by the crook of his elbow.
He didn't wait for the sound of her scream to fade. He moved.
This was where his shinobi instincts and the demigod nature merged into something lethal. Luke was across the alley and halfway up the brick wall before the Empousa could even draw a ragged breath. He used the fire escape as a springboard, his small body flipping through the air with the weightless precision of a leaf caught in a gale.
He landed on her shoulders.
In his past life, this would have been the moment for a ration-infused palm. Here, he had four feet of height and a leaf-shaped bronze dagger. He made it work.
"You mentioned my blood smelt delicious," Luke whispered into her ear, his voice chillingly calm amidst her panicked thrashing. "Let's see how yours tastes."
He didn't go for the heart, it was too protected by her shifting, monstrous anatomy. Instead, he drove the celestial bronze into the base of her skull, the exact junction where the flickering flames of her hair met the flesh of her neck.
The dagger flared.
Celestial bronze didn't just cut monsters; it rejected their very existence. The Empousa's body stiffened, a golden glow radiating from the wound like cracks in a shattering vase.
"The camp..." she gasped, her voice disintegrating into a rasp of dry leaves. "You... you won't survive the trip... little thief..."
"I've survived the end of a world," Luke said, twisting the blade. "A trip to Long Island is just a morning stroll."
With a final, shimmering convulsion, the Empousa vanished.
There was no body. No blood. Just a sudden, heavy cloud of yellow sulfurous dust that coated Luke's silver hair and denim overalls. The iron grate he had rigged clattered to the floor, the only physical evidence that a battle had taken place.
Luke dropped back to the pavement, landing in a perfect crouch. He stood up slowly, wiping the dust from his shoulder with a look of distaste.
Combat report, he thought, sheathing the dagger in his secret pocket. Target neutralized. High efficiency, low resource expenditure. However, the 'Mist' is a double-edged sword. It keeps the civilians from learning about the supernatural, but it allows these creatures to hunt with near-total impunity.
He looked up at the moon, his cobalt eyes reflecting the cold light.
The interrogation had been a success, but the data was grim. He was a child of a god, living in a country that served as the current headquarters for a pantheon of ancient, volatile entities. He was being hunted by things that couldn't be killed by normal means, and his mother was slowly being driven mad by the "blessing" of a father who was too busy running the "roads" of the West to help her.
Olympus is in New York. This 'camp' is on Long Island, he summarized.
He turned and began to walk out of the alley, his gait casual, his hands in his pockets. To any passerby, he was just a stray kid out past his bedtime.
I've been a soldier since I was five, Luke mused, a dark spark of the Copy Ninja flickering in his gaze. It's about time I stopped playing house and started being a shinobi again. If my father wants me to be a traveler, I'll give him a journey he won't forget.
He reached the end of the alley and paused, sniffing the air. The sulfur was gone, replaced by the scent of damp earth and coming rain.
First priority: Secure the home base.
As he walked home, he didn't see the shadow on the rooftop across the street, a man in a fluttering traveler's coat, holding a caduceus that hummed with a quiet, proud rhythm before vanishing into the night.