A Nascent Kaleidoscope.

Chapter 702: Chapter 620

God, I was fucking tired.

Odin looked tired too, but a different kind of tired. I think his age was catching up to him more than anything. But I also wasn't going to say that out loud because I didn't want to start something.

I mean, I'm more than happy to run my mouth, especially to this Odin that I don't know, but he did come all the way here and 'save' me.

And he called Jeanne his daughter.

I should be polite to him just for that.

"Odds that we killed him?" I rolled over onto my stomach and pushed myself up off the ground.

Odin grunted, so that was about the most I could expect.

Basically a 'who knows.'

"Cosmic energy seems dangerous." I spoke up again. He eyed me, and I think my probing couldn't be any more obvious.

That's fine; I'm not the type to wheedle information out of something if I didn't have to. "Tis the Power of Creation, from the Birth of the Universe." He held his hand out, and what he called the 'Odin Force' appeared in his hand as a multicolored light. I could feel the strength of it from here. "It comes in many forms, from all different breaths of life. My Father's Father captured his own, bound to the Nine Realms and Yggdrasil. It is wielded by the All-Father. But such power comes not without a price. For even Gods like me cannot use it without consideration."

"And the Grandmaster?" I asked.

Odin's expression turns into a frown. "Hmph. A fool. Old he may be, but a fool nonetheless. Cares not for his base amusement. He and his kin are a blight upon the universe, seeking only to satisfy their own pitiful goals."

Sounds like there's some history there.

Odin reached out into the spot where the Grandmaster presumably died.

His cosmic energy pulsed, and he seemed to pull on something.

A different energy appeared, perhaps not different really. It was the cosmic energy of the grandmaster.

It was difficult to tell the difference at a mere glance, but after getting hit by it, I could more or less glean so.

"Come." Odin beckoned me over, and I followed along.

His eye bore into the spear in my hand. Like he was seeing into its true nature, into all the secrets it held.

It annoyed me ever so slightly.

But there wasn't much I could do.

If Odin wanted to know something, if you waved something in front of his face, it wasn't going to remain a secret for very long.

Honestly, he was a frightening god.

That tiny little wisp of cosmic energy was being suppressed by his own.

It felt like it wanted to disperse, but Odin was keeping it together.

"Take this. Considering it your…recompense." The All-Father spoke and all but shoved it into my hands.

I took it but was confused at what he was doing.

His actions were utterly without delicateness, and the energy around the little wisp pulled away, and I awkwardly tried to grasp it.

I felt it enter my body and nearly panicked.

[I have it.] My Zanpakutō spoke up. [I will suppress it within the Hogyoku.]

Musu Tengai? Is it dangerous?

[I believe it can be beneficial, but at the moment, we are unable to utilize it. For now, keep it sealed within until such a time arises that we may benefit from it.]

I trusted my Zanpakutō, so I didn't question it.

There was also the question as to why Odin just gave that to me. "Giving me such a dangerous thing, huh?"

Odin scoffed, but he didn't deny it. "The Power Primordial can do wonders. It can create just as it can destroy. The fool only used it with such petty direction that I was able to suppress him. Do not mistake that for the lowliness of his strength."

"Noted." I took his warning to heart. "Want a drink?" I took out a bottle of my peach wine.

I think he was about to scoff again, but his eye dilated slightly at the bottle. "...aye."

I poured him a cup as we sat awkwardly and drank our very rare wine together.

No one can say I'm stingy with those who help me.

The wine was great for a plethora of reasons. If you could withstand its effects, it was a wonderful healing potion even if that wasn't its purpose.

Essentially, it carried with it abundant life force from the Peaches. It would increase your natural lifespan and even remove some aging from your body. But if you were hurt, well, it would pump you full of life juice, so it was only natural that it had healing properties.

Though, ironically, it wasn't the best thing to drink while you were overly hurt.

If I were on the verge of death, it may actually be detrimental because the life properties needed to be controlled by my body so they didn't rampage or overwhelm me.

It happened naturally as with everyone else on my level, but I couldn't say the same if I were on death's door.

"I feel several divine powers over towards the city. Is Thor here as well? And others?" I asked, not liking the awkward silence.

"My son follows me into battle." Odin's expression changed, a hint of pride peeking through. "He leads the warriors of Asgard at the front."

I nodded, feeling the foreign lightning.

My divine senses were…magnified right now.

I don't think that'll stay this way, as it was mostly due to 'charging up' for several days.

Odin then looked at me with a narrowed eye. I was confused at his look, and he harumphed, getting up from his spot, and he abruptly put a hand on my chest. "Control your Lightning, Boy."

I felt the divine power inside of me sort of swirl and pull at his command. It was like a vortex, pulling it from where bits remained inside my body and gathering as he sort of wrapped it up in itself and had it settle down.

At any point, I could have stopped him, but I wanted to see what he was doing.

And genuinely, I was surprised.

The ease at which he settled something that I felt was going to give me a headache.

I felt significantly better now.

"Poor control," Odin spat out. "Your control of Divine Power is insulting."

I felt my eye twitch. "Yes, well…the God I killed and usurped it from didn't give an instruction manual."

"Bah." Odin dismissed me entirely. "My son could control his Lightning better than you when he was a lad below my knees."

"...how about I go find your son and we can compare notes?" I smiled politely.

"Yes, we can find my daughter as well." Odin didn't react to my not-so-real threat. "Let us see what her opinion is."

Admittedly, I found myself at a loss there.

Well played, Odin.

I hesitated for a moment before saying something I didn't want to. "Do you have any advice?"

Odin snapped his head back to me; he was looking off somewhere else, clearly distracted by something out of my vision. I think he wanted to say something…well, not mean, but our relationship wasn't exactly nice.

Snarky maybe, but less snark and more of a half-insult.

"Your Divine Power is not yours by right of birth, yet you try to wield it as such. It is yours through right of conquest. My son is thunder; he is lightning; he is a storm. You are not; you must bend the storm to your will and command it."

Most of my divine power questions, I went to Izzy with.

She taught me a bit, but her teachings were…well, awkward? She was a born goddess; I was someone who stumbled into divine power.

We were at two different starting points.

It was like a bird teaching a fish that suddenly grew wings how to fly.

For a bird, it was just natural.

I would take his advice to heart.

"Shall we go find your wayward Valkyrie?" I asked.

Odin's attention on me did another intense double-take. His expression hardened, and even if I didn't know this Odin very well, I could see quite a few emotions warring across his face.

Guilt?

There was a lot of guilt there.

I walked over and poured him another glass of my peach wine.

Some things didn't need to be said out loud.

And it's not like we were friends.

He downed it quickly, and there was a small nod of thanks.

At the very least, I'll stop antagonizing him so much.

Maybe.

I won't do it in a malicious way.

"Show me where she is." Odin gathered his resolve, it seems.

I held my hand out, and a large boat hit the ground in front of us. "Well then, let me give you a ride, your majesty."

God, I missed my boat.

I missed having access to all my stuff.

I really was a hoarding dragon, wasn't I?

[Don't be racist.] Ddraig spoke up within my soul.

I rolled my eyes at Ddrag's words.

The ramp up to the boat fell down at my beckoning. Odin didn't even hesitate to walk up it; I think he was curious. Either that, or he was procrastinating intentionally by inspecting my ship.

Maybe both in this case.

I was very proud of my ship.

He ran a hand along the wooden railing before putting a hand on the center mast. "Beautiful." He spoke with actual sincerity. "Tis a fine craft."

No man can resist the boat.

"It's a shame it cannot sail the stars." He added.

"Yeah, a real shame," I grumbled.

One day.

Odin stood on the bow of the ship looking off into the distance as we took to the air. Could he fly over there? I saw him flying easily under his own power, so no doubt about it.

But this was also Asgard acting on my behalf, acting under his orders.

He wasn't just anyone; hell, he wasn't even just the All-Father here, the great God Odin.

He was the king, the one all these warriors swore to follow into battle and willingly lay down their lives for.

At the very least, I didn't want to ruin his image.

I hadn't been able to get a clear view of what was happening before in regard to the fighting. My attention was focused on, well, other wings. Mostly regarding the threat to collapse the wormholes above the planet and destroy everything.

And then the Grandmaster himself.

As Odin said, I'm fairly lucky he didn't really know how to fight. Or maybe he just didn't care to learn how to fight?

With how easily he manipulated space-time, that wasn't something I would have liked to fight against with the big disadvantage of his apparent immortality.

Shit, he trapped Odin in a time loop.

That is impressive.

I'm sure Odin could have broken it on his own after a few moments, but even still.

There was fighting happening all over the city.

There were still some ships in the air exchanging gun fire too. Never thought I would see two space ships firing lasers at one another.

…one of them being a godly Norse spaceship.

But here we are.

The non-norse one, which was easy to tell because it wasn't made of wood, eventually went down as the shields around it flickered until they disappeared.

It got holes blown in it, small explosions erupting over various internals, and eventually it started to fall from the sky before crash-landing and breaking apart in a fiery crash.

The ship that was fighting it suddenly had winged horses descend from it with Asgardian warriors aboard them.

Well, some of the winged horses were pulling the equivalent of Viking boats with some…noticeable, almost technological improvements.

Were they Pegasus's?

Or is that just Greek terminology?

God forbid I call it something Greek; that would just be an insult enough for Odin to start throwing hands again.

How's that little wisp of energy, Musu Tengai?

[It's been pushed into the Hogyoku. The Hogyoku is having trouble understanding it. If we wish to do something with it, it will take a long time. However, with my help, it has successfully been suppressed for now and isn't rampaging.] He responded to my inquiry.

I nodded.

The fact that the Hogyoku could suppress even a wisp of that…it was impressive and spoke volumes about the one who made this thing.

I would need to go back to that world line soon and ask for some advice regarding this thing.

Peeking over the side, I could also see the scene below.

Most of the large, towering buildings had been brought down, and the city looked like a literal warzone.

There were enough fires and explosions happening that it couldn't be mistaken for anything else.

I felt bad for the ones who got swept up in everything when they were just trying to live their lives. But also, I think I can say that they would prefer not to continue being slaves.

It looked like Asgard was taking care of the civilians too. They were guiding mortals to safety and protecting them from the worse of things.

Asgard's warriors were impressive.

Einherjar as it was.

Technically, they weren't gods, but they weren't mortals either. Spirits are elevated to a higher status upon death, or maybe those are just born into the status. From what I understand, not all the Einherjar here were previously mortals.

With how big Asgard was, with how many people were in the city, they couldn't all be gods either.

I shouldn't be surprised that Einherjar could have children, considering that Servants can technically have children too.

And the status of a servant is…worse? In the case of being present in the world, servants are worse off.

Einherjar, I think, counts more towards the living despite them being spirits.

I don't know, it's weirder here than what I'm used to.

Regardless, they were really strong. I think their average strength was above the average strength of Youkai even.

Combined with their apparent higher level of technology and what-not, well, they were quite a few leagues above the Youkai as a whole.

Their golden armor should shrug off more firearms that hit them. Their mystical strength let each of them operate as a superhuman, tearing apart steel like it was made of paper.

Even their 'archaic' weapons were proving to be more effective than traditional guns or more advanced variants, as they could cut through military vehicles with relative ease.

Several ships flew by, Asgardian, and the occupants only gave Odin a salute with a small nod of acknowledgement from him.

No one stopped us, and if anything, the ships ahead cleared the way so nothing got in our path.

It didn't take long to return back to where she had been left before.

In fact, she didn't even move.

She was sitting on her ship's ramp, a bottle of something in her hand as we set down next to her.

She saw me, then she saw Odin. Almost immediately, she shot me a look.

I think it was something like 'You motherfucker.'

Maybe it was like an ingrained unconscious action, but she stood up, dropping her bottle. Straighter than I had seen, like she was standing at attention for inspection.

Odin didn't say anything right away.

The two looked at each other in silence for a painfully long moment.

"Valkyrie Brunnhilde," he spoke.

I didn't give him a name, did I?

"...you remember my name." She said softly.

"I have carved the names and faces of every one of my Valkyries into my soul for eternity." Odin answered with the pride of a king, but it was noticeably blunted by the look of guilt on his face. "Brunnhilde, Bearer of the Fourth Banner. This old mind of mine could not forget, let alone one of its leaders."

Oh, she was a leader?

I didn't butt in; it didn't feel appropriate.

It was hard to gauge her emotions right now.

"...Brunnhilde, Bearer of the Fourth Banner, reporting to duty, All-Father." She spoke the words, but they sounded hollow.

Odin noticed it too.

"Asgard welcomes back its children." Odin responded.

"I'm here to serve, All-Father." She spoke emotionlessly.

Oof, I could feel that from Odin. If I noticed, barely knowing her, then he surely did too.

It was plain to see she didn't fully want to return to Asgard.

Some kind of hangup.

By the way Odin spoke, all the other Valkyries were dead; it wasn't a pleasant ending to the illustrious group.

Odin showed more emotion than I had seen since meeting him. He let out a sigh, and his shoulder slumped ever so slightly; it felt like old age caught up with him far too much in a single moment. "Brunnhilde, Bearer of the Fourth Banner. You are hereby relieved of your duties. You are free to go where you desire with Asgard's full support."

She trembled slightly as he said that.

"However, if you wish to return home…you are always welcome." He added before turning around to walk away.

Her expression changed quite a bit, like she wanted to reach back out to him or accept the invitation.

I knew she was homesick as well.

She just wanted a reason now.

If he told her to come back home, she would do so without any hesitation at this point. The act of telling her that she could go where she wanted was apparently enough before.

Maybe Odin didn't notice, or maybe he did and just felt too guilty to say anything.

Regardless, we're technically Blood Brothers, right?

I waved my hand and threw something towards her; she barely blinked, catching the jar of peach wine, or what remained of what Odin and I drank from earlier. "You know, Jeanne wouldn't stop talking about how much she loved the stories about the Valkyries. It would make her day if you could come visit her at Asgard. If you agree, that's yours."

It was a bold-faced lie.

I don't think Jeanne would mind if I used her name.

Odin shot me a look; I don't know if he wanted to punch me or something else, but that immediately changed as she opened her mouth.

"Deal." She said immediately. "But I'm bringing my ship with me. I spent way too many years building this thing, and it's my baby."

Odin opened his mouth and then let out a sigh, shaking his head.

I met Odin's eye.

And I think I saw him smile.

[Line Break]

A/N

Wrapping up Sakaar, that's more or less it. New world is coming up soon after dealing with the Rating Game mentioned before back in DxD

If you want to read 10 chapters ahead or support me, visit my p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m / astoryforone

I also have a boosty if you can't use the above under the same name