.((Okay, now I will get back to the storyline, as I'm sure you're all as eager to see as I am. And another of the vast array of OCs I've come up with for your entertainment is going to come in! Actually, two are, but only one is really going to be important right now.

No, I don't own Sakura Kinoshita, or her characters, or the Norse gods. If I owned any of those things, do you really think I'd be on fanfic? Silly people…

This is going to be another long chappie, and I'm going to try to get into the habit of making longer chapters, as opposed to earlier, when I only had chapters that were six or seven pages on Word tops. I'm aiming for 10 or more now, partially to keep the story going, and partially because I had a lot of fun writing that long spoof chapter. Well, this one might be a bit shorted, because the stuff that's going to happen might only be enough to fill out less than ten pages, but most chapters from now on will be longer, I assure you.

Anyway, as always, review shout outs commence! Although I only have two at this point…wah.

Seven Midnights: Aw, Midori isn't that scary, is she? Like Loki said, she won't eat you. Probably. And I'm glad you found the dentist thing funny. I like playing with the way Loki, a god who should be most mature and dignified, can act totally silly and childish when the mood strikes him.

YuukiHaruka: I'm glad you like Midori, she's fun to write. Her character will eventually become more serious as the story goes on, but she'll never stop being goofy and referring to herself in third person.

Okay, now onto the-oh wait! I almost forgot! You know how sometimes, when a character is introduced, the anime goes out of its way to not show their eyes to make them seem more mysterious, and they'll make their faces all shadowy? Like how they did to Frey and Hel when they were first introduced? I'm going to describe the characters that will later be revealed to be important, but not mention their eye colors, because I want you to try to picture them like that, with the shadowy faces, okay? Okay!

NOW it's finally story time…))

Time goes on, not just for gods but for the rest of the world at large. Before a lot of the people in the world really noticed, it was the week again for all. This included the students at an all-girls high school not too far from Mayura and Narugami's, which is where we stop by now, right after lunch in the middle of the week.

"Aw, lunch is over already!?" moaned one of the first year students, a lively looking girl of about fifteen years with vibrant red hair that was long enough for her to sit on. "I'm still hungry!"

"What do you mean?" laughed one of her friends, another girl in her class with pulled back red-brown hair wrapped in a scarf and glasses perched on her nose, who stood a good head taller than her companion. "You ate three times as much as me, and I eat twice as much as everyone else!"

"How can you guys eat so much and still stay skinny?" asked another girl and the first two both laughed.

"I really didn't know how our metabolisms handle it myself," the girl with the glasses and scarf told the other, less fortunate friend, who simply shrugged and went to her seat, as the bell rang and signaled the official end of lunch break.

"Class is starting soon," commented the girl in glasses as she and the red head took their seats, which were next to each other. "We have a substitute teacher today for our afternoon classes. How are you going to explain away the uniform?" For, while she and all the others wore an outfit of red double-breasted blazers and black short-skirted dresses under the coats, the red-head deigned fit to instead wear a uniform that consisted of a green vest, a white shirt with a high collar which was tied shut with a green ribbon, and a brown skirt.

"What's to explain?" the red-head asked, sounding surprised that the outfit might be considered a violation by anyone. "Where I come from, this is the traditional garment of scholarly pursuit, at least for females. It's to be revered, in a way." Her friend wasn't really listening, which seemed to annoy the red-head. "Hey! Show some respect, would ya!?"

Wow, is it just me, or is the idea of a person in a green school uniform with a huge appetite hauntingly familiar…?

Anyway, the substitute came in and, without hesitation, went right to calling roll. The first name called was the red-head's: "Nariko Ikazuchi?"

She responded, then immediately went into her thoughts as her friend called out her piece when "Rokia Kekkai" was called. Nariko's thoughts were mostly of her schedule. She had a new job to get to today after school…

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"Another new job?" Loki asked incredulously, responding to Mayura's claim that Narukami wouldn't be showing up after school that day due to having to go to a new workplace. Again.

"I know," Mayura agreed with a sigh. "I know he has to pay for his apartment and all, but it gets a little silly sometimes. Doesn't he understand mystery is better than a place to sleep!? I mean, life without mystery isn't life at all! And how can work be better than ghosts or strange phenomena or the other cool stuff we get here What about STRANGE MYSTERIES!?"

Loki sweatdropped. This was a typical Mayura moment. Still, she was at least right about the total ridiculousness of Narukami's apparent inability to either keep a job for more than a couple of weeks or work at just one place. Being a hard worker was one thing, being totally freakish about your jobs was quite another. But then again, Loki was slightly lazy himself, and probably didn't have the right to talk.

Loki gazed out of the window, content to let Mayura rant about whatever it was she was ranting about now as he thought about his own situation. Before he'd run into Kori, he'd had a dream about his family that had, of course, included her previous incarnation, Siguna. The night before, another seemingly random memory had come to mind while he slept.

It had not been any particularly important moment, but rather just one incident among many. It had concerned not just Loki, but Vali, who was simply gone now…and it had included Thor and Thrud. It had been a memory of one of the numerous incidents where Vali had enraged Thrud to the point where she chased the boy about Asgard, and left Loki trying to calm down Thrud's furious father before Thor killed the little bug Loki called his son.

For a second, Loki had to smile to himself about the memory-dream. For all of the problems Vali's inability to resist taunting Thrud had caused, Loki had to say he found the whole thing rather amusing. Even when he had to be serious to calm down Thor, Loki would always have been just barely resisting the urge to laugh at Vali's antics.

The smile faded quickly, though, as reality reared its ugly head: the chances of Loki ever seeing his fun-loving and fast-footed son again were several trillion to less than one, if there even was a chance. And that left one person in the dream unaccounted for as far as Loki could see: Thrud.

Was it another prophecy? Loki wasn't sure, but had been planning to at least warn Narukami of the possible hint as to what the future held. It looked like he wouldn't get to do so, though.

So all he could do was hope for the best…and hope for Mayura to hurry up and shut her mouth.

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Narugami, meanwhile, was already hard at work at his new job at a relatively local fast food joint. He'd had jobs similar to this one before, and had pretty good idea of what he was doing, and as such had been put right to work cooking the food instead of having to work at the cash register first, as was usually the case. That, he decided, was good. He kinda had a habit of yelling at some of the customers every now and again when they got on his nerves. Particularly when it involved their wasting food.

Still, working in the back made him hungry. He'd always had this problem when he worked at places that sold food. That was actually the main reason he got fired so much: early on, it was eating the customers' food (he'd gotten out of that habit pretty quickly once he realized is was pretty much stealing), but now it was usually taking lunch breaks that were too numerous and too long. That wasn't going to happen this time!

"Hey, there's two new people!" a coworker announced in surprise when he came back and spotted Narugami already hard at work. "That's kinda weird. I just hope you're as hard a worker as that new girl at the cash register. She's really into this."

That caught Narugami's attention. Was he being compared to this new girl, apparently? He grinned to himself. If there was one thing that could make him "get into" doing anything, it was the idea that it was a competition!

An order came in just then. Narugami had it done to perfection in about a minute, which was fast even for a fast food joint. Try and top that, new girl!

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That new girl, as I'm sure you've already guessed, was little red-haired Nariko Ikazuchi, who was smiling the warmest smile most of the customers had seen all day and being friendly enough to improve their moods in addition to taking their orders. She also went out of her way to suggest the best foods for them to try (which just happened to be the most expensive). She was determined, after several jobs which she had been compelled to quit so she wouldn't get fired, to be the ideal worker for this place.

She was having a bit of a hard time with it, though, since the food was coming so quickly. Usually she'd have a second to mentally check herself to ensure she'd made no mistakes in between sending the order back to the kitchen and receiving it. Not so here: it was coming before she knew it, and that made the customers come even faster. At this rate, she'd get worn out! Plus, the food was cooked to perfection, and it was making her mouth water. That wasn't good news, she couldn't ask for an early break on her first day!

"Wow, that's quick," commented the other cashier as the order she'd taken was given to her. "It must be that new guy."

"New guy?" Nariko asked, suddenly feeling like her position was being threatened.

The other cashier nodded. "Yeah, it's a little weird that they hired two new people in one day, but whatever, we needed help. And this guy is good! Barely been here a day and I'm already starting to think he might be our next employee of the month!"

That got Nariko's blood boiling…but in a good way. She adored having a good contest. And this mysterious other newbie was going to give it to her! What luck!

When the next customer came in, she was beyond enthusiastic, just barely not scaring them away. She described the food so vividly they couldn't resist buying either the food she spoke of or larger amounts of what they had been planning to buy anyway. The orders came out slightly slower. Ha ha! She was wearing him down!

Top this, new guy! She thought happily.

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A couple hours later, Nariko finally took her much needed break. She'd wanted to meet the new guy who was giving her such a good time competing against, but his break had apparently already happened, and she didn't want to go back into the kitchens and disturb anyone. She did at least get aquainted with his cooking, which was pretty good, as Nariko was starving and ordered about half of the items on the menu, cholesterol be damned.

"Wow," commented a coworker who was also on break, laughing. "You sure can eat! Are you sure that's healthy?"

"Maybe, maybe not. I'm hungry," Nariko said with a shrug.

"I imagine so, after all the work you did," the coworker continued, this time looking a bit impressed. "You sure are a hard worker. You and that new guy are both something fierce!"

Nariko grinned at that. "I know, he must be good, but I'm determined to be the best!" Nariko announced, resuming her eating.

The coworker raised an eyebrow, a bit befuddled. He waited a second for her to swallow before asking her carefully, "Do you know him?"

"Nope. Haven't even seen him. But I'm gonna beat him. I love a challenge."

"Any particular reason why…?"

"It helps me forget."

"Forget what?"

Nariko sighed, pausing in her eating. "Well, I used to have a family member who I was really close to. But he had to go one day and he never came back. I looked for him, but I couldn't find him, and now I don't know where to go." She shook her head. "I think about him all the time, but it makes me feel empty inside, like something is missing. So, I work like crazy and take any challenge I can, so I have something else to focus on." She smiled weakly. "I guess I'm a little crazy…"

The coworker shook his head, as understanding as he could be. "You're not crazy at all," he assured her. And with that, he got up and left her to eat and think her own thoughts.

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Finally, hours later, when the sun was setting, Nariko was done with her duties for the day. The restaurant had to close down early because they were running low on supplies! On the other hand, they'd made more money in that one day than they usually did in a week…

Nariko stretched, content with her day despite being just a little tired. She liked this job! She would be able go out with a smile on her face. She also planned to get as many of her classmates to come as possible.

"Oh, Nariko!" called out a coworker, different from the nice boy from before. "You're going down the left street when you go, right?"

"Um, yeah, why?" Nariko asked, wondering what was wanted of her.

"That new guy went out that way too, and he forgot his kendo sword!" the coworker explained, holding out the sword for her to see as a visual aid. One glimpse, and Nariko felt herself almost jump. It couldn't be…

"Since you're going that way anyway, could you rush a bit and try to find him and give it to him?"

"Uh…sure."

"Cool, here!" the coworker said, tossing her the wooden blade and walking away. When Nariko caught it, she felt a surge of some sort race down her spine. Nariko stared at what she held for a minute, unable to comprehend that this sword might actually be…

Finally, she shook her head. "No, there's no way this could really be…" she couldn't even finish her sentence, because the empty hole within her was widening by the second. Instead, she just turned to the door.

Odd, it had started raining, somehow, when she got the sword. But that proved nothing except that you couldn't trust weathermen, she told herself. She then headed out in the direction of her own apartment and the owner of the sword. She had no coat, but didn't care. She liked the rain…

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Narugami was running as fast as his legs would carry him to the restaurant. How could he possibly be so stupid as to lose his precious Mjollnir!? Again, come to think of it…he had been so busy trying to best the new girl he'd never even seen that he'd forgotten his valued partner!

While he didn't mind the sudden rain that had started a minute or so before, he had to admit he was a bit startled. Being a thunder god, he could typically tell when storms were coming in, but this one was unprecedented. Odd.

But before he dealt with that, he'd have to find his most prized possession besides his own family.

Oh, the irony of what's about to occur that I'm sure you've predicted already.

Narugami, being hopelessly distracted, almost ran into a girl coming the opposite direction. He stopped just barely in time, but she yelped and jumped back, dropping what she was carrying, which was…

"My Mjollnir!" Narugami exclaimed, overjoyed. He was about to reach down to grab it when he heard the girl he'd almost knocked down squeak, as though shocked beyond any comprehension. Narugami looked up, meeting her eyes…

Her eyes were the exact some shape and shade of brown as his!

It took him a second to get beyond that and take in the rest of her. Bright red hair…a few freckles…small, lithe body structure…the appropriate garb of a scholar…

"No way," Narugami said aloud to himself as he absorbed all of this. "No way. No way. How can it…how did you…what is this…ARGH!" He grabbed his hair and yanked at it, shaking his head wildly as his brain went on overload.

The girl slowly reached out towards him, eventually taking hold of the front of his shirt. He stopped freaking out and looked down at her soaked, stunned face. There was a divine hope in her eyes, and a great respect that Narugami, who was truly the great storm deity Thor, had only seen on one person's face before, meaning she had to be that person…

"Thrud?" Narugami breathed, as though speaking his daughter's name too loudly would make her vanish. As soon as he spoke it, a clap of thunder and flash of lightning filled the sky at once, an expression of the emotions of the god who once ruled them.

Nariko, hearing her true name, couldn't hold back anymore. Her eyes filled with tears. "Father, it is you!" she shouted, and she threw herself at him, embracing him tightly.

It took Narugami a second to completely believe this was really happening, but once he did, he instantly hugged his daughter back. He was speechless with emotion, and so he just clutched his child as tightly to him as he could without hurting her.

Nariko, burying her face in Narugami's shirt, was both smiling like a madmad and crying her eyes out. The emptiness from before was disintegrating like a sugar cube in water. Her father, her dear father who had always treasured, favorite, doted upon, and generally loved her, was actually here! Everything was right in the world, even the freezing rain and near constant lightning and thunder.

Thus, father and daughter were reunited.

((D'awwww, cute little scene at the end there! Yeah, I'm afraid Nariko's identity as Thrud, daughter of Thor, was rather obvious, and the chapter a bit on the short side, but like I said, that just the nature of how she was to be introduced unless I wanted to ruin it, which I obviously didn't. As is also obvious, she and her dad have a very special father-daughter relationship.

Just so you know, that mention of Narugami losing Mjollnir before is a maga reference. In the last chapter of the first manga (released in America, anyway), there is a story that involves Narugami losing Mjollnir and Loki finding it. Hence, here, he lost Mjollnir again. Keep it together, would you, Narukami!? Hahaha.

Anyway, although I get the distinct feeling I've missed something here, I finish this chappie! I plan to post the next one next Sunday! Look forward to it!))