The wheel raced across the field again, flattening everything in it's path and sending them scattering.
"We have what you want Taranis!" Loki had jeered, full of confidence, brandishing the amulet. "Say goodbye!" He had placed it carefully in the center of the carefully prepared pentagram, waving Laevateinn over it and evoking the sacred incantation.
Nothing had happened.
Taranis howled with laughter.
Loki, furious, had turned on Narugami with accusations which had been summarily denied.
Then it must have been her. He remembered the impromptu cooking session with Yamino. Then Taranis had swung his lightning sword over them like a warning blow.
"Let's make this a sporting fight at least!" He had chuckled in the brightness. When the light receded Loki found himself standing beside a slender man slightly taller than himself although not quite as graceful. He turned his one eye towards Loki and regarded him with the same surprise.
"Let's get to work!" Narugami roared, in his hands he hefted the mighty hammer Mjollnir.
The battle seemed endless. Loki's mood was not improving, and in adult form it wasn't so cute.
"That girl is worse than Mayura for meddling!" He yelled at no one in particular. Heimdall couldn't help a flicker of a smile at Loki's astonishment that he could be the deceived rather than the deceiver. Loki caught him. "She takes after you after all!" He yelled. "And you Narukami...just what were you thinking of getting..."
"Arashiko wouldn't betray us!" A bolt of energy exploded into the ground between them, melting the stone.
"We won't survive this if we keep fighting each other." Heimdall warned.
"We won't survive anyway if she's taken that talisman back to him!"
"She would not betray us!" Narugami repeated savagely. Loki looked at him. His friend's pain was evident but there seemed no doubt what had happened here. A blast shook them. Loki returned a powerful discharge from Laevateinn while Heimdall launched a sphere of crackling blue energy. Still, Loki felt certain they were being toyed with. Taranis was biding his time. What was he waiting for? A figure appeared at the edge of the clearing. So, that was it.
Taranis rumbled with pleasure as Arashiko walked onto the field of battle. She clutched something tight against her chest.
"Now I will take back what is mine!" Taranis boomed. "Your time of interfering is ended Norse fools. I will raise up the companions of my formation and we will rule, mighty as once we were!"
Arashiko stood between them and Taranis. She looked up at the raging giant.
"Here girl, give it to me in their sight."
"No Arashiko! Give it to us!" Loki called to her. She looked at him and Heimdall, registering their change in appearance with wonder and shock. She didn't dare to face Narugami.
"Damn it Arashiko!" Heimdall yelled. Narugami roared and tried to grab her by the arm, a move easily deflected by a blast from Taranis.
"Have you chosen who you will spare?" Taranis asked. "Which one will it be?"
Spare? Loki thought painfully. He should have known. He watched as she nodded solemnly.
"Don't do this!" Narugami ordered, trying again for an arm. This time it was she who deflected him.
"Don't tell me what to do! Not any of you! I don't even know who you are. You've all lied to me. Kazumi or He...Hei...whatever your name really is!" She looked up at their strange adult faces, fighting back hot tears. "You told me gods don't have to be fair and I guess you should know! But if you aren't than why should I!?"
"They will be punished girl." Taranis cajoled. "Expose them for the frauds they are. Shame them to think they could displace the true gods! Give me the talisman and show them that the old ways will still be chosen first!"
She clutched the amulet to her chest.
"My father told me to protect this for him. If that is all I can do to honor him, you'll have to kill me to get it." She met Loki's eyes with a terrible urgency. What was she trying to say? There was something she wanted him to do. Without breaking eye contact she turned her face slightly towards Heimdall. "Father."
Without a seconds hesitation Loki aimed Laevateinn directly for the clasped hands in front of her chest, releasing powerful energy. Taranis howled with rage. A storm of energy surrounded them, buffeting them with waves of power and the howl of wind. A wrenching scream of sonic waves roared deafeningly and then it was as if they had all gone deaf as silence exploded around them. Arashiko was flung backwards, shards of softened metal scattered from her hands.
Taranis was gone.
"What the hell was that supposed to be Loki!?" Narugami yelled, racing to the still form lying on the ground. He knelt down, putting his hands on her shoulders. "Arashiko?...Arashiko?!"
Loki and Heimdall looked at each other, both mentally calculating how slim the chances that any unaided human would have had to withstand that sort of power. Heimdall looked away bitterly. So much for second chances.
Loki knelt in front of Narugami who held Arashiko tightly, too hurt to even cry.
"At least..." Loki searched for something consoling. "At least you were right, she didn't betray us."
"You killed her." Narugami barely breathed the words.
"No Narukami, she chose that fate. She must have heard us talking on the balcony. I doubt she understood everything, but, she felt responsible for her parent's deaths and maybe she was afraid she would be responsible for ours as well. She fought with us to put Taranis off his guard. If she had just handed it to us Taranis would have destroyed us before we could have done anything. I didn't understand what she was trying to tell me until she called Heimdall father. She said she wanted to honor her father. By calling him father she meant she wanted to honor our intention to destroy the thing. You should be...proud, Heimdall."
Loki looked down. One little human could cause a god a lot of trouble. There seemed to be a barely visible blue glow around her.
"Narukami?" No response. He touched her arm. It was still warm. The blue glow seemed to get brighter. It was the same as he had seen in the memory vision. "Heimdall, what is this?"
"Shut up Loki."
"I think something is keeping her alive."
Heimdall walked over cautiously and looked down.
"Have you ever seen anything like that before?"
It took a long time before Heimdall answered. By time he did Loki knew the answer already.
"Danu."
"Uilleam Lorne had the foresight to realize he wouldn't always be there to protect his daughter." Loki said. "He evoked a guardian that could not fail."
"Now I am released from that boon."
They both turned to face a tall slim woman. Her dress glistened pale blue like crystal springs of pure water while her hair shimmered platinum and gold like sunlight and moonlight on the surface of a clear stream. She smiled softly at them like a mother who loves equally two bickering sons. After all, Celtic or Norse, great goddess Danu was the mother of them all.
"What you have said is true." She said in a voice like tiny silver bells. "Now my angry son shall rest. He will not trouble this plane of reality again."
"Lady Danu?" Thor looked up at her, face dark with sorrow, still holding Arashiko's limp form close. "Please lady Danu..."
She smiled at him as if he were only a child distraught over a broken toy easily mended.
"My power on this level is limited." She said softly. Narugami bowed his head. "However, her faith is in you now, I shall leave her in your keeping."
With a last motherly caressing smile for all of them she vanished into the darkness. They were silent.
"N...Narugami?"
"Arashiko?" He tried to keep his voice calm.
"Is everyone okay?"
"Uh...yeah."
"I don't remember what happened. My hands hurt."
"Umm..." Narugami looked around for help.
"You were struck by lightning you stupid knucklehead!" Heimdall growled unevenly, stepping back out of sight. "When are you going to learn not to run off like that? You scare everybody!"
"I'm sorry...I had the strangest dream." She took a deep breath, fading back towards sleep.
"We'll take her home to the mansion. You can wrap her hands, they are burnt pretty badly. Yamino will make some tea."
"She doesn't like tea." Narugami remarked as he lifted her up and they started to walk.
"Doesn't like tea? What kind of girl have you wrought on us Narukami? I knew there had to be something wrong with her."
Yes indeed, one little human could certainly cause a god a lot of trouble.