A.N.: hey pals, the updates have slowed a little. I've nearly depleted my "chapter buffer" and I really don't want to post all my pre-written chapters and then catch up with where I am in the story, so I'm just going to slow down from the every other day updating I was doing lol. I'm still writing several chapters ahead from where I'm posting, and where I'm currently at in the story, I'm juggling SEVERAL characters and that gets tricky. I'm also JUST about to start writing the home stretch. I'm almost to the Penultimate Peril, if you will. Big things, big things. I will leave you with this reminder before you go forward into this chapter: this story has a happy ending. This story started as Loki/Kagome and it will end as Loki/Kagome.

Content Warning: character death, described as it happens in Thor: Ragnarok

The events in this chapter are synced with events in the movie Thor: Ragnarok

The ship rocketed toward a small portal clear on the other side of the Sakaaran skies from The Devil's Anus, path free of nearly all the ships pursuing the Commodore, but something thick and sour churned through Loki's insides. Green power fizzed and glowed as Loki returned to his male form and he ground his teeth in his burning frustration.

'You'll always be the god of mischief, but you could be more.'

'I am more.' He thought bitterly, and then a face soft with love, pride and devotion flashed through his memory, one that he missed so fiercely he nearly doubled over.

'I... WAS more.'

Kagome had always believed he was more than just his mischief and lies. She'd valued his ability to tell stories and the change he inspired with his chaos in ways no one before her ever had.

'I... forgot how worthy SHE made me feel.' For so long he'd been so wrapped up in the unworthiness he felt due to his father's treatment, he'd never let himself fully settle into the acceptance he'd found in one remarkable woman who'd chosen him over all others.

He walked up to the window in front of the pilot's seat occupied by Korg, that large rocky being who'd technically saved his life and stared angrily at the small, innocuous portal about to spit them out in some random part of the universe and growled.

He was so close. He was going to get away. He was going to find her.

He couldn't do it.

'I've got a chance to put what's left of my family back together completely and that shouldn't mean as much to me as it does. I need to find HER, I need to find KAGOME.'

"DAMMIT!"

Korg startled and whipped around.

"Oh! Hello there! Where'd you come from? Does our captain know you're here? She was just here, you can talk to her."

"I am the captain just... Turn this ship around now!"

"Are you sure?"

'I'll find her. I'll find her, I WILL... just... I have to save my brother first. I have to save Asgard. She'd want me to. I want to.'

"Yes. We're going through the Anus."

———————————————

Alone on the ship once again, Kagome tried her hardest to stay calm. She'd taken to meditating for long stretches of time to keep her nerves and powers under control.

Not long after Gamora and Nebula had left or been taken, Thanos stopped letting her leave the ship, simply demanding a "blessing" from her and shoving her in her room and locking the door. He kept his other "children" close now though, and they all gave her the creeps. Unlike Gamora, who housed undercurrents of rebellion and desires for freedom, and Nebula, who's true devotions had been toward surpassing Gamora, these "children of Thanos" were wholly devoted to him and his cause, and they fawned over every move he made. They tried to fawn over her, no doubt having been told by Thanos that she was to be respected as the "angel of purity and mercy" that she was, but she'd taken to zapping them when they got too close and eventually they got the hint to stay away. And the further the better, it made her sick to be too close to them.

She was sick now, watching them flit and flutter at Thanos's every beck and call, and there was an urgency building, big, big plans being made right under her nose and she, of course, would be expected to go along without being told a single detail. Something was about to happen that would no doubt change the latest status quo of her life and she couldn't decide if it would be a good change for her, if it would afford her a golden opportunity to escape, or if it would mean even stricter imprisonment.

Escape would mean destroying Thanos entirely. If she wasn't absolutely certain she could be his demise, escaping would be a waste, as he would then target her family on Asgard, and her entire goal was keeping him away from them.

It would be difficult; he'd grown more suspicious of her the longer he'd held her captive, and she was certain he'd begun catching on to the fact that she was using her powers to not only protect him when they were "cleansing" planets, but to also protect some of the lives he attempted to snuff out.

It wasn't much, but as her large barriers she'd place around Thanos would also add a pink filter to everything he saw outside of them, he couldn't tell that she also placed several barriers around Souls she could feel trying to hide away or run for cover. They would be protected from bullets or lasers shot into crowds and, shockingly, her barriers could even deflect technologies designed to scan thick foliage or rocky terrain for hidden lives.

She'd gotten away with it for a while and managed to save a handful of unfortunate souls here and there, but she suspected Thanos had caught on, and that coupled with Gamora's betrayal and Nebula's capture had probably been what resulted in her being left on the ship entirely. Thanos would come to her room, demand a barrier be placed around him, and then he'd lock her back up.

One thing was very evident, no matter what else was happening: things were about to irrevocably change yet again, and a knot of anxiety tied itself sharp and tight in the bottom of her stomach. With more scraping and bowing the henchman scurried away, anticipation and desperation to please pushing them out of the ship and in the direction of their given coordinates.

Thanos then turned to her with a satisfied grin that made her soul feel clammy.

"My angel, my day of reckoning has arrived and justice draws nigh. Can you sense it? Can you hear the universe rejoicing?"

Kagome's eyes widened and dread washed through her. She could feel something dawning alright, but she was certain it wouldn't quite be the glorious victory he was promising.

She swallowed down the knot in her throat and cleared it with a shaky 'ahem' before straightening.

"Are we... are we going somewhere? Are we following your min-uh... your children?"

"No, they have been given their task. A monumental one but I am confident they will succeed. We are going somewhere else, I have a stone to retrieve."

————————

"Your savior is here!"

Fighting alongside his brother again, choosing to put his quest on hold for the good of his people, of his family, being the more he'd always had lurking deep in his soul thrilled him in a way he hadn't felt in ages, lighting up all the dusty parts of him he'd almost let the darkness swallow.

It was a rush, a formerly forbidden euphoria, and as far as Loki was concerned, the chaos of straight up destroying Asgard only added to it. He would find somewhere else for he and Kagome to belong, it didn't have to be here, and so he marched resolutely to the eternal flame with Surtur's head, determined to raise him from the grave and trigger Ragnarok to stop his crazed, oldest sibling.

He passed the tesseract and stopped. It glowed at his back, power swirling with a deceptive innocence and he damned himself for not being able to leave it alone.

Letting it crumble in the destruction of Asgard was the wisest decision. If it didn't exist then Thanos couldn't get his hands on it.

But the most useful decision... was to take it.

With it, he could go anywhere in the universe with ease, and that would certainly make his searching for his missing wife just that much easier.

He turned back, grabbed the cursed cube, and pushed on toward the flame.

——————————

Locked back in her room with no windows and only artificial lighting, Kagome had no way of knowing if they were zooming through space or completely stationary, and the metal walls and electric currents overwhelmed her abilities to sense auras, so she had no way of knowing if she was on a ship full of souls, or completely alone.

That had been one of the most difficult aspects of the more recently stricter confinement, not knowing if she was surrounded or isolated completely. She wondered if it wasn't some sort of psychological torture Thanos had cooked up in order to endear her to him; if she was traumatized from being so alone, she might feel relief upon seeing him, but if that was his plan, it was not working. She'd much rather be alone than anywhere near him.

The lights in the ship shut off, signaling her "night time." She scrambled blindly into her little cot and pulled the covers over her head, clasping her locket and closing her eyes tightly against the suffocating darkness that never got any easier to exist in.

With a shaky sigh and nothing else to do, she settled in to sleep, dreading what news the morning would bring.

———————-

He probably should have suspected this. Every other promising plan had shattered ruthlessly, why should this one be any different?

And shattered by Thanos himself.

And they were surrounded, and he was tired, so so tired that the cogs of chaos in his mind refused to click with their typical efficiency for a path out and around them.

If Thanos was here, then so was Kagome, and he couldn't even think of one useless plan to get to her, he'd even lost the tesseract to save his brother so that plan was out too.

'She would be proud of me.' He thought, and it brought a distant sort of comfort. She'd always been proud of him, even when he didn't deserve it, but he finally felt like he'd made himself into someone worthy of that pride.

And now he was going to die.

Not for his own hurts and shame, no, not for himself at all.

For Asgard.

For his brother.

For her.

Thanos wrapped his hand around his throat and lifted him from the floor. His legs flailed and he clawed at the large fingers constricting his wind pipe. His last ditch effort to save them all had been pitiful and sad and it had failed as spectacularly as all his other plans. Fate, it seemed, was simply not on his side.

Darkness bled through the corners of his eyes as his lungs burned and his head grew light and fuzzy. Thanos smirked evilly and the gauntlet on his hand glowed with the power of his collected stones.

"You... w-will n-never... be a god."

The hand around his neck tightened and a rippling, tingling feeling so warm and treasured and unexpected erupted from his chest and suffused his body like an embrace. This was an energy he knew, an energy he recognized, and it brought one last, glowing memory of the one face he'd longed for and would never see again.

With a sickening snap, the lights went out.

His body dropped to the floor and the ship broke apart. Crumbling bits of it flew in all directions, limp bodies of innocent victims lost to the void of space.

A sparkle, a glow, and then a swell of purity encased the body of Prince Loki, son of Laufey, son of Odin, once king of Asgard, as he drifted away into the endless darkness between the stars.