Joe's Note: Considering that the original version of this had a Bakugo Katsumi instead of a Bakugo Katsuki - mostly for the sexual tension and the excuse for Amora to be yandere - this chapter is going to be... substantially revised compared to the original. Proving that I can't read my own outlines, we're going to be getting Bifrost content far sooner than Amora's prediction of 'four chapters from now', mostly because I had ideas for intermediate chapters but I moved them further down the timeline so that they would make more sense. We're going to be straying off the beaten path considerably further in this version than my first one, and I'm hoping against hopes that y'all stick with me long enough to make it to the Entrance Exam. Stories that deviate too far from canon - unless, of course, it's a crossover fusing Izuku into the other fandom's canon - tend to perform poorly on here. Unless there's a harem. Or a SYOC story. Although I'm not sure the latter counts, given that most of their reviews tend to be people submitting information in hopes of becoming a part of that author's story. Although in lieu of a harem, my current outline says that Izuku will be trying his hand at a functional polyamorous relationship where he tries to mediate between the goddesses of three different pantheons. That should be interesting, right?
Dedications & Thanks: To Nicholas, Howard, Jade, Alexander, Tibor, Alonsis2, Daniel, Clark, Adrien, erlking, ridillin, Haematite, Charles, Jacky, Edward, Andrew, Roofcrawler, Wil, PbookR, Samuel, Mikey, Beverly, Daniel, Charles, Crygon20, Subtle, Christopher, Stephen, Fablesrogue, Morgan, Joseph, Jason, RileyWestfall, bloodylord, Marc, Ziryo, Chris, George, Koby, William, Devin, JJbelle, David, Gavin, TheTenthAncestor, Lookshy, Mauday, John, Roman, Warren, and Jess for sponsoring me on Patre0n, and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.
"So you've been showing up here for weeks and hanging all over Deku like you own him or something. Of course you were nowhere to be found before he lifted that damn hammer. Extras like you make me sick, clinging to the newest and best thing you can find like it makes you mean something."
"For your information, Izuku and I had been spending time together before he lifted Stormbreaker. It was just none of your business. Just like me being here now is none of your business. So just... shoo, little boy. Before you start to actually annoy me."
"What did you just say to me? The fact that you're a chick won't keep me from blowing your damn face off, you worthless lackey."
"You know, I've never tried to teleport someone from Midgard to an entirely different realm... but at the moment, you're sorely tempting me."
Shouldering his way through the crowd forming just outside the front lobby of Aldera Junior High School, Izuku gave a deep sigh as he emerged into the early summer afternoon, quickly discovering why there was there was considerable congestion just past the doors. Namely, because he was walking into a confrontation between his girlfriend and his oldest friend. Former friend? Amora insisted that anyone who treated Izuku the way that Katsuki did should hardly be considered a friend... while Izuku was of the opinion that Kacchan was just a bit misunderstood and rough around the edges. Rough edges that tended to grate on Amora, which meant that a confrontation between the two blondes had been truly inevitable.
Izuku shook his head with another sigh as they continued to bicker, small explosions dancing from Katsuki's raised hands as Amora's own balled fists began to glow with yellowish-green light. Looking around, he spotted a bemused-looking Loki standing a few feet away and how the horned girl wasn't attracting more attention from his classmates was a mystery to him. Truly a testament to how gripping the confrontation between Kacchan and Amora was, he supposed. Glancing back to his girlfriend, he did a double take and looked over at Loki again. Wait. Since when did she show up at his school?
Pushing through the crowd of onlookers, Izuku stepped into the narrow space between Katsuki and Amora, putting a hand on each person's shoulder. "Enough. Kacchan, stop trying to bait my girlfriend into fighting you. You wouldn't like how it ends. Sylvie-chan, stop rising to the bait. You're more mature than him by a long shot and we both know it. Act like it."
"The fuck you say, Deku?" Katsuki's wild red eyes turned from Amora to Izuku, narrowing as he glared down at him angrily. "We both know that I've got the best quirk in this shit hole of a junior high school. That whole thing with the sludge villain was a fluke; don't think that you saving me meant anything. I could have taken him, and I can definitely take anything your bitch can dish out and then some."
Izuku rolled his eyes at the familiar display of bravado, leaning in closer to Kacchan and lowering his voice. "You're smarter than this, Kacchan. I know you've never been to Endurfæðing Park because you didn't care if you were worthy or not; you said you'd become the number one hero without needing a crutch like Stormbreaker. But even if you don't recognize her from the park... I lifted the hammer and then suddenly there's a very obviously Western girl following me around. And one of her friends is in the crowd. Push the arrogance down just a little and think for a damn second. Think about who you're picking a fight with. They're Asgardians, Kacchan. Magic-using ones at that."
Understanding suddenly dawned, Katsumi's eyes widening with a flicker of fear that was ruthlessly suppressed under a facade of angry bluster. "There's Asgardians and then there's Asgardians. She's obviously not Thor, that's you. So even if she's like, Loki? Loki got his ass beat by the Hulk. And then died like, three times. They're beatable."
"You're joking, right? You may be the most powerful student here at Aldera Junior High School, but do you really think you rate on the same scale as the Hulk? Really, Kacchan?" Izuku rolled his eyes as Katsuki sputtered angrily, clearly building up to an angry rant. "I look up to you, Kacchan. Seriously, I do. No matter how badly you've treated me, you're still an inspiration to me. But as strong as you are, you're no Hulk. Or Kurse. Or Thanos. Sylvie can do things with her magic that blow my mind; she's as far beyond both of us as you were beyond me before I got Stormbreaker."
The two stared into each other's eyes for a few long seconds and then Katsuki let out a dismissive snort, placing his hand on Izuku's chest and pushing him back away from him. "Tch, whatever. I'll keep things to just words... for now. But one of these days, if you haven't gotten bored and told her to fuck off yet? I'm going to be a big time hero and if she's still looking for a fight? There's no power on this earth that'll stop me from showing her exactly what I think of her."
"The U.A. entrance exam is coming up in a little less than nine months. And at the rate I'm mastering my new powers, you're going to have some serious competition for the top spot." Izuku chuckled softly, hesitating for a few seconds before holding his fist out to Katsuki uncertainly. While Amora's mere presence seemed to grate on him for some reason, the blonde had been a bit less aggressive toward him as of late for some reason. Ever since he'd taken up Stormbreaker. Or when he'd saved him. Given the two events had occurred on the same day, Izuku wasn't entirely sure which was the cause of Katsuki's new - and slightly more pleasant - demeanor. "You've got bigger things to worry about than my girlfriend, Kacchan. After all, how are you going to beat a bona-fide Asgardian if you can't even beat me?"
Reluctantly raising his hand, Katsuki rolled his eyes before bumping his fist against Izuku's and then turning away. "In your dreams. It's going to take more than a magical hammer and an Asgardian trainer for you to beat me. Underneath it all, you're still just a Deku."
Izuku clucked his tongue at that, debating asking the question floating at the back of his mind before deciding to just go ahead with it when Katsuki hesitated rather than walking away. "Your problems with Amora aside, I can't help but notice that you're being a bit nicer to me these days. Especially compared to the last few years. And you were actually willing to back down when you realized who Amora was, instead of trying to blow her up anyway. Not that it would have gone well, but the old you would have tried her best. Are you going soft in your old age or something?"
"You're joking, right?" Katsuki stared back over his shoulder at Izuku in disbelief for several seconds before shaking his head slowly. "You're serious. For fuck's sake. Of course I'm treating you differently. Even with that stupid hammer, you're never going to be as good as me. But at least you're not worthless anymore. For years, you kept talking about being a hero but you never did anything about it. Never worked out. Never tried to improve yourself. You just kept following heroes around, acting like if you worshipped them hard enough, you'd be worthy of being one. That's changed now. I see you flying to school and shit. You're putting effort in. Learning how to use Stormbreaker. You might actually be able to survive in the wild if you had to these days. So now I don't have to keep trying to crush your dreams of being a hero to save you from getting yourself killed, now do I?"
Izuku stared at Katsuki in disbelief. "All this time, all these years... you were acting like a colossal asshole to me to try and... help me? That's so... so tsundere."
Scowling mightily, Katsuki turned his head to face forward. "Shut the fuck up, Deku. And you really need to stop calling me Kacchan. We're not kids anymore."
"I'll stop calling you Kacchan when you stop calling me Deku."
"Deku."
"Kacchan."
Taking a few moments to watch at Katsuki stalked off through the crowd, meeting up with the same two boys that he always hung out with before taking off for parts unknown, Izuku turned back to Amora to find the blonde staring at him with a gimlet eye. "I am so glad that he was born a boy instead of a girl. Because that's definitely some tsundere-type behavior right there, and while I'm willing to share you with the right person? I would absolutely not tolerate you being in a relationship with a Katsumi or whatever she called herself. Honestly, the two of you still remind me uncomfortably much of Sif and Koli. And we both know how that turned out." When Izuku just stared at her uncomprehendingly, she raised her hands and made a lewd gesture, making the green-haired boy blush a dark shade of red. "You're not into boys, right? Not that I'm judging if you are, I just want to prepare myself for the mess that'll inevitably transpire when that tire fire of a mortal finally confesses to you someday."
Izuku raised his hands defensively before waving them awkwardly in the space between him and Amora. "I'm not, no! And I don't think Kacchan is either. Although that would explain a lot. Like, a whole lot about how we've interacted all these years. I guess the best way to describe things is that Kacchan and I are... complicated. But not that kind of complicated. At least I don't think. Really, though? Sif and Koli? How did that ever happen if Koli and Sigyn have been married since before Tønsberg? Was it when you all were much younger, or..."
"I'm standing right here, you two." Loki rolled her eyes as she took a step closer, elbowing Amora in the side none too gently before turning her attention to Izuku. "Sif and I were... complicated, especially in our youth. Especially in our forth and fifth centuries of life. The best way I can explain it is that we had certain common interests but not enough to overcome how different our personalities were and so for the most part, we couldn't help but rub each other the wrong way."
Closing the distance between herself and Izuku, Amora tucked herself under her right arm as was her habit and lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Except for when they were rubbing each other the right way, that is." Izuku's fading blush returned in full force as entirely unbidden, his mind began to fill with images of Sif's body intertwined with Loki's female form. It... definitely wasn't a bad image. "But enough about of Koli's previous assignations for now. We have work to do, as always. I was thinking that we could take a break from your strength training to work on your ability to harness one of Stormbreaker's more esoteric powers. We haven't really needed to touch on it thus far because you have nowhere to go... but how would you like to learn to summon the Bifröst?"
Would he? Heck yeah, he would. Izuku's eyes widened with anticipation as he nodded eagerly; with the ability to command the Rainbow Bridge at his fingertips, forget something as limited as being the number one hero of Japan. He could be the number one hero of the entire world. No disaster... no crime... no opportunity to do good would be out of his reach if he could teleport himself from one side of the planet to the other at a whim. "Definitely! Where should we go to work on something like this? The beach? The park? Or maybe we should take the train out to one of the more rural prefectures to minimize any collateral damage if I mess something up? It wouldn't be hard to get out to Mie Prefecture; the forest would make a good place to train an ability like that, right?"
"By the Allfather, he's more of an excitable puppy than Thor was at his age. How do you ever manage to get anything done?" Loki shook her head despondently before pulling away from Izuku and Amora, gesturing for the pair to follow her as she led them away from the school. As they walked, Izuku found his arms windmilling as he dropped through one of her rippling green ground portals, landing gracelessly on the grass of what turned out to be Endurfæðing Park upon quick inspection. Turning back to them, Loki raised her hand and made a pulling gesture. "Well then, summon Stormbreaker from wherever you've left it. Let's get this show on the road."
Izuku raised an eyebrow as he raised one hand over his head, mentally summoning his hammer from where he'd left it atop the school. At this point, he was strong and durable enough to jump down from the roof to the ground level and so he'd taken to flying to school each day, leaving his hammer where nobody else could stumble across it during his classes. As the haft slapped against his palm, he curled his fingers around it and let out a sigh of relief. While he was now the vessel of Thor, he sometimes felt... incomplete... without the easiest conduit for his powers around. "Hammer: check. Now what, Loki-sama?"
The question got a chuckle out of Loki, the dark-haired girl shooting him an approving look as she rubbed her dark green nails against the exposed upper slope of her right breast. "Have I mentioned lately how nice it is to finally have a Thor who properly appreciates my greatness? But to answer your question, we're going to start with a single person transport from a clear area to a clear area. The Bifröst tends to be a bit indiscriminate in the hands of an inexperienced wielder, and can also cause serious collateral damage when used improperly. I almost used it to destroy Jötunheimr at one point... which is a story for another time that you'll no doubt ask me about when given the chance. But since I doubt you want to be like Mount Lady or Endeavor and leave tremendous amounts of damaged property whenever you come or go..." Izuku shook his head; that was the sort of thing that left the Hellflame user perpetually stuck at number two, and had pundits debating if Mount Lady would even place in the rankings this year. "So what you're going to be learning today is precision. I've already talked to the valkyries in Tønsberg and one agreed to be our subject for this little experiment. So what I want you to do is-"
"Even with Brunnhilde to guide their resurgence, the valkyries are all ill-mannered thugs. I have absolutely no desire to spend even a minute of my afternoon around one." Turning to Izuku, Amora brought her hands up to her chest beseechingly. "I have what is inarguably a far superior idea. So, one of the functions that you would be able to provide once you're a licensed hero is extraction. If a hero gets in over their head, you would be able to remove them from the situation using Stormbreaker and the Bifröst to teleport them to safety. But unless you're going to achieve and maintain near-encyclopedic knowledge of every hero and sidekick operating in Japan - and possibly the world - you're going to need to do so with possibly nothing more than the individual's name."
Izuku thought about that for a few seconds before nodding agreeably. That did in fact sound like an excellent use of his powers. Especially if reinforcements had already arrived and they didn't necessarily need him to join in the battle, he could easily scoop up a wounded hero or sidekick and evacuate them to a safer location. And while he knew a lot about heroes - and even a few sidekicks - there were far too many for him to memorize even all their names, much less their faces or more detailed information. "Okay. Agreed. So what does that have to do with what we're doing now?"
Amora grinned mischievously, snuggling up against Izuku's side as she routinely did and lowering her voice. "So what you're going to need to learn how to do is focus on an individual by name alone and let Stormbreaker do the rest for you. The hammer is mildly sentient, possibly omniscient; I have no idea how it can find people anywhere in reality, but Thor previously proved that it definitely could and could pull them to him. Or deliver him to them, if it was someone he needed to smite."
"Which, arguably, is exactly what my proposed activity requires Izuku to do. He doesn't know the faces of any of the valkyries at this point, so he'd be retrieving Mæja by name alone." Crossing her arms over her chest, Loki glared balefully at Amora. "What mischief are you trying to accomplish today?"
Looking down at Izuku, Amora's mischievous smile widened. "You need to summon Yaoyorozu Momo. From wherever she is right now to this park."
Given that was a person's real name and not a hero name, Izuku was immediately suspicious of Amora's intentions, but the more telling reaction was the way that Loki stiffened before exploding into... a blush that rivaled one of his own. "He absolutely will not."
"Do it. Do it, do it, do it." Tugging on his sleeve, Amora stared down at him beseechingly. "I will do literally anything you want if you do this for me."
Anything? Izuku quickly found himself with a blush to match Loki's as he looked from Amora to Loki and back uncertainly. 'Literally anything' could be a lot of things, especially considering Amora's powers and vast breadth of experience, many of which he was too shy and inexperienced to actually ask for. Gathering up his courage, he stared up at Amora. "If I do it, can I... can I see you in a bra later?"
Before Amora could respond, Loki threw her hands up in the air in disgust. "Well then I guess I'm seeing Momo today because I'm definitely not going to try and counter that. Can I at least text her first so that she knows this is coming?"
Amora shook her head, bouncing up and down excitedly. "If you do it before she can text her, I'll let you see me without the bra later."
Hand shooting into the air, Izuku held Stormbreaker aloft as he tried to focus his best on something other than the possibility of seeing Amora's breasts later. Which was... harder than it sounded, but closing his eyes seemed to help matters a bit. Focusing seemed to work well enough for the one time so far that he'd conjured lightning, as well as using his power to fly. He just... wanted something and it happened. So now he wanted to bring Yaoyorozu Momo to him. Stormbreaker had to find this girl, wrap her in its power, and bring her to where he was standing.
...please?
Suddenly his eyes flew open as power roared around him, the entire world transforming into glittering rainbow light. He could hear the ground beneath him hissing and crackling, wincing when he looked down to find Norse runes burning themselves into the grass in a circle around him. Although thankfully it wasn't too big a circle? Then there was a pulse of power traveling down the beam, a gust of displaced air as the pulse hit the ground and deposited something, and the light show came to an abrupt end... with a tall girl in a black sailor fuku standing in front of him.
Holding her hands up imploringly, Loki stepped forward into the space between Izuku and the girl. "Momo-okan. I need you to not freak out. But I'm in Musutafu today, like I told you I would be... and now so are you."
...Momo... okan?
