((WARNING This chapter contains the following:

Sexual abuse, assault of a minor, violence towards women.))

"Narfi's little girl?" Sindri says looking up from his work over the forge.

"Her second brat, she also had that singer. Tall fella who's easy on the eyes and easy to get in bed." Brok said while hammering.

"Only the girl is whom we're after," Mimir said hanging from Kratos' hand. "I didn't exactly get too much time to interact with her before my imprisonment. But I do remember a few stories involving the siblings."

"Half siblings, everyone forgets that. Same mother, different f-father." Sindri adds.

"Siblings... humph," Brok says, throwing his hammer down while making a disgusted sound. "S'not the impression I got from 'em last time we met."

"When was this?" Kratos finally joined in the conversation.

"Bout 40 some years ago, give or take. Sigyn came by requesting some daggers he wanted custom made. Fella showered me in money as well as some, other things, I sadly had to decline." Brok said scratching his nose. "Still, I made 'em for the kid."

"What!?" Sindri said approaching his brother, Kratos reattached Mimir to his hip and crossed his arms. Remembering Atreus' wound, a small puncture. Clean, right in a vital organ. A dagger blade laced with poison.

"We are leaving." He rumbles, turning away from the dwarfs.

"Wait... ah, oh forget it." Brok started to say as Kratos walked away. When Kratos pauses to face him the blue dwarf shakes his head and waddles back to his anvil. Sindri finished his sentence for him. His face was struggling to hide some sort of twisting pain. "All she's known is Asgard and whatever Odin and her deplorable brother spoon fed her. She's, not quite... If-If it's at all possible, spare...-"

"Don't you got places to be!? A son to save!?" Brok yells loudly.

Kratos says nothing as he walked away.

He walked up to the open coffin. Nothing left but junk. He already extracted anything of value from it long ago. But that wasn't why he was here. He looks at the bone dust on the ground and sees the two sets of footprints. One of them was wearing boots, the other barefoot. He follows the prints silently. His desire to apologize to Atreus faulted the longer he journeyed to rescue him from this foolishness. Nonetheless, his heart was heavy with remorse for what he had done. Angry at himself for allowing his conflicting feelings for Faye to blind him momentarily. Faye, his light, is forever gone. Jotunheim left a terrible inkling fear in his heart.

Gaia, Athena... was she also someone who... No, there is no time for this. She was not like the others, she was good, she was pure. And for a time, she was his.

He must set this all aside focus on finding their son.

"You ready to talk yet brother? Surely you remember being his age?" Mimir says, dangling from his hip. He doesn't respond, following his son's tracks late into the evening.

"This place," Kratos said out loud to no one. He remembered, approaching the entrance of the open arena. How old was Atreus at the time? It was two years ago. So it made him ten. He was six when he recalled killing his first man. His mind drifts back centuries ago. A simpler time. A warmer time he thinks, adjusting his shoulders, the night cold was wearing on him. He remembered his little brother crying with a broken nose, his mother soothing his tears with her gentle words. Deimos was always an easy target for foolish boys trying to prove themselves. Kratos remembers what he did to the perpetrator the next day. The bruises on his knuckles, the boy's mother screaming at his own. The way the blood didn't wash out from underneath his fingernails for several days.

As he walks into the doorway he hears something skittering behind him. "Brother look out!" Mimir says, but it ripped away from him. He turns to find a fox with purple eyes holding the head in his mouth. The beast runs off with Mimir. The head screaming obscenities he couldn't quite make out. Before Kratos rushes after the beast he hears a moan. "Atreus?"

He chooses his son over Odin's former adviser. Rushing to open the gate in his path. In the middle of the room, he saw two trees intertwined in each other, forming a semi-sealed wooden cocoon at the very top. From inside he heard his son again. He runs forwards and summons the leviathan into his hands. Chopping into the tree trunks with all his might. He roars with each swing until the tree slumped over and the massive cocoon plummeted down onto the floor.

He could see through the branches. The goddess was mounted over top Atreus. Her mouth pressed down into his own. Atreus kissing her back furiously, his hands exploring underneath her dress. His tunic off to the side, chain mail crumpled up over top of it. He shifted below her. His body covered in bloody black and purple bite marks. She moved her lips away from his own and bit down into his right shoulder. Kratos could, at last, see his son's face. From his once blue eyes spilled forth brown roots creeping down his now decaying face. Almost all life had been drained from him. Blood oozing from the roots in his eyes. His lips thin and white, his forehead collapsing inward slightly. As she bit down harder he cries out in torment first, but she slides her hands down his defiled skin. They disappear inside his trousers. His screaming stops as his shriveled lips pull into a beam of euphoria. She bit another part of his exposed chest.

A rage unlike anything Kratos had ever experienced overtook him. His vision lost all depth perception, the only he could see was Idunn. He wanted to kill this woman, he will. A fire explodes from his skin, he threw himself forwards, shredded the cocoon open and tearing the girl off his son. He held her by the golden braid in her hair and punched her in the back of the head. She screams out in agony as he whips her high in the air and slams her into the ground several times before throwing her in front of him. He roared out in distressed anger, kneeling down over top the young woman. Years of harnessing his rage, tethering it inwards to gain control himself. Gone. He lost himself in his fury, losing count of how many times his fist struck her face.

He lunges forwards to pummel her again but is met with Atreus' hand blocking his blow. Tree roots spiraling down from his blood red eyes and wrapped around his arms and legs. The skin not enclosed by the roots covered with bite marks, hundreds of blue veins pulsing violently from his sickly transparent white skin.

"STOP! Don't touch her!" He said in a voice that was not his own. Then the boy unleashed his electric falcons at him. Kratos jumps back from her body and shields his face. The birds screech around him, paralyzing him as they continue their assault. Atreus helps Idunn stand up. The roots and vines squeezing his son palpitate as Atreus groaned in a haunting torment. Idunn was rejuvenated, now looking more godly than ever. Her hair glowing, her lips plump and full, her body unblemished by the previous onslaught he bestowed upon her. She held his son's bow in her hand as she dusted off her dress. Atreus spoke her words once again. The roots digging deeper into his flesh.

"I have no desire to fight you Ghost Of Sparta. The Allfather is only interested in the giant. Odin tasked me with retreating him and him alone." It was haunting to see Atreus, even in this state, call Kratos that. "Do not stand in my way of fulfilling his demands." As he spoke the fox appeared next to him. Holding the head of Mimir in his jaws. An apple gagging his mouth but it did not silence his suppressed screaming.

In a puff of purple smoke, the creature transforms into a young man. Long black hair and purple eyes with an attractive long face. He wore a fox fur cloak that covered his entire body. Kratos didn't wait for an introduction, he didn't care who or what this man was nor what he wanted. With both hands conjoined together in a massive fist above his head, he vaulted over both the young man and Atreus and brought his rage down onto the goddess. He could hear her skull crack as he struck her forehead. He extends one hand to grab hold of her scalp and slid the other hand down to crush her nose into her skull. The roots on Atreus loosening and causing the boy to stumble forward onto the ground, freeing him from her spell. His rage wasn't sated yet. The image of what she was doing to his son still fresh in his mind. With her small limp body below him. He summoned the leviathan and brought both hands to the pommel as he swings it down onto her face. Cracking the goddess open like an egg. He felt two cold stings in both sides of his abdomen. The daggers. He drops the axe as his eyes blink in and out of consciousness. Before he passes out he sees and hears Atreus gasping for air.

When he opens his eyes Gunnr stood above him. The golden tips of her black winged helmet reflecting a blinding light into his eyes. He was still trapped in his rage, he swiped at the Valkyrie. Her wings extended and she easily doges his sluggish ambush.

"It's okay my love." a hauntingly familiar voice whispers softly next to them.

By simply hearing this voice, the fire burning throughout his body diminishes. He regains control over himself.

"Faye?"