- Disclaimer: Matantei Loki Ragnarok belongs to Kinoshita Sakura.

Ah, My Loki-sama!

written by Kurosu

- Chapter Thirty.

"Mou, Loki-sama!"

Mayura sighed as she walked down the sidewalk next to the part-time detective and full-time god, after solving their latest case which involved the missing morning newspaper for the past weeks. The pink-haired girl claimed that a werewolf must have stolen it due to the partial paw prints on the mat, but it turned out that a large, stray dog had continuously taken it because the local delivery man had sugary doughnuts for breakfast, so it left a delicious trail on the news print, luring the dog every morning, bright and early.

"I had really hoped it was a werewolf!"

Loki sweatdropped - as much as she was dear to him, he sometimes wonder what really went on in her head - and stated, "There's no such thing as a werewolf, Mayura. And even if one does exist, it transforms at night with the full moon."

"Hmm..."

Okay, he did not like the sound of that and looked over to his lovely assistant, who had her nose stuck to her mobile phone. He didn't like the lack of attention from her, both being oblivious to the god's neighborhood stalkers, and snatched the phone from her hands. "Loki-sama!" she cried as he dangled the small technology in the air out of her reach, "I was checking to see if there's a full moon tonight!"

He leaned down to her, grinning, "There are better things to do at night than werewolf hunting."

She blinked, "Like a horror movie marathon?!"

Loki sighed and looked away, wondering how thick-headed this girl could be, and something caught his eye in the distance. He sidestepped with Mayura out of the way before the bicycle and its rider could run them over. The two sweatdropped at the cyclist, who braked right in front of them, "Narugami?!"

"Yo!" the god of thunder grinned and saluted, and their eyes went from his face to the bicycle then to the metal box sitting right behind his seat, "What a coincidence seeing you two here!"

"I should be saying that to you," said Loki, crossing his arms over his chest, "Last I remember, you were happy to be back in Asgard."

Narugami sweatdropped, "Well uh, things changed."

"Narugami-kun is acting very suspicious!" Mayura noted, hands on her hips, which earned her a pat on the head from a grinning Loki on her good observation skills.

"Okay okay," the brunette motioned for the two to come closer to him and leaned in, whispering, "I... ran away!"

"We can see that," the blonde god said dryly, seeing as his best friend had left Asgard and returned to Midgard, willingly this time, "But why?"

"From what?" Mayura's brows wrinkled in concentration, and Narugami squirmed uncomfortably, mumbling something akin to a marriage. "A WHAT?!"

"An arranged marriage!" he shouted, earning curious looks from passersby at the pretty trio in the middle of the sidewalk, "Ever since that battle, there were rumors that I bested the great Tyr! Now a bunch of goddesses are stalking me!" Then he pointed at Loki, "It got worse after YOU left! I've become their new target!"

Loki rolled his eyes, with no sympathy whatsoever for his friend trying to blame it all on him, "That's a very cowardly act for a god of your status to do."

"Hey! I enjoy my bachelor life very much, thanks!"

Mayura placed a comforting hand on Narugami's shoulder, "I understand your pain, Narugami-kun! To be forced to do something you don't want to! It's unbearable!"

"Daidouji," the god sniffled, moved deeply by a fellow comrade.

"Mayura," Loki sighed, "Cram school is different from an arranged marriage."

"GYAH! I'M LATE! I gotta deliver this!" he started to pedal away, "See you guys later!" He picked up speed and left his friends eating the dust of his two-wheeled transportation. They watched him disappear down the street, taking note of the name of the restaurant off the back of his uniform.

"Ah! I'm getting hungry!" Mayura exclaimed, "Why don't we get a quick snack before going home?"

He looked down to her and smirked, "If you wanted a date, all you had to do was ask."

"Nevermind!" she cried, blushing, and hurried away, with a laughing Loki at her heels, "Nothing beats Yamino-san's food anyway!"

The next morning was a lovely Saturday, and sleeping in an extra few hours was a great feeling. Sometimes it was good to be a teenager, especially when here life was now falling back into its normal routine, but that particular morning, she was surprised to see Narugami, in Shinto wear, at the shrine, sweeping the pathway of leaves, twigs and debris. His traditional wear clashed against her modern attire of a ruffly, floral tank top and a purple skirt, her hair in two ponytails.

She walked over to him, ponytails bouncing along, greeting him cheerfully, "Good morning, Narugami-kun!"

"Morning, Daidouji," he smiled, still attending to his chore faithfully.

"I didn't expect you to return here."

"Ah, you and sensei have helped me big time, so I just wanted to repay the debt."

"Are you staying with us again?"

"Nah, I don't want to intrude on you guys anymore." He mumbled to himself, "Don't think Loki would like it either..."

"What was that?"

He stopped sweeping for a moment and looked at her, "Eh, I gotta show father that I can take care of myself. I don't need a wife!" He threw a fist into the air and shook it at the skies for more emphasis.

"So you're really doing all right?" Mayura appeared worried about her friend's state of living.

"Yep," he gave her a reassuring smile, "I got some part time jobs covering my living expenses. Oh! That reminds me," he dug into his pockets and pulled out some tickets, giving them to her, "These are free coupons from my employer's place. I meant to give them to you guys yesterday.

"Anyway, I gotta finish these chores and get to my next job!"

Mayura watched him running off to the back of the shrine and then looked at the coupons in her hand, smiling, thinking about inviting Loki and the others out for lunch. She had a feeling that it was going to be a good day and totally skipped off with her hair bouncing after her.

"Fullia! Hurry and get these plates! They're getting cold!" Hilin was screaming through the small window, from the back of kitchen. She then turned around to see the slow Gina was attempting to chop the vegetables and sweatdropped when her comrade nicked her finger with the knife, because her long bangs were in the way, and her reaction was just a deadpanned stare at the squirt of blood.

She waved her wounded finger into the air, "I bleed for my beloved queen!"

"Gina! I don't need you bleeding all over my food!"

Hilin was loud enough that te whole restaurant in the front could hear her, earning a lot of tiny sweatdrops over the crowd, and they wondered if it was all right to continue to eat the food, first checking to see if any missing fingers were in their meals.

"I can't believe I'm stuck back here with these idiots!" Hilin complained, receiving more glares from the kitchen staff, including the poor guy who was chasing Gina down so he could bandaged the wound, without getting blood all over the place.

Fullia bounced back and forth from the front of the restaurant to the kitchen, happily with her waitressing job and completely oblivious of her red-haired superior's boiling anger. Hilin grabbed the blonde's ponytail, preventing her from leaving, and seized the plate in her hands so she could stop eating the customers' food!

Hilin glared menacingly down to her, "Did you find Baldur-sama yet?!"

"Nope!" she blinked and then added as an afterthought, "But I did find some cute guys!"

Fullia earned a smack to the head from their commander while Gina, now with her a bandaged finger, asked monotonously, "Why did we get jobs at a restaurant?"

Hilin sighed and straightened her posture, prepared to tell them the reason, in the middle of the kitchen, where the rest of the staff were trying to do their jobs in running half the restaurant. They wondered how these three women ever got hired in the first place, besides for their good looks.

"Baldur-sama loves to eat!" she declared, "There's no way he can pass up a good meal like this!

"But we have to be careful. That evil Loki is in the neighborhood, and we mustn't let Baldur-sama fall into his clutches again!" She pointed to them, "If any of us get captured, we are to reveal NOTHING! Commit homicide if you must!"

"Don't you mean suicide?" Gina questioned.

Hilin coughed into her fist, "Or that."

That afternoon, Mayura held Fenrir in her arms as she walked with Loki and Yamino to the restaurant that Narugami worked at, which relieved Yamino's lunch duty for the day, allowing them to enjoy a family outing together. They followed the address and came upon a small ramen eatery inserted in between a flower shop and a udon restaurant in a popular market area. It was a family run business, with a tight fit of a kitchen and bar counter on one side while the other side had a row of small booths for groups of four. The front entrance opened up directly into the streets so the customers could get a market ambiance of the neighborhood.

They were seated into one of the booths by a young woman, who sweetly complimented on Mayura's cute appearance. The girl blushed as she scooted into the booth with Fenrir, and a smiling Loki sat down next to her, across from them was Yamino. Mayura handed the coupons to the woman, who was surprised to see them, and explained, "Our friend, Narugami-kun, suggested we stop by."

"Ah! Narugami-san! He's such a hard worker!" she gushed and began to tell them about her husband, who normally helped his father in the kitchen and did the deliveries to nearby customers, had sprained an ankle, and luckily Narugami had been their to help them out until his full recovery.

"That's just like Narugami-kun!" Mayura smiled.

"I'm sure the free food helped," Loki mumbled to himself.

"Let me know when you're ready to order!"

Mayura opened the menu up as Fenrir stood up, leaning on the table, as he pawed at the list of delicious ramen, not able to decide what he wanted, even though he wanted to eat them all. The girl scanned the description, wondered what sort of flavors would hit the spot on a Saturday afternoon until her eyes fell upon the tonkotsu ramen dish - a blend of pork and chicken stock with thick noodles, topped with mountain vegetables, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, scallions, slow-cooked pork belly, egg and seaweed.

'That one!' Fenrir cried excitedly, and his paw had smacked the same dish that Mayura had chosen, 'The kuma-size bowl!'

"Ano," the girl sweatdropped, "That's their largest bowl, Fenrir. Are you sure-" She had to stop there because asking if the puppy was certain he could finish the gigantic portion was a rhethoric question. She shook the thought away and asked what the others were having.

So when the waitress returned, two orders of the tonkotsu - one regular size, one bear size - along with Loki's extreme spicy ramen, where the chicken was made with the house special chili sauce, topped with some vegetables and bean sprout and seaweed too, and Yamino's shoyu ramen, braised pork belly with scallions, roasted seaweed, a soy sauce flavored soft-boiled egg in a mixture of pork, chicken and vegetable stock, adding a side of pressed garlic.

"Loki-sama," Mayura started, glancing to the blonde god carefully, "the special chili is very, VERY spicy..."

"I know," he just smiled enigmatically, because what sort of god of fire was he if he couldn't stand some spiciness in his food and life! And besides, he was up for the challenge, whatever the mortal culinary experts could throw at him, he would gladly accept, and he was hungry.

After his chores at the shrine, Narugami was on his way to work at the ramen shop when he suddenly bumped into a pretty, familiar blonde, named Fullia, carrying two trash bags in her hands. She appeared to be lost, so being a god of thunder, justice and aiding the every day common man, he stopped to help her. Apparently she was told by her superior to take the trash out to the back of the restaurant, but she somehow managed to loop around the block and ended up far from where she was supposed to be.

Narugami sweatdropped and took the bags from her hand and stuffed them into the nearest trashcan he found. "There you go, all done," he puffed his chest out proudly, having saved a maiden in distress, "So where do you work?"

"No idea!" she smiled, "I just follow my superior wherever she goes!"

"I-I see..." Now what was he supposed to do with this ditz, because he couldn't quite abandon a lost sheep. "Erm," he started, "I guess you can come with me until we find your superior."

"Oh! How nice of you!" Fullia chirped and walked next to him.

Meanwhile Hilin was raising hell in the kitchen at Fullia's disappearance and now the floor manager was short one ditzy waitress, so he pulled Gina to the front, as if that was any better. Her supposed peppy smile was more scary than a hungry zombie, yet there was no other choices, and due to obscured vision, she kept running in to the other servers and in to walls and doors and tables.

At least the turn around of tables was cut in half, as soon as dishes arrived to the customers, they practically inhaled their food, paid, and ran out of the restaurant. This was noticed by a lot of people on the streets, and many wondered if the place had terrible food that made their customers run away in horror.

From across the road, Loki had been observing the place ever since they set foot in to the neighborhood, because of the familiar divine energy that appeared a few days ago, and something was definitely going on, from the amount of people leaving the place. No explosions and random destruction, so it was safe for now, allowing him some time with his family before things got serious.

Sometimes he wished Urd hadn't called, requesting him to look into the current situation with the strangeness in Midgard, but then again, to be the one to offer Mayura a new wish, he couldn't be happier. But it was her adorable wish that made him, probably, the happiest being in the Nine Worlds, and how could anyone even deny her of such a wish, because if the Yggdrasil System screwed up again, he would gladly reboot it once more to get Mayura her wish again.

He looked down at the girl by his side, smiling, as she stole a piece of chicken from his bowl and fed it to Fenrir, who suddenly flailed his paws at the very spicy flavor that hit his tongue. A panicking Yamino quickly brought his drink to his brother, and Mayura smiled nervously, apologizing.

'Daddy, how can you eat that!' Fenrir managed to ask afterwards.

Loki shrugged and then held some noodles out to Mayura, but she shook her head fervently, not after seeing Fenrir's reaction to the spiciness. With her rejection, he sighed and ate the food, but it was a few seconds later that he was surprised by her own chopsticks held up to him, offering her own meal, which was not spicy of course. His eyes met hers and remained glued to them as his mouth found its way over to her chopsticks and took in the delicious morsel - nevermind that they were sharing the same chopsticks!

Fenrir whined, 'Daddy, I'm trying to eat...'

Mayura blushed, and from the corner of her eye, she could see Fenrir's whole head dipped into his large bowl to avoid looking at the lovey-dovey scene while a flustered Yamino had found interest on the table top.

Well, it didn't last long because a loud explosion interrupted them, from across the street at the restaurant that Loki had been observing. He jumped out of his seat and hurried out the shop, with an excited and worried Mayura right on his trail, which also had Fenrir barking after them, telling them to wait for him, and that left poor Yamino to pay the bill, whatever extra that the coupons didn't cover.

"I guess we should call the fire department," the waitress wondered.

Yamino sweatdropped and agreed, then ran after everyone else. By the time he reached the scene, all the customers and employees had evacuated the flaming premises and stood at a safe distance, but his father and brother and Mayura were no where in sight, so he assumed they had entered the restaurant. He was about to run in after them, but a few bystanders had pulled him back, telling him it was too dangerous, preventing him from shoving his way into the burning building.

Loki and Mayura, with Fenrir in between them at their feet, had appeared in the restaurant interior to find a confused Gina fiddling with a contraption in her hand. Mayura stepped forward, worried for the young woman, "Excuse me!"

The god, frowning, grabbed her wrist, stopping her from going any farther to the stranger. She looked at him, confused, "She might be hurt."

Gina started to cry, "I AM hurt! My heart is an empty wound, when my beloved queen is not here!"

After losing Fullia for the day and then Hilin was fired after a customer criticized her meal and she thrashed on him with a rolling pin, Gina was left all alone without any guidance, not even from her precious queen. Hilin, of course, couldn't walk away peacefully, she just had to throw in fire bomb in to the oven with plans of ruining the baking duck, which ended up taking the whole restaurant down with it.

She wiped her tears and bangs aside and focused on her the object in her hand again, which was really a fancy, futuristic-looking gun, "But this is all for Frigg-sama's sake!" She raised the gun to the group that appeared before her and pulled the trigger... and missed her targets because of her bangs. They sweatdropped as Gina tried again, this time getting part of Loki wet from... water?

Oh that did not make Loki happy, when he despised water.

"Huh...?"

There were no screams of pain and agony, so Gina looked at her gun again and changed the setting from 'water' to 'acid,' but Fenrir jumped at her, knocking the weapon from her grasp. Mayura stumbled to them and right pass them to pick it up before the woman could reach it, while Loki had summoned Laevateinn and used his powers over the flames, to recall the element in to the staff.

At this time, Mayura, who was unexpectedly tackled to the floor by Gina, was fighting with her over the possession of the gun. And then one of them had accidently pulled the trigger, and the gun sprayed out acid that Fenrir luckily avoided just to be safe, melting a table into a pile of fizzling goo within seconds. Mayura sweatdropped at what a dangerous weapon this crazy woman had, but with that split second break allowed Gina to smack the girl's head and retreive her weapon before throwing a smoke bomb to the floor.

In another crazy confusion, Gina booked it to the kitchen, after slamming her face right into the door, with plans to escape from the back, and staggered out of view.

'She's getting away!' Fenrir coughed, but the smoke obscured all of his senses, so he couldn't even track her down.

"Fenrir, are you okay?" came Mayura's voice nearby, "Where are you?"

'I'm okay,' he barked, and he also heard his father calling out to them too and soon felt a pair of hands around his body, pulling him to safety, and it was in Mayura's warm embrace. She stood up and tried to search for Loki, following the sound of his voice, and she was thankful that the building was no longer on fire. She suddenly found herself pressed against something solid and warm, almost squishing poor Fenrir between her and Loki's chest.

"Mayura," he cradled her possessively, "don't do that again. Don't jump into danger. Don't ever leave my side!"

"I-I'm sorry, Loki-sama," she whispered as he squeezed her tighter.

Just down the street, Narugami and Fullia were walking side by side, neither really focusing on each other, until the appearance of a sorrowful, wailing Gina charged towards them. She tripped and fell, and Narugami sweatdropped, watching the woman get back up, only to fall down again two steps later, but she somehow made it to them a minute later, suddenly stopping in front of him. She pushed her bangs to the side, seeing her blonde comrade, but didn't recognize the other face, so she assumed that he was a kidnapper and blasted the acidic spray at the stranger.

It was a good thing that Narugami could recognize unstable people easily, not that Gina was even hiding her unbalanced mental state, and with a swipe of Mjollnir, he sliced the liquid down the middle, forcing two waves to by pass him and a blinking Fullia behind him.

"You're not an ordinary person!" he exclaimed, pointing the tip of the wooden sword at Gina, whose gun was directed at him in return, though the actual aim was questionable.

"Neither are you!"

"Who are you?!"

"State your name!"

Narugami, at this point tried not to slap a hand to his face, and growled, "I asked you first!"

"It's rude to ask when you didn't say yours first!"

The stranger did have a point, and he felt obligated to introduce himself, "Narugami Tohru..."

"... Thor?"

"IDIOTS!" came Hilin's pissed off voice. From out of the sky, she dropped down to the pavement, her sudden weight cracked through the concrete, wedging in between the two, but she ignored the swordsman, "Gina, have you found Baldur-sama yet?"

"No, ma'am!"

Narugami stared at them, confused and wondered who these women were to be inquiring about his brother, but Hilin had thrown another smoke bomb, and by the time, the area cleared, the red-head and the dark-haired women had disappeared. When he turned back to his blonde company, she was gone too, thinking maybe she had been scared of the showdown, leaving him ever puzzled and ever late for his shift at work.

That evening at Enjaku Detective Agency, it was dinner time, and everyone was seated the table, all staring at the uninvited fifth person. An eager Narugami, sitting at the other end of the table, had dropped by after work to get a free meal and began to relate his big news for the day, about running in to some strange women who appeared to be searching for Baldur.

From the description of the two women, Loki concluded that they were the same ones that had attack him and Mayura, and he told Narugami about the cram school incident and the restaurant one.

"Oh, so that's why were busy all day!" Narugami said loudly, having been worned out from the non-stop crowds flooding into their small ramen shop while the burnt and destroyed, fancy restaurant across the street was empty.

The group sweatdropped at his epiphany, and it was Mayura who steered the conversation back on track, "So this Hilin and this Gina must be working together. To find Baldur-sama?"

"I guess so," Narugami shrugged, pouring a lot of salt and pepper over his potatoes, "But now that you mention it, Baldur never showed up in Asgard after the fight."

Fenrir snorted, 'I figured he'd be lickin' his battered pride alone.'

"Nii-san, that is rude," Yamino admonished, "even if he did try to kill us."

Loki, who had been quiet the whole time, was in his thoughts, organizing the facts he had on their mysterious adversaries, whose apparent goal was to find Baldur - whether their intentions were bad or good for the missing god, he wasn't sure and didn't really care - but it was obvious that they were on a warpath against Loki and his friends. They were probably a part of the strange energies Urd had asked of him to investigate. He would need more information on them before he could give Urd a call and report in.

"Do you think," Mayura began, grabbing everyone's attention, "Baldur-sama was abducted by aliens?!"

Everyone fell over, sweatdropping, while Fenrir groaned, 'Daddy, this is your assistant!'

Notes: Lol, had some funny parts... but gosh, Gina/Gna is hard to write... She's supposed to be a bit dark and emo, idolizing Frigg, with long bangs that hinder her vision, lol. And yes, all the other gods are returning to Midgard, each with their own new reason, lol!

As for their powerless states, which I had forgotten about... *sweatdrops* and a good point to bring up. I hope to bring them back, but I don't think we'll be seeing it in the next five chapters... I have a rough outline for the chapters, which doesn't involve any serious magical fights, lol. Off to my next one! -kuro.