Before diving into the finally completed peerage, it's time to respond to a few of your comments... and yes, I finally finished this peerage, but first, the comments.
First, Guest, who I do like. Actually, you weren't the one who completed it, it was the penultimate person who reminded me Rossweisse existed. You were the first, but you commented in the story's reading, and he did it in the "original" story.
Moonlight Slayer: I'll make the chapters as long as necessary to convey all my ideas in them. For example, the upcoming one is quite long because it's the beginning of a friendship and brotherhood between Naruto and Thor, Sif and Natsumi, and Delta with anything that moves and is brave enough to want to fight her.
reyrey5210: Yes, he's mentally stable. He's depressed and all, but he's stable enough to function. Regarding Sirzechs, yes, he hates him. His biggest dream is to launch a Galactic Explosion in his face.
Shirou Emiya1: Honestly, it's a possibility, but she's already a bishop, legally speaking, and Naruto, although he knows she's innocent, doesn't want trouble with the underworld. So, let's say she's a kind of familiar, only with much more awareness and freedom than a common familiar.
Guest with no reading comprehension... Naruto has no right to be upset, it doesn't make sense, hahaha, sure, I mean, he doesn't miss Grayfia, who has been more of a mother to him than his own mother (who is still alive and simply abandoned him in the Gremory clan). He doesn't miss Ajuka, who has been more of an older brother than Sirzechs. He doesn't miss Sairaog, he doesn't miss Ravel, who are his best friends, and above all, he doesn't miss Milicas... yes, it definitely doesn't make sense for him to be upset. And he definitely doesn't care that he was exiled. The fact that Sirzechs, Rias, Venelana, and Zeoticus are a bunch of jerks doesn't mean that everyone in his life was a jerk. He doesn't miss his blood family (well, except for Milicas), he misses the family he chose to have.
And Dragonkeeper10: Well, obviously Natsumi is right to fear Fenrir. This is a version I invented, not the little puppy that originally appears in DxD. My version is faithful to the myth in both power and appearance and size. And remember that according to the myth, Fenrir swallowed Odin and Sleipnir in one bite, and that damn horse was gigantic. Regarding your comment about Michael and Azazel, the former is simply too kind to mention it, and Azazel doesn't care.
Guest 3: ...really, just because Odin isn't the same loser, idiot, and pervert from DxD, a story that's literally "tits to power," the story is already going downhill. This is an Odin who commands respect, who prepares for Ragnarok, and is the true leader of the Norse pantheon, not to mention that from chapter one, I said I was going to rewrite the power scale and the characters to make them coherent with their myths, not with DxD, which, once again, is "tits to power: the series."
And for Me: It's not an eagerness, it's a necessity. Fanfiction is not Wattpad or Webnovel, where I can easily respond to comments left on the comment itself without much trouble. Here I have two options: ignore them or respond to them. And saying I behaved like a "real author" just because I have the decency to respond to the comments left, when I'm neither the only one nor the one who responds to the most comments, frankly makes me wonder what kind of person you are if the basic decency of a human being seems like something that shouldn't be done.
Chapter 11: The Allfather
The next day, Naruto merely let out a choked groan as consciousness flooded his senses again a few hours later. When the blurred reality finally cleared before his Six Eyes, a beautiful pair of aquamarine eyes, intense and scrutinizing, awaited him, completely fixed on his figure.
"Did I die, perhaps, and the most infinitesimal part of my human self was admitted into heaven?" Naruto inquired, his voice still raspy from the recent awakening. A question laden with disbelief, as he doubted the plausibility of such a scenario. That is, his own existence, legally constituted as a demonic half-anomaly, blasphemed against the purity of heaven itself.
The owner of that gaze, whose face flushed with a sudden blush either at his comment or for being caught observing him so intently (Naruto, in his confusion, failed to discern the exact cause), looked away with an abrupt movement. The girl, judging by her appearance, barely surpassed him in one or two years, and Naruto, to be completely honest, found her possessing a dazzling beauty. That silver hair, in particular, evoked a peculiar resemblance to Grayfia, although her face was much more expressive and overflowing with youthful vivacity.
"I... I... uh... I'm supposed to... supposed to tell you that Odin-sama would like to speak with you," the silver-haired girl stammered, her voice faltering and her face reddening visibly. Then, she coughed slightly, in a vain attempt to conceal her evident embarrassment.
Naruto, reluctant to increase the discomfort of that stranger, especially since she wasn't Ravel, his best friend, with whom familiarity allowed such jokes, nodded with forced courtesy. He simply slid his legs off the edge of the bed and stood up, waiting for her to guide him. That action, by the way, only managed to intensify the blush on the young woman's cheeks, who, after a brief moment of hesitation, began to lead him through the vast room. Naruto, for his part, took advantage of the walk to mentally register every detail of the corridors, with an analytical interest that tried to dispel his own disconcerting perplexity.
Finally, after a series of intricate corridors, they arrived at a large hall dominated by an imposing throne. On it, the Allfather of the Norse gods sat with an almost palpable majesty. To his slight surprise, Naruto observed that Natsumi and Delta were already there. Natsumi, upon seeing him, jumped up and launched herself towards him with all the recklessness of a runaway projectile.
The impact of the kitsune's small body against his caused a slight grunt in Naruto, although his emerald eyes softened with an unusual tenderness as he enveloped her in a protective embrace, allowing her soft sobs to resonate against his... Oh. Therein lay the cause of his young escort's peculiar blush. He wasn't wearing a shirt.
Fortunately, before the situation could escalate into even greater embarrassment, Delta, as always, pounced on both of them with her usual impetuosity, knocking them to the ground without the slightest regard for decorum.
From his imposing throne, Odin felt a slight smile, laden with a strange nostalgia, draw on his weathered lips. In his mind, a similar scene paraded with the power of a vivid memory: a group of comrades united by an unbreakable bond, although the circumstances, of course, differed substantially. But the cohesion, the palpable concern they radiated for each other, was as intense as what he was witnessing at that very moment.
"Naruto Gremory!" Odin's voice, resonant and serene at the same time, echoed throughout the grand hall, capturing the attention of everyone present.
The alluded teenager raised his gaze, his blue eyes, with a crystalline shine like freshly polished sapphires, fixed directly on the towering figure of the Allfather of the Norse gods. Natsumi and Delta, a second later, also directed their gazes towards Odin.
"I have been informed that you yearn to face Fenrir. Is that true?" The question, formulated by Odin, acquired a sudden charge of contained threat, a glimpse of the ruthless power that hid behind his regal appearance.
The silver-haired girl, for her part, could not repress a brief, involuntary squeak at the shocking declaration. She had not been present during the brief confrontation that preceded the capture of this heterogeneous group, and she was completely unaware that a boy, barely a couple of years younger than her, had come to this place with the audacity to attempt to kill the colossal wolf destined to slay Odin himself in the dawn of Ragnarök.
Naruto, for his part, remained with his gaze fixed on Odin, scrutinizing his intentions with an innate caution. After a few moments of reflective silence, he nodded with a slight inclination of his head. That was the undeniable reason that had driven him to traverse the dangers of the Hyperdimension, and he found no reason to twist the truth before Odin, especially considering that the god, if he so wished, could annihilate them all with a mere hint of his power.
"You can reveal to me the abilities that instill in you sufficient audacity to attempt to subdue a beast that has withstood the onslaught of countless warriors throughout millennia," Odin inquired, his voice, though calm, tinged with a hint of latent danger.
For a brief moment, the whirlwind of the most diverse emotions crossed Naruto's face. Fear, still ingrained in his memory after the colossal demonstration of power by the old man, which he did not feel capable of matching even in his optimal condition. Pride, before the myriad of techniques that now lay at his disposal. And, above all, a pang of nervousness at the prospect of facing a being destined to devour the god who now questioned him with a chilling calmness.
"I have managed to recreate, in a way, the energy of the cosmos that the Saints once used in the service of the goddess Athena," Naruto began, with a soft and respectful voice that attempted to conceal the tremor that ran through him. That discovery, confusing and exciting at the same time, had materialized relatively recently in his mind, barely a couple of months before he was thrown into the hell of exile.
And it turned out that the Saints of Athena existed during the era of the first Legendary King, that mythical being who unified under a single banner the countless lands of the different kingdoms and mythologies. A fact that intensified his desire to recreate that ancestral power, an ardor that had lost its luster in the second era of humanity, when the armies of the gods were decimated and scattered in a desolate chaos.
"I use the Six Eyes, the most valuable heritage of my mother's clan, to exert perfect control over each of the techniques, and I have recently mastered the unstable ability to manipulate the Hyperdimension, which has allowed me to travel across the distances from what you call Midgard to the outskirts of Asgard," Naruto concluded his explanation, every fiber of his being tense before Odin's imminent reaction, whose single eye seemed to narrow in a gesture of pondering that exuded indescribable discomfort.
The silver-haired girl, for her part, looked at Naruto with a shock that left her almost breathless. She, unlike her companions, recognized instantly what the Hyperdimension was: that rift between dimensions, a cosmic shortcut carved in ancient times by the very hands of the gods to travel effortlessly between different pantheons and mythologies. A titanic feat that allowed crossing unfathomable distances in a matter of seconds, a knowledge that, sadly, had been lost in the dawn of the Second Era, buried under the weight of centuries and the decay of memory. It was an arcane knowledge, even for Odin himself, whose origin was fused in the very foundations of time. And this young man, barely thirteen years old, had managed to master it, resorting to an ancestral power lost in oblivion, without needing to resort to brute force, a fruitless path that thousands had traveled before to break through the impregnable barrier of Asgard.
"Certainly, these are formidable abilities," Odin murmured, his voice laden with a strange mix of admiration and caution. He himself used to have seven warriors at his command, the seven God Warriors of Asgard, beings of undeniable power, although they never reached the level of the Saints of Athena, nor that of Poseidon's Marinas, in their prime. "But... could you offer me a demonstration of one of them?" he inquired with an apparently unwavering calm.
Naruto nodded slightly, a gesture of acknowledgment, and began to radiate his energy, concentrating it precisely in his hand. Once again, the "Stardust Revolution" began to take shape, but this time the process unfolded with surprising fluidity and simplicity. There was no piercing vertigo, nor the searing exhaustion that had marked his previous attempts. Now, his body was not a battlefield devastated by the roar of the hyperdimensional journey, but a channel for the orderly flow of his cosmo energy.
"I see..." Odin murmured, observing the technique with meticulous attention before gently shaking his head. "Although you have reached a remarkable level by your own means, which is truly impressive, especially for a young man your age... you still do not fully understand the true essence of the techniques of the Saints of old."
Naruto frowned slightly, confusion clouding his blue eyes. There was no anger in his gesture, as he was aware of his own path full of obstacles and sacrifices. However, the way the god spoke, someone who had never shed a drop of sweat in the art of wielding those techniques, awakened a pang of incomprehension within him. "What... what do you mean by that?" he inquired with a tone that denoted genuine curiosity.
"The techniques you display... are conceptual," Odin paused, clarifying his words to avoid any misinterpretation, adding: "And not in the sense of the elder gods, but in the philosophical sense of the term."
Naruto had to blink at the god's words, incredulous.
"The Saints of old did not use conceptual, metaphorical, figurative, or any other kind of these... nonsense techniques. They were completely literal." The god continued his dissertation, observing the boy's eyes widen slightly in a mixture of perplexity and disbelief.
"Literal? As in..." Naruto was genuinely confused, his expression devoid of any clue.
"Exactly," the old man affirmed, with a solemnity that resonated deeply. "The ancient Saints used their cosmos not to project images or symbolism, but to rewrite the very laws of reality at their whim. They made their life energy burn at such an extreme level that they were capable of achieving the greatest miracles, feats that defied the understanding of the world. You, on the other hand, use yours to emulate the power they possessed, but you are not able to make it your own, to embrace its true essence."
Odin paused, evaluating the boy's reaction. "Although..." He added with a tone that hinted at a spark of possibility, "...with the appropriate training... perhaps... maybe you could even surpass them. Break once and for all the barrier that separates the mortal from the divine. After all, you are, at least in part, a demigod."
Odin enjoyed a bit of the bewilderment on Naruto's face, a surprise tinged with astonishment that seemed justified to him. "You are a demon, son of the sons of Lucifer. Although Christians refuse to accept it, angels, fallen angels, and demons are in themselves a kind of lesser gods... But I'm digressing," Odin continued, resuming his train of thought while keeping his eyes on Naruto, who was still trying to assimilate the flood of information. "The point is that, with mental and physical training and a balanced diet, you could soon become truly capable of defeating Fenrir. Until then... well, the Hyperdimension is all you'll get of my permission."
Odin's words finally seemed to sink into Naruto, provoking in him a sudden understanding, a glimpse of the grandeur and the danger that lay hidden in all this. And if it weren't for the sacredness of the place, if it weren't for the imposing presence of the Allfather, at that very moment... he would probably have burst into hysterical laughter.
"Naruto-sama..." Natsumi inquired, her voice laden with a mix of apprehension and curiosity, after observing Naruto debating between hysterical laughter and the deepest disappointment.
Naruto, for his part, merely emitted a guttural growl, before allowing, with an exasperated gesture, his technique to vanish into the air. He then turned to Natsumi, who was observing him with an indecipherable confusion in her hazel eyes.
"We are... we are abysmally far from the level we naively believed we had reached. We have been wielding... conceptual techniques... an entire universe beyond literal techniques. That explains a lot..." Naruto articulated the words with a hint of bitterness, as if tasting a rotten fruit. Frankly, he should have foreseen that it wouldn't be as simple as his optimism had led him to believe... And all this also explained the disturbing resistance of the invaders who dared to set foot in the domains where he resided.
"Well..." Odin began with a calmness that sharpened each word like a sword, "...honestly, I would like to tell you that you possess immense potential. And although in other circumstances I would allow you to face that beast so that you could see for yourself that you are not as powerful as you pretend to believe... I would hate for your power to be wasted in a meaningless death."
The old man framed his words with a slight smile, an expression that provoked a hostile look from Naruto.
"And since I abhor the waste of talent, I will allow you and your... companions to stay in Asgard for a year, training under the tutelage of my children. Although, of course, with a condition..." Odin's voice acquired a firm tone. "Once you complete this training period, you will face Fenrir. Regardless of the outcome you achieve, you will face the beast. And besides, I'm not as dim-witted as your brother, so I'll have to assign you some kind of... supervisor."
Odin cast a playful glance around the hall before stopping it on the silver-haired young woman who stood behind the boy's small peerage.
"Me, Lord Odin?" the lady inquired with a surprise she couldn't disguise.
"You see, it's not a task I can delegate to my children or the veteran valkyries. Rossweisse, dear, you have completed your formal instruction, and frankly, I have no other tasks of your caliber. Supervising a young man your age and his two companions should serve as an adequate initiation mission for you," Odin suggested with a calm voice, not taking his gaze off the red-haired boy, who seemed, strangely, absorbed in his thoughts once again. That unusual lack of reaction to his order to receive supervision from a "babysitter" was more than intriguing. "You have the prerogative to consult with your king, young lady, to receive his consent or refusal."
"Um... To a certain extent, yes, he makes the final decision," Natsumi commented, with evident confusion in her voice, not fully understanding the hierarchy of power in that strange situation.
"Very well, then... do you accept my generous offer?" Odin asked, an enigmatic smile curving his lips.
"I... I suppose there's nothing inherently wrong with it," Natsumi's voice, though hesitant, distilled a pragmatic resignation. The kitsune, during her long stay with Naruto, had assimilated a valuable lesson from his peculiar wisdom: "Natsumi, dear, never deny anything to an individual capable of reducing every atom of your being to dust with a simple snap of his fingers." Who would have foreseen that such... specific... advice would prove its unexpected usefulness on this day?
Odin simply nodded, his gaze fixed on the trio for a few minutes that stretched into an eternity, allowing a tense silence, charged with oppressive expectation, to seize the hall. Finally, he broke the silence with a calm voice, but imbued with undeniable authority.
"Very well. This is my order, and it will be irrevocable until I myself decide otherwise, so you better assimilate it well. And believe me, I will know instantly if you let yourself be ensnared by the machinations of the imbecile Loki, Rossweisse, from now on, you will be the escort and companion of these young people. You are not at their service, you are not their maiden. However, if any of them requests your help, and said help is within your capabilities, you will provide it without hesitation. If, on the contrary, they dare to even hint at an attempt to abuse you... they will discover firsthand why Thor earned the title of the god of Strength."
"Wasn't he the god of Thunder?" Naruto articulated the question with a tone of genuine confusion, surprised by his own audacity in interrupting the Allfather's declaration. It was always a mystery to him how his mouth sometimes moved with its own will, saying things it definitely shouldn't.
"He possesses multiple domains, young man," Odin shrugged, downplaying the discrepancy. In truth, the simplification of his favorite son's power was a personal affront. He wasn't just the god of Thunder, as mortals insisted on believing, but also a master of war and a protector of Midgard in general. "Returning to my previous discourse, she is and will remain a valkyrie, unless I myself dictate otherwise. Try to reincarnate her without my explicit authorization, and you will perish."
Odin's warning hit Naruto like an iron fist, driving a trembling silence into the air. He nodded with unusual emphasis, understanding the magnitude of the prohibition. He was not going to reincarnate someone who belonged, body and soul, to a being as monstrously powerful as Odin. No one who was many years older than him and had incomparable physical strength. In fact, he wouldn't reincarnate anyone in general. Period.
With his blunt warning issued, Odin finally allowed the atmosphere to relax enough to allow both the young demons and Naruto to breathe normally again, and, as an addition, for Rossweisse herself to regain her composure.
"You may withdraw," the god sentenced with his calm and resonant voice.
Naruto simply nodded, a gesture of obedience, before turning around and leaving the imposing hall in the company of his small peerage, leaving the place as quickly as possible and without uttering a single word more.
"I still don't fully comprehend your decision, Father," Thor's voice, whose deep tone had been resonating silently throughout the conversation, made Odin turn his head to his left to contemplate the imposing and muscular figure of his favorite son.
"With the resurgence of the cosmos, my son, things... are going to change. I prefer to have the boy who will bring it back on our side, rather than allow other pantheons to get their claws on him," Odin affirmed with pragmatic simplicity, although his eyes shone with unfathomable cunning. In his mind, a chilling image flashed: what a fool like Zeus could do with that young man in his power.
"And whether or not he masters that... Galactic Explosion? Does that have anything to do with whether he'll really be able to kill Fenrir or not, right, Father?" Thor inquired, crossing his arms with a playful smile that revealed the mischief that pulsed beneath his facade as the god of force.
"I have never implied that my actions were tinged by the purity of goodness, Thor," Odin snorted with a hint of exasperation, as if the mere suggestion that he was going to provide help, training, shelter, and provisions to Lucifer's disgraced brother without getting anything in return was absurd. "Make sure he understands the nature of the Seventh Sense as soon as humanly possible, son."
"Yes, Father," Thor nodded, before leaving his progenitor's throne room. His mind was already planning the preparation of a training ground worthy of the task, and inevitably, the thought of the chains that imprisoned Loki. Damn the audacity with which Baldur entertained the gods with that insane game.
End of chapter.