Three weeks passed in a blink, yet each day felt like another ring of bark wrapping 'round the unfamiliar tree of this new world.
Kratos, true to the iron discipline etched into his bones, hadn't wasted a single moment. One might not expect a man built like a war monument—shoulders broad as boulders, gaze cold as northern frost—to haunt a library like a scholar possessed. But there he was, day after day, striding through the aisles of books like a hunter stalking knowledge rather than prey.
He wasn't there out of curiosity. No, he knew better. This realm, with its strange rules and stranger heroes, demanded understanding. And understanding demanded information. If they were to survive here—much less find a way home—they would need to know how the game was played.
Mimir, of course, had taken to the task like a draugr to battle. The smartest man in the Nine Realms had no intention of losing that title in this strange new land. Day and night—literally, for he had no need of sleep—Mimir read. And read. And read some more. History, law, culture, political systems, scientific theory, quirk classifications, hero regulations—even cookbooks, bless his nosy wee brain.
If it had letters, he devoured it.
In that time, the pair had gone from fumbling through conversations like old warriors at a puppet show, to carrying proper talks without too much squintin' or second-guessing. Words like "quirk", "ranking", "civilian protocol", and "Provisional Hero License" no longer danced around their heads like fireflies of nonsense. They understood the world now. Not fully—never fully—but well enough to walk through it with fewer surprises.
And walk it they did.
Toshinori Yagi—All Might in his towering, skeletal-lunged glory—had taken it upon himself to show them the ropes. He took them through the maze of bureaucracy, taught them the rhythms of U.A., and explained the subtle dance between power and responsibility that governed heroes in this land.
At one point, he'd even gotten Kratos into a suit. A proper one, too—dark charcoal, crisp white shirt beneath, tie knotted tight like a noose of civilization. The coat stretched taut over the Spartan's massive frame, making him look less like an educator and more like a myth dressed for court.
(AN: Check Paragraph Comments For a surprise lol)
Kratos hadn't said a word about it. But he'd worn it. Once.
He'd read the phrase in a book. When in Rome... he thought. He understood the sentiment, even if it tasted bitter.
Still, he preferred the feel of leather straps, fur, and cold steel. And thankfully, in a world where heroes paraded in everything from armored rabbit suits to trench coats made of shadows, no one raised much of a fuss when he returned to his more... primal attire. The weapons strapped to his back—Leviathan Axe and Blades of Chaos—earned stares aplenty. But so did his sheer presence.
And then there was the video.
It had gone viral before anyone could stop it. Kratos falling from the sky like a thunderous judgment, landing mid-battle and cleaving through a villain named Rauk with a handful of precise, devastating strikes. Six hits. Each one a hammerblow that shook the pavement and rattled the teeth of every spectator watching from safety—or behind a screen.
People called it a "debut." A "miracle entrance." Some even whispered he was a god descending to cleanse the wicked.
But most simply called it what it was:
The manliest damn entrance a hero could make.
Speculation ran wild. Forums lit up with theories. Was he from overseas? A hidden government weapon? A secret quirk experiment gone right? No one could say. But everyone remembered the image—Kratos, calm and silent in the eye of chaos, standing over a villain wrapped in ice and defeat.
Toshinori Yagi—still standing tall as the Symbol of Peace, a living legend in the flesh—had appeared on a popular talk program just days after the Rauk incident. The host, ever hungry for a scoop, wasted no time diving into the real question on everyone's mind.
"That man," the interviewer began, eyes glittering. "The one who came down like a meteor and stopped the villain Rauk with a swing—who is he?"
Yagi had unleashed that unmistakable, radiant smile—the one that lit up screens and hearts across the nation—followed by his signature booming laugh: "HA-HA-HA!" In that moment, it wasn't just Toshinori Yagi sitting in that chair, but the full might of All Might, alive and unshaken.
"His name is Kratos," he replied with his signature smile. "An old acquaintance. I met him overseas some years ago."
"And what is he doing here now?"
At that, Yagi straightened just a little, voice steady with intention. "I recommended him to Principal Nezu to serve as an instructor at U.A. High. A specialist in tactics, discipline, and close-quarters combat. Once Principal Nezu met him… well, he was more than happy to offer him a position."
The host blinked, stunned for a moment. "You mean to say he's teaching at U.A.? But he's not a registered Pro—"
"Not yet," Yagi interjected, voice gentle but firm. "But he's been officially approved by the school. His abilities speak for themselves, and his perspective is unlike anything we've had before. Trust me… the students will learn more than just how to fight."
And with that, the floodgates opened.
Across every forum, news channel, and social feed, the name Kratos began to spread like a storm cloud ready to crack. The footage from the incident—his so-called "heroic debut"—had already been making the rounds: a mountain of a man descending like divine fury, defeating a monstrous villain with six decisive blows. The way the final hit had halted just shy of vaporizing Rauk entirely had left viewers breathless.
Now, with a name, and with All Might's seal of approval, the legend was given shape.
Who was this man? What was his quirk? Why did he carry ancient weapons? Why did he look like a character torn from myth?
And most importantly... could he teach?
That question still hung in the air—unanswered, but ever-present.
Mystery bloomed like wildfire.
And Kratos, silent as ever, let it burn.
During those same weeks, a quieter transformation had been unfolding—one far less flashy, yet just as important.
Kratos and Toshinori Yagi had been spending a great deal of time together.
The former God of War might not show affection or kinship like others did. He did not smile. He did not laugh. He did not say things like "I trust you" or "You are my friend." But actions spoke louder than thunder.
He tolerated Toshinori. Listened to him. Followed his guidance, even if reluctantly. He hadn't broken off contact or declared the entire world unworthy of his time.
And Mimir knew what that meant.
"Ha! He's startin' tae like ye, laddie," Mimir whispered to Toshinori one afternoon, bobbing slightly from his perch at Kratos' side. "Oh, he'll never say it. He'd sooner bite off his own beard. But trust me—ye've earned his respect. And that, my friend, is rarer than gold from Fafnir's hoard."
Toshinori, currently in his scrawny form and sipping on a plastic cup of juice with a comically tiny straw, blinked in surprise.
Then—FOOM—in a puff of steam and a gleam of dramatic flair, he transformed into his buff form, chest puffed with pride.
"Of course he does!" he boomed, throwing a hearty arm around Kratos' broad shoulder. "We're friends now, aren't we?! HAHAHA!"
Kratos froze.
His eye twitched.
He was not accustomed to this world's strange custom of affectionate assault. His jaw clenched slightly as his mind briefly entertained the image of flinging Toshinori—and Mimir, just for good measure—into the stratosphere like a pair o' noisy geese.
Then came the kicker.
"C'mon, Kratos," Toshinori said with that blinding smile. "Say it. You are my best friend! HA-HA-HA!"
There was a long pause.
Too long.
Then Toshinori felt it.
A shiver—deep and primal—raced up his spine like a lightning bolt. From somewhere very, very close, he heard the subtle rasp of metal being drawn from its sheath.
His hand twitched.
His eyes glanced sideways.
Kratos hadn't moved a muscle... but the Leviathan Axe had begun sliding from its slot on his back, frost curling along the handle.
"Oh," Toshinori said, hand slowly slipping off Kratos' shoulder. "I think… I heard someone calling me. Somewhere. Urgently. Yep."
He reverted to his scrawny form in an instant, coughing awkwardly into his fist as he began to backpedal.
Behind him, Mimir's spectral eyes flicked between the two of them. Then both he and Toshinori swore—swore, mind you—they heard a very, very low mutter come from Kratos' direction:
"…Might be your death."
They didn't wait for confirmation.
The pair beat a hasty retreat toward the other side of the park, where they huddled over a bench and pulled out a tablet to watch Wootube videos with the exaggerated intensity of men pretending nothing had just happened.
Behind them, there came the soft click of metal settling back into place... followed by a deep, heavy grunt.
Peace had been restored.
For now.
Over those three weeks, the three of them—Spartan, Head, and Symbol—had gone on what could almost be called outings. Toshinori, eager to show them the world they now inhabited, took it upon himself to act as host, guide, and occasional translator of modern absurdities.
They sampled food from every corner of the city.
Kratos was indifferent at first, but even he couldn't deny the excellence of a handmade bowl of steaming noodles from a quiet street vendor tucked between alleyways. It had taken him a few tries to master the chopsticks—he gripped them at first like they were trying to escape—but mastery came quickly. His body, after all, obeyed his will with perfection. Precision was second nature.
Mimir, while unable to eat, was fascinated nonetheless. He'd muse on the scents and preparation techniques with scholarly awe, asking questions of chefs and commenting on historical overlaps between cultures.
"I cannae taste it, true," he'd admitted once, "but by the aroma alone, I'd wager that stall's packin' more flavour than a feast hall in Alfheim."
Toshinori had also taken them to a cinema, of all things.
The screen was massive—a glowing wall of light and sound that made even Kratos raise a brow in intrigue. Mimir had been fascinated. It reminded him of seer magic—illusions conjured through glowing panels and thunderous voices. Kratos, while quiet throughout the whole experience, hadn't left the theatre. He sat through the entire film, eyes calm, arms crossed. Observing. Processing.
Later, Toshinori also dragged them through a public park filled with towering kites and balloon vendors. Children ran laughing, chasing soap bubbles, and Kratos stood silently beneath the shade of a tree, watching it all unfold like some distant memory he didn't know he still carried.
He said nothing.
But within, thoughts churned like a distant storm.
This world... it looked peaceful. Soft skies. Laughing children. Mortal lives lived so openly, so carelessly. But Kratos had listened. Watched. Learned.
He knew better.
This place was far from safe. Villains bloomed like rot—springing from shadows, from hatred, from broken minds and greed. Destruction was common. Death, inevitable. Yet somehow... they endured. These mortals smiled. Laughed. Lived like the world wasn't crumbling just beyond the horizon.
Why?
Kratos' eyes slid to Toshinori, who was now crouched by a group of kids, showing them how to flex like All Might with an exaggerated grin. The children burst into giggles, mimicking his pose. And behind that grin… Kratos saw it. The tiredness in his bones. The deep, endless weight on his shoulders.
Strongest Hero, they called him.
Is that why he fights? Kratos wondered. To shield this fragile joy from the dark? To keep these mortals believing—so they do not break?
Kratos' jaw tightened.
He did not trust such smiles. He did not believe in naive cheer. Not truly. But even so…
"…you fight every day," Kratos murmured aloud, arms crossed, voice low. "Even when you know it's never enough."
Toshinori looked up from the children, caught off guard. "Hm?"
Kratos didn't glance at him.
"You bleed," the Spartan continued. "You wither. But still you smile. Still you stand. As if you can hold back the world forever."
Toshinori rose slowly, the playfulness fading from his eyes. "Because if I don't… who will?"
Kratos turned his head slightly, his gaze unreadable. "Is that hope? Or delusion?"
A pause.
"…Maybe both," Toshinori admitted. He looked toward the kites, the distant laughter. "But if that delusion's what keeps people movin'... what keeps them trying... then I'll take it. Doesn't have to make sense. It just has to work."
Kratos didn't speak right away. His eyes lingered on a child who'd tripped, then stood back up, smiling as they ran again.
"…Then keep it," he muttered. "But don't expect it to last."
Toshinori gave a quiet chuckle—dry, worn.
"Doesn't need to," he said. "Just needs to last long enough."
Kratos grunted lightly but didn't say anything back.
They visited museums, sparred behind closed doors, tested gym equipment Kratos nearly broke on the first try, and even once wandered through a street festival filled with fireworks and food stalls.
To an outsider, it might've looked like a strange trio of friends wandering the world.
And perhaps… in their own way, they were.
And somewhere in the midst of those three weeks—between ancient weapon drills, bowlfuls of udon, and philosophical walks beneath neon skies—Kratos and Mimir stumbled upon something they hadn't expected. Not in a world ruled by quirks, heroes, and bureaucracy.
It had begun innocently enough. A book plucked from a dusty corner shelf of the U.A. library—Mimir had insisted on scanning every title, just in case. The cover bore a familiar shape: a thunderbolt, etched in gold. A child's book on world mythology, meant for early education. Harmless. Until it wasn't.
Kratos had set it on the table with a grunt, arms crossed, while Mimir flipped pages with a stylus in his teeth and narrowed eyes.
And then… they saw it.
Odin. Thor. Loki. Baldur. Names as old as the Nine Realms. Names they'd fought beside, fought against. Names burned into the bones of their pasts.
But the stories? The stories were wrong. Or perhaps… rewritten.
Thor was a beloved hero, protector of Midgard. Odin, a wise and benevolent king. Loki, a misunderstood trickster and adopted son—playful, clever, but hateful one way or another. Baldur never screamed in maddened rage, never threw fists at fate. He was a gentle god of beauty and invulnerability, lost tragically, mourned deeply.
It was like looking into a mirror warped by time and whimsy—a reflection that smiled back with unfamiliar kindness.
Mimir had stared at the pages, quiet longer than usual, which was sayin' somethin'. "This... this can't be right," he muttered. "These aren't our gods. And yet—they are."
Kratos said nothing at first. He only turned another page.
There was Greek myth too—stories of Olympus and its pantheon. Zeus the ruler of skies, Apollo the sun-bringer, Ares the god of war… not Kratos. Never Kratos. His name was absent from every tale, every shrine, every footnote. As if he had never existed.
And the gods… they weren't monsters. Selfish, perhaps. Proud. But not the cruel tyrants he had once torn limb from limb.
It didn't make sense. It shouldn't exist. This world—this realm—should have no memory of the gods, not theirs, not Olympus'. It was its own creation, with its own rules.
And yet, there they were. The same names. The same powers. The same roots—but different fruits.
"I don't like this," Mimir had said finally. "Either someone's been pluckin' tales from other realms and sweetenin' 'em up… or there's a deeper, stranger truth behind it all. Some ripple across the world tree, echoin' down different branches. Realities twistin'. Histories bleedin' into one another…"
Kratos remained silent, but his fingers curled around the edge of the book.
Coincidence? Possible. But in their lives, coincidence had a nasty habit of wearin' the mask of fate.
It stuck with them, that discovery. Haunted the quiet moments. Raised questions neither of them could answer.
How did this world come to know the names of gods from realms it should never have touched?
Why were the myths so similar, and yet so false?
And why—why—was Kratos missing from them all?
Whatever the reason, it scratched at the back of their minds like an itch beneath armor. An unsolved riddle in a realm already choked with mysteries.
Mimir, ever the scholar, began cross-referencing these tales with what little mythic lore existed in this modern world. He poured over digital archives, museum displays, cultural essays, even children's cartoons—aye, even those.
But the answers remained as slippery as the world serpent's scales.
And so, the question lingered in the air like the final note of a song that never quite resolved.
The teacher's quarters were quiet, the kind of stillness that settled like snow on a battlefield after the last sword had fallen.
Kratos sat alone upon a modest sofa, the fabric groaning slightly beneath the weight of his god-forged frame. The flickering light of the television bathed the room in pale colour, shadows playing across the hard lines of his face. His arms were folded, eyes narrowed with silent intensity as the current affairs droned on—images of city patrols, pro hero schedules, and fleeting flashes of villain sightings.
Behind him, perched on a desk with a sturdy wooden stand braced behind his neck, sat Mimir—the smartest head in any realm, and arguably the chattiest. A stylus pen poked from his mouth like a fat cigar, and both his eyes darted about as he carefully navigated a sleek black tablet. With no hands of his own, he worked through clever tongue movements and precise neck tilts, scouring the internet for information like a scholar possessed.
"Kratos," Mimir called, muffled slightly by the stylus. "Did ye know that little video of yours—you know, the one where you obliterated that poor sod Rauk—has passed one million views?"
The only reply was a deep, rumbling grunt from the sofa. Whether it was indifference or mild contempt was anyone's guess.
"Aye, people are mighty curious," Mimir continued, tapping his stylus to click open another comment thread. "There's whole forums tryin' to figure out yer 'quirk.' Some are sayin' you control gravity. Others think you're a divine clone engineered in secret by the government. Oh, and someone made a tribute video of you set to heavy metal. It's… surprisingly heartfelt."
Kratos didn't move.
"And isn't today the day for U.A.'s entrance exams?" Mimir added, tone a bit more pointed now. "Shouldn't you be goin' to see the crop of young hopefuls ye'll be teaching soon?"
Still silence.
Then, a louder grunt, lower and more guttural—fine in Kratos-ese.
"Oh, come now," Mimir chuckled, "we're bound to be dealin' with 'em sooner or later. Best to get a sense of what you're marchin' into. Prepare yourself mentally, eh?"
Kratos leaned forward without a word, clicked the remote, and the television blinked into silence. He stood in one fluid, powerful motion, his towering frame casting a long shadow over the modest living space.
With a quiet grunt, he reached down and gripped the hem of his shirt—a plain, oversized T-shirt stamped boldly with the word "OPPAI" across the chest in bright, blocky letters. A gift, of sorts, from Toshinori, who'd insisted it was "all the rage among underground hero fans."
(AN: Check the Paragraph comment above 0_0 )
Kratos had worn it once. Twice, even. But now, as the weight of purpose settled upon him, the shirt came off in a single pull, the fabric fluttering to the floor like a banner retired.
Beneath it, the pale scars of countless battles were etched like runes into marble flesh. He reached for his armor—thick leather with metal plates, straps and clasps familiar as breath—and pulled it over his torso with practiced ease. Piece by piece, the war god reassembled himself.
The Leviathan Axe found its place across his back with a satisfying click, the Blades of Chaos coiling behind him in silent promise.
Then, reaching down, he unclipped a metal clasp from his waist and gently placed Mimir into a small cradle hanging from his belt—a contraption they'd jury-rigged for travel.
Mimir's stand clattered quietly against the desk as he was lifted, but he didn't protest—only smirked as he slid into position like a satchel of ancient wisdom.
Kratos moved to the door, hand resting briefly on the wooden frame. Without fanfare, he stepped out, the door swinging shut behind him with a soft, definitive click.