Bright sunlight splattered onto Kratos through the windows as he strode down the corridor, each step firm and unhurried. Flickering shadows danced across his broad shoulders, the muscles beneath his leather cuirass moving with deliberate weight.
His face remained impassive—eyes narrowed, jaw set—but the tension in his gait spoke volumes. Something pressed on him, like iron chains coiling around his thoughts.
Mimir's voice cracked the hush, smooth and measured. "Anything on your mind, brother?"
Kratos said nothing, his boots echoing on the polished floor. He kept walking.
Mimir cleared his throat. "Well, that was an unexpected request from Toshinori, wasn't it?"
A low, flat grunt answered him.
Mimir hummed, voice softening to a whisper. "Hit close to home, did it?"
Kratos didn't reply—but his pace slackened, just enough for Mimir to notice, enough to understand.
In that moment, Kratos slipped into memory.
He saw the towering mural in Jötunheim again: colossal figures carved in rune-streaked stone, the Giants' paint—a riot of crimson and azure—laying bare his own end. Not a spoken prophecy, but a truth etched by ancient hands.
He'd stared at it until the echoes of his heartbeat rang louder than fear. Since then, he'd made peace with the shape of his fate.
He would not flee. He would not crave it. He would walk toward it when the time came—and until then live for someone other than himself.
For the boy.
Every dawn he tested Atreus on the training yard: sparring strikes measured more for stamina than strength, relentless puzzles of survival and quiet thinking under a sky that knew no mercy. He'd passed on every lesson he knew—not to forge a miniature warrior in his own image, but to give the boy a chance to stand alone, unbroken.
No god, no monster, not even a father's love, could shield him forever.
When Kratos drew his final breath, he wanted Atreus to stride forward on firm two feet, unafraid, unaided. That conviction lay like embers in his chest. And that was why Toshinori's simple plea still smoldered in his mind.
Now he lifted that burden again, hoisted it onto broad shoulders, and resumed his march.
Mimir's voice drifted behind him. "Is that why you refused, brother?"
This time the grunt came sharper, edged with impatience.
Mimir sighed, the sound rattling from wall to wall. "He opened up about his past. Put his trust in you. Maybe refusin' him—"
"I cannot protect everyone," Kratos interrupted, voice steady, neither cold nor harsh, only truthful. "He should not ask me to."
Silence fell, thick as midnight. Then Mimir muttered, "So teach them, then—" His words trailed off into a thoughtful hum. "Ahhhh… so that's your plan."
Kratos kept walking, sunlight painting his profile in strokes of gold. Without so much as turning his head, he said quietly, "Smartest man alive."
Mimir scoffed, his laughter echoing in the corridor's length. "Well, I am, but there's no need to sound so bloody smug about it."
And so they continued down the stone hall—Kratos silent once more, his steady footsteps marking time against whatever future awaited.
———
Kratos's boots echoed on the polished corridor tiles as he made his way toward the Principal's Room. The aftermath of the Quirk Assessment Test still weighed heavily in the air, and Nezu's summons had come at once.
When Kratos reached the heavy wooden door, he slid it open with a faint creak and stepped inside. The room's soft lamplight cast warm pools of gold across shelves crammed with tomes on hero ethics and strategy. Nezu sat behind his broad desk, poring over a stack of papers, his small ears twitching as Kratos entered.
Without a word, Kratos moved to the leather sofa beside the desk. He set Mimir—his severed head—gently on the low coffee table, and the wise relic turned its gaze to Nezu. Across the desk, Nezu leaned back in his swivel chair, straightening his tie. "Ah, so you have come," he said, his voice calm but kindly curious.
Kratos grunted, his dark eyes unreadable. At once, Mimir let forth a warm Scottish burr:
"Aye, we've come. Ye said there was something you wished to discuss?"
Nezu smiled, smoothing a wrinkle in his crisp white coat. "Thank you for coming at such a sudden notice. I had some things I needed to talk to you about. In fact, I wanted to have a talk for a while but with what happened during the practical examination, things got a bit delayed."
"Is it about that Bakugo lad?" Mimir asked.
"He is one of the reasons, yes, but not entirely," Nezu replied.
Kratos and Mimir both looked at Nezu with a puzzled gaze. I mean, at least Mimir looked at him with that expression. As for Kratos, he had his signature stoic face. That didn't mean he wasn't curious about what the little rodent had to say.
Nezu coughed slightly before continuing, "First, I must thank you, Kratos—for your restraint in the assessment, and above all for saving everyone at Battle Center D." He paused, folding his paws together. "I know I made some difficult-to-understand decisions and asked you to enforce them as well with no prior notice. Yet, you went ahead and did what I had asked you to do with no questions."
"That kind of trust weighed on my consciousness greatly about not telling you the whole plan. I wanted to discuss it with you gradually but due to the suddenness of the situation, I had no choice but to take drastic steps and proceed with things without asking for your opinion, nor talking to you about it. And I would like to apologize to you about it."
Kratos looked at the little rodent for a while before nodding. Mimir opened his mouth slightly before closing it back. He somehow held back his laugh and his thoughts.
And what were his thoughts? Well, something along the lines: "Kratos? Trust? Hah! If he didn't say a word, it's not 'cause he's placated—it's 'cause he gives not a single toss what schemes yer spinnin' behind the curtains. If anything, he's likely more annoyed with himself for not tearin' that great metal brute apart quicker than he did."
But of course, Mimir can't say this out loud, can he? But Nezu took Kratos' silence and 'changing expression' from Mimir as them accepting his words. He continued with more fervor in his speech:
"So, since that day I had been looking for a perfect time to tell you about my plans. And today, I finally got that chance so here we are. So, let me start explaining."
"As we had discussed that day, we cannot let any other soul in this world know about your otherworldly origin. But that poses a serious challenge due to the fact that you have already been exposed to countless eyes on the day you landed in this realm."
"Your display of powers can easily be scrutinized from the widely circulating video of yours. And we don't know how long you would have to live in this world before we can find a way to send you back to yours. So, till then, you would need a legal identity to stay here without anyone doubting your origins."
Nezu slowly walked towards the sofa opposite Kratos while he gently continued with a cold calculating glint in his eyes, "I was actually not sure how I would do that until I realized how popular your video got on the internet."
"Since popularity can be the reason people might get doubtful, why don't we use the same thing to build a legit identity?"
Mimir's eyes shone brightly as he exclaimed, "Ahhh, so that's why ye had Toshinori makin' the rounds, spinnin' tales about our 'origins' and old adventures with All Might, eh? By the gods, it all clicks now. I may be the smartest man alive, but when it comes to cold, calculated schemin'? I might just have to tip the ol' head in respect—if I still had a bloody neck to do it with, of course."
Mimir's words caused Nezu to chuckle lightly before he sat on the sofa, staring directly at Kratos now. He said, "We chose the place of origin to be somewhere you can't really be traced back to. And luckily, on the other side of the world, there is indeed one such place. There is a country in the European region, where there are still many who like to live in the forest, create villages and live a life of hunter and gatherers. They are not a majority but believe me when I say that they are a very powerful bunch of Quirk users."
(A.N: Before anyone says anything, I created this place myself. It's not canon.)
"Any obstruction by the government or anyone is met with severe backlash, so the government of that region has stopped caring altogether. It's like a world within a world. They follow their own rules, have their currency, and vice versa. And since Kratos did say that he is also from around the same region in his world, it's easier to use that as a cover for him."
"And Kratos has a lot of matching features like people living in that region, so any sort of doubt on his looks will die down as soon as it might be raised. So, this solves our problem of an identity from this world."
"Then came the next problem. Kratos' power and him being able to use them in this world. As you are already familiar with how this works, you know that using any Quirk that can endanger any civilian in public is strictly prohibited and illegal.And to do that, Kratos needs to have a Hero Association Certificate. But you're neither of school age nor a resident here. You cannot apply unless the governing authorities know who you are—and we can't reveal your origins."
"And this would be the hardest thing to accomplish, but not impossible. We can partially implement this using Toshinori's reputation. A person highly vouched for by the strongest hero in the country? That essentially establishes a highly positive opinion among the general public about you. The next phase of the plan was straightforward. You just had to appear before the public a couple of times, doing some heroic acts."
"Nothing too major, of course. You would act together with other teachers so that they can always vouch for your usage of your 'Quirk' and slowly build your reputation. I said earlier that having eyes on you all the time is bad, right? But with this plan, having a lot of eyes on you would do the exact opposite."
Nezu stood up from the sofa and walked to a display shelf, where video recordings shimmered on a holo-screen. "And also, because of the footage of you defeating Rauk when you first arrived, you're already in the public eye. We can't withdraw you now—it would spark suspicion. Better to shape the narrative than let others speculate."
"So, I was waiting patiently for the perfect time to start implementing this plan." Nezu returned to his desk and leaned forward, voice lowering conspiratorially. "And when the 0-pointer robot went rogue in Battle Arena D, I knew the perfect opportunity had arrived."
"We needed an official apology—proof that our hero instructors can handle any catastrophe. The ideal scenario: you hold off a giant robot with your weapons alone until we join in to finish it. You may use your blades and, if absolutely necessary, the Ice Runic Attack—but nothing more. At most, you'd force the robot into submission instead of destroying it entirely. Less collateral, fewer eyes scrutinizing you right at the beginning of this plan."
He sighed, rubbing his brow. "Alas, plans sometimes go awry, and you ended up dismantling it yourself—without resorting to anything beyond your blades and spear. It was eye-opening. I was astonished, along with every other teacher." Nezu's button-like eyes shimmered with genuine gratitude. "And truly, Kratos, you have my deepest gratitude. You saved those children at the right time."
"Had it been a few more seconds, it could have gone in a completely different direction. The way you dealt with the entire situation just made me realize that defeating villains doesn't have to be all about over-the-top Quirks. And that's when I knew, people would love to see it too. This was the perfect visual for your first full introduction as a teacher of this institution, as well as the first step in our plan."
"And with how well received it was, I would like to believe that things went better than I had anticipated. But keeping you in the dark felt unreasonable to me nonetheless. That's why I had been waiting for the best time to talk to you about all this. I hope you aren't angry with me for keeping these things from you and accept my explanation."
Nezu bowed his head slightly. Kratos remained still, arms folded, absorbing every word. Mimir's Bifrost eyes gleamed. When Nezu finished, he sat back, tail wrapped around his paws. A hush filled the room. At last, Kratos, inclining his head once, offered a silent nod of understanding. Mimir returned the gesture, his Scottish tones soft: "Aye, that'll dae nicely."
In the golden sunlight, Principal Nezu allowed himself a small smile, relieved that his plan—though intricate—had found acceptance in the steadfast warrior before him.
He lightly tapped the desk in front of him before continuing, "Now, let's talk about the Quirk Assessment Test and Bakugo. First, let me be clear. I didn't call you here to reprimand you regarding that. I have already heard everything from Aizawa and I would just like to tell you that this is a school for future Heroes. No one is more special than the others. Everyone gets the same treatment. What you did is what any other teacher would have done."
"I would like to ask you to continue doing what you did. Try not to engage in fights with students if possible, of course. But if it requires, you can use force. And since you already have the experience of training soldiers, I assume it wouldn't be that hard to train a bunch of children."
Kratos' brow twitched—just the faintest tremor, but enough to crack stone in another context.
The well-dressed rodent across from him had just compared training a room full of hormone-fueled, Quirk-wielding teenagers… to molding half-starved Spartan recruits who considered boiled bark a hearty meal.
Kratos inhaled slowly. Very slowly. The kind of breath that usually came before a Draugr lost its jaw.
The table creaked beneath his hand—but he held. No smashed furniture today. Just a low, guttural grunt. The kind that said: If I start explaining the difference, this room won't survive it.
He didn't speak. He didn't need to.
And Mimir? Mimir wisely said nothing either—but you could practically hear his trembling breath on the table.