Ryuuto smiled like a cat that had just knocked over a priceless vase. Susan's cheeks turned the exact color of embarrassed dawn. "It's midnight," she whispered. "Where are we supposed to celebrate? If we want a proper party, everyone will be there tomorrow."
"I don't care about tomorrow," Ryuuto said, teasing. "I just want to celebrate with you two."
Susan blinked. "Two?"
Ryuuto's grin widened. "You and me. Katie's asleep." (Katie Dee—still out cold from the earlier chaos.) He cupped Susan's face and asked softly, the kind of question that made her melt and panic at the same time: "Does it still hurt?"
The three words sent Susan red straight through her shoulders to her ears. The memory of noon flashed—pain, breathless panic, and the ridiculous, awful intimacy of being saved and violated at once. She fumbled for an answer, found none, and hid her face.
"You're a shy rose," Ryuuto said, half-ridiculous, half-sincere. "Quiet and beautiful. I like you just like this."
Susan's voice was tiny. "It's still painful. If—if we do this, be very, very gentle."
Ryuuto didn't want to hurt her either. But he also didn't waste chances. He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her like he meant it.
Then, because being romantic in a bed with a roommate sleeping across the hall sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, Ryuuto did what only a man with his skillset would do: he grabbed Susan and, using Light-and-Heavy Rock Technique, launched them out the window and up into the quiet sky.
Susan hovered on an invisible safety field—created by her own power—lying on it as if it were a cloud. Below them the town lights twinkled; above, the moon was a white coin. Ryuuto and Susan did the things people read about and never experience. The world felt absurdly small under the two of them, and for a while everything was only the moon, the stars, and the soft thud of two hearts.
Later they lay in silence, counting stars until the wind got chilly and they had to admit the obvious: force fields don't keep you warm. Back at the villa they dressed and said good night. Ryuuto kissed Susan again, whispered something awkward that made her laugh, and slipped into the next room.
Morning came. They boarded the school ship and returned to Xville. For Ryuuto, the world should have settled—Abomination was gone, one major threat neutralized. He was planning to rest. That plan lasted exactly a week.
A week later, in a different part of New York, Jane Foster was hunched over a computer reading abnormal celestial movements and sipping bad coffee. A thunderclap from the backyard made her drop the cup (which she muffled with a curse). Thor had landed, casual and furious, singed vegetables and all.
Thor punched a hole in the wall for emphasis. "My brother Loki is dead," he rumbled. "A mutant killed him."
Jane—who had seen gods and doing physics experiments in the same week and had developed mild opinion fatigue—rolled her eyes. "Loki was trouble for the planet," she said. "Lots of people feel safer without him."
Thor's jaw tightened. "He's my brother."
"Not really," Jane said. "He comes from Jotunheim. He's not exactly family in the moral sense."
Thor wasn't mollified. He paced. "Odin won't act. He refuses to set troops loose. So I will. I will find allies and hunt that Ryuuto myself."
Jane watched him go, a little wary. The gods were quick to anger and longer on action than sense. If Thor decided Ryuuto was a target, trouble would come with thunderclaps and a hammer.
Ryuuto, meanwhile, was trying to sleep and failing spectacularly—because in this world, peace never stays long and the gods never forget a slight.