Heimdall’s gaze focused in, on an area near the edge of Asgard’s landmass. He thought he heard voices from that area which was rarely used. But after he scanned the whole area and the surrounding land closer to the city he found no one. Nor did he find footprints or any type of disturbance in the area. Heimdall frowned slightly as he opened his eyes, he was positive he heard someone speaking… Midgardian? Heimdall closed his eyes again and focused completely on Asgard and its surrounding land, he wanted to make sure no one had come unannounced to the kingdom he swore to protect.

Minato, unaware someone powerful was looking for him and the others, arrived at the outer wall of the city and carefully checked around the area. After half an hour and not finding anything that looked like security. Minato quickly scaled the wall and reached the other side.

He was greeted with a single building, next to an open space that looked like it was used for training. The first thing he did was head towards a small building off to the side and snuck inside it.

Inside he found a large stash of training weapons and not much else. So he quickly left the area and moved towards the city itself.

Minato decided to take it slowly and hid in a few areas with a lot of traffic. His goal was to eavesdrop on as many people as possible and hopefully find out some useful information.

Minato took his time as he spied on the people of Asgard and he ended up disappointed. It was like spying on normal civilians. There were no real secrets to find here, just gossip. Still Minato snuck around the city as he waited for night to fall over Asgard.

He planned to make a move on the palace and the library when the least amount of people would be wandering around. Since he had time to waste, Minato went around and memorized the layout of the city, since it would be useful in the future.

Time passed by as Minato moved throughout the city undetected. He even shadowed a few guard patrols and found where the different guard stations were throughout the city. Useful information if Asgard ever became their enemy.

Overall Minato was disappointed in what he found in the city. The security was lacking everywhere and the guards didn't seem to be doing a proper job. Their patrols were lax and they barely looked around as they casually talked with each other. While the gate guards seemed to be more for decoration than anything else.

Honestly the whole place was a joke to him. He expected more from one of the most feared kingdoms in the universe. But instead they acted like no one would dare to attack them, as if their reputation would ward off attackers. Minato shook his head at how laughable it was, Konohagakure was considered the strongest village in his world and that never stopped people from attacking it. If anything it encouraged people to attack it.

Minato was also confused over why they didn't integrate technology into their gear. He found their lack of technology after he snuck into a guard station and went through their weapon and supply racks which weren't locked or secured in any way at all. They were just out in the open for anyone to grab. He knew Asgard was an advanced race and could travel the universe with ease, but not integrating technology into everything seemed stupid to him.

Sure they had very complex and advanced magic, which was integrated into what they used as far as he could tell. But why not add technology into the mix as well? It was something Tobirama and others were currently working on to help improve the equipment they already used. Even a few of the prototype weapons that were being worked on were more powerful than the spears the guards seemed to carry around. 

Minato shook his head to clear it, he didn't need to worry about Asgard and its seemingly abysmal defenses. Or its complete lack of using technology for its own benefit. He would let Theo know about it and from there it was Theo’s problem to deal with.

Once night finally fell over the city. The golden glow of the sun was replaced with what looked like the glow from magical lights and the heat from wood fueled fires. Minato hung out around the city for a while longer before he finally moved towards the palace.

The golden palace was easily the biggest building Minato had ever seen. He might have seen some that were taller, but for overall size. This one easily took first place, plus it seemed to be made completely out of gold. While very impressive to look at, it seemed dumb if Minato was being honest. Gold might be valuable but it was one of the softest metals out there, how was it meant to protect against attacks?

As Minato approached a side entrance to the palace, which he found earlier in the day, he double checked the area before he slipped past the guards on duty. Who seemed to be playing some type of card game and never even bothered to look around once as he moved past them.

Inside he was greeted by massive halls lined with intricate columns and shadowy alcoves. He couldn't ask for a better place to move undetected if he tried. During the day it might have been more well lit, but at night only the middle of the hallway received direct lighting from magical lights hanging from the middle of the ceiling.

Minato slowly made his way through the hallways, checking every room he passed by. Most of them seemed to be guest rooms, which might explain the overly lax security in the area. The few non guest rooms he found were either for guards or used as storage. He checked a few of them completely, but when he found nothing important, he decided to stop and focused on making it to the library instead.

It took him about an hour to check all the rooms in that area before he came to another guard station. This time the guards were paying attention to the surrounding area, but were also holding a conversation about what they would do after their shift ended. Which turned out to be drinking at a mead hall in town.

Minato shook his head as he snuck past the guards using the shadows. He moved deeper into the palace this time and was extra careful as he checked rooms. Since he ran into a few patrolling guards in this new area within a few minutes of arriving.

This wing of the palace seemed to be the living quarters for some of the court officials. Apparently there was more than just a king in this Asgard. Minato didn't stay in the area long and moved into another area of the palace with less active guards.

The new wing seemed to be what he was looking for, since it only had a few sets of double doors. The first set of doors he opened up to explore, turned out to be a massive meeting chamber. It was currently empty and dimly lit. In the middle of the room was a large table, currently cleaned up and ready for use.

Minato found a couple sets of doors that led elsewhere out of the room and checked each of those carefully. Each one opened up to different areas of the palace. One of them was a kitchen area, while the other seemed to be for the royal family as it was jam packed with guard patrols.

Minato cautiously headed back out to the other hallway and decided to explore the other areas later. After checking a couple other rooms, he came to what he assumed was the library. The room was filled with bookshelves and was slightly better lit than the hallways. But the large vaulted ceilings, columns and tall bookshelves gave him plenty of places to hide in the shadows.

Before he started to look for information, he moved to double check the library. He wanted to see if the other clones made it and to make sure the place was empty of other people.

From the top of the bookshelves, Minato slowly made his way through the library. He scanned row after row of books, taking note of where things were. While also making sure no one else was there. He easily noticed Tobirama, Hiruzen and Sakumo after a few moments as he moved near the center of the room.

They were gathered near the center of the library and seemed to be watching someone. Minato moved closer and just as he reached the same area he stopped moving. Something felt off to him.

He double checked his surroundings but couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. He glanced back over at the person seated on the far side of a table from the bookshelves he was hiding on and took a closer look at them.

It was a beautiful woman, with healthy lightly tanned skin. Her dirty blonde hair was tied up in an intricate bun type pattern, which ended in a braid over her left shoulder that framed her gorgeous face. While her bright blue eyes were currently focused on a book in front of her.

As Minato watched the woman, she said, “Come out, I know you're there.”

All of the clones froze in place and didn’t move as the woman looked up from her book in Minato’s direction. The woman stared in his direction for a few more moments before a man seemed to appear out of thin air.

He was a tall, pale skinned man with raven black hair. He wore a fancy green outfit with highlights of gold. He smiled at the woman and said, “It seems my skills still need work, I still can’t hide from you properly mother.”

The woman smiled brightly as she said, “Your skills are exceptional Loki. But a son can never truly hide from their mothers gaze.”

Loki nodded slightly as he said, “You did train me after all, so I guess you’d always be able to find me.”

“That’s also true… So why did you come to find me? Do you want to study with me?”

Loki shook his head and said, “I came to get you, it’s almost dinner time.”

Frigga smiled again as she said, “Such a caring child, what did I do to have such a lovely boy as you?”

Loki didn’t reply as Frigga stood up from her chair and moved towards him. When she reached him, she extended her elbow for his arm. After he slipped his arm around her elbow she said, “Please, lead the way.”

After a few minutes the only people in the room were the clones. Minato moved next to the other clones and said, “That was close.”

Tobirama nodded as he said, “I honestly thought she found you for a moment.”

The others nodded in agreement before Sakumo said, “How about I watch over the door while the rest of you search. In case she comes back after dinner.”

The others agreed and Sakumo moved to watch the door as the others moved to search through the library. Luckily no one else came back into the library for the night and they were easily able to find all the information they needed. It did take them most of the night though. While they had a decent idea on how to read the Asgardian language, it took a while.

Once they completed their task, they split up again and moved out of the palace. Since they weren’t exploring the place and it was still dark outside, it only took them twenty minutes to make it back to their extraction point. Once there, Sakumo dispelled himself so Theo could let Tao know they needed a pickup.

They all could have dispelled to save time, but this way they would be able to copy the information down once they were back at Theo’s base. After about twenty minutes a portal opened up and all of the clones moved through it before it snapped closed behind them.

Once back at Theo’s personal base, Minato, Tobirama and Hiruzen worked for hours to copy down all the information they found. Besides history they also collected other information like the location of planets, powerful factions in the universe and anything else that seemed slightly important. 

Overall it was a decent amount of intelligence they collected. Now Theo would have to work on the next step, cloning a new body for the leader of the valkyries and seeing if she would want to join his faction with her army…

vvvvv

Heimdall spent a full day and night with his senses completely focused on Asgard and found nothing. But he still sent a report in to have guards check out the area he heard the voices at the night before. Within an hour a squad used for tracking was in the area and searched the whole place, but they also found nothing. Heimdall couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was there last night, but with nothing to go on he had to let the matter drop.