It was a grudging respect.
Their only interaction in the past centuries had been filled with searing hatred and a thirst for vengeance on her end, and frustration and defensive retaliation on his. A blood feud that withstood the test of time. It was as if they were destined to only be the bitterest of enemies since that day he slew her family in front of her indigo eyes. It was written in the blood of her obliterated regalia, the fates of the doomed Ma clan.
She would die before she let him go for his unforgiveable deeds. The blood of her precious children was on his hands. And the blood of more would surely coat his hands again. He was a god of calamity after all. His very birth, the reason for his existence, was to acquiesce to the evil. His purpose was to water the earth with lifeblood and feed the scavengers with viscera. Nothing about that would change. And nothing about her hatred would, either.
Hundreds of years of clashing and anger and fury.
All of it wound up finding itself balanced precariously on the edges of a pair of silver blades, one of which was millimeters from her gasping throat.
She had fallen. Tears spilled from her bloodshot and tired eyes. She couldn't save them. Her children were dying, he was killing them again, and she couldn't save them. Even now, she felt their names disappearing one by one and each was like a red-hot iron pressing into her skin, completely drowning out the pain of her growing Blight.
But then the blade was gone and her rage was back and she was beyond reason. Everything was foggy in her mind, not even the voice of the one dearest to her could pierce it. She hefted Saiki in both hands, unable to hear the Regalia's cries for release. Arms trembling, she swung. It didn't matter if she was on death's doorstep.
If she killed him, he wouldn't kill anyone else. If she killed him, her children would come back. If she killed him, everyone would be safe. She had to kill him. She needed to kill him.
She wanted to kill him.
KILL HIM.
It was only when her Blessed Regalia took the strike instead of him, that the fog was finally lifted. And as her beloved hafuri embraced her, blight and all, and confessed what had really happened to the Ma clan, all she could do was cling to him and break.
Her sobs wracked through her, mourning the Ma clan. Mourning most of the Ha clan. And regretting the decision to ever have sent Kazuma from her side.
And as she stood after Unnaming Kuguha, tears still shining on her blight-bruised face, she stood tall.
"I'm through running," she had told him. And she was. She had to be.
The rest of the Ha clan depended on her.
And so it was that amidst the hatred and anger that had grown unfettered for centuries blossomed a tiny shred of gratitude and respect.
She owed her life to him twice over, whether she liked it or not. She would not forget it.
And though she'd hoped that had been the last of their encounters, fate had other plans in store.
Her lip had curled in thinly-veiled irritation when he'd somehow gotten a shrine and staked a laughably tiny plot of land beside hers in the Heavens. Just because he'd saved her didn't mean she liked him by any stretch of the imagination. Hundreds of years of single-minded hatred didn't fall away so easily.
And then things began to move faster. The Council, the masks, the Ayakashi, the accusation of the Seven Gods of Fortune. Outrage spread through her at the thought of being held without Regalia for days on end. And moreover, the blame was pointed on Ebisu. Ebisu!
The god of Commerce and Fishing was perhaps reclusive at times and fell ill fairly often, but to accuse one their own was downright treasonous. When an execution was announced, rage flickered through her, fed by the fact that the gods were all but held hostage at the Council until it was carried out.
As if she would let that stop her.
And when she arrived on the outskirts of Underworld, she stood against the Heavens themselves and Kazuma worked in tandem with Kinuha to strike at the powerful Thunder Blade Regalia, the Yellow Cloud, wiping the smug smirk off of Takemikazuchi's veiled face. But it wasn't enough.
Who knew gods sent by the Heavens were willing to destroy an innocent girl just so they could deal a lethal blow to an innocent god?
She saw his terrified, desperate eyes before he was destroyed in her arms. Suddenly it didn't matter if gods reincarnated, because each reincarnation was their own person, and her friend was never coming back. She'd never see the eyes of the person she knew again.
"I don't want to die!"
Between her anguish and her anger and her determination to live, she wasn't sure if she was descending into the Underworld to repay her debt to Yato or her final respects for Ebisu. And as they struggled for their lives against Izanami's ensnarement and army of the dead, she saw his utter disgust for the idea that she might view her lives as expendable.
When he awoke after they had been rescued from Izanami's insane clutches, he'd asked for Ebisu, and she saw something in his icy eyes shatter when a small boy was ushered forward to meet him for the first time. But despite the pain, he ended up befriending Ebisu's reincarnation. And despite all her lingering dislike towards the god of Calamity, she came to wonder how a god of Calamity came to rescue and value lives instead of claim them.
That hint of grudging respect grew.
And it continued. He was trying to become, of all things, a god of Fortune. Slaying Ayakashi without being asked or paid. Kazuma told her of how Yukine, his own Blessed Regalia, had made an oath of sorts to never kill anything besides the Phantoms.
During the storm, the terrible storm that took place in the hospital that belonged to Iki Hiyori's parents, he took care not to kill the humans that were possessed, his Hafuri only taking out the Phantoms with incredible precision. And though it was clear he was hiding something, he fought in his own way against the Sorcerer.
He'd come to her when she asked for advice. A topic she couldn't even trust herself to asking her guidepost, her Blessed Regalia about. A god's Greatest Secret.
Tsuguha was ill. Going on about strange dreams of people and houses and falling black shapes. She was normal and cheerful at times, but oddly unresponsive at others. She slept and slept and slept, and sometimes when she looked at her, the Regalia's eyes were distant and filled with sadness and fear. Her name was cracked, like it was crumbling apart.
She felt her fear.
So she'd asked him for help. Because he knew what the Sorcerer was capable of. He told her to Unname her.
She'd hit him then, her eyes blazing indignantly. She'd yelled at him. Her child was already hurting, she couldn't cast her away when she needed her the most. Tsuguha was suffering. What sort of god would throw away their Shinki when they were in such distress?
She had told him to leave and he did. She didn't listen to his advice. She wished she had.
So much pain and fear and regret followed her inaction.
Her name had shattered like a dropped glass. Tsuguha remembered her name and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She watched as yet again, her dear Shinki swelled into a monster, unable to return. Her Hafuri was there, and in an instant, Tsuguha was rent in two. And then she was gone.
He'd only told her the way to save yet another life. But she decided that there had to have been another way.
Had she known, she would have listened. In the future, she would not make the same mistake again. He'd saved her twice, and she could have saved Tsuguha if she hadn't been so stubborn. She owed him that much.
Centuries of hatred and anger didn't fall away so easily. But the one who had once been a god of Calamity had earned her grudging respect. Gods could change, it seemed, and time had changed them both.
So they strode forward to face other threats, enemies no longer.
(~)
A fanfiction that isn't about the Pokemon Universe? SCANDALOUS.
But Noragami has me in its clutches and I love every single one of my precious children. ;v;
I will likely do more Noragami fanfiction in the future, I love the characters and their development arcs far too much not to.
-Akira