"Hey, Yato! You in for karaoke?"
"Nah, I've got work. Not to mention a hot date with those new 4-cheese melty buns at FamiMart," Yato grinned.
"You're gonna eat yourself into an early grave dude..."
"I plan to!"
Slipping on his outdoor shoes, Yato waved off his classmates, then headed out alone.
That was a lie: he had today off from his many part-time jobs, and no real plans (the cheese buns did sound good, though). It's not that he didn't get along with his classmates, or disliked any of them in particular; he just had a special gift for feeling completely alone even within a crowd of people, and couldn't be bothered denying it.
He had some—alright a close friend, Masaomi, but he was off at college now, kicking and screaming his way through a medical degree at his parents' insistence. So for now, Yato turned toward the city library, ready to seize this moment to get some solo studying done.
He'd gotten nearly there when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something odd. A girl dressed in traditional clothes: she almost looked like a Meiji schoolgirl, or like she was dressed up for graduation, in her black hakama and lace-up boots. But neither her hakama nor light-blue kimono had any patterning, and it was about six months too early for graduation. Some kind of martial artist, maybe?
He whipped his head around to get a better look, and their eyes met briefly. She turned away quickly, but not before he got a glimpse of what looked like horrible bruising down the left side of her face and neck. She seemed to be limping as she hurried away, too.
"Hey!"
She just walked faster. But he couldn't let her go just like that: she did not look okay. If he could convince her to come with him to the hospital and have Dr. Iki take a look at her...
"Hey! Wait!"
She vaulted over the barrier between the sidewalk and the street, clutching something—was that a cat?—to her chest as she ran. Yato saw what was going to happen before it did.
He started running, too, and pushed her out of the way of the oncoming bus just in time. They both hit the pavement of the opposite sidewalk. Hard. The cat took advantage of the confusion to liberate itself and make a dash for the nearest alley.
"Milord! Milord, no!" the girl shouted nonsensically.
What is wrong with her?
"What the hell was that about?" This time, it was Yato shouting: "What happened to you?"
"More importantly, um..." the girl said, pointing toward the street.
Not to be deterred from his tirade, Yato continued ranting while turning his gaze in the direction she indicated: "You need medical attention! And why is that cat so ugl—"
Which is when he saw his own body collapsed in the street, and everything went black.
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"Yato."
Opening his eyes, he at first saw only the sterile hospital ceiling, awash in the colors of sunset, but after a moment located the small figure peering over the side of his bed.
"Father has arranged your early release. The doctors insist they need to examine you while you're awake for any head trauma, but once that's over he says you are to come home immediately."
Hiiro.
"What happened?"
"You got hit by a bus. Witnesses said you were chasing a cat. Don't fall back to sleep; Father will be angry if you're late."
With that, she dropped a small plastic bag in his lap and left, gently closing the door. He stared after her, but her expression never once changed. As usual. He belatedly turned his gaze to the bag.
A 4-cheese melty bun...
Well, their dear father clearly had no intention of paying for an overnight hospital stay, so it would be best to look alive for the doctors when they came. He felt tired enough to sleep for another dozen or so hours, but there was nothing for it but to try to sit up.
"Ugh..."
"Are you alright?" The words were accompanied by a delicate hand on his back, helping him upright.
"Holyshitwhathe—"
"I'm glad you're awake."
Well I sure am now, he thought, though he felt his ire at being momentarily terrified out of his mind fading fast as he took in her genuinely relieved expression.
"You're that girl!" he said intelligently. A very pretty girl, too, without the bruises.
How did they heal that fast? He stared intently. Seeing her more closely now, she seemed to be even a little younger than him. It was hard to tell without a school uniform to go by.
"Yes," she replied. "I've been waiting to see if you'd wake up. The doctors said you would be fine—'miraculously unharmed,' even—but I couldn't help but worry, especially after the soul thing. But it looks like you'll be alright now."
"Soul thing? What?" His side of this conversation was going well. Maybe he did have head trauma.
"If you don't remember, it's just as well. You're better off not getting involved with This Side. Speaking of which, I had better go," she said, abruptly making for the window (window?)
"Wait! What's your name?" She owed him a proper introduction at least, right?
She turned.
"Hiyori."
"Hiyori what?"
"Just Hiyori."
"Alright. Well, I'm 'just Yato' then."
"Yato. You didn't need to save me from that bus, but still...thank you," she smiled.
Like the sun breaking through the clouds.
And she was gone.
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Yato gingerly pushed open the front door. Father would be home tonight, since he'd clearly heard about the accident, but maybe he would already be asleep and he could go to bed without any further weirdness.
"Yaaaboku."
No such luck.
"I knew you were in a rebellious phase, but jumping in front of a bus? I don't care how cute the cat was, you need to quit this 'playing the hero' thing. I told you the same with Mizuchi, right? You're just average. Stop trying to change that; you'll make yourself miserable, you know?"
"It was a hideous cat. And I wasn't saving it, I was saving the girl."
"Girl?"
"The girl holding the cat," Yato sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly.
"No one saw any girl, Yaboku."
"Whatever you say. I'm going to bed."
Yato briefly pondered checking in on Hiiro, but there was hardly any point in that, and besides, he was exhausted. Not to mention he'd lost an evening of studying that he'd have to make up for tomorrow, he remembered nervously as he quickly changed into pajamas and all but fell into bed. He couldn't afford to do poorly on his college entrance exams.
Then I can get out of here...and then...
He rolled over, and his mind wandered back to the events of the day.
"No one saw any girl, Yaboku." Hiiro said the same thing: everyone saw me chasing a cat. But she was definitely there. Right?
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"Hey Yato, I heard you got hit by a bus and weren't even hurt! Cool!"
"Did you bounce back like Luffy in One Piece?!"
"Do you want to copy my homework?"
"Oh god, no, Fujisaki. Besides, I did it myself this morning."
Yato found himself the center of attention the next day, which was exhausting. His fatigue from yesterday still hadn't faded, either, so by second period it was all he could do to stay awake. In third period he resorted to periodically jabbing himself with his pencil to keep from nodding off.
His thoughts also kept drifting back to...Hiyori; he kept forgetting her name, so he had written it down just in case. He had to know whether she was real, or if he should check himself back into the hospital and ask them to examine his head again. He didn't think he was creative enough to invent multiple interactions with the same strange person even if he did have brain damage, but it still bothered him. Plus those bruises...was she really ok? He had to find her.
He pondered how to do that as he packed up his books, as he walked to work, and all throughout his two-hour shift at Baskin Robbins, but by the time he headed home he still had no idea where to look. Massaging his poor, abused ice cream-scooping arm, he turned a corner and spotted something he'd completely forgotten about.
The fugly cat!
She'd wanted that cat pretty badly for some reason; maybe if he could catch it, she would come find him. Alas, it didn't seem to respond to his cries of "hey ugly, wait up," so all he could do was give chase.
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Fifteen minutes of running through the city later, a wheezing Yato was reconsidering his life choices when he smacked headlong into someone walking the other direction, causing both of them to hit the pavement (again).
"You again...what are you doing?" groaned Hiyori.
"Trying to catch that ugly furball you were looking for, that's what!" retorted Yato.
"His name is Milord, ok? And I think he's kinda cute, actually." She scooped up Milord, who had oddly come to a screeching halt just where they had collided.
"Oh, now he stops. Well isn't that just gr—"
Seeing the expression on Yato's face as he looked behind her, Hiyori quickly turned. Just as quickly, she jumped up, pulled Yato to his feet, and started running, dragging him along with her.
"What is that thing!? A toad? A giant purple murder-toad!?"
"An ayakashi. It likes to eat gods like me."
"Gods like you?"
"Pretty much. So here's what's going to happen. I'll buy time; you take Milord and run. Got it? Good!" she yelled, swinging around so that he was behind her, and tossing the cat at his face.
"Wai—what!?" said Yato, fumbling to catch Milord before he lost an eye. Hiyori didn't hear him, though: she had already begun charging in the opposite direction. Jumping into the air, she landed on the ayakashi's head, then flipped over backward toward the ground, kicking it square in the jaw with the heel of her boot on the way down. The ayakashi flew back several meters, hitting a concrete wall at the end of the street. Hiyori turned back to Yato, who remained in place, staring open-mouthed at her.
"GO!"
"That was amazing! Can you kill that thing?"
"No! That's why I'm telling you to get out of here!"
The ayakashi righted itself and began charging back their way, weaving slightly but otherwise seemingly unharmed. It shot out an unbelievably long tongue, catching Hiyori around the ankles. She screamed, tearing at the appendage as it lifted her off the ground.
Yato looked around frantically for something, anything that seemed like it could work against a huge...whatever it was. To his left was a row of houses, one bearing an "under construction" sign, and to his right, the neighborhood vegetable fields. Shoving Milord into his schoolbag, he made a mad dash to the left, vaulting over the shoddily constructed fence. When he emerged, he was holding a cast-iron pipe.
"What are you doing!?" yelled Hiyori, having just noticed that Yato was still there.
"Well I can't just leave you like this!"
"I think you'll find that you can!"
Ignoring her, Yato aimed for what seemed like a likely spot—though to be honest the entire tongue looked pretty much the same to him—and swung the pipe down on it. The ayakashi loosened its grip, giving Hiyori the chance to slip out of its hold. She dived toward it, screaming "Jungle Savate!" and kicked it sideways out into the vegetable field. It stopped moving, apparently knocked out for the moment.
"Ah, that's a great move," she said appreciatively, before grabbing Yato's hand to make another run for it. It was then that she noticed.
"Oh, no."
"What?"
"It seems that I spoke too soon when I said that you'd be ok," she sighed, pointing at the ground where Yato's body was once again lying.
"What the!? Did I die? I don't feel like I died!" Yato patted himself down frantically, as if to prove to himself that he was solid. "Oh my god I have a tail why do I have a tail are tails like a ghost thing holy shi—"
Hiyori interrupted. "You're not dead, just sleeping. But your soul has become able to slip in and out of your body..."
At which point, Yato fainted again, his soul falling back into his corporeal vessel.
"...like so."
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When Yato awakened to unfamiliar scenery for the second time in as many days, he found himself enveloped in a lovely scent that he couldn't quite place. He also realized he was being carried, and was surprised to see Hiyori's small frame supporting him.
"Wow, you can carry me? You're, like, freakishly strong!"
She dropped him like a rock and spun around, blushing furiously.
"If you had run when I told you to, I wouldn't have had to!"
"You know I couldn't have just left you. Would you have, in my place?"
Hiyori looked away, and was silent.
"Look, just what happened to me anyway? You seem to know."
"I have a general idea. It was probably the accident that caused it..." she said, rubbing her temples, "Regardless, your soul is now able to move independently outside of your body. And judging by your reaction the two times I've seen it happen, you don't seem to be able to control when your body will fall asleep and your soul will slip out. It's not a good situation: in this form, ayakashi will target you, and you have no means to defend yourself."
"And I'll keep falling asleep at random times?"
"Well that too, yes."
"I can't do that! I have exams! And jobs!"
"...do you even care about the 'getting eaten' thing?"
"I guess."
Hiyori suppressed the urge to deck him.
"Anyway, you said you were a god back there, right? So you can fix this! Fix it, okay?"
"Honestly, I'm not sure I can. Gods aren't all-knowing and all-powerful. And I'm one of the least useful of them all. I'm basically nobody," Hiyori said, unhappily.
"Well, you're the only god I know, so you have to fix me. Pleeease?" begged Yato, making his best puppy-dog eyes. (Which was more unnerving than endearing, but she nevertheless recognized the truth in his statement. And wasn't it her fault he was in this situation to begin with?)
"I wish I could. I truly do." She looked like she was about to cry. "The best I can say is that I'll try. I'll try everything I can."
"That's good enough for me!" Yato grinned. "So what now, do I like sacrifice a cow to you or something?"
"No!" exclaimed Hiyori, recoiling. "You don't have to do anything, really. This is my fault in the first place."
"But I want to do this properly!" whined Yato.
"Alright, then," she sighed. "Give me 5 yen, and tell me your wish."
Yato scooped Milord out of his bag and handed him to Hiyori, then searched around in it for a few seconds.
"Ah, here we are! Ok," he said, pushing the coin into Hiyori's cat-free hand, "I wish for you to find a way to put me back to normal!"
They faced one another on the deserted bridge, illuminated in myriad colors by the city lights. With what was either resignation or determination, Hiyori took a deep breath. It occurred to Yato that this was the first time she'd held his gaze.
"Your wish has been heard loud and clear."
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A/N: This was written for mothernatureknows on tumblr, who wanted to see Yato and Hiyori with their roles switched. "Megami" is a Japanese word for "goddess," thus the title.
It's a concept that's mentioned not infrequently in this fandom, at least in an offhand way, and the more I think about it, the more interesting it is. What kind of goddess would Hiyori be? What relationships would she have with the other gods? How would Yato and Yukine relate to each other without the master/shinki connection? I spent a lot of time answering these questions for myself, and I was kinda bummed that I was able to fit so little of what I imagined in this as a one-shot, so I'd like to keep going with it.
It's difficult to make Yato and Hiyo reflect their backstories as well as maintain their characterization from the canon...just know that I'm trying.
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