A newcomer arrives in Nightvale, hands grasping and groping for the sky appear in the place of sidewalk all over town, a look at the community calander, and the new dog park opens at last!

Today's weather is Noragami by Adachitouka!


Yato scrolled through his phone as he walked down the street, looking over the outline for today's broadcast when something caught his eye. Someone caught his eye. Someone beautiful, and perfect, not to mention someone new. There was never anyone new in Nightvale because things being new would indicate the passage of time, and Yato did not believe in time, and yet there was someone new and perfect coming out of the Joann's fabrics store across the road, looking confused, and holding his freshly purchased falconry gear.

Yato experienced a strange phenomenon where he could not move from his spot, he looked down to see if he'd accidentally walked into one of the patches of sidewalk that had turned into a collection of grasping and clawing hands reaching as if from the depths of hell that had been appearing all over town to drag innocent townspeople into the abyss, or wherever grasping and clawing hands that appeared where there should be sidewalk took people. It was strange, he'd never been affixed to a particular spot on the sidewalk before. Was he being held in place by the Faceless Old Woman Who Lives Secretly in Your Home? He didn't feel like he was being held in place.

His eyes turned back to the new and perfect man who was now waiting for the crosswalk to change from FLEE to HIDE wearing the most beautiful befuddled expression Yato had ever seen. Was this new person perhaps the cause of Yato's mysterious stagnation? Perhaps this new man was a blood witch who had cast a spell on him with his enchanting beauty, and it was all part of an elaborate assassination attempt plotted by his enemies.

No, that didn't make any sense, most of his enemies were members of the shadow cult, and they hated blood witches, and would probably never hire one to try to kill Yato, so what was going on? As Yato watched the man turned his green eyes onto Yato and he blushed profusely, and suddenly realized what was wrong. This man had not cast a blood spell upon him, but a regular spell, with nothing more than his perfect face, and perfect hair, and perfect green eyes. Yato smiled at him, and the man smiled back, seeming relieved. With much difficulty Yato pried his feet from the sidewalk and approached the same crosswalk where the man was standing and crossed the road to his side.

"Hi, my name is Yato," He said, extending his hand. The perfect man shuffled his falconry gear around in his arms until he could extend his right hand, and Yato saw Kanji tattooed on the back of his hand.

"I'm Kazuma," the perfect man said. "Could you explain to me the road signs? I'm sorry I'm new to town and don't understand them."

"I saw you looking at them earlier, don't worry it's not that hard to remember. Flee means run because there is an evil force at work nearby and you need to escape before it consumes you and Hide means that they're looking for you and you need to find the nearest manhole cover and cower until they're gone." Kazuma looked slightly concerned.

"Who is they?"

"Oh, you know," Yato replied, gesturing vaguely around. "They."

"So, can I cross the street?"

"Oh, yeah, that's fine." Yato doubled back across the road, walking alongside Kazuma. He was pleased when Kazuma was heading in the same direction as Yato, meaning they still had a chance to talk. "So, you said you were new to town, we don't get a lot of newcomers here in the desert."

"I thought that might be the case, I've been getting weird looks all day. You're actually the first person to smile at me all day, well except for this old woman who was surrounded by all these wolves, I thought they were statues because they were so still, but then she told them to stand and they did all at once, it was kinda freaky. How did she even have all those live wolves in the middle of town?"

"Those aren't wolves," Yato supplied, "they're German Shepherds, but that's a common mistake."

"No, I'm pretty sure they were wolves."

"Nope, they're definitely German Shepherds. She has signed paperwork from the Sheriff's Secret Police."

"The what now?" Kazuma asked, sounding alarmed.

"Oh, don't worry about them, just be careful not to look directly at any of the pale blue helicopters that are definitely not constantly patrolling the Nightvale air space, and don't mention them by name more than once in any conversation or you'll be taken into the secret facility that's not hidden away in the desert for re-education." Yato quirked his head in confusion at the look of sheer terror on Kazuma's face.

"You're kidding me, right?"

"Of course not, I'm Yato, the voice of Nightvale, I pride myself on being a reliable source of information for all Nightvale citizens, which includes you now!" Yato said proudly.

"Um, what do you mean you're 'the voice of Nightvale?'"

"OH! I forgot to mention it, I am the local news broadcaster at the Nightvale Community Radio Station. You should stop by and I'll give you a tour. I could give you a tour of the town too, if you'd like, no one knows Nightvale better than me!" He bragged.

"Oh, I wouldn't want to be an imposition."

"Nonsense, I insist! I feel it's my duty as Nightvale's loyal news broadcaster to make sure our newcomers all feel welcome!"

"But I thought you said I'm the first one in a while?"

"Which is exactly why I'm so excited to finally get to show off my hospitality!"

"Well alright, if you insist."

Just then the two of them came across one of the places where the sidewalk vanished and was replaced by hands that groped and clawed at anything that came close enough. Kazuma let out a hair-raising shriek, which people on the street probably believed was just someone being dragged away to the Sheriff's Secret Police Secret Facility to a fun two weeks of re-education, and therefore ignored it as per the orders of the Sheriff. Yato gave Kazuma a surprised look. Sure, the hands were grotesque and horrifying, but not that horrifying. Hadn't he seen things like this in his hometown?

"Don't worry," Yato said reassuringly, placing a comforting hand on Kazuma's shoulder to prevent him from fleeing. "They won't drag you down unless you let them touch you, it's okay." Yato used his best comforting voice, which for some reason only seemed to make things worse.

"This is a dream, some horrible nightmare. I must have jay walked earlier and gotten hit by a car, and now I'm in a coma and this is my dream."

"Don't be silly, this is reality, well insofar as this is no more likely all a computer simulation than anything else we experience or are programmed to believe we experience. What's so scary about the hands? Haven't you seen any yet? They're popping up all over town. Don't worry, the Secret Police and the City Council will figure out how to fix it, or maybe they'll go away on their own, as these things sometimes do."

Kazuma pinched himself, then winced.

"So, you see them too?" Kazuma asked, still looking frightened.

"Of course, they're right there and I'm not blind."

"I don't understand, why aren't you freaking out?"

"I guess because I knew about them already? They're the third thing on my news docket because they're not particularly frightening or important, but they're on there! These are the first I've seen though, and let me just say, they're even more horrible than I imagine, but that isn't saying much I wasn't terribly impressed with the idea of them."

"You're kidding me right, how are you not freaking out?" Yato shrugged his shoulders.

"They're just not that scary," he replied. Kazuma blinked a few times, looked from Yato to the hands then back to the nonplussed expression on Yato's face, then moved so that Yato was in between him and the grasping hands.

"This is crazy." Yato gave him a weird look. Why was Kazuma reacting like this, didn't unexplained things happen in his home town all the time? They continued walking, quietly for a moment before Kazuma asked another question. "You said you did a radio news show, what's that like?" Yato lit up, he loved talking about work.

"Oh, it's awesome! Mine is the most popular radio show in Nightvale and I get all the breaking news first!"

"Wow that's really cool! What station is it, and when do you broadcast? I should tune in!"

"You should! I'm on station F.M. Seventy-Five doom."

"What?"

"F.M. Seventy-five doom," Yato repeated, slower this time. Kazuma gave him another strange look but didn't say anything.

"What about you, what do you do for a living?" Yato asked.

"Oh, I make jewelry," Kazuma replied. "That's why I went to Joann's, they have some craft supplies, but then one of the sales associates pressured me into buying this falconry gear. I didn't even know Joann's carried falconry gear. Most other stores have mostly fabrics. Is there a Michaels in this town?"

"Oh yeah, it's on the other side of town. The employees of Michaels and Joann's used to get into bloody turf wars in the street, so the Secret Police had to relocate the Michaels. When I take you on the tour of the town remind me to show you where it is! It's next to the burned husk of the God of Poverty Pizzeria!"

"That's good, they have a lot more jewelry making supplies."

"Do you have pictures of the jewelry you make? Maybe I could be your first customer in Nightvale!" Kazuma shifted his bags around and pulled out his phone, then pulled up a few photos. Yato raised his eyebrows at the photo's Kazuma was showing him. The earrings were remarkably devoid of live scorpions or spiders or anything, but Yato smiled politely as to not hurt Kazuma's feelings.

"They're very pretty, I see you like different colors of rocks very much." Kazuma gave him an amused look.

"Thank you."

"Maybe you could make me something."

"I could!" Kazuma smiled at him and Yato smiled back shyly. They reached the station and Yato stopped walking.

"Well this is my stop, I'd invite you in to watch the broadcast, but station management is prone to agonized shrieking when we bring in unexpected guests. Maybe some other time!"

"That sounds like fun, I'd like that."

"You'll have to tell me when you're free, I have to give them a specific date or they might throw you into the break room and lock the interdimensional portal."

"Good to know." They exchanged numbers, so they could set up a time for the tour and Yato entered the station with a spring in his step and whistling merrily. He stopped, of course, when he entered, because it wouldn't do to draw the attention of the Station Management. That was never a good thing.


"The sky shakes as the ground reaches up and tries to drag it down to its level, crushing us all into gooey pools of blood and viscera. It is afraid, we should all be very afraid. Welcome, to Nightvale." Yato pressed the button to play the theme and pulled up his itinerary of important news events he was supposed to discuss on today's show.

"The city council would like to announce the opening of the new dog park we've all been waiting for. They would also like me to remind you all that dogs are not allowed in the dog park. People are not allowed in the dog park. It is possible you will see hooded figures in the dog park, do not approach them. Do not look for any length of time at the dog park or the hooded figures. The dog park will not harm you.

"The second thing on my itinerary is to remind everyone in town that it is illegal to participate in any blood circles. It is also illegal to not participate in blood circles. Do not question the laws, the Sheriff's Secret Police are already coming for you. Remain calm and do not resist.

"That brings us to the third thing on my list, the hands sprouting up from the sidewalk everywhere. Not even twenty minutes ago I had the pleasure of encountering these horrifying patches of hands and let me tell you they are misnamed. They are not just patches of hands, they are patches of hands and arms. They sprouted up from the ground like grotesque little sunflowers writhing and reaching for the sky and latching onto anything that got too close and dragging it down into whatever hell verse they spawned from. How neat!

"But let me tell you this, dear listeners, that was not the most exciting thing about my day. Today I met the most beautiful amazing man I have ever seen, and I think I fell in love. His name is Kazuma and he makes jewelry. Now, some of you might be thinking, there isn't anyone named Kazuma in town because names that don't have the letter O in them are illegal, to which I would remind you that that law was repealed after the Jeremy revolution of two thousand and three when we all got together to fight for our right to name ourselves and our children as we please.

"Some of our younger listeners who were not yet old enough to participate in the fight may be asking, 'Yato, why is it called the Jeremy revolution? Was it started by someone named Jeremy? Shouldn't the name be more inclusive, after all, not everyone who doesn't have an O in their name is named Jeremy.' To those people I would reply, it's just the name we decided on. When we all huddled together in the middle of a brutal desert sand storm in the parking lot of the Yomi Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex we were like 'what do we call our revolution?' and someone was just like 'Jeremy' and at that point all our exposed flesh was bleeding on the count of the raging desert sand storm, so we were like 'okay yeah sure whatever' and that was that.

"Now back to the interesting story: Kazuma. I mentioned earlier that he makes jewelry, but it's not jewelry like you and I know. It is utterly devoid of live snakes, scorpions, or even mice. I know what you're thinking Nightvale, what is even the point of wearing jewelry if you don't hear the sickening screams of the mouse attached to your right ear as it tries desperately, and ultimately fails, to flee as the snake attached to your left ear slowly crawls around your neck and fixes its cold, unblinking gaze on the mouse and then devours it? What's even the use in having my ears pierced if at some point in the day the live animals on my body don't fight it out for their lives loudly, and I don't hear the wet and unsettling sound of fangs sinking into flesh?

"Well, to you I would say, maybe there's room for a new kind of jewelry in Nightvale, the kind that doesn't stain the shirt your best friend got you for Christmas with the blood and viscera of the mouse it just loudly and wryly ate next to your ear. Maybe jewelry can be made of pieces of brightly colored rocks and bits of glass and even metal, and you can wear it more than once. Now, I know not everyone is into that, but it's just something to think about. Ah, now my manager Hiyori is tapping on the glass of the recording booth and looking annoyed. Wait, she's writing something down, and now she's holding up a sign that says: quit talking about your new crush and get on with the community calendar. Right, sorry Hiyori.

"Anyway, the Sheriff's Secret Police last week conducted a raid on Nightvale Elementary where they arrested a ring of Girl Scouts for selling cookies laced with cocaine. When questioned the girls said they did it because they just really wanted to win the bicycle with streamers on the handlebars and hoped that the addictive properties of cocaine would help them sell more cookies. They followed up by saying they weren't sorry and that they would show those girls from troop 194, they. would. show. them. Eventually they had to be released due to lack of evidence because all of the cookies had been consumed by ravenous customers. So, of course I do not condone drug use, but what creative sales tactics, don't you think? The Troop Leader said this would not affect the girl's applications for Fear Scout.

"Now onto the community calendar. Monday there will be regularly scheduled chaos as people take to the streets and wail over the end of the weekend and beginning of the work week while the Sheriff's Secret Police beat the wailing citizen's back into their homes with brooms saying 'back, get back, get outta here you varmint!' but not regular brooms, those push brooms that look kind of like dry erase markers with long bristles on one side. Where do they even get those, is there some weird push broom store that only the Secret Police can enter?

"Tuesday the sky will turn scarlet and begin to scream while we all kneel outside in the shower of blood, chanting in ancient languages that we do not speak to plead for our lives. Wednesday night is bingo night in the community center.

"Thursday half of the population of Nightvale will disappear without any trace for three hours, no one will remember them, or remember remembering them until they reappear, at which point we will all forget that they were ever gone. Friday the City Council will be holding a press conference to remind us that Nightvale is not a democracy, the elections we hold are all shams, and we are in fact all living in a terrible totalitarian regime and free will is dead. Saturday will be the annual 'It's not actually Easter But Time Isn't Real Anyway So We'll Just Do This Whenever We Want Easter Egg Hunt' and finally on Sunday the sun will be refusing to set for a full twenty-four hours because 'It's my day isn't it?' This has been the community calendar.

"Listeners, it has come to my attention that while I was telling you about the community calendar something happened. Kazuma was spotted. I received a call from someone who works at the Joann's fabrics store saying Kazuma came back in and tried to return the falconry gear they had sold him, saying that he didn't even own a falcon anyway and he didn't know why he'd let them pressure him into buying that. They said he seemed surprised and terrified by the standard customer service death threats upon returning purchased falconry equipment and thereafter fled the store.

"Oh, everyone, my intern Yukine just entered the recording booth and handed me a piece of paper, thank you, Yukine. Let's see, the piece of paper says that there is an update in the grasping and groping hands that drag careless pedestrians into some type of hell other world situation. It seems while I was talking about Kazuma, and then the community calendar, and then Kazuma again the City Council tried several different things to get rid of the hands.

"First, they tried just pouring cement over them. It says 'maybe the hands were just always there, holding up the sidewalk and we didn't know it. Maybe if we pour more cement in there they'll have something to hold up and be happy and stop pulling people into whatever hell realm they came from.' This did not work. The hands simply scraped the cement off nearby arms and threw it into the faces of onlookers with impressive accuracy, laughing cruelly and taunting 'ha ha haha ha we got you right in the face and we don't even have eyes loser.' They did not point out they were chanting cruel if not slightly childish taunts without mouths.

"Second, they got John Peters, you know, the farmer, to come with his chain saw and try to amputate them. It says here that several onlookers fainted at the sight of so much blood and exposed bone, as well as the terrified and pained shrieks that the writing arms emitted as they squirmed around each other and tried to escape the ever-devouring teeth of the chainsaw. The City Council wisely deemed this method too bloody and horrifying to continue, not to mention new hands kept sprouting where the severed ones used to be and in order to maintain the lack of hands it would require John to duplicate himself and stand over every place where arms were sprouting, continuously cutting them down, over, and over, and over.

"'I just can't do that,' John Peters, you know, the Farmer, said. 'Not the duplicating thing, because I can definitely do that, but I just can't be spending all my time and energy cutting down continuously regrowing arms that drag you into a mysterious other world, I've got farming to do! Maybe if it was every other weekend or something I could manage it, but not a twenty-four seven gig, oh no.' Thanks for the comment, John!

"The next thing the City Council tried was to ask the arms nicely to leave. 'Oh arms,' they said, 'will you please just go? You're making this more difficult than it has to be!' to which the arms allegedly replied in a huff, 'Oh I see, you were just using me? I thought we had something special, and that you cared about me, but I guess I was wrong, and that you were just using us for cross dimensional travel!'

"'But arms,' the City Council replied in unison from underneath their deep black hoods, under which there appears to be nothing but void, 'we didn't even ask you to start showing up everywhere and dragging our citizens to wherever it is disembodied arms drag people to against their will, you did that on your own!' 'Fine,' the arms snapped. 'My sister was right, you never appreciated me!' And just like that they were gone, listeners, gone from our life forever. It just goes to show you don't always need to use force, the best things to do in this kind of situation is to just ask nicely and talk through any misunderstanding.

"Oh, listeners, I have just received a text from Old Woman San with the army of not-wolf-German-shepherds and she said that she saw Kazuma walking down the street looking confused. When she called out to him to ask if he needed help he took one look at her and her dogs and crossed the street in fear. How adorable maybe he's allergic to dogs and that's why he ran. Alright, sorry, getting off topic again, Yukine is giving me an annoyed look through the glass.

"Now, listeners, I take you to the weather!"


Yato may just be a minor god now, but he's determined to make it big and he's got a plan. Unfortunately, things just don't seem to be going his way. He doesn't have a single shrine dedicated to him, his partner has just quit, and now he's got to find a new divine weapon. Just when things look bleak, he meets a girl named Hiyori and changes her life forever.


Yato smiled when he made eye contact with Kazuma as he ducked into Yato's favorite coffee shop on Main Street. It wasn't his favorite in Nightvale, or even his favorite on that block, but it was his favorite on Main Street, and he wanted to pick something that was easy to find so that Kazuma wouldn't do all his exploring of the city alone. He sipped on his favorite sheep's blood mocha latte, again not his favorite coffee, or even his favorite latte, but it was his favorite sheep's blood mocha latte.

"Hey!" Yato said warmly as Kazuma sat next to him. He noted the gift bag Kazuma carried.

"Hey!" Kazuma said, "I hope this doesn't seem weird, but I made you something for helping me and showing me around town. I normally don't make things like this, but it came into my head and wouldn't leave me alone, so I just had to."

Out of the gift bag he lifted the most magnificent crown Yato had ever seen, woven with what appeared to be wire and with some of the colorful rocks Kazuma was so fond of. Yato gasped.

"Oh, this is too much, you have to let me pay you." Kazuma shook his head.

"No, it's a gift from me to you, if you want to repay me tell people where you got it if they ask."

"Of course!" Yato placed the woven crown on his head. "It matches my tracksuit perfectly, don't you think?" Kazuma nodded.


"And here's the Michaels!" Yato said, gesturing grandly. Kazuma looked half amused between Yato and the store.

"Why don't you come in with me? You can help me pick out stuff, I listened to your broadcast, though I had some trouble with the radio, I've never seen one like it before. I ended up just saying the channel out loud and it turned to your show. Anyway, you said you thought my jewelry was weird, maybe show me the kind of jewelry you like."

"Oh, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings," Yato said, "it's just not what I'm used to."

"I thought your analysis was fair. I'm in a new place with a new kind of customer and I need to adjust my business model if I want to stay afloat."

"I think people will adjust to your kind of jewelry as well, after all, this crown is lovely!"

"It suits you," Kazuma said, trying to conceal a small smile.

Then Yato decided to take a risk, he took Kazuma's hand under the pretense of pulling him closer to the storefront and smiled to himself when Kazuma didn't protest. They walked across the long, seemingly eternal parking lot that stretched farther and farther in front of them the farther that they walked until suddenly they were in the store front, and Kazuma was looking around curiously.

"This town is strange," he said quietly.

"How so?"

"Do you really not see it?" Kazuma asked, considering.

"See what?"

"Nothing, it's just new is all." Yato grinned.

"I'm sure someday you'll come to love this town as much as I do!" Kazuma smiled at him.

"I'm sure." Neither of them released the other's hand. Kazuma led them into the jewelry section and was startled by the rows of cages and terrariums full of live animals and insects next to the usual rows of bead strands and wires. "What the hell?" He asked.

"These are just the animals for the jewelry, you know," Yato said lightly.

"Rrriiigghht," Kazuma said slowly. "For jewelry making. Of course, I should have realized. I don't really like using animals though, maybe I could start small with animal themed jewelry?" Yato nodded thoughtfully.

"That's probably a good idea, they offer classes here on how to remove stingers from scorpions. Of course, you can buy the pre-stingless ones, but why pay that premium?"

"That's good advice," Kazuma said.

They spent at least an hour browsing the Michaels, hand in hand, talking quietly about ideas. Kazuma took mental notes of all the ideas Yato had, though perhaps he didn't intend to use them. Yato was a local in this strange new town, and perhaps his interests would align more with the interests of the other residents. Either way, it didn't seem like the people here would be very interested in his jewelry how it was. Maybe he would be able to get out of using live and dangerous animals in his jewelry, but until then he would just have to do his best.

This place was strange. The arms had been terrifying, but not everything about the town that was weird was bad, however, a certain blue-eyed newscaster came to mind, for example. Maybe he wouldn't be able to get used to this town, but maybe he would. He could always move away if he had too, but not just yet. He glanced over at Yato, who was staring appraisingly at a terrarium with a rattlesnake in it, apparently deep in thought, and thought that there were a few things here he'd like to see more of before leaving.

He discovered the hard way that Yato was surprisingly persuasive as Kazuma left the local PetSmart carrying a falcon in a cage, regretting everything in his life that had led him to this point, except for the elated smile that Yato wore now, promising to bring his own falcon over and teach Kazuma everything he needed to know about falconry. Kazuma didn't even remember how Yato had convinced him to buy a falcon, but now he had one, and the idea of spending even more time with Yato wasn't a bad one. Maybe Kazuma would teach Yato a little bit about making jewelry in return. That would be fun.


Well here you go, this weird as shit au that I just had to do. I don't know how often I'll be updating this, because my Kung Fu Panda au takes priority, but alas. I'll try to get a new one up every now and then.

The Summary of Noragami is from Crunchyroll.