Notes: Written back in February 2016. For those who have not read about this particular theory before, you can find it on undergroundsky's tumblr.
Don't lie to people that trust you, and don't trust people that lie to you.
It was the messiest expense report that she had ever seen.
Granted, it was due to a war, but someone, most likely Ebisu, had obviously got hold of it before it landed on her desk, and had been more than enthusiastic with his caustic comments, as seen in the neat and tiny letters squeezed into every single space available in the margins of each page. She was beginning to find it extremely tempting to pick up her pen and scribble "I don't have time for this bullshit" in whatever tiny space she could find as well.
Therefore, she was more than relieved when she heard a knock on the door.
"Kazuma," she groaned. "You are a sight for sore eyes".
Kazuma, on his part, look mildly bewildered. "Yato is here to see you".
She raised her eyebrows but before she could comment further (It's 2.00am, Kazuma. I'm in my pyjamas, Kazuma. Does he have a death wish, Kazuma?), Yato himself had squeezed through the space between her guidepost and the door, pulling a large suitcase behind him before throwing himself into one of the chairs on the opposite side of her desk.
Kazuma shrugged at her questioning look. She sighed and motioned that he could leave. Back to bed, cocooned in layers of blankets, unlike her who still had to deal with piles and piles of reports, some neatly typed and printed, some handwritten, some in DVD format and one in the form of sheet music. Standard Operating Procedures version 2015 was apparently completely ineffective.
Her guest meanwhile, had unzipped his luggage bag, but instead of clothes as she had expected, the bag was full of bottles upon bottles of alcohol, some of which she didn't even recognize. And she realized that she couldn't raise her eyebrows any further.
"Let's start slow," Yato said, sliding a bottle of red wine over to her and twisting open a bottle of rum for himself.
She did not reply, carefully opening the bottle and taking a sip.
"I…" Yato announced, after draining half his bottle and slamming in on her table. "… am going to die soon. In fact, I'm surprised to still be alive right now".
She stiffened, thinking back to his Father, in the guise of a teenager, laughing dementedly and slashing at her. Of a battlefield where blood, madness and divine anger flowed freely. She touched her collarbone, imagining the throb of her wounds, her vision clouding with battle lust as she slashed her way through enemy after enemy, God, shinki and civilians alike.
"He is not the only one who remembers you," she said finally. Yato had merely looked at her when she had been lost in her memories, expression blank.
"He has kept me alive for centuries," Yato insisted, as he slumped even more bonelessly into his chair.
She opened her mouth. I remember, she wanted to say. I chased you around the world for centuries. But she is a God and that is neither here nor there. There is another knock at her door and Kazuma stepped in, nervousness blazing in his eyes this time, instead of the casual befuddlement he felt earlier when faced with Yato.
"Veena," he said somewhat stiffly, his usual confidence failing him. "It's Okuninushi-sama. And Amaterasu-sama. They tracked the Yatogami here".
It was probably a good thing that she had not drank much then.
They adjourned to the sitting room, Kazuma politely leaving them after making sure they had a cup of tea each.
Yato looked decidedly uncomfortable, his gaze flitting to every part of the room apart from its other occupants. Okuninushi looked thoughtful as he sipped his tea, and it was impossible to tell what Amaterasu was feeling, given the cloth covering the upper part of her face.
Even after all these years as a God of Fortune, Bishamon was certain that the number of times she had come in such close contact with Amaterasu could be counted on one hand.
"Okuninushi, Amaterasu-dono, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" she said.
A look of fascination crossed both men's faces as well.
One minute Amaterasu was sitting demurely on the sofa next to Okuninushi, the next minute, she was perched on Yato's lap, the cloth she had been using to cover her face and upper body fluttering to the floor. She held Yato's face tenderly in her hands.
"You are Tsukuyomi. My brother. My other half. My world. Welcome home," she whispered, kissing Yato's forehead.
Yato had promptly stiffened the moment she landed in front of him. There was a sweep of unnatural magic throughout the room, the curtains billowed, the tea cups rattled, a greenish tinge reflecting on everyone's faces. It settled in seconds. Okuninushi and Bishamon, warriors to the bone, found themselves clutching makeshift weapons and standing back to back, glaring at the exits. Neither Yato nor Amaterasu seemed to notice.
Bishamon turned in time to see Yato grab Amaterasu's jaw in a vague approximation of affection.
He took a deep breath. "I'm back, sister mine".
She had rushed to check the history books after they left, Okuninushi managing to look both flabbergasted and amused at the same time, and the siblings (!) with completely blank expressions.
Impossible, she thought as she clicked though online directories and flipped through old texts and files. Impossible. But then, who was Father? If Amaterasu had known about Yato all this while, why had she not done anything before this?
She suddenly recalled Tenjin's quiet wariness the last time she had seen him. Izanagi's disappearance, he had murmured distantly. A fight for the throne. The inhabitants of hell. Politics. It was not exactly her area of expertise, and she had not bothered looking into it much, but now, she admitted, that could have been a mistake on her part. She should have been better prepared.
He reappeared in her study slightly before dawn. She was still in her pyjamas, feverishly reading scrolls so old she had nearly forgotten the language.
"You should change, Bishamon," Yato said. "I would like you to accompany me for the rest of the day".
"What…" she managed, before Yato looked up, stepping out of the shadows. His eyes, which had been a striking blue before this, were, if possible, even brighter, shining with fathomless depths, deep with knowledge and… carefully hidden wrath. He frowned, pinching the bridge of his nose as if warding off a headache.
"Please".
It was not a very pleasant walk. The weather was perfect, it was heaven after all. But the atmosphere was stifling. She kept a good three feet between herself and Ya- no, it was Amaterasu now. He didn't bother trying to get her to walk next to him, nor did he turn to even look at her even though he had been the one to insist on the walk. She couldn't see his expression, stuck with reading his mood through the rigidity of his shoulders and overall gait.
They went to the seaside. The mountains. The sakura gardens. The produce farms. All he did was stop and take in the sights, never speaking to anyone even though they garnered strange and inquisitive looks from passerbys. Finally, they ventured into the heart of the city. News apparently traveled faster than she thought. Gods, shinki, nature spirits and every other type of living being in heaven seemed to have heard the news and were falling over themselves trying to welcome their prodigal leader. It was then, that Yato glanced at her, the tilt of his lips almost snide.
He extricated himself with ease, saying that he was tired and that he would speak to them, all of them, another day. He ambled towards the residential area, a different neighborhood than hers. The mansion he stopped at was mildly dilapidated, a faded grey with ankle length grass in the gardens. The inside was not much of an improvement. It was apparent that someone had dusted quite regularly, but had not tried very hard to keep it in tip top condition.
"Welcome," Yato said, gesturing dramatically and sketching a quick bow. It looked highly out of place with him still dressed in his usual jersey ensemble. "To my humble abode".
She stared.
"I will be bringing Yukine here tomorrow. However, I won't be able to play with the rest of you for the time being. I have a lot of… thinking to do. Don't miss me," he smiled.
She felt a sick sense of foreboding.
Takemikazuchi was the first. She had been so busy with war reparations and numerous discussions / arguments with various other Gods that she had not paid attention to what had been happening behind the scenes until the report reached her desk.
Ebisu did not look surprised. "You should check your email more often. They destroyed several islands".
"That's not the point," she replied. "I can even understand his reasons. But this is... unacceptable. And why does it sound like you are supporting him?"
"A strange statement, coming from the strongest God of War," Ebisu observed, obviously bored with the topic of the conversation. "You should brush up on your history. It looks like you have forgotten some things, but that could just be your foreign blood showing".
Amaterasu had seemingly allowed her brother free reign as celebration of his return to her side; to regaining his memories and his throne.
Bishamon had given up the search for him as futile when Kazuha rushed into dining room as she was working her way through a stack of toast. "Yatogami. No. Amaterasu. Here. Greenhouse".
The only sign that she had been sitting at the dining table was the slightly messier stack of toast and cooling coffee.
"Fancy meeting you here," Yato said, as she cast around the place. She could hear the amusement in his voice.
Never turn your back on a predator.
She hadn't sensed him! She turned around so fast she nearly snagged her hair on a nearby plant.
He laughed. "Yukine said you'd been looking for me".
He turned away and continued filling his basket with items from her greenhouse. Tomatoes, parsley, onions, garlic, basil, roses, carnations… It was a strange assortment.
He noticed the direction of her gaze. "Dinner guests. Ebisu. Okuninushi. Several shinki. I haven't got around to collecting more shinki and Yukine's about this close to blowing up and coming at me with a pitchfork with the amount of work I've heaped upon him, so I thought I'd do the grocery run instead".
"You mean while you go around murdering other Gods," she said coldly.
"My dear Bishamonten," he smiled. "You are a God of War. The strongest combat god ever. This kind of thing should make you all happy and starry eyed".
"You are going around getting rid of Yatogami's enemies and naysayers," she snarled, ignoring his comment. "Tell me, am I next?"
Admittedly, it wasn't exactly a good time and place to confront him. Her shinki were scattered throughout the mansion and the grounds. She could take him on via hand to hand combat and there was a fifty-fifty chance of winning but she did not like the way he was looking at her. At all.
"Come with me," he said finally.
He took an extremely slow and circuitous route back to his mansion, using little used paths and passing through smaller towns. She again maintained a distance of three feet behind him, and he appeared completely at ease, munching through his supply of tomatoes and smiling at the children who came up to him. She wondered what people thought when they saw them; a God of War following after a leader of heaven. Did they see a pair of colleagues? Potential enemies? Lovers?
She shuddered internally and clenched her hands into fists.
Yukine caught up to them in the kitchen, throwing a pile of papers on the table where Yato was enthusiastically arranging the flowers in a vase. She recognized Tenjin's handwriting on the second piece of paper, but Yukine expertly swept everything into a different angle when he noticed the direction of her gaze. There were also more shinki in the mansion this time, bustling around to make the place more habitable.
"People have been extremely willing to lend me their assistance these days," Yato noted. This was however, punctuated with him snipping off part of the stem of the rose he was holding with a loud snick.
Yukine snorted. "And we all know why that is, don't we? You need to reply to those letters. Urgently. I'm needed elsewhere. Please try not to kill each other, Bishamon-sama".
She waited until he had turned a corner before turning back to the man in front of her. "Why did you run away every time I caught up to you? Your shinki is right, we could have killed each other a long time ago and that would have been the end of it".
"Because we were both right," he replied after a long pause. "You were justified in your hate. I was justified in helping Kazuma. There was no reason for us to kill each other. Besides, I didn't want to die. I do admit that it would have been a glorious battle though".
There it was again. The topic of his mortality.
"The current me…" he started, and shook his head. "No, in this life, I was raised as a God of Calamity. Father himself, preferred referring to me as a God of Depravity. I had dreams of fashioning myself as a God of War. I've spent some time reading. I am basically a victim of abuse, I am not ashamed to admit it, and it has manifested in certain traits in my adult self. But I had happily killed for him all those years ago. In fact, I enjoyed it. So you could say that combat is one of my strengths, part of my nature. Whatever made you think that I would put one of my best skills to rest?"
"You're creating a power vacuum," she replied. He smiled.
"Hardly, they will all be reborn anyway. And knowing what happened to their previous selves, their guideposts will know better than to raise them the same way," he looked at her then, and a strange wind seemed to rush through the room, lifting the edges of her jacket. "I am making a point. As Yatogami. As Amaterasu. It does not matter".
She does not patrol the near shore as much as she used to, but she's standing in line at a monjayaki place with five of her shinki when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
"Bishamon-sama".
She ended up at a separate table with Iki Hiyori, her shinki casting them occasional glances from several tables over. The girl flits from topic to topic while waiting for their food to cook- Kofuku-dono, her progress at Toudai, the state of her finances, anything and everything but Yato. She does not think she showed any sort of curiosity in her expression but something makes Hiyori pause in her rambling anyway.
"I spend all my time in my own body these days," she grinned wistfully. "Yukine writes and Kofuku repeats all the gossip she hears regarding the far shore anyway".
"Yato has been busy," she said diplomatically, answering an unasked question.
Hiyori gives her a knowing look. "I'm happy for him. We agreed that I would spend the rest of my lifetime here, living the proper human life I would have had if I had not met him. After that, well, we'll just have to see, won't we?"
She sounds perfectly content and Bishamon can do nothing more than smile. "I'm glad to hear that".
"Did you know, Yato and I are connected by the red string of fate? Kofuku was the one who tied it though".
Bishamon choked on her soda.
"I sincerely prefer not to be enemies".
He's curled up on a chair in her study, his eyes on the bottle of whiskey in his hands.
Coming full circle, she thought. She pulled out a bottle of champagne from his luggage bag. Kuraha had helpfully pushed it into a corner if only to stop people from tripping over it.
"We are never going to agree with each other on a lot of things," she said. The last she heard, he had stopped killing anybody who had opposed him, but it appeared that intimidation and politics were also something he was rather proficient at. She wondered distantly whether that was what he was doing with her. A protracted chess game against a master, where she wasn't even sure why and what she was playing for. Her (current) life, for certain, but what else? Why did he even come to her, that day when Amaterasu and Okuninushi were searching for him to reveal his true identity? Why…
He nodded amiably, halting her train of thought, and raised his bottle. "But they haven't seen the best of us yet".