A/N: I was re-reading the izanami arc and I noticed ebisu was the main reason Yato didn't fall for izanami's scheme. he was the one to point out her apperance changes, and he told Yato not to eat the fruit of yomi when he was almost doing so. SO i thought... wow what if ebi wasn't there. THUS THIS THING WAS BORN and i hope yall like it!
Warning for mild depiction of gore.
"That woman... is called Izanami."
Hands emerging from the crevices between the ragged rocky ground beneath his feet, wrapping around his ankles in unexpectedly firm grips, pulling him downwards, towards murky water hidden underground. Ebisu's voice dims and fades away as the god of calamity is dragged down, taken into that secret ocean, forced to sink farther and farther away from the surface. His vision is blurred and his body feels strangely soft and the water tries to force its way into his nostrils and past his lips, but at least that he can fight back. His grip on Hiki is loose, too loose from the shock and confusion, and he nearly lets the blade go, leaving her forever lost in the deep dead dark sea.
He suddenly sees himself on land again, sword still in his hands, his body and clothes barely humid despite the short underwater (but was it really water?) journey he was just forced through. He looks around, the god of merchants nowhere to be seen. All he perceives are glimmering marble-tiled floors and antique-looking dark brick columns with gas lamps emitting feeble amber lighting. A waveless, bottomless, endless lake of pitch-dark hue extends behind him. A faint scent—he's not sure what it smells like, but it is suave and relaxing and it puts him at ease despite immediate happenings, much like an ethereal smokebug enveloping his brain in its hazy web, clouding his mind.
And then he sees… her. Her long, silky brown hair and her dark eyes adorned by long lashes, and her rosy lips and creamy skin, and he realizes what that scent is—it is what he smells whenever he's with her, that scent of human shampoo and well-kept clothes and riverbed flowers and home... Though there is still something missing. He's taken aback at first, his heart skipping a beat and his face hot, and the strangled feeling in his chest proves how much he missed that face and that scent. And, for a moment, he forgets the circumstances and allows himself to feel happy.
Hiiro's voice echoes in his mind, and she says something about Izanami. Only then is he brought back to reality, and he notices other details about her—the pipe in her hand and the beads in her hair and that kimono that is way too loose on her body, revealing more of her skin than he'd ever seen. Those are not like her at all, and he realizes that woman is not really her—of course not, he scolds himself in his mind, she's living and human and this is the world of monsters and the dead. It must be Izanami, he ponders, and she just happens to bear uncanny resemblance to Hiyori.
But then she speaks to him, her voice melodious, yet so much like hers. It feels off—Hiyori never speaks to him so gently; in fact, her voice is usually stern or annoyed when talking to him. But it's endearing, in a way, much like that scent—it is like Hiyori's, but it isn't, though it is—and that sight. His mind is drifting away again, feeling strangely comfortable in such abnormal scenario, and Hiiro has to splash water on his face in order to bring him back again.
He didn't hear much of what Izanami said—something about her lack of guests—for he was lost in thought, letting himself be carried away by her voice and by the familiar scent emanating from her pipe. He tries to stand his ground, tightening his grasp on Hiki and demanding to know what that place is and what happened to Ebisu, but she's now walking up to him and the sword is shaking in his trembling hands, and the mere thought of fighting her makes his heart shrink in anxiety.
"What's wrong?"
She asks, getting closer and closer. Her soft gaze sees right through him, and as much as he tries, he cannot look away.
"You don't like me?"
A touch—not on him, but on Hiki. She's that close. He still can't look away.
"That's not possible. I am liked by everyone."
She pushes the katana away. Though she applies pressure onto the sharp edge of the blade, her fingers are unharmed. Her eyes are still on his, and he can feel himself being pulled into them like a pair of black holes.
They're so much like hers.
"That is why I can tell."
A touch—now on him. One of her hands brushes his face while the other sneaks behind his neck. Her touch is gentle, so gentle it's almost ghostly—but definitely there. He feels those fingers on his cheek and it's so uncharacteristic, for most times her hands ever touched his face he ended up punched or slapped. But it's good. It feels good, he can't help but think as he stares into her chocolate brown eyes. They're so close now. He can feel her all around him—her skin and voice and scent and sight—and he's so entranced he barely notices his already minimal resistance fading to zero. She's so, so close.
And he missed her so, so much.
"You like me too, don't you?"
Her upper body is pressed lightly against his and his breath escapes his lips as he feels her curves against his chest through his clothes. Her hands cup his face and the contact with her delicate skin sends shivers down his spine. His mind is crumbling down—he's forgotten why he's there, whom he's with, where he even is. There is nothing more, it's only Hiyori and him, and she's so so close he can feel his arms trembling again—not with anxiety, but with the strong, wild urge to hold her.
He desires her.
"I really don't want you to go back…"
The sound of something thin and metallic hitting the marble floors. His hand lost its grip on Hiki completely, and so did his mind. He can't hear the girl's angry protests in his head—he's been completely enveloped by the woman in front of him, around him. Her face is dangerously close to his. He can see each of her long, thin eyelashes, and he would be able to see each detail in her deep brown eyes if only she kept them open. But she closes them slowly and her body presses closer and harder against his, and his lips feel the tender touch of her soft ones.
He doesn't want to go back, either.
He drops all resistance, all hesitation, everything. His lips respond to hers in avid hunger and his hands are on her waist, pulling her in. She pushes the fabric in the front of his kimono aside and he can feel their bare chests firmly pressed against each other, sending a powerful wave of lust through his being. His hand roams her bare back beneath her clothes and he can feel every inch of her front against him and their lips and tongues are melting together, and his mind is lost in a haze of her touch and smell and the small voice that comes out with her soft moans. His mouth tries to whisper her name in an attempt to call out to her, to make her listen to him as he confesses all of his feelings and how glad he is she hasn't forgotten him, but she shuts him up swiftly whenever the first Hi- leaves his lips in a whisper. And he goes along with it.
She has full control over him. Each of his senses has been overtaken by her.
But it's not enough. It's still not enough.
He can't feel her warmth.
Her living, human warmth.
He needs it.
His legs suddenly fail him and his body falls to the ground, sharp pain tearing him inside like a knife. He clutches at his chest in vain and coughs, a gust of dark thick blood making its harsh, prickly way from his lungs to his mouth, and he suddenly notices everything has become much quieter. Before, when he was with her, there was something—some sort of background noise—along with her sounds and his own crazy heartbeat. But now it's gone, and the next moment he notices that sound is not the only thing that's missing.
Hiiro's name has vanished.
Gentle hands on his shoulders. That familiar scent again. A familiar voice speaking softly to him.
"Oh, my darling. I am so sorry for your loss."
A kiss to his forehead. She embraces him, helping him up, and guides him somewhere. The scent invades his nostrils and forces its way through his system, inebriating his loss-ridden, pain-driven brain.
"I'll give you something to help you feel better, though I'm afraid it won't suffice for the loss of your weapon."
His body is carefully laid on a mat. He can still feel the lingering ache. It's not quite the same from back when he lost Yukine, since the boy did not actually die. It's stronger, deeper, the result of the actual death of a life-long partner (albeit definitely not his best relationship). The pain extends to the psychic realm, and he feels his eyes burn with the prospect of tears and his breath hitch with incoming sobs. His regalia was killed somehow—how? where even was she? when? how come he did not see it?—and, turbulent as their history together was, it had existed either way. What he wanted was to part ways with her and decide on his own path. He never wished for her to die, but it happened and it was his fault.
"For, you see, I am well aware of what it feels like to lose a special someone… And to be the one who's lost."
He doesn't hear her steps as she approaches him—he can only tell she's close from her voice and her scent. She holds out a small traditional cup containing water and leaves, and he can tell by the fragrance that it's some sort of tea. He inhales deeply. It smells nice and helps him feel relaxed, the pain in his mind and body slightly waning upon mere contact with that scent.
"Either way, this has always helped me. You should take it too, Yato."
Her voice is kind, so kind, and the way she says his name brims with worry and love. He looks back into her eyes, bottomless pits of black and brown with tiny pinkish dots scattered across the iris like stars. They're so welcoming and forgiving and magnetic he cannot resist.
He doesn't want to.
He wants to feel better. To be comforted.
And Hiyori offers all of that with nothing but compassion.
She doesn't judge him for delving into such a dangerous place or for still following his father's orders like a dog or for irresponsibly leading to Hiiro's death. She offers medicine and comfort and a warm embrace.
He doesn't deserve any of that. He doesn't deserve her, and he knows that.
But he may allow himself to indulge for now.
Just a bit.
"You'll feel much better, and that's all I want. I just want you to feel better about being here."
So does he.
He takes the cup from her hands and drinks it all in one go. The hot bitter liquid hurts his throat, but that's nothing compared to the pain and tiredness he still feels all over. He just wants to get rid of it for now. He'll deal with the aftermath later.
"Thank you."
He says it. She says it. Both exchange looks for a moment, and he can see the joy in hers—no, more than joy, her eyes are overflowing with sheer happiness. Was she that worried about him? Was he really that important to her all along?
He puts the cup down and reaches out for her without a second thought. His heart is, too, overflowing—not quite with happiness, given the recent events, but with feelings for her. With the feeling of being accepted and having someone care for him so much. The feeling of finding a place where you belong—home, such a strange word to him—even if her arms can't be quite considered a place. The feeling of need for her—not as much desire of the sexual kind anymore, but a need for being with her and feeling her warmth and having all his senses be overtaken by her once again. He longs for her.
So he wraps his arms around her and buries his face in the crook of her neck and inhales sharply in an attempt to assimilate her scent, to have that forever engraved into his mind, into his very being. He feels her arms around him and her hair falling on his face and he feels ecstatic and grateful, so much he raises his head so their lips may meet once again.
He expects the same as before—the touch of her soft eager flesh against his. But it all comes down at once.
Dry lips.
Cold hands.
Hollow chest.
Rigid embrace.
Lifeless touch.
He draws back instantly and the sight shocks him to the point he, who spent centuries upon centuries reaping lives, wants to scream in horror.
Her face is decomposing. Her eyes—so kind and forgiving—are now gone, leaving pitch-black hollow sockets in their place, small vermin wriggling around her forehead and dancing into and out of where her eyes once were. The skin around the bridge of her nose is rotting—he can see it, the flesh bloating then squirming and withering like decaying fruit on time-lapse, the rosy hues growing marbled with out-standing crimson blood vessels, then becoming greener and greener until the skin is the color of seaweed then black until it's no more. Her lips are sickly pale and stale and hurt, tiny dry injuries all over, with more popping up as she moves her once graceful jaw. He can see the teeth inside her mouth are dark yellow and breaking down in fragments, and when she speaks—so close to his face—a cloud of terrible putrid air comes out, choking him, making him nauseous.
"What is it, my dear? Surprised at the real me?"
Her voice is as hollow as her "eyes", as well as cackled and low and dead. He looks away from the horrifying sight mere inches from his face, and his eyes meet her chest. The skin there is, too, decaying, leaving behind nothing but dusty damaged bones—crumbling ribs, eroded sternum, shattered clavicles, tottering vertebrae. Small bugs—centipedes and larvae and flies—crawling and buzzing freely through her empty core.
They're getting on his clothes, the bugs.
He tries pushing her away to no avail—her skeleton arms are stronger than all of his living self.
"I figured it would be fine to show myself now, you see."
He wants to run more than ever—to run from that place, from that monster that tricked him in the cruelest of ways by using her face, from that creature that used the death of his weapon to her advantage. He feels mad and depressed and afraid, and his heart physically hurts and his breathing is labored and his vision is blurring ever so slightly. He feels betrayed and he's furious at himself for falling for such a trick, and he wants to do nothing but get away from that monster and beg for forgiveness from everyone –Hiyori and Yukine and Hiiro and Ebisu— for the utter failure of a god he is.
He truly doesn't deserve them. Any of them.
He never did.
"Since you are now bound to stay with me."
A boney hand grabs his face and tilts his chin up, forcing him to look at her.
The skin is all gone. All there is left is that thousands of years old skull.
"Forever."
Something thin and chilly wraps around his arms and legs. He's petrified in terror, so much he barely knows what he's doing anymore. His limbs are struggling and he's probably screaming at her, though he doesn't know what. He doesn't know why. He knows nothing. He just wants to get away.
They're getting on his skin, the bugs.
Tiny pieces of a shattered blade lie by the calm dark lake beyond the marble floors. So that's where Hiiro died, huh. She was right next to him, she was screaming into his mind, yet he did not hear a thing. He completely ignored her.
What a shame, huh.
He's now lying on the mat next to her, his face on her lap and her hair—that ironically strong, living hair—is still around his legs and arms, keeping him still. He barely flinches at the cold, slimy, leech-like feeling anymore. He's gotten used to it.
He's not sure how long it's been since she captured him. Hours? Days? Years? Centuries?
It is impossible to tell the flow of time in Yomi. There is no such thing as time for the dead and hopeless.
And that is what he is now. A dead and hopeless god.
...god?
Can he even deem himself a god anymore? Not much for being trapped in that dark underworld, but for what he did. For all the people he failed. Even his father and Hiiro, who would always use him for their own goals, for whom he needed to do nothing but kill. And that is not what a god is supposed to do, right? A god is supposed to grant wishes and he failed. He failed with all of them.
But now that's all done, and his mind is just an inert half-dead blur.
He can barely feel anymore.
Until he hears it.
A voice, sounding through the darkness and calling his name. The name his father gave him.
"Yaboku!"
The voice is like a defibrillator sending shockwaves through his barely beating heart. He recognizes it—definitely not sweet or calm like the similar voice Izanami had used with him, yet vibrant and honest and alive. He knew, from the moment he heard that first syllable, that it was actually her, the real one. The living one. The one that would certainly yell at him and scold him and beat him up.
The one he would never change, for anything in the world.
"Yaboku! That's your name, right?! Come back! Yaboku!"
His body flinched as she kept calling him, more and more eager every time. His whole being was ridden with overwhelming desire to run from there, to get to the surface and never go back—a desire as strong as the one he'd felt earlier, when Izanami revealed her true form, but instead of pain and despair, this time what fueled him was hope. The hope of seeing the light and being with Hiyori—the real, human Hiyori—and Yukine and all the others once again. The hope that, despite all his wrongdoings and the trick he fell for, the real one had not forgotten him, and wanted to help and forgive him indeed. The hope of being saved.
But that's all that happened. His body just flinched and he lifted his head…
"What is that?"
Eternally decomposing bones on his face. The hand of a skeleton.
Damp creepy strings wrapping tighter around his legs and arms. Cursed hair.
"Could it be you heard something, my dear?"
A cackled, mortifying voice. The Queen of the underworld.
A heart skipping a beat. Terror.
"That cannot be. You're part of this world now."
Vermin-filled stale food being forced into his mouth. The fruit of Yomi.
Burning hot cascades inevitably forcing their way out of his eyes. Tears.
His throat and stomach want to reject the infested food, but they cannot. He feels the gross substance forced down his system and he wishes gods were able to puke.
"I am the only one you have from now on."
Trembling body. Ragged breath.
Confusion. Hopelessness.
"And this is how it shall be."
Flesh-less fingers lifting his head. An empty skull.
"Forever."
Tattered old teeth against his lips. Necrophagous bugs jittering all over his face.
A kiss from an empty skull.
Pain. Anxiety. Misery. Madness. Despair.
Death.
A/N: yaaaaaaaaaaaa man yato's head in this is p much hiyori's situation in chapter 51. except his ends pretty badly. KAKAKA sucks to be my fave.
so yea I've been reading too much joyce and poe and it compelled me to write something dark and sensual and experiment a bit w my style
lemme know if it turned out alright pls thank u