Wish, a noragami/ノラガミ fanfic

He has always admired her.

He remembers being a child. He was 'playing' with Hiiro in the marketplace of a small town where they lived back then, how many years ago, he has long forgotten. Though the day is vivid in his mind even after all that time.

They had collected at least a dozen of severed ears before the sun could even rise fully so the whole day was actually theirs to do whatever they wanted. They had spent the morning scaring the townsfolk, stealing good looking food and collecting trinkets from all around to put into their blanket fort in the main room back at Father's shed. Around noon Hiiro had convinced him to explore the woods a little and maybe find a few rabbits or birds for Father to use. Without much thought they had run out of the town to dive among the trees hand in hand and with their laughter echoing. They had come across a river and Hiiro had immediately slipped out of her yukata to splash around freely, having always liked water. Meanwhile Yato's attention had been drawn to the bushes of wild berries and nests of insects. After a while, when there too had become boring they had gone deeper into the forest and played hide and seek, made flower crowns, looked for shiny rocks and some other nonsense that was fun for some reason then. It was actually one of the best, most fun days of his few years of life.

When they had finally returned to the town for more food, it was already evening with the orange rays dying the world into tones of soft autumn colors. There were ayakashi swarming around the streets which meant more fun as long as they were around as big as Yato who wasn't very big at all those days. When the ayakashi were bigger and more than only a few, it was time to run. And after only a few minutes of striking down smaller ones, had the two of them quickly understood that they should return to Father soon before they got hurt.

Yato remembers seeing her just as they were, for the second time that day, running out of the town's entrance.

She looked around eighteen or nineteen with her light colored long hair in a bun and no make up on her face. She had a spear and a sword tucked into her belt and she wasn't afraid of the large ayakashi like Father always told him to be. In fact, she made it look so easy to jump on one that was at least five times her size and stab it in the neck until it stopped moving and disappeared. She even looked relaxed doing it. As if it was part of her nature to fight off evil spirits. As if she was meant to be fighting and using weapons from the very start of her existence. And Yato, had only managed to stop and make Hiiro stop with him as he gawked at the scene and cheered when the strange girl no woman, Hiiro was a girl and she was much older than them, killed off ayakashi one by one. He didn't know who she was, he hadn't seen her around before. The only thing he knew was that she was simply amazing.

Hiiro had noticed her too and frowned before starting to try to pull him by his hand. She hadn't managed though, not like how she easily did so and even carried him around no more than a year ago. So she had started to demand for them to go home. Only when she mentioned that Father could get angry had he, with unwillingness, moved his feet looking back over his shoulder every few steps until the town was too far behind to see more than smoke from the houses. When they had arrived home, Father was indeed angry. Thankfully it didn't take more than handing him the ears and obediently heading into the washroom without making a fuss like always to calm him down. It was apparently one of his good days too.

As Father washed him and Mizuchi and helped them into fresh clothing, Yato had remembered the woman.

"Father we saw someone today. Only from far though. We didn't talk to her."

"Oh yeah? Who might she be Yaboku?" Father had asked as he dried off his head with a small towel.

"I don't know. She isn't from around here."

"Is that so? How do you know that?" Father had asked him to elaborate, his voice actually fond for once. Yato would be vary if he wasn't so excited about the other deity he saw.

"Because her hair wasn't black. It was long and...and...purple!"

Father had raised an eyebrow with a small smile adorning his hard features as he moved onto Hiiro next and the young girl had cut in with a pout.

"You mean yellow silly. Learn the colors already."

Normally Yato would say something back and they would bicker but not that evening.

"Yeah that! Yellow! And…and she was slaying ayakashi…even…even if they were bigger than her! Will I be like that when I am older too Father?"

The man had nodded and ruffled his mostly dry hair affectionately with one hand as he took out Hiiro's comb with the other.

"You will be even better than her Yaboku. You are already so strong. And you have Mizuchi with you. I am sure that woman's shinki isn't even that great."

The man had started to gently work through the tangles and knots as Hiiro allowed a smile onto her face at her father's words.

"Well…she was still great though."

It was a few weeks later when he had found Sakura.

He had had the most confusing yet the best weeks of his life. Sakura had taught him, showed him around and talked to him like no other. She was the first to imply that Father's teachings were wrong. He had another name with her, another life, a whole new identity to shape for himself.

One time, they had come across that woman together.

"Lookie Sakura! Another God fighting with ayakashi!"

"Oh well, that's Vaisravana-sama."

"Va-Vai...what?"

"They call her Bishamonten here. Though she is an immigrant Goddess from another country."

"Another country?"

"Yes Yato-sama. The world is big. There are many other places outside of Japan. She is from India and she is a Goddess of Combat."

"Really?" He had asked with all that child enthusiasm.

"Yes. Her job is to help people be strong to protect their families and land during wars and to protect them from harm. That is why she is killing ayakashi, to make them unable to hurt humans."

"To protect humans…" And he had, for the first time, realised that he didn't have a reason like that to kill humans and ayakashi. Other than Father's word that is. Of course Father always said that he was doing whatever he did for the better of humans. He had created Yato for that too. But how was killing people and cutting off their ears for their own good? He had wondered for the first time. Wondered and didn't understand. After that day, he had never been the same. He had never enjoyed playing with Hiiro like before. He had never took pride in his father's praises again. Not like how he was with Sakura.

"What happens if I protect humans Sakura?" The shinki had thought for a second before answering that. "Let me show you Yato-sama." Then she had taken his hand in hers and they had walked for a short while until they arrived at a small village. Sakura had showed him a miniature shrine near the village well dedicated to Bishamonten then proceeded to tell him what a shrine was.

"Humans building something like this means that they want you to exist and be around. A shrine is the home of a God in the Near Shore. Humans bring lots of gifts and go there to talk to a God about their wishes. If a God grants those, he gets their gratitude. A shrine is also a place that the ayakashi can't enter. It is a safe place for a God to rest while they are in this side, working for the people."

Yato had inspected the thing as he listened and for the first time ever, he had wanted something with all his being.

"What should I do to get a shrine?" He had asked without tearing his gaze from the wooden offering box in front of him. Sakura had given his smaller hand a light squeeze at that and picked him up in her arms. "You should grant wishes Yato-sama. You should care for the humans and watch over them as a mighty and strong god, okay? For example, Bishamonten is one of the Seven Gods Of Luck. People pray to her for luck in wartime. She protects the soldier boys to help them go back home to their families. She protects the villages from the ayakashi too. And people know that she is there for them when their wishes come true. So they build shrines for her. One day, Yato-sama you will be just like that."

He had pouted and felt his heart clenching for some reason that was unknown to him but apparently wasn't so to Sakura because she had hugged him closer to her chest and kissed his cheek. "Don't worry Yato-sama. One day, the whole country will be praying to you. Everyone will know how kind and brave you are. All you have to do is believe in yourself because I believe in you." She had said the last part louder and slower as if she wanted him to always remember that. And it had worked like magic, immediately pulling him out of the bad mood.

"Then you are my first believer Sakura!" He had laughed and thrown his chubby arms around her neck, overjoyed. "You could say that. And you will have more like me soon. All you need to do is to protect people." She had set him down on his feet and untied one of the braids in her hair before kneeling down to his level and holding out the small, golden colored hairpin. "I wish for you to protect us Yato-sama. Accept this as my offering please." She had smiled at him all the while Yato had watched her every move with wide eyes. Then hesitantly, he had reached out to take the very first offering that was presented to him. Protect us. He had heard the wish loud and clear in his head.

Yet he wasn't able to protect her. He wasn't able to do anything to save her. All he could manage was to cry silently in his bed with Sakura's hairpin under his pillow and visit that one shrine where she had given him a purpose. He had kept on for another decade or so as he had been before her, only because of insecurity. Though he had never stopped visiting that old shrine and observing.

He had made it a habit to walk around the mountains where there were a few villages at the time on his own when he could get away from Father as he knew that Bishamonten appeared there in the dusk nearly every day to do her job. He would wait to see her fight and grant wishes. He would remember Sakura and he would try to copy her moves later. He would practice for hours on end, just to learn a few things, just to leave Yaboku behind. He had, a decade and a half into his existence, decided in front of that tiny, box like shrine to become Yato, a God who would grant wishes and get a shrine of his own, a God who would answer any and all prayers.

He hadn't started on a right track immediately. Apparently any and all prayers part was a bad idea or so his short term shinki had shouted as they begged to be released and as Hiiro had said as she taunted him for not managing to keep a shinki. He was unable to tell a sincere wish of a soldier to stay alive in a war to see his wife again from a dark plea of another to murder all of his enemies in the most vile of ways back when he was so young. But he had felt. He had understood that he was doing it wrong. He had known that he needed an example. And he could think of only one thing to do.

Tell me how you do it. Show me how to be a good God like you even if all you do is to fight and slay like me. I am fixing your shrine for you. Accept it as an offering. I don't have anything else to give.

He had tried again and again until one day one of his shinki made fun of a God who worshiped another God and told him that the voice of a Magatsukami wouldn't reach the real Gods. He had let the boy go on his wish and kept trying though he no longer prayed.

Another shinki had told him how people didn't even offer five yen to him for a wish. And it had occurred to him that maybe a real, good wish had to have a price. Nothing was for free after all, nothing had ever been. Yet he didn't want to work like that. Sakura had taught him that doing something for someone without expecting anything in return was helping them and it didn't count if he accepted something valuable in exchange. So what if he only accepted offerings that had no value just to be able to make it count as a wish and as helping a human both at once?

About three or four years had passed like that. With him accepting wishes and taking five yen a wish. The shinki he had taken in at that time weren't happy too to work for a God who had nothing and who would have nothing even centuries later, if he didn't disappear that was. Father had also learned, heard of 'Yato' and all the shinki long ago. He had beared quite a few beatings with ayakashi controlled by weird masks involved. And he had realised that he would die wheter he stayed or not.

So aged fifty years, he had made one of the most important decisions of his life in front of the ruins of once was a safe haven to him in the middle of the ashes of a village that was long destroyed at a war.

You failed to protect someone too. You must be saddened and alone. I am alone too. And I still want to be like you. Let me meet you.

There was no shrine there and he was still a magatsukami. His voice wouldn't reach a real Goddess. He knew all of those still…

It was a few weeks later when he was taking a break from a job. Hiiro was with him. She would be his weapon whenever he had been left alone by another shinki. Though she would force him to do a few errands of Father in exchange of his newly gained freedom. His reputation was the worst it had ever been those years. Yet it had brought him something he had wanted. It was the reputation, it couldn't be thay the ruined shrine actually worked after all.

The young man with the green eyes had kneeled down before them and explained how his master was about to die and how no one helped them. He had offered his life in return.

"Please accept it as an offering my lord. I have nothing else to give."

Maybe it was because he had wanted to meet the Goddess who had been his role model or maybe because he had suddenly remembered the very first time he too had made a wish only to be left unheard and mocked later on but he hadn't killed that shinki. He had simply followed him to their compound and slayed dozens of shinki who had crossed the border and who were sucking the life out of the one who had granted them a place to belong and names to bear.

The thing that surprised him had been her cries to beg him to stop. Don't kill them. Please stop. I will give you anything you want. Don't hurt them. They are all good children. He couldn't. Not even if he wanted to. Or else she would die. They weren't even shinki anymore. They were ayakashi.

When it was all over, when the last cries died and only her sobs filled the air, he had turned on his heels and walked away. Bishamonten hated him for sure. It was his idiocy to believe that his last wish had been granted.

He had returned to the village to see Kazuma sitting on his knees, waiting for Yato to come to claim his offering. If Yato did that, she would be completely alone. So he had told the other shinki to go tend to his master's wounds. He hadn't exoected to see him again. Who wad that stupid after all?

But Kazuma had returned, again and again before he was convinced that Yato didn't want his life and he had kept coming back with food, clothes and other gifts after that. He had even found him some shinki and washed his wounds with holy water after Father sent his wolves on Yato or when he couldn't take shelter in a shrine in the eveningtime. They had started to know each other. It took years for Yato to realise the obvious though. He had made his first friend.

One day, Kazuma had said that he would tell the truth to Bishamonten. Yato hadn't let him to do so. The woman had just started healing. She wanted revenge and she was out for blood. He couldn't let Kazuma, his friend be faced with her wrath. Not when what he did was only to save her life. Not when it would kill her to mıurder her last shinki with her own to hands. Yato was a magatsukami. He was used to being feared and hated. There was no way for him to befriend a true Goddess anyway. He could live like that.

Centuries had passed.

Bishamonten had successfully founded another clan of shinki. Kazuma had become a hafuri. He had been named their arch enemy. They had healed and forgotten. They had found happiness.

Meanwhile Yato had finally become free. He had unnamed Hiiro and found another shinki. He had met a human who didn't forget him. He had made more friends.

Then the same thing had happened again. Though it had ended differently. He, Yato, a Magatsukami had gained a hafuri. Bishamonten had learned the truth from Kazuma. She had ended her grudge against him. She had apologized crying and he hadn't been able to stop himself from kissing her. Indirectly but still a kiss nonetheless. After that day, they had both kept blaming the alcohol, a silent agreement between them. They had made a mutual friend and lost him. Father nearly managed to take Yato back under his influence. Yato nearly died in Yomi. But no. She had been there. She had jumped into the Underworld to take him back outside. She had taken him into her home as he healed.

When Yato woke up there, he had understood.

He had stood up against the Heaven and faıught with his life on the line for her. He would do it again and again. Because they were friends. More than friends. Because Bishamon was strong and resilient. Because she was a true Goddess. She was kind and merciful. She was beautiful. Most importantly, she had saved him too and she would do it again and again.

He can't, won't let her this time. He has to die fighting against his Father. All this has started with him and it is going to end with him. He won't let Kazuma die either. He will release him the last instant and send him back to her. She will wake up. Because she is strong. Because she is Bishamonten.

Taking a deep breath, Yato clears his mind and calls out to Kazuma.

It is time.

As I die, please let life return into you. Wake up and protect everything that I am leaving behind after I disappear. Remember me please as I have always remembered and thought about you.

He feels the familiar warmth of a shinki transforming around his body before everything settles and he starts walking.

I am giving you my life, this is my offering to you.

He knows that He has always admired her.