A/N: This takes place in tandem with Chapter 78.2, so while there are no spoilers for it specifically, I will warn you again - the first few chapters will drop a lot of spoilers for the manga, upto that point. (I know, I know. Chapter 79 raws are floating around now, but we're diverging from Chapter 78!)
Thanks to Runner for the review, it was a four-cheese melty bun I didn't know I was hungry for. :3
[Noragami] belongs to Adachitoka and Kodansha. I'm just borrowing them for amusement.
When Hiyori finally awoke, she thought she had been blinded, the room around her was so devoid of light. Slowly her eyes adjusted to the near-darkness, wincing as she was prevented from moving her arms by shackles invisible to the naked - and apparently hanyou - eye.
"Five hours, not bad."
Her head wrenched around towards the sound of his voice. Had she been a feline, her hackles would be raised and she would likely have started hissing at him. Instead, she was torn between abject fear and darkening rage. She opted for rage.
"Why am I here, Fujisaki?" she bit out, trying her best not to actually growl at him.
"Aww, what happened to calling me Fujisaki-kun? No, huh?" He chattered at her bemusedly, which sounded less amused and more on the verge of madness.
He stopped laughing abruptly; the silence was terrifying. She kept herself still, not allowing the glare leave her eyes and simply waited for him to answer.
"You're an eyesore, Hiyori-chan," he whispered contemptuously. "The way you fawn over Yaboku and his hafuri shinki, it's disgusting, yanno?"
"Why. Am. I. He-".
"Because Yaboku needs to learn his place!" he snapped, slamming the bottom of his fist into the wall beside him, cratering it slightly and sending spiderweb cracks outward from the epicenter. His eyes flashed with something otherworldly, then returned to being their human-esque shade.
She flinched from the sound in spite of herself and he arched a brow at her, smirking. "And because I actually hate you," he added as an afterthought, his tone taking a dark edge. "This is more for him than it is for you or me."
He stood up then and started walking slowly over to her. "Well, maybe it is a little bit for us, to be honest. It's no secret that I'm a sadist," he admitted. "And you have got to be one of the biggest masochists I've ever seen."
He had stopped less than a foot away from her prone form, and settled his hands on his narrow hips. "What human in their right mind willingly puts themselves through the hell you have been, especially for selfish and detestable gods?" he questioned, the disgust on his visage was tinged with a smattering of wonder and a few threads of grudging respect, if only for a moment.
She did her best to inch away from him, despite being bound as she was. Before she could get too far he crouched down, grabbed her by the hair at her scalp and stood up abruptly.
A whimper slipped out from the pain, and his smile widened just a little. "I lost my Mizuchi. Some dirty brat of Bishamon's cursed her, so I had to cast her away," he pretended to lament, dragging the teenager along behind him like a rag doll, ignoring her sounds of agony.
"But don't you worry about me, Hiyori-chan," he dropped her unceremoniously in the middle of the room, and stomped down on her faded Cord with the heel of his shoe. She screamed again, her voice careening upwards into her falsetto as she writhed on the floor. Fujisaki smiled down at her again, reveling in her pain. "I have a pretty awesome idea, you wanna hear it?"
"No," she ground out through the pain and tears.
He continued on as if she hadn't said anything. "I'm gonna try something that no one ever has - I'm gonna make a living spirit into an ayakashi! All the kids are doing it. It'll be fun, whaddaya say?"
He didn't give her the chance to respond, before pulling a slip of parchment from one pocket, and the Yomi-no-Koto-no-Ha from the other and painted something she couldn't see from her prone position.
"Oki," he stated, and a small green-speckled magenta snake ayakashi appeared from the paper, circling around his wrist. "Off you go, now!"
"oFf!" it squeaked, and sailed towards Hiyori lazily.
From behind the doorway of that closed little room, an unnaturally high-pitched human scream and a deeper maniacal laughter could be heard for a half city block, by Far Shore and Near Shore denizens alike.
It's too bad no one was around to hear it.
Yukine was worried.
Ever since Yato and he had started to take almost full-time refuge with Kofuku and Daikoku, Hiyori had stopped by to visit, even just for an hour, every day. Only twice had she been absent from the shrine and shop for more than a few days, and never without a lot of prior notice. Even after Yato had left on his suicide mission, she had still popped in each day to check in, picking up his previous days' 'homework' and to drop off more assignments.
She hadn't been by for three days now.
He tried calling her this afternoon, but her phone was going straight to voicemail. The frown deepened on his face and his brows furrowed. The automated message had finished telling him calmly that the recipient of the call either had their phone turned off or was out of the area, and to please leave a message after the beep. He hung up and had to tamp down on the pinprick of panic that had started to bloom in his chest.
Stop it. For all he knew, she was on a school trip and had her phone turned off. What was the point in worrying needlessly and jumping to conclusions? He ran a hand through his short strands, persimmon-tinted eyes closing.
Because that jersey-god is useless as usual, he groused mentally, his earlier apprehension turning to derision. He exhaled forcefully through his nose, and moved quickly towards the door, turning his head towards the front of the house. "I'm going out for a bit, Daikoku-san!"
Yukine took note of the muffled acknowledgement, slipped into his hunter green fur-lined coat and made his way towards Hiyori's house. All he needed to do was check in on her and see how she was doing. Maybe she was just cramming for a big test for the end of the term. He hoped that's all it was.
Could she have forgotten them?
He shook his blonde locks violently, as if to eradicate the very notion. No, Yato had been gone for a few weeks the last time before Hiyori forgot about them. It had only been a handful days this time. "Hiyori wouldn't forget so quickly," he muttered to himself, weaving in and around the people on the streets effortlessly. He hoped that stray thought hadn't stung Yato.
Actually, no. Yukine hoped fervently that Yato felt the sting and that it ate a giant patch of his stupid face. He clicked his tongue behind his teeth; Yato deserved it, wherever the hell he was.
"Asshole," he spat to no one in particular, and picked up his pace.
Yukine slipped into the house just behind Hiyori's father and padded silently away from the door. He sighed to himself, thankful for a moment to be in the brightly-lit house and not outside at dusk. The blonde had been on his way towards her room when a comment from the living room caught his ear.
"How was she?" Hiyori's mother asked, voice clearly painted with varying shades of concern and barely suppressed worry.
Why would she be worried about Hiyori? Yukine crept closer to the doorway arch, leaning against the wall, eavesdropping unabashedly.
"Her vitals are still weak but consistent." There was a pause, where Yukine's chest squeezed. "She's a fighter, dear. She'll come back to us, have faith."
Both Yukine and Hiyori's mother took silent note of the wavering in her father's voice.
That was all he needed to hear. Yukine bolted up the stairs towards his friend's room and yanked the door open, flipping on the bedroom light. Yukine could tell in an instant that she hadn't been there in days from the lack of vibrant warmth that was unmistakably Hiyori. The staleness of the air was poignant, missing the faint whispers of citrus that seemed to follow her like a shadow everywhere she was.
Dammit, Yato! Why did that stupid god have to pick now, of all times, to vanish without a trace? The one saving grace this time, was that he knew for sure that Yato wasn't with Nora. That did little to comfort the hafuri.
Yukine snapped the light off before bounding down the stairs and out of the house, so caught up in his desire to find his friend that he paid no attention to the dark of night around him. There were more important things at stake than his fear of the dark right now.
He cast his sights in the direction of the hospital and took off at full tilt.
Please be okay, Hiyori…
A/N: I had to take a step back on this story for a bit, because I didn't like the chapter flow I had mapped out. Originally, this chapter was going to be the next one and vice versa. When we get to the next chapter, I hope you'll agree with the decision, but I'll be glad to know if you don't, too.