The next time Susabi visited Ren, he stubbornly refused to wait until the yōkai was tempted to bait him again. Rather, he timed it properly, when Ren was between villages and had settled down for a few days to wait out the weather. The summer storms had blown in with memorable intensity that year, rolling across the land and doubling back to soak anyone who thought they had escaped. Judging from his location, Ren had taken shelter in one of the many makeshift waystations that dotted the roads between towns: an unused teahouse that had long gone to decay, and had been taken over by travelers and merchants on their way to better places.

Open-faced to the wilderness, the building was in shabby condition. All its benches were long stolen. Some of the raised sitting areas remained intact, along with most of the walls; enough peddlers used the shelter as a rest stop to have put some effort into maintaining it, and had patched it in haphazard fashion with spare materials from their wares. The thatching of the roof was entirely missing from one corner, letting the rain leak through and slowly erode the rest. Patches of grass crept steadily closer along the dirt road, and a few vines twined over a discarded stack of rotten boards, leaving the rest station suspended in a patchwork transformation of both nature and human hands.

Susabi frowned up at the sky as he arrived, the rain spitefully pelting into his eyes in reward. "Has it at least been quiet while you've been here?" he called out, ducking quickly into the refuge, wiping away his bangs with messy strokes of his fingers.

Ren was sitting far back on the biggest platform that remained intact, facing the storm; the rain dripped angrily through patches of the decayed roof, but his area was still dry. He was cross-legged on the aging wood, two narrow rows of paper talismans spread out carefully in front of him. The row closest to him was blank, not yet prepared. The second contained ofuda that were already completed, black with ink and gold with power, the same rich colors as Ren's eyes.

Rather than use his cloak for cover, the yōkai had taken it off to spread it over his dragon instead. The creature had taken shelter under it like a blanket, though it was far too large to fit underneath entirely; loops of its body bulged out here and there, thick golden coils that slid haphazardly like an improperly tidied rope. It huffed as it saw Susabi and his dragon, and then promptly stuck its nose inside a sleeve, fabric puffing in and out over its nostrils.

"It's been peaceful enough," Ren offered back in greeting, his expression brightening with warmth. He lifted a hand to welcome Susabi in, nudging his dragon to try and coax it over to provide enough room. "I thought I would take the time to create more ofuda while I waited. The humidity isn't good for the paper," he acknowledged, "but once they've been finished, they will be able to withstand even phoenix fire itself."

Curious, Susabi picked his way through the room, stepping neatly around a splintering beam as he approached. "May I watch?"

"If it would not bore you, my lord." Neatly finishing up another talisman, Ren checked his ink and set his brush carefully aside. "Here - could you fetch that bowl of rainwater from outside, and replace it with this one?"

It took no time for Susabi to dutifully take the nearly empty bowl from the yōkai and switch the two, feeling cool, fresh moisture coating the sides, raindrops slipping down over his fingers. His dragon - disliking the weather, but too stubborn to stay behind in Takamagahara once Susabi had told it where he was going - had already curled up on the edge of the platform, shooting jealous glances at the yōkai's cloak from underneath its bushy eyebrows.

Susabi could have sworn that Ren's dragon looked decidedly smug.

Ren had laid out the papers carefully, setting the top row to dry so that he would have enough room to prepare the second. A neat stack of finished ofuda was arranged behind him, where they would not be knocked over by any stray gestures or his dragon's tail. He accepted the full bowl from Susabi with a grateful nod, bending over it to blow gently over the liquid once, infusing it with the air from his own lungs: a breath of wind, aligning it to the nature of his power.

It was a humble set of tools to work with. The bowl was chipped, the brush fraying, and the inkstone wearing its way well onto nothing. But Ren invested his full concentration into the work, as serious as if he had been entrusted with the finest of implements to work with, focused on each fresh slice of paper with no sign of his attention flagging into boredom.

From his angle on the platform, Susabi deciphered what he could of the spell. Skipping formal characters altogether, Ren's talismans used symbols that connected together into a unified design: a heavy border, curving lines that created nested half-circles on the edges, and a single, staring eye in the center. Rather than call upon the powers of an enshrined god, Susabi realized, Ren was using his own name distilled down into its barest iconography, invoking himself as the principle spiritual force. He was investing each paper with his power and life essence, paring it away from himself as if cutting his soul down like a piece of fruit, smaller and smaller each time.

Reasonable for an enshrined god; far riskier for a yōkai who might not necessarily have proper rest afterwards to restore their energy, and could be caught off-guard in the mortal world by any number of predators.

Still, the craftsmanship was undeniably beautiful, all the more so for what it cost to make each one. "Your calligraphy is extraordinary," Susabi remarked, trying to resist the urge to reach out a finger and stroke one.

"Only from long practice," Ren answered wryly. "Creating them for a shrine takes patience. Once, I could have conjured the paper from the air itself, and never needed a brush. These ones are simpler protection wards, but I can at least do this much."

After waiting for the yōkai's nod of permission, Susabi picked one up carefully by the edges, without pinching it in disrespect. Despite Ren's humility, the power in it was already heavy, as if the paper were steel folded a thousand times in the forge. The yōkai had spoken the truth - once the prayer had fully set and the ink dried, the paper would be able to deflect flame as if it were a gentle breeze. "Very few even in Takamagahara could imbue a ward with this much power," he noted. "If this is what you are capable of in your present state, even I would have thought twice about facing you when you were still enshrined."

"It was not as much as I would have liked, back then," Ren admitted in a rueful laugh. He dipped the brush in the ink again, taking care to wick off the excess. "If it had been, I would not have had to lose my eye. It is only thanks to my dragon that I can use them to protect things now. I am lucky to have his support, even when I am no longer properly the god he once served."

The rain drummed on the roof while Ren worked, a soothing, simple melody. In the shelter of the waystation, the air felt warm and humid, lush with the rich smell of dirt and decaying wood. The scraping of the inkstone was a countermelody to the storm as Ren patiently ground it, fingers arched, as if he were performing the duty while in the peace of a shrine, and not a forgotten ruin. The wood was splintering on one of the other seating platforms; without being asked, Susabi pulled his own outer robe off to spread it out, and laid the next row of talismans upon it to dry. Their power hummed against his skin as he cradled them in his palms, whispering promises of a hurricane.

Despite the informality of their surroundings, it was a peaceful rhythm. Susabi rested his chin idly on his hand while he watched each talisman take shape, assessing the protective energies being stitched into each one. He'd crafted similar wards himself, back when he had been mortal; his amulets had needed the blessings of his shrine's gods to infuse them, but the process had been the same. Watching Ren perform the routine task was relaxing; the repetition was familiar, and there was nothing else for Susabi to worry about while the storm continued to pour down, the tails of their dragons flicking idly while both creatures napped.

"Isn't it strange, that gods don't need humans to give them power, but to give them permission instead?" The question came out of nowhere, a legacy from when Susabi had been young and asked the same thing of priests in his own shrine. It rose from that distant place inside him, lured by nostalgia, slipping past all his bitterness only because it had been beckoned by the safety of Ren's presence. "Gods existed long before humans came about. And yet, once mortals close their hearts to us, we are gravely limited to how we can assist them. If we are not given proper welcome in this realm, we are forced to act as any other spirit instead - and sometimes, with far more freedom."

True to his nature, Ren did not question the turn in conversation; he simply nodded, grasping the flow of Susabi's inquiry and aiding it along. "Such is the spiritual connection of musubi, after all." He added a few drops of water carefully to the inkwell, studying the blank paper in front of him as he prepared to calibrate its energies. "Whether you are a spirit or a mortal, musubi is defined by both giving and receiving. By being able to reach out to someone, and have them reach back, our souls are allowed to strengthen one another." Tilting the brush to keep it from dripping by accident onto the paper, Ren paused in his work to regard his dragon affectionately, leaning over to give it a slow stroke down its flank. "But, that is the same for all things, no matter what form we take. And yet..." His fingers paused suddenly; his relaxed demeanor ebbed away into something indecipherable, hidden as neatly as the sun behind a cloud, though his voice lost none of its gentleness. "Sometimes, merely being seen clearly can be the greatest permission of all."

If it hadn't been for the way that Ren's gaze had gone distant, Susabi would have thought that the yōkai was referring to their last conversation, recent enough to still scour; the revelations left him feeling raw whenever he thought about them, but clean. He wondered, suddenly, if musubi had been emphasized even more strongly as a value in Ren's shrine. A wind god could have easily been responsible for more than a single element, and a character for connection was in the yōkai's current name. The lack of it would surely be grating.

"Did you have any prayers dedicated to you?" he asked, curious for any clues.

With a final pat to his dragon's scales, Ren pulled himself out of his thoughts. "Yes. Just a few norito. They were nothing grand, like those devoted to larger gods. Even so," his voice softened, lost this time in a welcome fragment of memory, "they still were mine. My priests worked on them, generation after generation, seeking out the right sounds, until at last they found the words that resounded with their souls the most, and reminded them of me. When they sang them, they felt as if I was with them, in their hearts. And I was. Every time."

Silence held for a moment, and then Ren resolutely dipped his brush back in the ink again, focusing once more on the talismans. "But, now that they are gone, those prayers are at an end. They will never be heard again."

To that, Susabi could have said nothing. Politeness or tact or cowardice - any of those reasons would have sufficed. Ren had already started to move on, deftly painting black arcs over the paper. There was no indication that he intended to elaborate further on the past.

Despite himself, Susabi allowed the next question anyway. "What were they like?"

He thought at first that he had pressed too far - that he had violated a boundary which the yōkai would have preferred to never be touched - but after a moment, Ren nodded. "Here," he said, very quietly. "I'll write one."

With that, Ren searched in his supplies until he found a longer length of parchment, once that had not yet been cut down to the size of a talisman. After dipping his brush deeply in the ink, he danced it over the paper, writing the prayer effortlessly from memory, pausing only to rewet the bristles. The graceful swirls of calligraphy had a fluidity that looked like the wind itself sculpting out clouds, drawing a black and white map of the sky, a painting of air currents made visible for those with wings to use them.

Ren waved his fingers over the paper gently to dry it, and then turned it around to offer it to Susabi with both hands.

At first glance, the prayer was simple. Short, as Ren had warned him, with no long, flowery introductions going on and on about honor and majesty. There were the standard respects, acknowledging the heavenly gods, the earthly gods, and even offering thanks to the mountain itself. Susabi scanned them quickly, noting the proper protocols: nothing unexpected, traditions followed, suitable for a smaller shrine that needed practicalities instead of grand performances.

Then, appearing as suddenly as a rainbow in the summer mist, was the god-name Ichimoku Ren had used when he had been enshrined and possessed both eyes.

Susabi halted over the characters, reading them again and again as he absorbed their meaning, tasting the way they felt in his thoughts. He could feel the weight of their shapes upon his tongue. He inhaled deeply, imagining how they must have been sung - and then memory took over fully, instinct and habit triggered by years of ritual, slamming into him like a tidal wave.

He had heard other norito sung after his death, and had never been tempted to join in. But here - with the tranquil presence of the once-god beside him, the parchment light upon his fingers, the syllables already rolling in his thoughts - that single, deep breath was enough to drag him into the start of a merciless focus. Born of long training and practice, the trance washed over him, catching him and pulling him down before he could resist it. Ren's name was already filling his mind; like a pair of cupped hands overbrimming with water, there was no room left inside Susabi for resistance.

He straightened up, gathering his robes carefully under his knees, and then began.

The first bow - in greeting, upon initially taking a seated position - was automatic. The next two bows brought Susabi even deeper into reverie as he began the prayer formally. His hands were empty of any bells or baton, but he lifted the scrap of paper in his hands, his eyes fixed on the beginning characters, drawing in the proper amount of air into his lungs and holding it fast.

He opened his mouth to speak.

The first syllable felt like a drum in his mouth. It was the thrum of a taiko beat, primal and resounding in his chest: erasing his heartbeat, stretching out long and sonorous. The hum vibrated through his teeth, each word like a thunderclap pulse. His body knew the rhythm - deep inhalations, slow exhalations, oxygen making him dizzy even as it plucked as his thoughts and sent them flying with intoxication. Each cycle of his lungs was a connection to the primal pulse of the universe, to every living thing around them, every motion of existence that gave shape to the whirling whole.

Memory tentatively provided the pace for the next opening words, following the model of a dozen similar prayers that Susabi could still recite in his sleep. He hadn't memorized this one. He didn't know the right flow of it exactly, where to compress the chant and when to prolong it, instincts fumbling - but it still sang in him, sang through him, yanking him further and further along even as part of him felt as if it was opening helplessly again to the whole of the world. Back when he'd been mortal, each norito had spread out his soul like an offering itself, full of love and devotion for the divine. Each time, it had been accepted and embraced by gods who had been equally grateful for someone to reach out to them.

Gods like Ren had been. If Ren had dwelt in that ocean shrine, then Susabi would have sung this same prayer to him each morning. Ren would have welcomed it. Ren would have been able to reach straight into Susabi's heart, promising to always keep it safe.

Susabi would have given it to him.

His soul felt as if it was throwing open every part of itself anyway, exposing itself recklessly without his control, merging with his voice together in an incantation that left him racked with sensation. The air in his lungs was emptied and filled with slow rolls of the tide, chained to words that demanded he continue breathing simply to speak them. He could almost feel the jo-e robes back on his body, the woven mat under his knees. The hum in his nose and mouth was a shudder that felt like the earth rumbling, or the wind shaking the trees.

Or the ocean rushing in, midnight-cold and heavy, dragging him under the tides.

The trance refused to release him, smothering his thoughts; Susabi's eyes traveled line after line on the page. He was choking now, helpless to stop. His instincts were smothering him, pulling him down to drown a second time, drowning in the sea of sound that thundered in his ears like his own dying heartbeat -

He broke free at last on the final syllable, the calm completely shattered. The ending came out half-stuttered, mangled. The trance broke; he was safe in the present day once more, sitting in a run-down waystation, his dragon nearby. He was safe. No one was here to hurt him. No one was here to watch him die.

His fingers were trembling, rattling the paper. He tried to set down the prayer neatly, and crumpled a corner when he almost dropped it instead.

But Ren didn't seem to mind. His head was tilted back, rapt and relaxed; his eyes had slipped closed, lines of tension softening around them, as if Susabi's voice had eased a pain inside him that had gone on for so long, he had forgotten what it was like to live without. Even his face seemed flushed with color, the blood rekindled in his veins. The smile on his face was more relaxed than Susabi had ever seen it before, as if Ren had been listening to a lover's whisper at his bedside, their promises caressing him through the lazy hours of the night.

Susabi tried to remember how to breathe.

"I apologize," he blurted. "Most of the norito I learned were for ocean gods." It was more than he'd meant to admit about himself, but his wits were still scattered, frantic enough that he forgot all formality and spoke like a child again, apologizing desperately for not rotating a tamagushi branch correctly or walking too close to a centerline. "I didn't - I didn't have the right mindset for yours. It wasn't performed very well."

"It was perfect," Ren replied, opening his eyes at last. His composure was already settling back into place, piecing itself slowly together into a mask that covered up all emotions save tranquility. "It was good to hear my name again. You did beautifully. But," he added softly, looking directly now at Susabi, "a prayer that brings pain is no prayer at all. I am grateful. And I will not ask you to do it again."

Before Susabi could respond - still shaken - Ren reached out, his motions deliberately slow, designed not to startle. He took the paper back, folding it again and again to block out the calligraphy completely, and then finally tucked it away in his supplies where it was hidden at last.

"Please do not be concerned about that norito in the future," Ren added in reassurance when he was done, smoothing down the leather of the bag so that it would not accidentally be pushed open. His voice was gentle, and unwavering as a stone. "I will never write it again, here or anywhere else. You have my vow."

Susabi ducked his head away from the reprieve. He wanted to protest, to say no, no, he could recite the prayer a second time, it meant nothing to him. But every ounce of strength he tried to summon wasn't nearly enough; it choked and cowered in his throat, making him feel mortal again, mortal and failing.

At the same time, he couldn't ignore the yearning that had flickered in Ren's eyes around the stern self-denial. Even with all the yōkai's efforts, he hadn't been able to entirely conceal the sorrow of knowing that even this small moment would fade and be gone forever, and then no one would speak his name in that same way ever again.


Susabi didn't offer to recite a prayer again. Ren didn't suggest it. But the next time they met - near the edge of a river this time, several days travel from the latest village that had attracted the yōkai's attention - Susabi had a different task already prepared. He arrived with two small, lacquered tray tables in his arms, both of them repurposed from their normal use for dining. Several bags of containing different kinds of protective omamori had been slung over his shoulder, and he was careful not to allow them to slide off as he hefted his burden, striding down the path towards the yōkai.

"Here," Susabi said abruptly, before Ren even had a chance to greet him. "If you have the time, I would require your assistance."

Faced with both furniture and supplies aggressively brandished at him, Ren blinked, bemused. "Of course."

They arranged both tables beneath the nearest tree, laying out what they could without allowing the satchels of omamori to touch the ground. "The gods at this particular shrine are relatively inexperienced with taking care of mortals," Susabi explained, fishing out one of the amulets from the sack to demonstrate. "They are terrible at keeping track of which omamori they have blessed, and which were missed. Several were done entirely improperly, with the wrong god's touch. I assume you can identify which ones need correction?"

Ren exhaled slowly; his eyes were fixed on the wooden trays with the thirst of a dying man, but he was respectful and careful as he reached out his hands and turned the first omamori towards himself, using only the tips of his fingers, as if afraid he might offend the talisman with the heat of his skin. "I would be honored, my lord."

"The honor should be theirs," Susabi replied tartly. "This way, they can avoid embarrassing themselves any further."

They wedged the tables together side by side to avoid accidentally dropping any amulets if they had to be exchanged across the trays, and settled down to work. The batches that Susabi had brought were a style of amulet that had recently become popular in the capital, with prayers written down on papers that had then been folded inside silken pouches to make them easier for transit, and ornamented with cords. The fashion made them easier to tuck into sleeves and tie them up as needed; the convenience could not be denied.

In theory, the amulets Susabi had brought would have been organized neatly under those guidelines. In practice, both the gods and the priests of the shrine had only just begun to practice fashioning such charms. The cords were knotted poorly, and some of the pouches had no indication of the contents. Without a spiritual sense for the type of prayer that was stored within, a helpless recipient would have had to open the lacings to find out, ruining the charm's protection permanently.

There wasn't much space for them to both sort through the omamori - normally, this task would have been done safely in a shrine, or other larger tables - and Susabi could have simply dragged Ren to one of his workrooms, but he had found himself appreciating the quiet and privacy of the wilderness. Like watching Ren paint his wards, there was a peace to be found in sorting the amulets together with the yōkai. Their fingers brushed occasionally as they passed the omamori back and forth, sitting close together; their elbows nudged one another like two dogs rolling over in their sleep. Susabi's knee kept bumping against Ren's leg. Both he and the yōkai had shed their outer layers in the warmth of the afternoon, and yet it felt as if the day was still too hot.

"Forgive me, Lord Susabi," Ren said after a while, his fingers running over the surface of one omamori as he deciphered the energies within, "but this work - it must bore you, mustn't it?"

"Ah," Susabi replied; he was reluctant to admit an answer either way, not when the task was pretense to begin with. He studied the omamori in front of him with exaggerated concentration. "Even emissaries must occasionally perform chores."

But he glanced up to see Ren smiling wryly, as if the yōkai had sensed the truth all along. "You're doing this as a favor to me, aren't you?"

Time held itself hostage, and Susabi's thoughts with it. The question was simple, but he couldn't summon a reply. Somehow during their work, Ren had ended up shifting even closer to Susabi; it had been such a natural progression as they had handed amulets back and forth, reaching across one another's tables, that Susabi hadn't even noticed. Now he was suddenly aware of every inch of contact. Their shoulders were brushing, nearer in height now that they were both on the ground. Ren's leg was pressed up against his thigh. The line of the yōkai's jaw ran in a smooth sweep up to the point of his ear, hair tucked neatly behind it, a few strands wandering loose like lost, wispy clouds.

His mouth looked impossibly soft, and sweet.

All it would take to close the rest of the distance would be for Susabi to lean forward slightly, turning his head just a little around Ren's horns. All he would have to do was bend down, as easily and inevitably as a branch swaying in the wind - and, as Susabi watched, Ren inhaled slowly, watching him back, parting his lips to breathe or to speak or to -

Susabi swallowed hard, shutting his eyes to resist temptation. When he opened them again, Ren had straightened up again and was calmly sorting through a row of crimson-stitched talismans on a corner of his tray, so casual that it was as if he had never moved at all.

"This shrine has so many different kinds of omamori," he observed approvingly, stroking his fingers affectionately over each one. "These gods are very kind to their followers."

Susabi cleared his throat. "Yes," he blurted inelegantly, trying to ignore the motions of Ren's hand. "Their enthusiasm is to be applauded, even if their talent cannot."

"Yet, I am not surprised that they got them mixed up," Ren continued smoothly. "These two here would look identical, if not for this extra line of thread on the back. Why would an omamori for safe childbirth be crafted the same as one to successfully hunt for wild beasts? I should hope these gods are not intending to imply that particular message."

Susabi blinked.

"Are you... evaluating the talismans of other gods?" he asked, completely deadpan.

"Ah... perhaps," Ren admitted. "Perhaps. Yes," he finally broke down with a laugh that creased his eyes, an honest amusement that stripped the solemnity out of his bearing. "It is no wonder that they are confusing them, when they make no effort to distinguish them to themselves, let alone their followers. Even you and I have had trouble so far. At least... wrap them with different cord braidings once they are done. Or colors?"

They were such small, mundane complaints - still restrained behind Ren's attempts to be polite - that it completely overturned the tension from only a moment before. Susabi started to answer, and was caught short by the sound of his own laughter instead, starting slow at first in stifled chuckles, and then bubbling up until he was gasping for breath in an attempt to control the noise. It felt bizarrely foreign, as if his body had lost the physical capacity years ago, and was now limping along in a poor parody; it had given up the correct muscle reactions for humor long ago, and was fabricating whatever else it could to fill in the gap. Still, he couldn't quash his reaction at the sight of Ren antagonized by something so minor when the yōkai had endured so much worse over the years - when they both had. And now, to see them together like this, sorting through mismatched amulets in the middle of nowhere, as if the world were truly so peaceful and they had nothing worse to dwell upon - he couldn't help but laugh.

Ren fell silent to regard him with fond exasperation. "What if they had their names written properly on them?" he tried again after a moment, which only made things worse.

"You enshrined gods never leave each other alone, fallen or not," Susabi managed, once he finally had control over himself. "Always comparing one another's walkways, making comments on the quality of your torii, or how many bells you have hanging up to ring. You have such pride." Seeing the protest start to creep over Ren's face, he coughed his remaining amusement back, and changed the topic. "Very well. What were your own omamori like?"

The diversion worked; Ren sat back, setting aside the momentary defensiveness as readily as a pile of ofuda. "Bamboo was the most common base material for my shrine. Silk was harder for us to come by," he admitted, and Susabi didn't miss the pronoun, the us that showed how dearly he still treasured those times. "So, we only had a few prayers that would be shielded by cloth. Wood and plain paper were the easiest to work with, and sometimes carvings. Dragons, of course, when craftsmen had time to shape and offer them for my blessing." The yōkai was smiling more easily now, lacing his fingers in his lap and turning the palms upwards, wrists loose and exposed. His gaze went soft and unfocused, looking inwards towards memory. "Every hunter carried my mark. For families, they liked to hang up the wooden omamori where they would catch the breeze. They would add bells, or beads - so many different colors. Sometimes, they would string several together to protect their households as windchimes, saying that the sounds of them rattling in the breeze were their prayers being carried back up to me."

The yōkai paused, and then suddenly volunteered more, his enthusiasm blossoming into delight. "My shintai was formed from three curved stones in the shape of magatama, you see. When the village was still very young, and hunters were first exploring the mountain for game, they saw a dragon flying near its peak one spring. When they went up to find it, they discovered those stones arranged in a circle in a clearing, like shed claws." He lifted his hands, shaping the air as he described the story, the lore that surely had been passed down in those very words from generation to generation. "They decided that those stones were proof of a sacred presence, and built a shrine there to welcome it. And that is how I became their wind god. Their dragon protector."

The tale might have been comforting for Ren, but Susabi frowned at the reminder. Shrines were buildings for protection, but shintai were the true homes of gods; Susabi had guessed that Ren would have had a sacred object dedicated to his name, but - not knowing yet what had happened - was unsure what had happened to the building itself. There was a far difference between a shrine being abandoned and being looted; a shintai left behind to be potentially defiled by thieves was a horrifying thought. "What happened to them?"

To his relief, Ren shook his head. "They should still be there. No one came for them during all the years I remained, and now, there is nothing but one of the roof pillars left to mark the shrine itself. No one would know where to dig." He hesitated then, his expression dimming in its joy. "They... are powerful enough yorishiro to attract another god, I am sure. Once I was no longer a deity, I could not use them any longer to ground myself, but perhaps - perhaps another god will find and use them someday."

Susabi mulled the information over, watching Ren's face tell the story that the yōkai's voice would not. He had no shrines; he could not guess what it would feel like to have someone else seize his sacred symbols, other than to come home and find a stranger there instead, using his name and wearing his clothes, calling themselves a superior replacement. "Was anyone else enshrined with you?"

Surprisingly, Ren took his time in answering that particular question, as if the answer was not worth the risk. "They said all dragon gods were jealous gods," he finally replied in a dangerously light, indifferent tone, staring out towards the horizon as if one of the clouds had given insult, and he was waiting for it to vanish out of chagrin.

Susabi bit back another laugh at the still-wounded expression on the yōkai's face. "And are you? Jealous?"

Ren shifted his gaze back towards him, and it warmed again, sly and forgetting all its previous distress. "I have been known to become very fond of things very quickly, my lord."

Almost instantly, Ren's expression overrode every other instinct in Susabi's head. His hand ached in wanting to touch it. They were still so close that the fabric of Ren's robes trailed over Susabi's wrist every time either one of them moved. Susabi could reach out, urge Ren's chin to turn, and see that smile in full. He wondered what it would feel like to have Ren laughing quietly against his shoulder, the yōkai's breath cupped in the palm of his hand.

And then Ren made a rueful chuckle, breaking the moment. "But no, I am not, Lord Susabi," he continued. "Life is best when it is shared, and a closed heart does not even serve the person it belongs to. There was plenty of room in my shrine. I would have been happy to have had another there."

The news made sense; Ren showed every sign of a person who had learned to live on their own, quietly enduring what they could not solve for themselves. Shaking his own head to clear it, Susabi forced himself to focus on the conversation. "Just Susabi is fine," he corrected. "I believe we have long passed the need for formalities."

In truth, it was more to excuse himself than anything else; he had stopped thinking of Ichimoku Ren like that months ago, dropping politeness in favor of a single syllable whenever he thought of the other spirit, a sound that could be held inside a shallow breath, a simple sigh. But Ren tilted his head slightly, brow furrowing in concern. "You are an emissary from Takamagahara, and I am a fallen yōkai. It would not be properly respectful."

"You are a formerly enshrined god, who could tutor half the amatsu-kami on the very principles they are meant to uphold. Let us skip the titles, before I feel inclined to address you as a teacher."

Ren hesitated, and then broke into a smile suddenly, studying the ground before he finally lifted his eyes. "Very well, my lord," he said, and caught himself with a laugh. "My - Susabi."


The omamori were a simple pleasure - so simple that Susabi found himself touring more of the shrines of the younger gods, under the excuse of monitoring their development. Most of them already knew of him from his work with the mortal world; several had been sternly upbraided by him in the past. They had already become accustomed to his criticism over various errors. To have him volunteer his own assistance caused them no end of scrambling, terrified that they had finally messed up their responsibilities badly enough that they might never be allowed out of Takamagahara again.

In truth, Susabi had loved the rituals once. Shrines had always been a comfort for him, the home he had sensed even when he was too young to understand his origins. He had been devoted to his gods and respected those of others, tending to every inch of his shrine and the sacred instruments it had housed. The gods had always cherished him back. Whenever he had sung their norito, he had felt their joy blossoming like a second sun against his heart, warming it with promises that he would be forever welcome in their presence.

But since his death, all his memories had been overshadowed by how quickly the villagers had defaulted to hatred. He hadn't been able to think of any of the rituals without remembering how, inevitably, they had been discarded by the villagers; all his prayers had gone to waste, all his devotions, every desperate attempt he'd made to try and protect them even as he'd felt his prophecies fraying uselessly into failure. His ocean gods had been kunitsu-kami, earth gods who did not reside in Takamagahara; he had flinched at meeting them after they had rescued him from death, unable to bear their apologies, seeing the sorrow in their faces even as they had spoken unrepentantly of destroying the humans who had hurt him.

They had let him retreat to Takamagahara, away from them; he could no longer take comfort in their presence. His village had ruined even that compassion for him. It had become too painful to endure.

Offering those experiences now to Ren felt different, like taking out a storage chest after moving to a new house, and pulling out the kimono one by one to see the patterns in the light. They were the same rituals, but everything else was fresh. Ren made the memories bearable whenever he was around by welcoming them; he celebrated every moment, every gesture, as if the world only contained the two of them and their dragons, and no other judgement mattered.

The space itself around Ren was safe - safe and simple. There were no villagers to appease. There were no disasters to foresee. There was only Ren's relieved, grateful face every time Susabi offered another omamori to examine, or asked his opinion on an ema request, or for assistance while cleaning the feathers on a set of hama-ya. It was as if, between the two of them, they were rebuilding a language of everything they had lost, of everything sacred that had been ripped away from their hands and their identities.

Most importantly, the work fed Ren, more effectively than any food or drink. It nourished him, reaching into the parts of his spirit that he had shut away with the rotting of his shrine, never expecting to be able to share them again. He smiled more, almost all the time now; the weariness that had marked him at their first meeting seemed like a mere ghost on his bones. There was a brightness in his eyes, and a sense of gentle mischief that continued to reveal itself more often, teasing at the edges of Susabi's tensions with the delicacy of a spring breeze - until Susabi would find himself utterly disarmed, and forced to dismiss whatever matter of the mortal realm was forcing him to brood. It was like watching a tree come back to life in his hands, no longer starved of sunlight and water: branches reaching wide, fresh leaves unfurling for the first time in years.

Ren was flourishing. But - as much as it helped the yōkai - each meeting between them felt as if it was taking something apart inside Susabi, as if a ghost had slid its fingers into his flesh and was patiently deboning him, joint by joint. He kept stumbling over sudden moments of weakness whenever he thought about the yōkai, an unsteadiness and uncertainty, a wavering where he had thought he had strength. He wanted to find more things to share with Ren, even if it meant unearthing memories that Susabi wasn't certain he was ready to ever see again. Part of him was crumbling, taking down the barriers that he had drawn to separate himself from his mortal life - to separate himself from people, frustrated by both humans and gods alike.

Even so, the possibility of ending their time together was far worse.

It became a regular routine before Susabi even noticed: he would finish his work in Takamagahara, review the reports, and then consider if it was good timing to visit the mortal world. Sometimes - if it looked as if the yōkai wasn't near a town - Susabi would set aside the entire day in advance, keeping Ren company as the other spirit either rested or continued his travels. He started to brought food and drink with him as a peace offering for the arguments he knew he was providing, fights which were performed only in voice, but were no less bloodless. Even with the shared ground of their experiences, they were still no closer to agreeing on other matters of belief. Susabi didn't expect they would be. It would be as much an insult to Ren as to Susabi himself to think that either one of their convictions were so weak as to be changed by simple rounds of debate.

What mattered was that Ren never lost patience with their conversations. He always answered Susabi readily whenever each discussion came up, leaping willingly back into the same futile counterpoints, both of them endlessly seeking a new way out of the inevitable conclusions at the end. They wound in circles around the same topics, sometimes switching points as unexpectedly as changing leads in a sparring match. The issue of human hearts mattered as much to Ren as it did to Susabi; they both recognized it along with their mutual futility, just as they each knew the other person would never stop.

Humanity had built its legacy on blood and scorn, on exclusion and derision. The more that some people gave, the more that others learned how to take. Without structure and law, humans would not prevent their worst impulses from damaging the world and all its living creatures. Lacking a sense of community, they needed other forms of order to supplant the gap instead.

Susabi's visions had shown as much. He was not the only sacrifice made to satisfy a village seeking a scapegoat. He would not be the last.

But the hostility of it all, strangely, felt lessened around Ren, even though they spoke of it constantly. None of their time felt wasted, no matter how they spent it. Even the hours when they would simply eat together, or sit down for a break and talk idly about the events of the day: the latest trainees in Takamagahara, a few sightings of corpse-eating ghosts, the condition of local protective wards in one part of the country or another.

The sky. The sun. The weather. Ren seemed to smile at everything these days - and therefore, everything was worth it.

Other times, they analyzed the more delicate balances of power that needed to be maintained between mortals and spirits alike. Different training exercises for the younger gods were discussed, changes in human settlements, and shifts in weather that could leave a drought in one area, or a flood in another. Sometimes, Susabi left Ren with supplies that would go towards supporting the smaller shrines, having an excuse to come back the next day just to pick up what the yōkai had finished: braided cords, plaited straw, ground pigments for colored paints.

One afternoon, Ren surprised him by catching his sleeve just as Susabi arrived, tugging him to sit down. He had a bundle of hemp in his lap, and had almost finished twisting a cord out of it, his fingers working deftly to spiral the length of it into a braid.

"It's a shimenawa for you," he said once it was complete, laughing at the startled expression as Susabi realized the yōkai was fastening it around his wrist. "Because you are sacred, Susabi."

Technically true - but Susabi found himself lingering over the words, regardless. He held steady as Ren finished tying off the slender rope, and then tilted his arm to watch it dangle against the other bracelet on his wrist, polished metal clashing in stark contrast to the natural plant fibers. The shimenawa was so thin and rough and out of place compared to his other ornaments - already fraying, the strands scratching his skin where it slid down past the sleeve of the robes he had chosen that day.

Still, he touched it reverently, running his fingers meticulously over each twist as if it had been woven from moonlight itself, spun on a loom of glass.

"It's missing the shide," he commented, just to needle Ren, and Ren simply laughed again.

He wore it back to Takamagahara anyway, and felt it rubbing at the layers of his formal clothes, rough weave catching at the silks. Despite that, he kept it on each day until it started to risk splitting apart, and then he took it off and hung it up near one of his worktables, where he could look at it each day whenever he chose.


They finished their work early the next time they met, fingers roughened from twisting kaya grass into braids for smaller chi-no-wa hoops, creating protective wards for those who had not had a chance to be purified as part of the larger summer ceremonies. Both he and Ren had sorted quickly through the pile of fibers, and then - without anything else to focus on as an ending point - they had simply allowed the day to continue on into evening, leaning back against the nearest tree large enough to support them both, letting its shade to cover their bodies. Their dragons had been set loose to fly and hunt as they pleased, and their serpentine forms occasionally darted through the clouds overhead, casting rippling shadows on the earth below.

Susabi was starting to drowse, losing himself in the peace and warmth of the afternoon, when Ren broke the silence. "I recently heard from another spirit that a pack of gaki are headed towards a pair of towns to the south of here. It should be a simple matter of defending the area long enough that they are convinced to hunt easier prey. If I go, will you advise me not to?"

Startled, Susabi realized the permission that was being asked - more accurately, the fact that Ren was asking it. Ever since he had started visiting Ren, he had also completely interfered with the yōkai's business, preventing Ren from doing anything more than scaring away other spirits from a distance. Overprotectiveness was an offense to them both; he did not need to treat Ren as if the yōkai was less competent than a Takamagahara trainee. Less patient spirits would have complained long before now.

"No," he replied, thoroughly chagrined. "No. You should go. I do not disapprove of your intentions - you must know that by now. Simply the outcomes." He stared down at his lap, puzzled by the sudden queasiness that was beginning to roil in his stomach, like a poison accidentally ingested in wine too sweet to refuse. "I will stop interrupting your work."

"It is difficult for me to ask," Ren admitted; when Susabi glanced up, he saw that the yōkai was watching him contemplatively. "If you withhold your visits, how else will I be able to see you as often?"

Relief loosened the tightness in Susabi's nerves; it was a reprieve to have the question voiced for him. "I will come every full moon and new moon," he suggested, counting out calendar estimations and already dissatisfied with how long the days would stretch. The waning phase had just tipped over into waxing, the crescent of the moon barely wide enough for light. There would be at least ten more nights to wait. "That way, you may plan your headaches accordingly."

Ren inclined his head in assent, and then murmured, nonchalantly, "I miss you already."

The statement was so easily spoken that Susabi found himself catching at the memory of the sounds, second-guessing them like a miser to wonder at possible intonations. He did not know what to offer back. Every reply was half-formed in his thoughts, stripped of any finesse: thank you, why, and, I will miss you as well.

"If you drive away the gaki now," he replied, habit making the conversation for him, "how will the humans even know they were in danger at all?"

"I have thought about allowing the spirits to get close enough to alert the towns," Ren admitted. "Both of them lack a strong defense. Here, let me show you."

Sitting up, the yōkai cleared a spot in the dirt, using pebbles and broken twigs for markers. He scratched out a square near Susabi's knee, and then two more closer to his own: one large, the other much smaller. "The enenra said that a village three days to the east had been assaulted recently, with their storehouses devoured, along with many of the residents. The survivors have fled further east, but the gaki are continuing south, along the river." The stone in his fingers dug a winding line that veered between the two blocks, sharply cutting off the smaller. "But, here is the dilemma. The second town has far larger supplies of rice, as well as clear roads that lead on to other settlements. The gaki will be drawn to it like flies, and consume everything else along the way."

Susabi studied the crude map, already seeing the shape of the land unfurling like a flag in his mind. "Including the smaller town," he acknowledged. "They'll use it as a shield and a decoy."

The wince Ren made was proof that the other spirit had come to an identical conclusion, despite his best efforts otherwise. "They may yet recognize one another as equals, and band together for mutual protection."

"If they truly believed so, then these towns would be the same size." Susabi made a dismissive flap of his hand, still scrutinizing the layout. "A difference in resources is a difference in affluence, and there are almost certainly territory lines drawn because of it. So - your options are simple. If you do nothing, the larger town will more than likely allow its sibling to bear the brunt of the attack. If you intervene, but the towns are unaware, they will remain ignorant that anyone defended them at all. Yet, if you do make yourself known, you simply invite new avenues of resentment." He stretched his arm out, tapping meaningfully on the smaller square. "You are an outsider, a resource they have no control over, and each side will read a different meaning into your allegiance. So long as they know you will give them your strength for free, they can excuse themselves for not even trying, and turn their energies towards petty hatreds for each other instead."

The list did little to either surprise or discourage the yōkai. "There is no clean solution," Ren affirmed, pulling his hair back over his shoulder before it could accidentally sweep across the map. "But these gaki are beyond ravenous. I fear risking them too close to either town." He was silent for a moment, and then shared his decision. "I will warn them, but prepare to handle the defenses myself."

Disquiet soured Susabi's nerves. On their own, gaki were weaker pests. Massed in a sizeable pack, however, they could strip a horse of all its flesh within seconds. "How many are there?"

Ren glanced up at him; though his tone was mild, there was a sternness in his gaze, as weary and familiar as if he were on the banks of a river again, defending fields from furaribi. "If I tell you, you will ambush them, and wipe them all out," he pointed out calmly. "My intention is to disperse them, not destroy. The gaki, too, are acting out of the desire to survive - their hungers define them most of all, and they are more vulnerable than we are to the cravings for food. Once the main group is broken up, the towns should be able to handle whatever threats trickle through."

Caught short by the declaration - and the implicit warning to allow the yōkai his choice of method - Susabi narrowed his eyes. Having it pointed out meant that he could not attempt to eliminate the issue in advance; Ren would surely know. "There is no opportunity for them to learn that way," he insisted instead, aware of how his position had flipped underneath his feet, and he was arguing Ren's usual stance for him. "You can set an example for them now, but they will forget all too quickly. What message do you intend to leave them with?"

The challenge hit home this time. Ren dropped his gaze, unable to defend against Susabi's scrutiny. "The memory that someone was willing to help, once," he replied. "Even if no one they know comes to their aid, at least the world will have proven it is not uncaring. Perhaps that might be enough to inspire someone to stand up, the next time. Even if the chance is so very small," he admitted, but without much strength in his voice. One of his hands reached out, slender fingers settling over one of the roughly-squared towns, as if he could protect it with the shield of his bones and grant it a divine blessing once more.

It was Susabi's turn to go quiet now, faced with a truth that had no dignity in its fate. He picked up one of the twigs, its bark flaking away under his touch. When he tried to use it to brush away the nearest town markers, he only ended up scraping rough trenches into the dirt, gashes that zig-zagged over the soil.

The only point that he could make was the worst one - not because of its lack of logic, but its lack of mercy. It rose up out of his throat like a vengeful ghost; for once, he found himself resisting it, struggling with the words.

But it would not be silenced. "Ren," he said, just as hushed, just as shorn of hope. "You want these people to care enough about each other enough that they will gladly protect one another. But they will not. And watching you bleed on their behalf will not spark compassion in them, either." He did not need to scry the future for this; history alone stood as his testament. "Tell me one time, just one, when a single person's heart was changed by your actions. That they became kinder, that they loved others more, that they forgot spite and chose peace. Say that your eye meant something to your people when you gave it up for them. Tell me you have proof that it helps, Ren," he repeated, half of him yearning to be proven wrong, half of him already knowing the truth. "Because the answer these humans would give you is easy. The gaki are hungry creatures. What will you do if the towns ask you to feed their appetite with yourself - not an eye, or an arm, but to lie down willingly and let them make a meal of you until there is nothing left? Would you still do it? If they promised they would become better people in exchange for such a price, would you still allow it?"

He was already sick at the thought of the answer. He knew what his own solution had been. Drowning himself had been the only option Susabi had seen to put an end to his village's impossible demands, answering both their wishes and his own for it all to stop. Death had the sole reprieve. Ren might think of it as a mercy now, and for the same cause: a slow torture of tests and punishments, day by day, until the yōkai threw himself gladly into a fight he knew he could not win.

But Ren surprised him. "No."

Startled, Susabi jerked upright, even as Ren's voice only dwindled, softer and softer. "If I knew for certain that these townspeople would take the example to heart, and protect one another for the rest of their days, then I would gladly slit my own belly open to let the gaki feast. But the chance is too small this time. And that," he added slowly, each word sounding wrenched out of his throat, "is also why I am to blame. For denying them, before they can prove otherwise. For not having enough faith."

In a flashpoint instant, all Susabi could taste was anger, curdling like acid in the back of his throat: he could understand, suddenly, the rage that would cause a god to kill their own followers. His ocean gods had reached out and crushed the village they had entrusted their own child to, giving the humans no chance to atone; if Susabi could, he would do the same to both towns now, to any town that might have given Ren cause to say such words.

Susabi's fingers felt as if they were trembling. He clenched them hard, feeling the twig splinter and stab into his palm.

"If deliberately slaughtering someone is required to spark love in their souls, then those humans are not worth saving." He spat the condemnation; he did not care. "Creatures who have fallen that far are no longer anyone's responsibility, let alone yours. You should let them perish from their own pride -"

He stopped short at the stricken expression on Ren's face.

The yōkai was holding himself very still as he watched Susabi, as carefully composed as a statue, distant and remote. He did not speak, barely breathing, as if he knew that any gesture on his part would betray a plea for aid that would had always gone unanswered. He had not shifted his weight away, but Susabi's instincts flared, as if a vast gulf had swept open between them, yawning wide so that Susabi was staring at Ren from across an endless battlefield, or a black ocean that could not be breached.

An ocean of corpses, he thought, suddenly understanding the abject bleakness in the yōkai's eyes. It was the desperation of warriors who had been kept out too long on the field, watching their comrades fall and outposts burn and children cut down in the reeds. It spoke of the agony of survival, as if Susabi had touched upon a truth that had always been hidden just beneath Ren's skin: that every wish of hope for the living was equally matched by guilt for the dead.

"No." Unable to bear the thought of such a burden winning out, Susabi shook his head fiercely, cutting through every lingering politeness that might have held him back. "What is lacking is not your efforts, Ren. It isn't because you haven't taken the time to learn and love humans. Humans themselves cannot follow those principles yet. There is no perfect solution to these problems because they won't allow you to offer one. Not because you haven't tried hard enough. Not because you haven't attempted to give them what they need. And not," he added, running out of breath and feeling as if he had misused every word, "because you don't care. None of this is your fault, Ren. None."

No answer came from Ren. Rather than protest, the yōkai looked up quickly towards the sky instead, blinking fast. He remained silent, swallowing hard, as if Susabi had flayed the voice from him while leaving his throat intact, refusing even the grace of a wound to show he had been hurt at all.

The reaction drained the anger out of Susabi as quickly as it came. Honesty was rarely a matter he had cause to regret; every word he had said was true.

For once, he wished with all his being that it was not.

"I am sorry," he acknowledged. Gritting his teeth, he gathered his feet under himself, wondering how fast he could return to Takamagahara without making it worse. The last thing Ren needed was to feel as if Susabi had cause to flee from him. "That was too brash of me. I have overstepped my bounds. Allow me to leave you in peace, with my apology."

"Stay."

Ren's reply was so swift that Susabi almost missed it. The yōkai hadn't changed position; his head remained tilted back, gaze resolutely fixed on the emptiness of the heavens, as if he was hoping a blade would gut him while he wasn't looking. His voice was weak and strained. "Just - just for a little while, please. Just - please. Stay with me."

They sat in silence together while the sun sank lower and lower towards evening. The stiffness of Ren's posture broke down by fractions; he opened his mouth to breathe shallowly through it, struggling with trying to keep an even pace for his lungs when every inhalation sounded ragged, a hair's breadth from a sob. His face did its best to remain blank, self-discipline working to block out any evidence of turmoil, so that Susabi only saw the small amounts that slipped past Ren's shields: the tightening of his fists, the small winces, the flinches as Ren pulled out the next memory he was not yet done mourning, and found it bleeding still.

The clouds turned crimson and orange above them, melting like a painter's masterpiece in the rain. Their dragons came back to roost, quietly slipping to coil around the trees.

Ren's eyes stayed turned up towards the sky, shimmering gold as the sun set, glistening like molten pools from tears unshed: one seeing, the other forever blind.