Hi there! Thanks so much for the kind reviews, follows and favs! It's been ages and I apologies for going into such a long and sudden hiatus… I had a lot going on. But I do intend to continue and, hopefully, soon give a proper ending to this fic.

Anyhow, I usually like matching my stories to canon as much as possible but this (though, I wish I could explore Japanese mythology through and through) is going to be different…

O thou who is still reading this *pauses* I wish you to enjoy this chapter. *awkwardly walks away*

" …italic…" = recalled speech.

"…plain…" = normal speech.

'…plain…' = thoughts.

Disclaimer: Noragami belongs to Adachitoka. I'm not Adachitoka, therefore, Noragami doesn't belong to me.

Don't you forget about me.

The people had had enough. A stray spirit made carnage of their nights and destroyed their hope in better mornings. Corpses with their ears sharply cut off were piling at their doors and rotting underneath the young summer sun. Children were told not to go outside, merchants closed their business, and just about everyone played dead. They were afraid in their homes. This foe was invisible; however, his misdeeds lead people's collective imagination to picture him as the utmost despicable character with the ugliest possible face. Some claimed they had seen him. The killer, they said, was a damned monster so repugnant even the sun wouldn't dare shine upon him. A demon of depravity running loose straight out of hell, that's what he was.

Monks were solicited. They wept and they begged in every shrine within the area for heaven to dispose of this calamity that had befallen them. Their wish was heard loud and clear for, at last, it was decided that Bishamonten was to put an end to the cause of their misery.

The hunt was to take place an hour after nightfall so as not to overly expose the population to any casualty that might occur during the confrontation. Bishamon had her arsenal ready; alas, her lead shinki and numerous advisors were unable to collect enough intelligence on their target. Not knowing one's enemy was a fatal mistake when conducting battle. Lucky for her, that was not something she needed to particularly be frightened of. At the end of the day, she was immortal. Well… her name was.

With the determination of one who was to administer divine justice, she called out for one of her shinki who, in a flash of light, immediately transformed into an over-sized eagle and flew high towards the forest with her holding on with one hand to its back while gripping an unsheathed blade in the other. All her shinki could feel her discomfort. This time, she was not going to face another Ayakashi of that she was sure. She could feel it in her heart- the pain hiding behind wishes that should've never been uttered.

Fledged by bad intentions, meanwhile, the monster was running short of breath, staggering and glancing behind his shoulder every once in a while. The moon followed his tracks because, you see, the moon had this weird tendency to follow children until they stopped believing it was stalking them and Yaboku -for that was the monster's name- was a child, not like any other but still a child. His small feet, bared and dirtied, were bleeding. The ragged yukata wrapped about his petit body couldn't keep the cold from finding its way into his bones. Death in ayakashi-form ran after him.

"Smells good… smells go-good… smells good… smells good", he couldn't take it anymore. He really didn't smell all that good- he hadn't washed himself in weeks, if not months! Tears were starting to roll, tick and muddy from the filth on his skin, down his cheeks. He didn't want to know how it felt for somebody to die. Though, he always made it a quick, clean slash, he did act as the vessel that helped the doomed meet their end. Would it be karma if he was devoured, slowly and painfully, by that negative mass of hatred growling after his track? No… karma was supposed to apply only on humans… right?

"*Squeak*…*squeak*…na…Smells good!"

Pupils shrinking abruptly, he shrieked in anguish as he was blown forward by the strong hit that had befallen his back. Blighted, lying on the hard ground, he was simply too famished to move a muscle anymore. He consumed whatever energy he had left running around. Nobody had offered him food in over a month and it had been ages since he visited father.

Sakura was not there.

Nora wasn't there.

He was alone and he hated it.

He had no shinki.

Father must've punished Hiiro harshly every time she failed to bring him back.

He should've went back home to father.

If he died now, would father remember him?

Did father still believe in him?

If he were to die right this moment, would he reincarnate? Or would he vanish?

The enormous Ayakashi overshadowed him. A hundred gleaming eyeballs rotated out of their sockets, glued to his pathetic self and the promise of a good snack.

'I'm going to die here', he thought, unable to stop crying. He felt so pathetic.

His eyelids fell.

He really wished he could live.

When he opened his eyes, barely a second later, the growling monster was gone in a burst of light. A figure had leapt from the night sky, cutting the Ayakashi from top to bottom, kind of like his father would cut the first seasonal watermelons neatly in half back when their relationship was still going strong. Had his father come for him? Was he hallucinating?

"Father…I' sorry. I'll come… back home. I'll do as you say… Nora and I will play… and we'll bring you a lot of souvenirs, ears, fingers, whatever you want… That'll make you happy…right? You'll be happy of me…" His voice was raspy. About to faint, he had to pause to inhale then exhale. Breathing made it harder to talk. Trying to lift himself off the dirt to not look like a good-for-nothing before the one man who intimidated him beyond reason, he only ended up crashing harder down.

His savior's silhouette moved forward. It was too dark and he could barely see straight, though, beside a bloody blade's glimmer, he could make out a thin waist with a feminine curve to it and a few platinum locks, swaying as the person edged further towards him. Now, blight might have infected his brain, but he was still positive his father wasn't blonde…and he wasn't a woman, either. They had bathed together before. If his father was a woman, he would've noticed… or so he hoped.

'Dad…?'

"Did you hear that, my lady? The ears! This is the foe we've been searching for!"

Her shinki were exited. They'd been looking from above throughout the woods and finally, by pure chance, found their target. Bishamon, on the other hand, blinked her shock away. A kid killing people for praise was absolutely not what she had expected. She could see he was hurting; heaving, his small body was a deep purple with blight. Instinctively, she raised her katana above her head and over his neck. The moonlight gave his pale boyish face a mystifying air and the way he looked at her so intently made her feel in the wrong. A shiver ran down her spine. The hair on her neck spiked up like a gutter cat fighting an equal opponent, which was odd since a beaten and unarmed little boy wasn't really someone to call an 'equal opponent'.

'Is this it? This is the terrifying monster I'm to eradicate?

She could've sworn there was no soul behind his squinted blue eyes, yet, he seemed terrified. He was scared to die even if he -like her- wasn't technically alive.

'I see…'

Her gaze upon him was somber, lifeless.

It didn't matter if he was physically a child; he was still made for murder.

Bad feelings of hatred and despair pushed people to ask for an existence like his. In that way, he was no different from that abominable Ayakashi she'd just slain.

'War…war isn't all that good either.'

This was no time for mercy. She couldn't bear to admit he was no different from her. For her to compare herself to a being like him was not befitting of her title.

"Lady Bishamon, please finish this lowlife quickly." Her head shinki, an old, strict and often a bit too tyrannical woman who had been at her service for many years now was on a hurry. Her voice reeked of disgust; something about it made Bishamon mad; Despite her good sense, she took it personally.

'This is my duty… if I don't kill him more people will suffer. I must.'

Still, he was so small…

She had never ever struck an enemy down.

Was this supposed to be easy?

It wasn't.

Her teeth gritted. Her sword fell.

Kneeling next to the injured foe, she scooped him up in her arms. The touch of him burned her flesh. She didn't wince.

Her shinki were all alarmed. Not bothering with them, she whistled a whistle that amazed young Yaboku. He, sadly, had never managed to learn how to whistle. Then, swiftly rode, once again, on the eagle that had landed at her signal.

Heaving a sigh, she decided on giving the child a bath in blessed waters then think over her course of action. Maybe, just this once, she could let her prey escape.

The boy, motionless against her chest, lifted a translucent stare up toward his savior. If he was human, it would've seemed he was praying.

His vision was foggy. Still, he could tell the one holding him was no human being, too. It wasn't his father after all.

Did this mean he was allowed to live for now?

A chuckle erupted into his mind. It was the echo of a mocking tone he knew very well. "I bet she was surprised to see those same cold eyes shine as you slaughtered her precious family centuries after your little encounter."

"Dad…? Why are you here?" Here was plain nothingness.

Father laughed. With a smirk, he said: "well, that's my son."

Sweating buckets, Yato awoke with a start. His white t-shirt clung to his skin and there were yellow stains on it under his armpits that made him feel just as disgusting as he looked. A hand holding his neck to crush the lump in his throat, he wasn't sure if that was a dream, a memory or both.

He hadn't met Bishamon before Kazuma asked for his help… or else he would've remembered. No matter when something happened, be it a day or a thousand years ago, he always and without fail remembered.

" Oi, so you're finally awake, your majesty Baka-sama." Strangely cheerful ever since he had another kid under his roof, Daikoku entered Yato's and Yukine's room without any further enouncements. On ordinary occasions, Yato would be quick to complain on and on about how the lack of intimacy was a serious trespass on his personal space. To which his blunt interlocutor would, yet again, suggest he found himself his own place and stopped freeloading in their attic.

"Yeah…" The quietness in his reply, along with his terrible looks and messy morning hair, was enough to make Daikoku a tad suspicious. Yato was usually the epitome of goofiness, acting like a carefree dork from early morning to late at night. Though, rarely, his behavior would show traces decades and centuries of struggle for existence had left on his psych.

Brushing it off, the seemingly older man went about, searching the small room for what had originally caused him to go up there. "Anyway, where are your doujinshi?"

The raven-haired head popped up, confused. "My-what?"

"Your doujinshi," he repeated. "The ones you drew about bishamon-sama."

Yato stared at him with one of those expressions nobody else but he could pull off. "…You're only getting interested in those after she became all child-like. I knew you were a pervert but this …"

The punch he got in response almost sent him flying back to dreamland.

"It's not like that you bastard! Don't go around casually talking about such serious accusations! And you've got some nerves, calling me a pervert when you shamelessly drew and profited from selling x-rated magazines!"

"Everybody has to make a living! Those things sell good." cupping his sore cheek, he added matter-of-factly, "and they made Kazuma extremely happy, too. You could say I was doing a solid to a bro."

"Don't bring Kazuma into this, you creepy pervert. He only bought those to help you out whenever you were short on cash –which is basically always- and keep from spreading your works to preserve his mistress's reputation. Though, if it were me, I would've beaten the shit out of you, instead."

"Yeah, right…" rolling his eyes and scratching his heavy head, the infamous not-so-famous artist rose from his bedding. "What do you need the doujinshi for, then?"

"To burn them, obviously."

Horrified, Yato's face fell. He screamed: "Obviously?! What the heck is so obvious about that?! I'll never handover my precious art, never ever, ever!"

Looking around, the severe shinki didn't appear to give a damn about his exaggerated reaction. He was unfortunately aware of his Diva-like tendencies and how childish of a bum he could be.

"Too late, I already found and got rid of most of them while you were asleep. I was just asking in case there were some stashed around somewhere."

"You're joking, right?" There was a distinct smell of burning in the air that he had been too shaken at his awakening to notice, but his mind couldn't accept it.

"No, not at all."

"B-b-b-b-but, but why?"

"You said it yourself, Bishamon-sama has reincarnated. I won't have her innocent little reincarnation stumbling upon your crap and thinking her predecessor was a disgrace. She'd most likely commit hara-kiri. Since she, Yukine and Kofuku are out grocery shopping, I thought it was the perfect time to deal with this. "

"But… my life's work… w-why?"

Grieving, Yato was heartbroken.

There's a unique, and perhaps misleading, sense of purity that struck whoever took a moment to observe, silently, cherry blossoms flutter high, beckoning the wind to lead their path toward a gracious closure. Bishamon had spent scarcely a week in the near shore and their baby pink sight, that felt otherworldly melancholic, was by far her favorite of all she had the chance to see so far. Though, this was her first time going out, so she hadn't exactly seen much of the world yet.

Tagging along with an upbeat Kofuku and a quiet Yukine through shops and market stalls, she was overjoyed. Or at least, she had been. Her excitement had abandoned its place to a solemn feeling that tightened its hold on her chest for a reason she failed to pin point the moment Yukine-kun decided to take her somewhere he promised had been very special to her predecessor.

They were simply walking around, carrying a bunch of paper bags that had logos of different brands printed on them, when she spotted a cute pair of sakura-shaped flower earrings that instantly caught her eyes. Naturally, she didn't ask the kami of poverty to buy it for her. She had her own allowance. Nonetheless, they were both dreaded just seeing her admire the jewelry. Heck, Kofuku nearly shed tears. That was when Yukine suddenly dropped the groceries in his arms, took her by the wrist and stormed off in the distance, leaving a helpless Kofuku screaming their names behind. If people were able to see them, she was about certain the two of them, dashing through the crowds, would've caused quite the curious commotion.

On a hurry or not, it was easy for her to keep up the pace until they'd reached the mysterious destination the peach-eyed teenager was so eager to show her: A sakura tree. Its branches quietly waved with the wind, as if greeting its visitors.

Confused, she gawked at it. It was truly the most breathtaking scenery she'd ever looked upon. So much, it shook the basis of who she was meant to be. She related to it.

Yukine, left palm flat on the trunk of the sakura tree he'd been taking care of ever since his first friend passed away while his right hand still held into her, wondered who'd actually call out for a ghost's ghost. He had no idea why he felt the need to bring Bishamon there… he just needed to. It wasn't fair for her not to remember the people he was grieving. Suzuha, Kazuma, they'd loved her so much…

"Bishamon-sama," He turned toward her, firm and ready to explain up to the most insignificant detail of everything they'd been through.

Alas, a hateful chuckle interrupted him before he could say a word.

"It's nice to meet you here, Yukine-kun, Bishamon-san."

Fujisaki Kouto gleefully stood behind them; Nora curiously staring at the pair next to her dear daddy.

"Where's Yato?"