A/N: final chapter! well, epilogue after, but whatever, spirit remains. FINAL CHAPTER! can't believe this went from being pretty much dead and forgotten about to finished!


Yato and Yukine

It was only a matter of time before she caught up to them. In Toshiro, where they upturned several market stands, the force of Bishamonten's energy blasts, guided by Kazuma, proved to be too much for the two teenagers.

"Sekki!" Yato screamed Yukine's true name, feeling the warmth and strength as the bare blade of Yukine fit into his hands. It was all he could do to stave off the bright bursts of light, and the two were already tiring.

"Would you," Yato stopped to pant a little, "mind considering a surrender?"


The detainment cell was cold and odorous, reminiscent of their time in the army. When Bishamonten arrived in front of them, staring from the other end of the bars, Yukine finally looked up.

"Bitch-monten," He greeted her. Yato couldn't help but stifle a laugh at the childishness of the insult. The Goddess appeared unaffected.

"Jeez, throwing us in jail? And I'm your soulmate, too." He added lazily, hoping for a less robotic reaction. This wasn't the Combat Goddess he knew so well. Something was wrong.

"You are not. You are a murderer." She replied, flatly, still staring at them with slight... was that contempt?

"Harsh," remarked Yukine.

"You wound me."

"She wounds you?"

"Why yes, she wounds me. We wouldn't be here if she didn't."

"True, true," Yukine conceded. "I still maintain that it's your fault we lost."

"Enough!" Bishamonten finally cracked, slapping the bars of the cell with her open palm. "Just tell me! Why did you kill them! Why did they deserve to die?"

The teenagers instantly sobered up. Yato ducked his head.

"You'll have to ask Kazuma."


There's an endless chain of bureaucracy, as there always is in anything government related. But finally, after two weeks of rotting in a cell with nothing but each other's company, Bishamonten opened the door.

"I don't completely forgive you. What you- what the both of you did was horrible," She opened. Yukine looked like he was about to snark at her, until Yato put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a look. "But, I see why you did it. I-" She cuts off, then hurriedly glanced about herself.

"There's someone here to see you."


Hiyori, Daikoku, Kofuku

Bishamonten visits them every once in a while, mostly by virtue of Kofuku being her soulmate. The two goddesses get along well enough that Bishamonten helped them hide from the draft, and even now, tends to take time out of her day to deliver news to the three.

Today, she had much more than simple news.

"The war has been declared officially over," she said, in a hushed tone. "And a human, a man named Fujisaki, has petitioned to release Yato and Yukine. He's scheduled a visit with them in two days. I just thought you might want to know."


The corpse girl was being sighted with more and more frequency, the sicker and sicker Hiyori got. Coincidentally, after the war was declared over, positive emotions were beginning to rise again. Everyone in the streets was sporting a smile, cheerful and bright after the blight of the war had passed.

As awful as it was, Hiyori's only source of food was Daikoku and Kofuku's sadness at watching her waste away.


Bishamonten and Kazuma

The two soulmates stood side by side, watching the men they'd spent so long to capture, walk free. Kazuma couldn't put his finger on it, but something felt different. It felt like the world was waking up, turning on it's side, everything changing too fast, too damn fast.

He wondered what he'd say to the newly freed man. What he'd say once all of this was over and done with.

"Thank you." He whispers as Yato walks by in chains. It would have to do.


Everyone is smiling, ever since two days ago, when the war was officially declared over. Everyone smiling, but her.

The rug was pulled out from under her. She was thrown for a loop. The man, a soulmate who murdered her clan, was put up to it by another of her soulmates. What do you even say to that?

As it turned out, she wouldn't need to. That fateful December day, when the pair were freed, would be the last time she would ever see them again. The last time she'd ever see Yato again.


Kugaha and Aiha

He's considered one of the best doctors in the world for a reason. He, the embodiment of precision (to such a degree that his Astra form is even a set of scales), used to be the formost mind in the medical field. Before he was outed as a traitor, he was the physician of every major god that Japan had to offer. Now?

Well, now, he was about to save the world.


She was always his assistant. Not clever or intelligent enough to take the reigns for herself, but still, the girl under his wing. She took the fall with him when they were convicted of treason, she benefited when the human with his artificial Astras and Asuras broke them out. She would always be there, standing to his left, questioning everything slightly, but not enough to speak. Yet still, it bore thought.

If there was no such thing as an Asura, then what was the need for an Astra?


Nora

Father was always right. Brother didn't know that, but he would now. It was sad that it would have to come to this, though. She really liked Brother. Too bad he got that trashy Astra instead of her. She was sleek, a simple katana with all the ocean's fury behind her. He was just a blade, no hilt, with nothing special at all about him. Brother never did have very good sense. Perhaps that's why he deserted.


The war is over. Everyone smiles.


Fujisaki

His poor, deluded son. Fujisaki had hoped that he'd come back, but he walked out and never turned around. Even got himself a bonded, and Fujisaki had to curl his lip a little. It wasn't proper for two men to be bonded. A God was always male, his exemplary Astra was always female. It was just how it worked.

Well, not anymore. There wouldn't ever be social conduct for Gods and Astras ever again. There wouldn't be Gods or Astras ever again.

He smiles when his son looks up and flinches. It had just finished snowing, the powder crushed beneath both of their feet.

"Son." He greets genially. "You got a boyfriend, and won't even bring him to meet your father?"

"Father?" The Astra asks, surprised and worried. Fujisaki smiles even wider.

"He didn't tell you? He ran away when he was little. Decided I wasn't the father for him. Didn't you, Yaboku?"

Yato cringes at the usage of his true name. The Astra looks at him strangely. "Yaboku?" He questions, growing a little hysterical.

"His name for me." Yaboku finally responded, voice hoarse.

"It doesn't do to keep secrets, Yaboku." He admonished, gesturing to Mizuchi.

"Stay close, Yukine." Yaboku barked, gesturing to his Astra. He must have noticed. Pity.

"Do you know why this war has raged on for millennia?" Fujisaki begins, struggling to keep his smile in place. "It's because neither of you want it to end. Without Asura, there is no point to an Astra, there is no point to a God. We barely tolerate your presence anyways, and the only reason we keep your miserable, freakish asses around is because you're useful in a fight against Asura!"

He pauses for a second, tones down the fever-pitch. It wouldn't do to lose his cool, this close to the end game.

"The war is over. And it wasn't a God or an Astra who ended it. It was me. A human."

Mizuchi comes skipping over at his gesture, standing at his side.

"Come, Sek-"

"SILENCE." Fujisaki roars, forcibly activating Mizuchi's power. A short katana appears in his grip, and he levels it at the Astra. Yaboku becomes very still, allowing Fujisaki to regain his composure.

"Did you really think it was an accident that there happened to be a plumbing mishap that day? Did you think it was an accident you managed to break out? An accident that it took so long for Bishamonten to catch you? I was there all along, in the places you were too stupid to look in. And did you really think you were the only one to escape that day?"

He pauses, watches everything he said sink in. The look of horror his son gives him is one he will savor for the rest of his days.

"I engineered everything. I saved the goddamn world. I broke out Bishamonten's traitor doctor, and he was so eager to prove himself, so tractable and hopelessly loyal, that he murdered the twelve point seven million people in Japan that were allergic to drugs. Because I said so.

"The body count has upped to seven hundred million. A small price to pay, however, and nobody notices, anyways. They're all too busy being happy. They're only happy. That's how you do it, you see. You starve out the enemy. Asura live off human sin and sadness? Drug everyone to the gills, until they're so giddy, they can't remember they're supposed to be in mourning."

"You bastard." Yaboku spits, murderous. Fujisaki continues, enjoying the feeling, watching his son crumble in defeat.

"It took three months for Bishamonten to finally capture you. Those three months served to keep all four of you busy, keep you from meddling or poking your nose where it doesn't belong. Your friends got too spooked to do any investigation of their own. Three months, and then finally, Kugaha was done. Anti-depressants, dumped into the water, spread through air, water, and physical contact. Passed down, mother to child, and it overwrites every single emotion but happiness. It took three days to dose all of Japan. Three weeks, the rest of the world.

"And now, there's no more Asura. There's nothing left for them to feast on. Of course, I need to retain my lucidity, as the ruler of this new nation. And, my first order? Kill all the Astras and Gods. Earth is for humans, after all."

"Burn in hell," his son replies.

A quick flick of his wrist, and the Astra has a sizeable gash in his throat. Before Yaboku could react, he drives Mizuchi into the God's gut.

That was rather-

Fujisaki would never learn exactly what that experience was. He snapped Mizuchi's blade in half, leaving both edges bleeding out into the ground as he walked away.


Yato

He feels it, the very instant Yukine's throat is cut. Is this what Bishamonten felt? This terrible tug and burn at his gut and his heart and his throat? Or is it because of the hole in his stomach. His final thoughts are jumbled, disorganized. Finally, he succumbs, lets his thoughts peter out of existence.

He lies bleeding out on the ground, listening to the crunch of the snow as humanity marches on.


A/N: final epilogue chapter after this. I can't WAIT.