.
.
Yukine worked on his homework while Nana hunched over the children's book, sounding out the words and reading out loud.
"The...dog...ran...fast."
"Good!" Hiyori said. Nana squinted at the page.
"The dog...chased...the cat."
"Wow, really good!" Hiyori said. Nana frowned.
"These books are stupid," Nana said. "Don't you have anything else better to read besides cows and dogs and things?"
"Um," Hiyori said. "I have a few books for older readers. But they might be kind of difficult."
Yukine kept looking at his homework: "You should show her those comics of naked wrestling men," Yukine said.
"HUH?!"
"What? I bet she'd like them," Yukine said. Nana clasped her hands and nodded, vigorously.
After they spent the last hour going through Hiyori's embarrassing stack of wrestling doujins ("He...gripped...his...ass...and..."), she took Yukine and Nana to the mall. Nana craned her head upwards, awestruck at the tall glass skylight and the throngs of people shopping around them.
"What's that?!" Nana said. She pointed to the escalator as people rode up with their shopping bags and stepped onto the second floor. "What's that?!" Nana said, as they walked past a water fountain. Hiyori treated them to ice cream and red bean cake and ushered Nana around so they could try on new clothes.
"That actually didn't suck," Nana said. She and Yukine were lying in the attic, staring up at the ceiling. Hiyori had to go home for dinner, but she gave Nana a stack of writing homework and told her it had to be done by the end of the week.
"Yeah," Yukine said. "I used to think Hiyori was kinda lame, but she's actually pretty OK."
"What's 'lame'?" Nana said.
"Uh, you know, dumb. Weird. You know."
"Oh," Nana said. "Is that what you think about your master?"
"Well yeah. That shitty jersey's the epitome of lame," Yukine said.
"So if you think your master is 'lame,' how did you become a hafuri?" Nana said.
"I don't know," Yukine said. "One moment, I was one blade, and then I got broken in half, but instead of dying I turned into two."
"That's how I became a hafuri too," Nana said. "When my Aya-sama wielded me, I was a scythe. But then in battle I got slashed in two."
"What did you turn into?" Yukine said, sitting up.
"A sword and sickle. Pretty cool, right?"
"Yeah," Yukine said, and he laid back down.
As it turned out, he and Nana had a lot in common: "Your master's got sweaty hands?!" Nana said. "My Aya-sama had sweaty hands, too!"
"Which god was your Aya-sama?" Yukine said. Nana looked up at the ceiling.
"He was Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto, the god of the moon."
"No way," Yukine said.
"Way," Nana said. Above them, the ceiling fan turned slowly. "I don't know what happened to him," Nana said. "For all I know he got reincarnated. I asked Vaisravana and she didn't know either."
"Vais...ra...vana?"
"Bishamonten's real name."
"Oh."
She had dinner with Yukine and his master, and while Kofuku and Daikoku cleared up the dishes Bishamon knocked on the rice paper door.
"Bisha!" Kofuku ran toward her. "WOW! Is that your new server outfit, Bisha?"
"It's just for this part-time job," Bishamon said. She blushed awkwardly. "Wishes for Vaisravana are few and far-between, and for Nana's sake, I need to otherwise make ends meet."
"Ha ha, chijou! Welcome to stray-hood! Wait a few weeks and you'll be scrubbin' toilets too!"
"Ugh," Bishamon said. She motioned for Nana to come forward.
"The Yatogami doesn't know what he's talking about. We're not strays. We at least have a shrine to come home to." Bishamon looked around and saw the beginnings of a storm swirling across the horizon. "Come on, Nana. The sun is starting to set. We need to get home, soon."
She tried to enter the temple grounds.
A flash. Bishamon yelped and jerked her hand back. Her eyes widened.
"A barrier," someone said, and Bishamon looked up to see the shinki of the heaven's guard stepping forward. "This is the shrine dedicated to the god Bishamonten. But you no longer carry that name."
"What the hell is this? A god can enter any shrine, it need not be his!" Bishamon said. The shinki smiled thinly.
"Then I suggest you ask your brethren on the Near Shore for their mercy," the shinki said.
"Shikki," Bishamon said, and Nana zapped into her hand.
"Are you fighting for your name, War God Vaisravana?" The shinki pulled back, throwing lines which Bishamon slashed through effortlessly. "This shrine is no longer yours. It's no longer yours to claim."
"I am a God of Calamity! The rules of heaven no longer apply to me! Rend!" Bishamon said, and Shikki's sword shattered through the barrier.
The shinki frowned.
"Go back to India, Vaisravana," the shinki said. Their voices wavered as they faded back into heaven. "There is no place for a foreign, nameless god."
"Revert, Nana," Bishamon said, and they stood at the steps of Bishamonten's shrine, watching as the heaven's guard retreated back to Takamagahara.