Why Are You Supposed to Clean Up Before Having Guests Over? It's Your House You Should Be Able to Live How You Want To.


Yukine groaned when he rolled over and onto Yato. Oh yeah. Yato had stayed with Yukine after talking late into the night. He had claimed he was just too worn out to move, but Yukine knew it was really because he was afraid of having nightmares after dragging up the past. After all the times Yukine had woken Yato with his own nightmares, he was actually glad to return the favor.

Yato was still sleeping soundly, apparently tuckered out from his emotional confessions the night before; there had been so many. Yukine's mind was still reeling from it. So much about Yato made sense now, although there were still plenty of unanswered questions. Certain stories had been hard for Yato to tell; there had been several long silences followed by halting speech while he worked through it. When it was over Yukine was stunned by how much Yato shared.

At last he knew why Yato stopped for him that night in the rain; he'd seen himself in Yukine. Yukine's confession about his abusive father had only furthered the connection Yato's mind had made. There was no way Yato would have left him behind that night, and Yukine was glad, his life was better now.

"Mizuchi don't do that," Yato mumbled. So, he had dreamt about the past after all.

Yukine had been shocked to learn that Yato had a younger sister whom he hadn't seen in years. She'd rejected him after he murdered their father and then promptly disappeared. He'd asked her to come with him and help him with his new life mission to become Evil Overlord, and he wondered sometimes if she was still in Metro City, and if she was proud when she saw him on the news.

Yukine brushed Yato's hair out of his face and smiled when he sighed in his sleep. Here he felt warm and safe, and he didn't ever want to leave.


It had been days since Viina had even moved, and Kazuma was growing increasingly worried. He kept her fluids bag filled and his finger on her pulse, so he knew she was alive, but that didn't stop him from worrying.

Viina wasn't the only thing he worried about, he kept his TV turned on Hiyori's channel at all times now, she was the only one Kazuma trusted to not be afraid of reporting the truth. Yato was keeping a low profile, though. He hadn't even made any flashy public appearances to remind the public that he was in charge. Although given how elaborate the last one was, he might still be practicing.

However, it seemed that Yato had no big ideas about what he was going to do next. Typical. It's exactly like him to do something like this; take over the city without a plan. Hiyori appeared to make a grim-faced report, which had become her new usual. There was still nothing about Yato; and everyone had either lost interest in trying to find out about 'The Boy With the God of Calamity' or Yato was threatening news stations to keep his picture off TV. It wouldn't surprise Kazuma, Yato was very protective of Yukine.


"LET ME LIVE, YUKINE!" Yato shouted, waving a piece of bacon around like a club.

That morning Yukine had another affectionate impulse and cooked all of Yato's favorites, then scolded him as he ate to fast.

"I'm not going to clean up your vomit if you make yourself sick!" Yukine snapped back, throwing his hands in the air.

"I won't make myself sick! On Yomi we ate way more than humans!"

"You're making that up."

"I'm not!"

"Then how come I've never heard of it before?"

"Because I'm a vault of secrets."

"More like a vault of shit," Yukine grumbled. Yato opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by his phone ringing.

"Oh, it's Hiyori."

"What does she want?"

"Just to meet up," he said evasively, looking back at his plate.

Yukine narrowed his eyes. Yato was hiding something from him, but he didn't know what. Yato ate the rest of his meal without looking at Yukine, thanking him and then leaving with a reminder about wearing his Kevlar vest.

"Oh, and I made you your own dehydration gun for self-defense."

"Okay, mom, I'll play safe."

"Good!" Yato replied, right before the door shut behind him. Yukine sighed, he didn't like that Yato was already back to keeping secrets so soon after baring his soul.


"You've got to be kidding me," Hiyori said, gaping as Yato shifted uncomfortably.

"Unfortunately, I'm not."

"How can you have never ridden a bike?"

"I was really poor growing up!" He invented wildly, surprised when it was technically true. He had been homeless and living in the school for a while, although the real reason he'd never ridden a bike was because his father never taught Yato and Mizuchi anything that could lend them any sort of freedom. He'd spent his entire life being trained to be his father's personal assassin. That had given him all the freedom he needed, in the end. "We could never afford one."

"I'm sorry, Manabu, I didn't know. Here, let me teach you." He took the handlebars of the bike she offered and smiled shyly. "First you have to kick your leg over the side so you're straddling it." He obeyed, feeling supremely silly as he stood with a bike between his legs, unmoving. Hiyori kicked out the kickstand on her bike and wrapped her arms around Yato, placing her hands on the handlebars next to his. "Alright now sit down and take one foot off the ground and put it on a pedal, then push, and put your other foot on the other pedal."

"Already? I'll fall!"

"No, you won't, I've got you! You'll be perfectly safe in my hands, I promise." He turned his face away from her, absolutely certain she could feel the heat in his cheeks. He tried to do as she said, but his bicycle wobbled dangerously, and he placed his feet back on the ground.

"Whoa!"

"No, it's alright, try again. I've got you, I promise." Her smile summoned his own and he nodded. This time he wobbled much less and started moving forward slowly.

"Promise you won't let go?" He asked.

"Of course. I'll be right here with you."

Yato nodded again, then turned back to the front, the reassuring weight of Hiyori's arms spurring him onward as he picked up his pace slightly and Hiyori shouted words of praise. The farther he went, the more confidence he gained, and the less he was relying on Hiyori's support.

"I'm doing it Hiyori!" He exclaimed, turning his head to beam at her; a ribbon of panic slicing through him when he saw she wasn't there. "Wha-" he turned his head all the way around to find her. He had just enough time to see her standing twenty feet back, beaming like the sun, before the world came out from under him and he was tumbling. "Ahh!" He landed with his limbs tangled painfully in his bicycle, and breathless with glee. The sound of feet hitting the pavement proceeded Hiyori's worried face.

"Are you alright?"

He nodded, blood still rushing with delight. Distantly he realized she broke her promise, but he didn't care, he was still caught up in the feeling of freedom and achievement that accompanied his realization that he was doing it on his own. That, he realized suddenly, must have been her intent all along.

"I did it!" He said.

"You did it!" She echoed. She reached down and began untangling him from his bicycle. "I knew you could do it!" Once Yato had been freed Hiyori helped him to his feet. He winced slightly when he put weight on his left ankle. "Oh no!" She cried, looking down at his foot.

He started when she knelt in front of him and brushed her fingers on tender skin. He was surprised when they came away red, he must have fallen harder than he thought, his skin didn't break easily. Hiyori wheeled his bike back for him and instructed him to sit on the curb while she rifled through her bag for band-aids.

He looked down at his ankle to inspect his wound and was relieved when he saw it was only a minor abrasion, it had already stopped bleeding. For a moment he was worried that he'd found his weakness like Bishamon had, except his was bicycles, not pennies. What a pair they would have been.

"Thank you for teaching me to ride a bike, Hiyori," Yato said as she withdrew the bandages from her purse and knelt at his feet again.

"No problem, everyone should know how to ride a bike!"

She smiled, pushing his pant leg up a little to access the wound better. He sucked in a breath when she touched his ankle. She was much more gentle and professional than Yukine was, but that made sense. Yukine was thirteen and figuring everything out on his own, Hiyori's dad was a doctor and had probably taught her a few things. Maybe I should teach Yukine to ride a bike, we could ride them together!

"This might sting a bit," Hiyori said, unwrapping an alcohol swab. He felt a little guilty letting her take care of him like this, he was a grown man perfectly capable of putting on his own band-aids. He liked the feel of her skin brushing against his ankle, though, and the kind look on her face as she took care of him. "Alright, all finished." She tossed the wrapper in a nearby bin and helped him to his feet. He thanked her shyly. "Do you want to keep riding?" He nodded eagerly.

"Where should we ride?" He asked.

"How about the park on thirty second street? It's not far and you can practice on the way! Do you think you can make it that far on your own now?" He nodded, and she mounted her bike. He followed suit and kicked off, wobbling at first, then getting his balance and speeding up so he rode at her side. He glanced over and grinned at her face, flushed with exertion, hair whipped back in the wind.

Yato had tried many different forms of transportation throughout the years, more dangerous and much faster than this, but there was something oddly satisfying about traveling under his own power. It made the wind caressing his face and the scenery flashing by him much more appealing. He hadn't known what he'd been missing out on. He glanced over at Hiyori again and smirked evilly.

"Eat my dust Hiyori!" He cried, pushing his legs faster and pulling ahead of her. Behind him her melodic laugh rang through the air as she accepted his challenge.

"In your dreams, Manabu! Loser buys lunch!" Hiyori pedaled harder, advancing on Yato. He may have more powerful leg muscles than any human could, but Hiyori had more experience and was a better rider, making them about an even match.

"You're on! There's no way that I'm losing!" Yato retorted.

"Oh, I think there's no way that you're winning!"

As they approached the park he slowed down to make the turn whereas she sped up, and her experience proved to be his downfall, she zipped around him and into the park, laughing gleefully. The sound warmed Yato, and he found that he no longer cared if he lost, after all the prize was dinner with Hiyori.

"Oh, what fun!" Yato said, trailing behind her. Her laugh travelled back to him on the wind.

"You don't get out much do you?" She turned forward and stopped abruptly. Yato only had time to think oh no before colliding with her and sending them both crashing to the ground.

"Oh, ow-ow-ow, I'm sorry, Hiyori," Yato said, trying to lift himself off her then wincing, his foot was caught in the spokes of her bike's wheel. How had that happened?

"No, it's not your fault, you're still learning, I shouldn't have stopped so suddenly in front of you."

"Why did you? Is something wrong?"

"Look at this place," she said as Yato lifted a bike off her and helped her to her feet, "I used to come play here with my mom, now it's just a dump."

She swept her arm wide, indicating the garbage heaped grass. Yato followed her gaze and saw through her eyes what the park must have once been. He saw a young Hiyori running and playing on the grass while a woman who looked like her reclined on a blanket a few feet away, wearing a tolerant smile. His gaze shifted back to Hiyori's saddened face and he became determined to bring her smile back.

"Well, at least you don't have to pay for lunch, you beat me fair and square." He offered her a small smile which she only half returned.

"You're right let's go find a place to eat, I'm starved."

"Me too!"


"So, Yato, why are we cleaning up the city?" Yukine asked, firing the dehydration canon at yet another large pile of trash.

"Well, what if we have company over? We don't want to be embarrassed by such a dump of a city, do we?"

"What company, Yato? We don't have any friends!"

"What if we make some?"

"Who are we going to make friends with?"

"I don't know, other supervillains? There have got to be some other than me! Maybe there's some sort of evil coalition and they're going to invite us because I managed to take over Metrocity! Maybe they want to learn from me!"

"By accident," Yukine reminded him. "And if there is a group like that, why wouldn't they have already contacted you? If there's a group of supervillains out there they totally think you're lame!"

"I am not lame! Keep firing! We're cleaning up the city whether you like it or not!"

"Okay, okay, geez, I'm firing!"


"Okay, okay so… Metro Woman and I were never actually a couple," Hiyori confessed, grinning sheepishly at Yato.

"What?" He replied, because he thought it was what she expected him to say. "I thought you two were together!"

He hadn't. He'd had to listen to Kazuma whining about 'not wanting to ruin their friendship' for weeks when they were nineteen. He'd left school when he was around ten, and by the time he next saw Kazuma when they were eighteen he'd honestly expected them to already be married, he had thought Kazuma was joking when he said they were 'just friends.'

"I know, I know," Hiyori said, turning her head to look back up through the canopy.

The two of them were laying on their backs on quilt Hiyori brought. The spotted sunlight softened the world around them.

"Everyone always did, but she was always felt so far away. She was never rude, but she seemed like her mind was elsewhere. I didn't even know her real name. I knew she had to have one, but I assumed she wouldn't tell me, so I never asked."

"You're probably right."

"Alright, now it's your turn, tell me something you've never told anyone else!"

She rolled on her side to face him better, and as the gentle afternoon light dappled her smiling face he wished for a moment that this was real, that she was here with Yato, not Manabu, and that she really looking at him with something so dangerously close to affection it made him lightheaded. He knew what was happening, and that he needed to be more careful, but it was so easy to look into her rosewood eyes and let himself be covered by the feeling of safety that radiated her.

"Well, back in school," he began, as the more reasonable parts of him screamed to stop and his father's voice told him he would never be loved, "I never really fit in. I tried, but no one wanted to give me a chance, not even the teachers. I pretended like it didn't bother me, but it did."

"Well," Hiyori said, taking his hand and threading their fingers together, "it's a pity we didn't go to the same school." He smiled softly and squeezed her hand, and even his father's voice was quiet.


Rabo was a cauldron of poison over a smoldering fire of hate, and with every passing moment his rage grew. He watched The God of Calamity lay on a picnic blanket and confess his weaknesses to a human woman and he felt disgusted. His beautiful eyes that should have been filled with depravity and malice were soft and vulnerable. Rabo hated it. How dare this woman, this charlatan, lay so close to him, like she was worthy to touch him? How dare she link their fingers like they were lovers in easy conversation? How dare she invoke such stillness and peace in the God of Calamity's aura?

The God of Calamity was the unholy offspring of chaos and death, born from darkness and sprouted in evil. How dare this woman- and the child- lead him away from his true nature? Rabo had at first thought it was his destiny to serve at the God of Calamity's feet, but he knew better now. He saw what his true purpose was. Rabo would entice the God of Calamity back to the darkness and light the fire within him. He would wake the demon and worship its might.

Those glowing eyes shone in his mind now, writhing and filled with depravity, he could bask in their glory. Once the woman and child were disposed of he would revel in the malevolence, but not yet. His training wasn't finished yet. He needed to be stronger before he killed them, because he knew the God of Calamity was too far gone to let them go without a fight. Soon, but not yet. Rabo knew best.


"Still no news on the man who was hit with the infuser gun," Yukine said, looking troubled. "He's like a ghost." Yukine typed furiously, apparently scouring the internet for any trace of this man, again.

"I'm sure he'll turn up," Yato said idly, staring at his phone screen as he waited for Hiyori to reply.

"Are you even listening to me?" Yukine snapped, annoyed. His eyes flitted from Yato to his phone and back again. "Are you still texting Hiyori? Yato, this is serious, there is someone out there, possibly from Yomi, and we don't know who he is. We need to find him."

"Yeah, yeah, I've got it. It's bad that this guy has Bishamon's powers, but how bad can he be? He won't be the first or even second person from Takamagahara that I've killed."

"But he would be the first one with the powers of both you and Bishamon, isn't he? The truth is we have no idea what the effects of this are on someone like you. There's no telling what could happen if the two of you fought!"

"Everything is going to be fine," Yato said, putting down his phone at last. "Don't worry."

"One of us has to worry, and I guess it has to be me because it obviously isn't going to be you! You spend all your time mooning after Hiyori when you should be worrying what happens when this guy makes an orphan out of your son!" Using the s-word had had the desired effect. Yato's attention was wholly on Yukine now, so he directed it towards this problem.

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry." He slid his phone into his pocket. "Have you tried looking through traffic cams?"

"YES!" Yukine half shouted. "I asked you last week to write a program that would run twenty-four-hour facial recognition on them! I don't know how!" Yato sighed, feeling guilty, and scooted closer to the desk. He cleared half the monitors and pulled up his regular facial recognition software.

"Here," he said, "I'll show you."


Several hours later their software was scanning for faces that matched the partial shot of the mystery man. Yato and Yukine had returned to their apartment for the night, but Yukine was still hunched over the laptop he'd stolen, working. "I feel a bit better now that the traffic cams are watching for us, but I wish we had enough bandwidth to search through the archives as well."

"It's more important to find him right now, not in the past," Yato said, popping a strawberry into his mouth.

"I guess, but the archives could tell where he's been, where he goes frequently, even where he lives, and it could be helpful to narrow down a pattern of behavior at least."

"You're right but scanning the entire archive of every camera in the entire city would be too inefficient without a specific time frame or location. We're doing what's best."

"It just makes me nervous to have this potential ticking time bomb out there and to not know where and when it might go off."

"We'll find him, Yukine, don't worry."


"Are we almost there?" Hiyori asked, and though her back was to him he could tell she was smiling by the amusement in her voice.

"Almost."

The brain bots were bringing in the last of the art pieces he'd stolen and hanging them back on their posts. Her delight after he'd cleaned up the streets and parks had been addicting, and he hadn't been able to quit.

"Alright, you can look now," he said, lifting his hands from her eyes. His heart stuttered at her gasp of delight, and all but halted when she threw herself at him in her joy.

"They're all back, I don't believe it!"

"Maybe The God of Calamity isn't so bad after all," he said timidly.

"I wonder what's gotten into him," she said, taking a step back. Yeah, it's a real mystery, he thought wryly, watching her continue to take in their surroundings with awe. His phone pinged, and he slid it out of his pocket.

Still no news on our mystery guy. There were a few false positive matches. Yato had asked Yukine to send him hourly updates on the scan. His good mood darkened, and he put his phone away. When he looked up he was surprised to see Hiyori watching him curiously.

"What's the matter, Manabu, is something wrong?"

"Oh um…" he said, floundering wildly for an excuse, "it's just…"

"You're worried the God of Calamity might be trying to lure us into a false sense of security," she said knowingly.

"Yeah," he agreed, grateful she'd given him an out she hadn't known he needed.

"It crossed my mind too, but honestly, I don't think so. I've spent a good deal of time with him and I just don't think that's his style."

"What do you mean?"

"Well he's more into the flashy and dramatic. Cleaning up the city just to make people feel safer isn't really the type of thing he'd do. If he wanted more reaction he'd just dial up the special effects." Called out, he thought.

"He certainly is a good showman," Yato commented, unable to help himself.

"And a drama queen," she added. Yato half grinned. Yukine said the same thing all the time.


"The city's parks and museums restored to their original glory, the streets the safest they've been, the banks reopened; has something happened to Megamind? Has someone tamed this monster? This is Hiyori Iki, cautiously optimistic, and pleasantly surprised.


Kazuma quirked his head curiously at the newscast. Had Yato really done all those things? He was taking care of the city? How odd. He wondered why. What had made him start leaning towards benevolence like this? He doubted it was a sudden urge to become a hero like the two of them had always wanted to. Whatever the reason, he hoped Yato kept it up, if he was actually helping the city Bishamon might not kill him when she woke.


Rabo gritted his teeth as glass crunched in his palm. He had shattered it in his grip as that woman gave her news story that painted The God of Calamity like the unsung hero of the city, when really he was the monster under their beds. How dare she imply that there was good in him? There was nothing of the sort, The God of Calamity was pure unadulterated darkness, the very embodiment of evil.

He looked down at his hand, expecting to see blood running in rivers of red down his arm, but he didn't. His skin was unmarked, and when he opened his fingers glass poured in a fine powder to the ground. His teeth bared in a grin.