Good evening, everyone. It appears to be a habit that I upload chapters in the evening. Hm.
Anyhow, enjoy.
Disclaimers: Gintama isn't mine
Shuyo's eyes opened slowly to see a black figure in front of her… and a very familiar figure in a kimono from far away, tipping from side to side, until he collapsed to the ground.
The heat was suffocating like a damp towel pressing down on her lungs and skin, drawing out all the moisture and coolness from the air and from her. It looked as if they were the inside of a large cavern with a cracked ground.
It was the inside of Mt. Fuji, most likely.
And… Takasugi was there…? Then that meant that he had gotten her letter and –
"—said the same thing – that I would get hurt if I did underestimate you all -," she started wiggling her fingers and opened her eyes completely. She then carefully put her hands to her neck, and traced the old scars on them, letting out a silent sigh. She was truly back in the real world. This was more than proof of that.
The first thing she said in her mind that would be heard was – Don't you dare lay a hand on him again.
"That's impossible…! How-,"
She swiftly got up, ignoring the numbness in her legs and raised her fist, bringing it slamming down onto Yamyra's grey head and said, I warned you already, Yamyra… that you would get hurt if you underestimate them.
Before he could get back up, Shuyo grabbed onto the lapel of Yamyra's black kimono and made him stand forcibly, and threw her fist out so that she hit the vital point in his chest, putting all of her strength and anger in it. He ended up crashing into the temple where the Noragami 'master' was staying and brought down three of the wooden pillars and two walls.
Watching him calmly, Shuyo's legs nearly gave out. She had no idea of how long she was sitting with her legs under her and the rocky terrain under her, but it must have been enough to cut off the flow of blood…
"You're late." She startled, and turned to see Takasugi, with his katana in his right hand, standing right there. She hadn't heard or felt his presence at all...
She lifted a hand to touch him out of habit, then flinched and brought it back, frowning. And right now, she couldn't talk to him at all, and had no way to communicate with him. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, but she couldn't. She wanted to touch him so badly, but she couldn't allow herself to – for fear of hurting him, and for her own conscience, which forbid her.
Takasugi was barely standing on his own feet, and covered in blood, grime and wounds from head to toe. She bit her lip at the sight, unable to lift her lips for her usual smile. It hurt her to see him like this.
"It is your fault. You were so late in waking up, you old hag, that I ended up like this," his words were harsh and as scraping as he always talked – but his voice was hoarse. He wobbled forward like a daruma doll, and before she knew it, he had stumbled into her arms –
No… she realized that he had walked unsteadily in the first place to get at her.
Instead of her ending up to support him, he was holding her tightly to him – so tight that it felt like she was being crushed. If it was anyone else, they might have hated the smothering embrace, but to her it was the best thing that she could have felt – it was proper proof that he was alive.
He continued to hold her, whispering her name like a soft sigh against the crook in her neck. "Shuyo."
His left arm was around her back and continued to pull her to him until there was no remaining space between the two – as if he was checking to see that this was really her. He placed his face against her shoulder, then leaned into her hair so that she could hear his words directly in her ear as he repeated, "Shuyo."
His breathing was rough and ragged from all the battling but also held its usual steady course – sounding as if he was relieved, and she knew that he had fought for a very long time while she was gone… and not just physically.
His body was right up against hers, and she could feel the blood, sweat and dirt clinging to his skin, as well as that warmth. His kimono was torn up badly in several places, and the lantern flowers decorating the kimono were colored red with his blood. Under all that stench of grime and blood, she detected the usual rich scent of smoke that clung to his hair, skin and clothes. His heart beat under her palm, and his arms felt solid around her. She didn't care about how the blood was soaking into her kimono and haori – he was all that mattered.
She couldn't help but gasp to herself at how real he felt. He was right here. The person whom she considered to be a part of her soul and her heart – and not because of a blood-bound – was right here.
She stilled when she heard him speak, "Shuyo…
O Sakura, how dost one forget
That which is a part of my soul?"
Her eyes widened, and emotion welled up in her as she buried her face into his shoulder to prevent herself from crying. Bringing her arms around his wide torso, she returned his embrace. She curled her fingers into his kimono and couldn't say anything, too overwhelmed by his response.
"Yes… I read it.
O Sakura, fear not this life to lose
With every petal lost
Know only that which unfolds in Spring
At Winter's end
You told me to forget you if you ever did end up dying… but I don't plan on doing that. Ever. And I refuse to just reminisce of the memories I have of you when I can have you by me always." He whispered against her hair, bringing his arms around her more tightly. "I might have lost sensei and can never see him again while in this world… but I won't allow you to disappear again – no matter how brilliant of a plan you had sort out when you went off on your own."
Her heart thudded when his arms slackened in their tight grip, but when she realized he only did it so as to stare into her face, she managed a watery smile. He scolded her softly with his usual attitude, "Here you are, crying again, despite my demands, you selfish woman."
She stared up into his bloodied face, looked into his eye and at her reflection in that pool of green… and knew that he had changed again.
The first time was probably when he had met Shoyou and spent time in her brother's school; the second time was probably when he lost that same teacher; and the third… was now, when he had met her.
Whether it was for the better or for the worse, she didn't know, but she would be sure to stick around and continue to watch over him.
As the water followed the curve of her cheek and dripped from under the alcove of her chin, he leaned closer, his breath stirring her bangs and gently touched his lips to the wetness. She shuddered as his mouth slowly followed the trail of tears up to her eyes and pressed lightly on her left eyelid, then did the same to her other eye.
It was such a profound, intimate touch – and so like him to comfort her in his own way that she almost forgot to breathe.
He stared down at her, his arms slackening and stepping back. "By now, everything must be over outside. Once this volcano blows, it'll be over."
She nodded… and she wished desperately that it would be true – but…
"You aren't getting out of here alive… Yoshida Shuyo."
… it seemed as if that was yet to be.
"Damn, their numbers don't seem to be dwindling down at all-gozaru." Bansai gritted out, fisting his hands into the metal strings of his shamisen, which wrapped around the necks of several Noragami who had run at him, and yanked so that their heads lopped off and fell into messy pools of slime. The battle had gotten on for a rather long time, and no matter how many the Kiheitai and Yato brought down in the Noragami, their numbers seemed endless. Corpses of soldiers from both sides were piled on the volcano, creating mounds and yet, bigger mounds. This battle was costing them much.
He was suffering from a few wounds himself – a gash in his left arm and right leg, and scratches on his face and chest from a cat-Amanto – but otherwise, seemed to be faring better than the others in the Kiheitai. Half of them were in the air on the ships, shooting down at the enemy and covering for their fighters on the ground, while the Harusame+Kiheitai troops tried to fight their way through the Noragami ranks.
"Yet you're doing pretty well, no, hitokiri-san?" the smaller killer asked in a monotone voice, jerking his wrist so that his whip jumped and wrapped around Bansai's sword-arm. Before Bansai could do anything about it, Matsuiro snapped his arm so that Bansai went flying into another Noragami by his arm.
Before Bansai was able to get through the crowd of Noragami before anyone else, he had been stalled by his arch opponent who seemed to like sparring with the tsunpo of the Kiheitai, while Matako was being held back by that Jorugumo fellow. He couldn't tell where or what Kamui was doing, but he had to be fine.
"You don't seem to be using your immaterial weapons today-gozaru." Bansai commented, grabbing the spiked chain whip that was still wrapped around his shoulder and yanked on it, ignoring the blood running from his hand. Matsuiro fell forward and tried to make him let go of his weapon by swinging his other whip, but Bansai jumped into the air to dodge it and landed on a human body, his grip still unyielding and holding onto Matsuiro's weapon.
"If I used them already, then you would be dead. Because I won't get another chance to fight with you, I'm trying to make it last as long as possible." He answered, and Bansai smirked.
"You Noragami seem to possess the same bloodlust as we killers, and yet you dare to call yourself gods-gozaru."
"Gods are creatures who carry out actions of justice. All we do is execute those deeds on humans, who have forgotten far too easily our presence among them. In that process, whether we become covered in blood is of no consequence." Matsuiro snapped, struggling to bring back his weapon and continuing to wildly swing his other whip and fatally knocking down his own soldiers in the process.
In the midst of their last fight back when Takasugi killed Kuso for the first time, Bansai had finally begun to grasp the rhythm of the Noragami and his way of fighting, but hadn't the time to achieve the killing.
The Noragami's song – deafening, loud and chaotic – was actually based on the rhythm of his weapons. Not the Noragami's own skills as a fighter or killer, but based on the celerity and volatile nature of his weapons… meaning that without both of them at hand and freely available, he wouldn't be able to fight at all.
The reason he'd used whips was to freely move and distract his opponent with the rapid movements and prevent them from getting to his own body; but those weapons weren't useful for any proper defense. Thus, his only defense was his only offense.
The sound waves he emitted from his mouth was an unnatural attachment to his abilities, and apparently, useful for only a handful of times. If he passed the maximum limit of using the ability, he'd weakened and leaned heavily on his whips for attacks.
The fact that he'd refused to use that ability meant that with only one more move… it would be checkmate.
And that was exactly what Bansai was going to do.
Holding onto the spiky whip with his left hand, he reached for his shamisen and swung it so that the strings started winding around Matsuiro's limbs, immobilizing him as he tried to jump away.
"What are you trying to pull? You're going to end up losing that instrument of yours, hitokiri-san!" the Noragami cried out, and whipped his free arm – but barely – to try and get at Bansai's metal strings. "These pathetic strings aren't enough to hold me back, so give it up-,"
Ignoring the Noragami's shout, Bansai tugged, hard so that the two came at a standstill, neither one of them able to move.
After a long moment of silence Bansai spoke up first, "Your song… though deafening at first, matches the tone and rhythm of a song composed by someone long dead-gozaru. It's chaotic, deafening, wild and beautiful in its own way, but sounds as if you're pushing it to the limit… of what little time you have left. Like a taut string echoing out right before it snaps into two-gozaru."
Not loosening the binds around the Noragami for even a little while, Bansai started to pull the strings towards him as he walked backwards. "With Yoshida-dono's help, Shinsuke saw through what you Noragami truly are-,"
Matsuiro started to struggle but to no avail, and ended up being dragged closer and closer – blood dripping from his limbs as the metal strings tugged into his flesh. He eventually dropped his other weapon as it was clear that struggling to wield it was going to be useless. "—Mere puppets of people and creatures long dead, being wielded by the one you call Master."
The adolescent growled as Bansai continued to drag him with the shamisen, then abruptly let go. Because he had been stubbornly trying to prevent himself from going forward, the sudden freedom from his chains made him stumble, then trip on a stray horn of a dead Amanto and fall to the ground. But before Matsuiro could get back up, Bansai was there, propelling himself forward and slashed across the Noragami's throat and chest.
Blood gushed like a fountain from the cut in his throat, and the Noragami finally fell to the ground, the life slowly seeping from his body.
Sheathing his sword, Bansai shook off the spikes from the chain whip and looked back at the bleeding form of his opponent.
"And knowing that, I knew I had to end your torturous song-gozaru." Just as he was about to walk off, he stopped at the weak protest coming from the ground.
"Won't you… hear one last thing coming from me… before you leave? You owe me that much, at least, stopping me before my song could reach its crescendo… hitokiri Bansai…"
Bansai turned around and looked at the Noragami, who had blood dribbling from his mouth and flowing from his neck. What Matsuiro was asking for was to listen to one last thing before the two parted ways for good. Despite not being interested in a half-dead song, he decided to stay out of respect for the life the Noragami lived before he became what he was now.
Slinging his shamisen from his back, Bansai sat down on the sordid ground and started to play a soft song to accompany Matsuiro's story whilst stringing the strings out in a web-like formation, preventing anyone from coming closer. "Do as you like."
"The Noragami… were all gathered from various places… us leaders – the elite were previously corpses, bodies of people who died with an unfulfilled revenge or a hatred that must have… had devoured our souls so that we couldn't pass on. That animosity was what made… the leader at the time choose each of us to serve within the Noragami. Whether we were men… or women… of low-birth or of high-birth… human or not… and no one had any will to fight back… against the Master or the leader at the time… our lives were things granted by them, so if ever, the bond between us was severed, we would all return to the earth once again…" Matsuiro laughed, blood bubbling out of his mouth. His words were becoming slower and sounding slurred.
With that, it was enough to realize that the Noragami didn't have a long time left to finish. "Well, I suppose since your own leader found us all with that woman's help… I suppose you know about all this… your own leader… was a very good potential Noragami, and that hatred of his… also made him the most vulnerable out of any human we'd come across in this time… a perfect living sacrifice… but if there was something about him that was also different… it was that he had gotten up no matter how many times he was beaten down and near-death… he had done the one thing we all were never able to do… which was to live. Live… as a true samurai should, following their ideals and pursuing a path… no matter the cost… just as I…"
"Just like you tried to do before you became something against your will… By your fighting skills with those whips of yours, I knew that despite being skilled, you were not meant to wield those weapons. Your hands bear the scars of one who held a katana in his hand-gozaru. Ripped from your death and a perpetual peace, thrust into a position where you forsook your own identity and enslaved till you become a wandering ghost… you Noragami resemble those under the Bakufu, ironically-gozaru," Bansai said, plucking one last tune from his instrument before getting up.
"If I was what I was, and since I became not what I wanted to be… I have you to thank for… stopping me…" Matsuiro wheezed his last, and finally closed his eyes.
Bansai looked at the Noragami – no, the person who had once been of a same kind. Human, living, and yet another samurai who died because of the selfish whims of something and of someone. To have been killed not by a mere foreigner and to die in combat bravely was considered better than the prior choice in death. At least, to have died this way instead of breaking from the inside out was a merciful thing to do for a samurai. Even as he was called an assassin and a murderer, a killer and many other atrocious nicknames, Bansai was human. He had at the very least, heart enough to do what should be done as a human being and respect the dead with their wishes.
"Your last song… was well heard-gozaru."
Matako clenched the guns in her hands firmly and dodged the incoming katana, the metal of her guns and the blade clanging in a loud sound. Blood stained her pink skirt from where she was slashed in the thigh, and dripped from her face from where the katana's hilt had smashed into her forehead. But she had never felt better in a battle.
After she had brought down regular Noragami forces, Jorugumo had run into her, swinging his weapons and taunting her in his usual way.
"I see that you've improved, eh, blondie? You've fixed that mouth of yours." Jorugumo said, swinging his twin katanas in a successive arc, one blow after the other and pushing her back. She had managed to shoot through his torso three times, but he had healed rapidly… though slower than ever before after each shot.
She stayed quiet, and after she aimed, shot at Jorugumo's wrists at point blank range when he closed in to try to stab her.
"I see that that suspicious mask stays the same," she said after the Noragami jumped back and knelt on the ground as the katanas fell from his hands.
She didn't let him rest a single moment and shot at his head, hitting the fastening knot for the mask as he dodged to the side. As it slipped and tumbled to the ground, she was able to see the face he always hid and gasped. A part of his face was wholly well, with the pale skin akin to the Yato kind, and he harbored stark green eyes. But the majority of that visage consisted of wounds that looked as if someone had repeatedly hit into it with something like a staff and hadn't healed properly, leading to bone rearrangement under his skin. Other small mounds that looked like mediocre bullets bulged from under the other spaces, making him look horribly disfigured.
"I suppose this face makes it better to distract you instead, though," the Noragami snarled, and jumped at her, his hands reaching for her face. She didn't miss a second and raised her guns, but instead of using her bullets, she raised her knee so that she kicked his chest in the air and brought the back of her guns into his throat as he came crashing down to the ground, having lost his balance.
She scrunched her face in confusion. There was no way that this person was that weak… but from his actions, it was like he was running out of energy after she clashed with him every time.
Just as he crashed into the ground, she flipped her guns back and shot at him twice. He swiftly got up again, but was slower this time, and two of her bullets hit his left leg and arm, drawing blood. She wasn't wrong – he was slowing down. Rapidly.
Or was he just faking it, just like that Chinese girl who'd almost beat her before? It seemed like playing dead or almost dead was a regular thing among the Yato…
And just as she was lost in thought again, his movements suddenly quickened, and then he was right in front of her face, grinning as he firmly planted a punch in the wound in her stomach. When his fist hit her, she went soaring into the air and dropped like a rock, straight into a pit of smoking purple slime, her head spinning and pain throbbing in her side.
She cursed to herself, as the slime started sticking to her and fastened on, not letting go. "What the hell is this…?!"
She snapped her head up as she saw the Noragami jump after her, his fists reeling back and moving fast to give her the final heard his chuckle from far away and closed her eyes for a moment, biting down on her tongue to prevent from screaming out. This wasn't how she imagined she would die at all. At the very least, she could have been right near Takasugi and have seen him one last time –
Without warning, the volcanic ground under them starting shaking violently and small tremors came right after, thus barely saving her when Jorugumo came down and smashed his fist into the ground, cracking it… and missing her head. He ended up being stuck while hovering over her body, though one of his hands was free. She smirked as she saw him look bewildered, then wiggle his limbs, almost uselessly, in trying to get free.
But the shaking from the volcano was also enough for her to loosen the slimy grip and fist her weapons once more… so that she angled them in a straight 90 degree and pulled the trigger, emptying the bullets from the gun completely.
The last thing the Noragami did was give her that insane smile with wide, unbelieving eyes. "Y-you… bitch…"
"You can kiss my ass in Hell this time, you bastard." She muttered bitterly as her body was showered with blood pouring out from the bullet wounds and his body slumped on her in a heavy heap. She winced when the liquid touched her bloody, opened wound, but all the energy had been used in combat, so she couldn't move anymore.
Finality and moroseness filled her as she knew that she had finally put an end to an enemy. One more limb to the monstrosity Takasugi was trying to destroy.
She heard the cries of fighting and the clanging of metal from around her, but nothing and no one dared to come close to her. If she was lucky, then someone might find her after this battle was done –
"Matako-san, it looks as if you need a hand."
She glanced up at the older samurai, who had his hand out to her. "Baka-senpai, you're going to need more than a hand to get me out of this mess. What the hell are you doing here anyway, I thought you weren't interested in actual combat-," her eyes widened as a familiar looking five-headed worm come crawling out of his mouth, dripping spittle and slime over her face. "Shit – there were more of you left?!"
"You lot will never be safe from us Noragami. We are of a legion, and we are of living gods. You cannot hope to rid of us completely…" it hissed, coming closer to her face, dangling from Takechi's mouth in a bulging, disgusting mass of fat purple-black flesh.
"I'm already tired of hearing your repetitious song-gozaru." Came a rather familiar voice, and a katana spliced through the worm, then through Takechi's stomach. When the Kiheitai's strategist fell to the ground in a dead faint, Matako smiled at the sight of her other senpai as he sheathed his weapon. "If you were a little later, then I might have had been in a God-awful mess, senpai-,"
"Or you might have been forcefully kissed, this time-gozaru. Hold still, Matako." Her face flushed when he mentioned the kiss, but she did as he told her to do while he pulled the Noragami's corpse from her and helped her get up from the sticky slime. She clutched her wound as it continued to bleed, albeit a little less than before.
"Are you alright, Matako?"
"I'm fine… more or less. But I can't believe we missed Takechi-senpai… is he going to be-," she was cut off as another rumble filled the air and shook the ground under them again. "W-what was that?!"
"That has to be Shinsuke-gozaru. It seems that our battle is going to end soon… so that means we're going to have to start moving out and in soon."
Takasugi didn't have to open his mouth and ask who it was when Yamyra stood from the ruins of what used to be their temple which housed their 'master'.
His body was suddenly on full alert, his limbs going stiff and his instincts telling him to run when he came eye to eye with the creature who had his teacher's face. Even Shuyo flinched when she saw the man, though she seemed calmer than he was. It was undoubtedly Shoyou's face, as before, but the pitch black eyes and the strange hostility coated in a sort of elegant, aberrantly shining aura coming from that serene expression was neither of Shoyou's, or of Yamyra's at all.
This man handled his body with a sense of control learned and whetted over centuries of time, and each step he took with the air of someone who was used to being served and of dominating others was evident.
He shook out his light colored hair as he brushed off the splinters and crumbling gravel from his clothes, his fingers smoothing over each scratch on his limbs as they disappeared without a mark. Jumping from the wreckage as courtly as a raven in flight, he landed in front of Takasugi and Shuyo, smiling coldly.
Takasugi couldn't move a single inch, a strange bitter wariness setting inside his stomach. It rooted him to the spot, and he could do nothing but stand there, listening and watching.
"I see why Yamyra lost himself in trying to keep you from me for centuries." The deep, rumbling voice that came from the Noragami's body was the first profound thing that shook Takasugi from his rapt state, and he stepped back, pulling Shuyo along with him.
"You possess a… strong soul, and one that is never so easily broken nor brittle as those who've lived their lives bitterly and within their hatred." The Master of the Noragami commented, his dark eyes flicking to Takasugi at the last part. Those pitch black orbs looked around the place they were in, and chuckled as his gaze came back to the two in front of him.
"I daresay, this was not the sight I thought would await me when I woke up after waiting almost a millennium within this Earth." He breathed in the heated air and sighed, slowly murmuring, "I can feel that you've put up quite the fight outside, with your own troops pitching up against my legions. You, little samurai, you too, have put up the best fight that I've seen in one so young in all of my years against the one I chose to become my vessel."
"Vessel?" the question slipped from him, unbidden, and the Noragami looked at him, then at Shuyo, tilting his head and smiling with his teeth showing.
"A container for my body. If you're trying to ask what happened to Yamyra, Shuyo, then the answer is that he's gone for good." At that, Shuyo started shaking, her calm expression morphing into a grieved one as she fisted her hands and gathered them to her chest. Takasugi didn't ask her anything, just squeezed his fingers around his katana, knowing all too well that the bond of a disciple and that of a teacher was just as complex and important to her as it had been to him with Shoyou, and that she was mourning for someone she had considered her own student.
"He did not serve as just my servant to collect souls all these years. Out of the hundred I had put aside in this world in the beginning, Yamyra was the only one who still survived after centuries of serving me, the only one strong enough to survive the process of becoming a proper body for me. You see, little one," the Noragami started, walking forward and slowly putting out a hand to touch the air between Takasugi and Shuyo. At the twitch of his fingers, something exploded in the air, pushing both of them from each other and crashing into the walls of the cavernous place.
"The body is something that exists only while we breathe, a container for the soul. So no matter whether the body has long rotted, if the soul remains in the same realm, then living forever is only a matter of time." The Noragami continued, speaking as if nothing had happened in front of him.
"Look at this. I'm already fully restored. I am living again, and I will live forever, this time, as a god reborn on Earth." He held his hand up, wiggling his fingers and inspecting the long, pale skin for some time, while Takasugi slid down the wall, blood flowing from his wounds again. His katana slipped from his hand in a clang to rest on the ground before Shuyo. Picking up the katana, Shuyo rushed to him, her eyes bleary but filled with worry, blood running down her cheek from the previous impact.
Pain filled his limbs and his head as Takasugi tried to get up on his own, but the impact had clearly thrown him off as a finishing touch to the final accumulating exertion of his previous fights. He could still see, smell, hear and touch everything around him, but he couldn't move anything else but his mouth as he spoke up.
"All that you've been doing is barely hang on to a half-life you've lived while feeding on the lives of others to sustain your own. You're nothing better than a parasite who's borrowing time, just like what you call your band of 'stray gods' to do." Shuyo clenched her fingers into Takasugi's kimono, a clear warning and a plead to not overexert himself, but she didn't stop him as he added, "All that you are, is a leaching fake that's been masquerading as something that you misunderstand to be a kind of deity, playing the mighty actor in a stage where no one else exists."
Shuyo pulled her arms around his shoulders, supporting him as he wobbled to his feet and stared at the Noragami head-on. The man's jocular expression had slowly stiffened to an expressionless mask as Takasugi talked, a shadow coming over his face. But after staring at Takasugi's defiant green eye, he burst out laughing, tipping his head back in a roar of guffaws.
"You speak boldly for someone who knows much. So you think that all I've been doing is hiding within this mountain for thousands of years, while my servants went around on my behalf to collect souls? So, you want proof that I am an authentic god? Something that's impossible to do?" he waved his hands and a long black scythe appeared in his hands. He swung it over his head and brought it crashing down into the deep center of the ground, the crack widening to a chasm, which climbed and started a large opening on the walls of the volcano.
The ceiling above them; the ground below them; the walls around them – everything was shaking. As dust, rocks and pebbles started raining down on him and Shuyo, who was trying to cover for him, Takasugi caught the glimpse of a dark metallic streak flashing in front of him. He pushed Shuyo away as the scythe came down to where he was in an arc more destructive and powerful than Yamyra's swings.
"I wonder whether you will break if I tell you this. I wonder, will she break if I tell her this?" the Noragami said out loud from the top of his scythe and stared down at Takasugi who was on the ground, his body curled into a defensive position. "Takasugi Shinsuke, did you know the real reason as to why the Tendoshu brought the Amanto with them to Earth? True, part of it was with the goal to make Earth, its resources and everything for our own benefit, but their true objective had always lain with me. The reason as to why your teacher died, little one, was because they had been looking for me on Earth. From the very beginning, coming here was my objective. I first came to Earth to set up the proper stage for them, and I let them run around like headless chickens, and let them begin to spread their roots and sink their teeth into this country. I did all that, whilst just staying here. I, controlled everything with these hands of mine."
Takasugi couldn't tell whether he was lying or not. But that arrogant gleam in the Noragami's dark eye told him otherwise.
But now… now, he really didn't feel like caring anymore. So he punched the smirking man, despite his body's protests and smiled as the blood dripping from his body and over his eye started to blur his vision.
"That doesn't change the fact that I was going to get rid of you and the Noragami from the beginning. If you thought that such a half-assed conclusion was going to stall me, then you thought wrong."
Before he tumbled to the ground, Takasugi saw the other man stumble from the blow, and putting a hand to his face, looking almost bewildered at what Takasugi had done. He started to close his eye and brace himself for the incoming slam to the ground when he ended up being held by something warm and soft.
He blinked the red drops from his eyelashes, peering up at Shuyo, who looked half exasperated and half amused, smiling down at him. She also looked like she wanted to scold him but was barely holding herself back. "If you hit me on the head now… I might end up really going to sensei's place, Shuyo."
She continued to smile, but he saw her usually calm eyes waver. He eyed his katana she held in her left hand, and a heavy thought entered his mind. But before he could open his mouth, she started moving her lips, clearly mouthing what she was going to say to him.
I'm not going to give up on living. I haven't, and I'm not going to anytime soon, since I met you. This isn't anything like the case with Onii-sama, so don't worry and rest here.
"Damn… it." He muttered darkly, his fingers wrapping around her free hand in a tight hold. Something inside of him gripped his heart tight with a fear, a fear that if he let go, she would never come back, despite what she said.
Shuyo made him lean back against the wall and pressed a light kiss on the back of his bloodied, scraped up hand, squeezing it. "Why did it have to be you… again?"
The heavy weariness was wearing him down fast. All that he was able to see was her lips forming the words, I promise to you, that I won't die. Not until I've seen that your future – every one of Onii-sama's disciples' futures are secure, I won't let my soul pass on to the next world. I promise you that… Shinsuke.
"And then… what?"
I'll hold you to that promise of yakult, and we can share an entire package when we get back. That put a small, wry smile on Takasugi's face as his eyelid dropped further and further. The last thing he saw was her smiling at him in her usual, cheerful manner and clearly felt her calming presence next to him.
Only then did his green eye close completely and still.
"Did he die?"
You'll see in the next chapter. It's nearing the end, after all.
