Here we go, guys! Chapter 1! Are you hyped? I'm hyped.
The prologue gave us a glimpse of what will come to pass, and now we return to the end of Season 1 to begin the path that will lead us there. I hope you all enjoy it.
1: A LIGHT IN THE FOG
Three hours after the battle between two kami of calamity...
The shrine of the former kami of calamity Rabou stood in silence again, as it had for five hundred years. A fierce battle had raged there, hours earlier, but it was all over now—the victors had left, as had the stray shinki who had temporarily served a new master. The massive tree that had once dominated the heart of the place now lay broken, its severed trunk leaning against the slope of the crater that housed the shrine. The dust from its fall had settled already.
Night had already enclosed the shrine in darkness. No birds sang in the trees outside the sunken lake, no animals ventured close to its rim. No fish swam in the shallow lake within the crater, and the surface of the water was glassy and still. It was as if the shrine had reverted to once again standing as a neglected memorial to the past.
And then, a tiny ripple disturbed the calm water in the center of the lake. Its rings spread outward as the surface roiled slowly, the ripples growing quickly until—
Water exploded upward in a frothy spray around the form of a man, sitting bolt upright from beneath the shallow lake. His arms thrashed in the churning water; he flung his head back, gasping for air. He slumped forward, hands braced against the cold, sharp gravel underneath him. It dug into the backs of his legs, but he hardly noticed. The sensation felt distant, detached. The water sloshed around him and he gazed down at it with an unseeing stare. The icy air whooshed in and out of his lungs in deep, heaving gasps as he tried to steady himself.
Slowly, slowly, his breathing calmed. His vision faded in and out, wavering and unfocused. When his eyes cleared, he gazed down at the water and at his own half-submerged body. As his vision swam into focus, his yellow eyes fixated on the water that surrounded him. Its scent, its cloudy green-blue color, its coldness— it felt familiar, somehow.
His head felt heavy as he craned his neck to look around. With his eyes still struggling to focus, he could just barely make out the shrine that surrounded him: the jagged stone slopes encircling the sunken lake; the low wooden bridge that crossed the span of the lake, parts of it lying in ruins; red-painted wooden gates, their name just out of reach in his memory, rising up out of the placid water; stone pillars carved with spirals, their details worn down by the ages.
Looking back over his shoulder, his gaze fell on an island hewn from stone. It towered over him in the mist, just as cold and silent as the water. Thick roots snaked down from a massive tree trunk at its peak, tangling around spiral-etched pillars like the ones in the lake. The fallen tree held his gaze, gripping something within his chest. Seeing its severed trunk felt… wrong, somehow. All of this… it all felt so familiar, but why?
He let his weary head drop forward. Thick, waterlogged strands of silver hair dangled into his peripheral vision, plastered to his face and neck and upper back. He lifted his hands and studied them, flexing their long fingers.
He clenched his right hand into a fist and as he did, his vision blurred and something blinked into focus before his eyes. It flickered over the sight of his own hand, there and not there at the same time, as if a second reality had imposed itself upon the first: this same fist, locked around the hilt of a katana, spattered with something red and sharp-smelling… Gasping, he unclenched his fingers and the vision passed as quickly as it had come.
"Who am I?" he whispered hoarsely.
Who was he, exactly? Why was he here? He turned his head again to look at that stone island. Perhaps there were answers to be found over there. He dragged his feet beneath himself and rose unsteadily, slowly—but his muscles failed him, his knees giving out, and he toppled into the water with a heavy splash. His head was spinning, and he squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the dizziness to pass.
Taking a deep lungful of icy air, he all but dragged himself through the shallow water until he reached the broken bridge with its tall, red gates. A spar of shattered wood stuck out of the water, leaning up against the wreckage, and he leaned against it as he hauled himself upright. The chilled air stung his bare skin.
He rested against the wooden spar before taking a hesitant step forward. The cold gravel of the lakebed shifted under his feet and he swayed, reaching back to grab the spar again and steady himself. One painstaking step at a time, leaning on the bridge's supports, he trudged through the water to the shore of the island.
A few paces away from the shore, his foot snagged on something soft and dense beneath the water—something voluminous that swirled around his ankle and slowed his step. Carefully bending down, he reached in and grabbed a fistful; it was cloth. It was heavy with water as he hauled it up for a closer look. He found more pieces as he limped onwards. They all looked just as familiar as the first one, but he had no idea what they were called. He dragged all of them to the shore with him; he knew, somehow, that at least he could cover himself with these once they'd dried.
He stumbled slightly as he left the water, the gravel under his feet replaced with slick stone. He tilted his head back as he stood on the shore of the shrine; the steep, smooth cliffs of its two levels loomed high above him. Like lightning, another image imposed itself on reality, a second image superimposed on the sight of the night sky: heavy gray clouds and a dark and terrible mass that swarmed above him and streamed down into him as he gazed upwards, a rush of pain and power surging into his skull and scorching through his veins—
He reeled back, dropping the clothes and clapping a hand frantically to his left eye. His entire body trembled from the sense of… what was it? What had happened? He carefully brushed his fingertips over his left eyelid, and then the right; they felt the same. But something had been different before… hadn't it? What was this sense, then, of something vast and terrible swirling into his head through this same left eye?
As he glanced around, his skin suddenly pricking with a chill that seemed entirely different from the wintry air. He craned his head up, gazing at the fallen tree and its thick roots, snaking over the stone, reaching down towards him from the top of the island. The tree… he had to go to it.
The stairs to the island's peak were smooth and slippery, worn down over the ages. He climbed them one by one, running his free hand along the wall beside him. His legs shook from the effort as he stumbled off the top step, finally standing before the tree stump. The enormous roots crisscrossed over the stone at his feet and he had to climb over them to reach the stump.
The remains of a thick, braided cord lay on the ground before it, severed in half just like the tree. The close-up sight of the ruined tree sent some kind of terrible ache through his bones, as if he were seeing the remains of his own body. What was this place to him—or what was he to it?
He spread the sodden clothes out on the stone, draped over the roots, and lowered himself to the ground, leaning back against the tree stump in between two of the thickest roots. The rough bark dug into his skin and the stone underneath his backside was as frigid as ice. He shuddered, but he couldn't muster the energy to move. His body felt as heavy as the stone itself. He let his head fall back against the tree stump and his eyes closed. He would rest while the clothes dried.
As he slept, his mind reeled with unsettling images, but above all, two things dominated his dreams: gleaming, bright blue eyes and the metallic stench of... blood.
When he awoke later, the sun was setting on the day he'd slept through; a vivid, red-orange glow filtered through the clouds, casting an eerie light over the mysterious lake and its stone island. He sat up, his neck and back stiff from resting against the tree stump for so long. Wincing and rubbing the back of his neck, he realized that his hair had dried, and so had his bare skin. Shuffling forward on his hands and knees, he reached out and felt the clothes he had laid out earlier; they, too, had dried.
Hauling himself to his feet, he gathered up the clothes and examined them. After a bit of trial and error, he was fairly certain he'd put them on in the right order. The way he'd put them on felt correct, somehow. The fabric was chilly and stiff, but it was still a relief from the biting air and icy stone. He shuffled his feet on the ground; was he supposed to be barefoot? Regardless, he had no idea if there had been anything for his feet to go along with these clothes, wherever they had come from. He wasn't about to go digging around in the lake to find out.
Straightening up, he took a long look around the crater, wondering what he ought to do next. There, on the opposite side, something caught his eye: it was the mouth of a tunnel. It gaped black and empty, a void into the base of the mountains that rose up beyond the lake. The peaks of the mountains were hazy and dark in the fog.
As he stood upon the stone island and stared out across the lake, the image of a young man flickered in front of him: a slender form with black clothes and indigo hair and bright blue eyes, the same ones he'd seen in his restless dreams. The young man snarled angrily at him, a sword in his grasp- and then the vision vanished. He felt an urge to reach for his left eye again.
Well, whatever that tunnel led to, it couldn't be any worse than staying where he was. Slowly, he made his way down the worn-down stone steps and clambered down between the broken planks of the bridge, back down to the shore of the island. Rather than trying to cross the bridge, he chose to follow the exposed stone shoreline that bordered the lake.
At last, he had reached the other shore, and the mountains that butted up against the side of the sunken lake. The mouth of the huge tunnel stood before him, plunging straight through the mountain. He could see no light within the depths of that inky blackness, and not even a breeze disturbed the silence of it. The darkness sent a fresh chill through him, and he remembered something: grotesque eyes in the night that sought him out, strange creatures that reached hungrily for him… smells good, their voices hissed…
Once again, he found his hand rising instinctively up to his left eye. He put his hand down at his side and squeezed his eyes shut, pushing the thoughts away. Opening his eyes once more, he regarded the tunnel again. Well, he could either stand there forever or he could see what lay beyond that vast darkness.
He started towards the tunnel, but something made him pause and turn around for just a second. He could have sworn he felt something pulling him back, almost. He glanced over his shoulder, taking in the strange place he was leaving behind. It sat silently, and it seemed to look back at him. Scowling, he turned away and stepped into the tunnel, his footfalls barely making a whisper.
Whatever this place was, it clearly didn't hold any answers for the questions plaguing him. Perhaps the world beyond it would.
The mountainous forest beyond the tunnel seemed to be endless—its canopy of dark branches arched and twisted above his head as he made his halting way over the soft, black soil. Roots snagged at his toes, making him stumble; leaves brushed against his skin, dry and scratchy, and twigs jabbed at the soles of his feet. The trees towered over him as he made his way up the slope of a hill. Far in the distance he could see the top of the hill, the lower slope of a much higher mountain off to the side.
High overhead, he could see birds flitting above the treetops, yet the forest stood silent as he passed by. Even when he could hear the chirping and chatter of birds ahead of him in the distance, silence met him once he reached the place where the birds ought to have been.
He could only hear them sometimes, anyway— his senses faded in and out as he wandered. Thoughts and images darted through his mind as swiftly as those birds up above; and they vanished when he strained to grasp them, just as elusively as the birds that seemed to disappear from his path as he approached them. His vision wavered, and a low, hazy roaring rose and retreated endlessly in his ears.
In the depths of nighttime, his knees gave way and he pitched sideways, slumping against the rough bark of a tree trunk as another vision flickered over reality, brighter than the night that surrounded him: he saw a length of pink cloth, so vivid that he could almost feel its softness in his harsh grip, and fearful magenta eyes; a furious yell, ragged with an edge of panic, and the glint of sword blades; and then a deep, tearing pain in his head, the sensation of something being ripped out of him—
He groaned and his hand shook as he clutched it to his left eye, sliding down the tree trunk till he crouched on the ground. That side of his face felt just the same as the right side—nothing was different between the two, so why did he keep reaching for it? What was he expecting to find? Or… what had been there before?
He let his hand fall from his face and pushed himself to his feet again. He didn't want to stay there. This forest felt too strange to linger within. These trees felt like the sunken lake he had left behind; something ancient was soaked into the fiber of this place.
As the sun rose high overhead, he crossed a stream and paused to drink from it. Pausing, he realized he could see his reflection in the water and he peered down at himself. His face was pallid and smeared with streaks of dirt, but the golden-yellow eyes that stared back at him were no different from each other.
As he studied his reflection, though, the ringing filled his ears again and his sight grew foggy; for just a second, his reflection's left eye turned hollow and black, with a sickly red glow emanating from the center of it— he flung himself back from the stream, a choked shout catching in his throat.
"Who am I?" he asked again, the words barely audible from his suddenly dry throat.
When the ringing subsided, he climbed to his knees and dared to peer into the stream, but all he saw was the same pair of yellow eyes looking back this time. Drawing a faltering breath, he clambered upright again. He left the stream behind and pushed onward.
As he trudged along and sunset faded to night, he could sense those grasping things in the dark. Smells good, they cackled. He walked through the night, his progress slow and shaky, but never once stopping for more than a moment or two. All throughout the night, visions of the indigo-haired person with the furious blue eyes plagued him.
At daybreak, he found himself beside the stream again- had he found its winding path by chance, or had he doubled back? He had no way of knowing where he'd been or where he was going. Would he wander this forest forever?
He felt like he had forgotten something important. Or, rather, he felt as if there was something he ought to know, but didn't. And there was the needling sensation that he was supposed to do something, that he had some purpose, now lost to him. His head ached, it felt hollow and full at the same time. If only this feeling of being lost in the fog would go away, if he could just find answers.
And then he saw it again, a glimpse of gleaming blue eyes burning with rage, framed by dark indigo hair. Those eyes… if he could find that person, could they hold the answers he needed? He could almost hear their voice in his head, snarling his name— what was his name? Did the blue-eyed one know him? But the anger in those eyes... an enemy of his?
Enemy or not, his blood surged with this new possibility. If he could just find the one with blue eyes, perhaps he'd at least learn his own name. But where was the blue-eyed one? He shut his eyes, and he could almost remember, just barely...
His eyes snapped open and he saw something new imposed upon reality: towering structures, glass and metal and something like stone, tall poles with lights, and the blue-eyed one's face in the glow of those lights, sword in hand, charging towards him with blade raised-
He staggered back as the vision snapped out of existence. Where was that place? Had he been there? Was the blue-eyed one there? He ought to find that place, to find the blue-eyed one-
White-blue light flashed around him and he felt weightless for the briefest moment, and then...
He wasn't in the forest anymore. This place didn't look quite the same as his vision- the structures were taller, soaring high overhead, with sleek, flat sides that gleamed in the daylight. People swarmed past him, most of them clad in dark clothes as sleek as the towering things above them. They all strode past him, and many of them veered slightly to move out of his way, but none looked at him. He spun on his heel, the sudden cacophony and crowds flooding his senses.
Recovering his wits about himself, he shook his head and turned in a slow circle, trying to decide where to go. The blue-eyed one could be anywhere. He set out on foot, winding his way through the crowds.
He couldn't have said how long he wandered the streets; time ebbed and flowed unevenly for him. Night fell and daybreak came again. He had no idea where he was going, of course, but he found himself arriving at places that felt achingly familiar. They felt like the silent lake, but these places were alive where the lake had been dead. People gathered at these places, they watched rituals, wishing for... what, exactly?
Shrines. That word popped into his head as he leaned against the gate at the entrance of one such place. That silent place… that was a shrine too, wasn't it? These places belonged to...
He shuddered, suddenly feeling even more unsettled, and he turned to go; but as he did, he found his way blocked by a child. She stared up at him with wide, brown eyes, and that was enough to confuse him yet again. This was the first person to notice his presence. She wore a colorful and delicately embroidered garment, wrapped around her little frame… a yukata?
The girl took a step back and turned her head, cupping her tiny hands around her mouth. "Lady Bishamon!" she called. Why was that name familiar? The air shifted behind him and he spun on his heel, braced for… he didn't even know what, but his pulse had started pounding at the unknown presence at his back.
The sight of a tall woman met his eyes; she was shorter than him, but not by very much, and with her chin lifted so imperiously, he suddenly felt much smaller. Her vivid purple eyes almost glowed in the sunlight and the long, golden hair flowing down her back gleamed brightly. She wore sleek, fitted black clothes like many of the people on the streets, but she was clearly not one of them. None of those people had radiated such power.
A slim, brown-haired man stood with her, wearing a glass-and-metal thing on his face. This man hovered one step behind and to the right of her. He was… the word escaped him, but he could almost see the sacred bonds that held the brown-haired man to this radiant woman, and he could almost put a name to it.
"Who are you, and why have you come to my shrine uninvited?" the woman asked calmly. He opened his mouth, his throat straining, but again nothing came. Her eyes narrowed then, and she dropped her chin. "No, I remember. You're a kami of calamity, are you not? The kami Rabou."
He sucked in a sharp breath and stepped back as that name lanced through him, freezing his blood. The name, the silent place, the massive tree rooted to ancient rocks, the gleaming blue eyes, the furious voice, a sword in his grasp and blood on his face—they all flickered across his vision, all at once and all together. His mouth opened again and this time, words came in a harsh whisper.
"…Am I?" he rasped.
"You don't know?" the woman asked. But then she tilted her head and tapped a fingertip to her chin, her eyes distant for a moment. When she looked back at him, her eyes pierced right through him. "Come with me."
Rabou could barely feel his own footsteps as she led him into the shrine. This woman knew his name… why? How did she know what even he did not? Was it really his name? What was a kami of calamity? That name and that phrase felt familiar, somehow, just as the blue eyes in his vision did. This woman, she was familiar too- her face, her voice, and the indefinable strength that emanated from her.
She led him through cool, airy halls and into a lush garden bursting with flowers of all colors and shapes. The woman strode to an intricately carved stone bench and gracefully sank onto it, but she did not bid him to sit on the second bench beside it, so he remained standing. Under her harsh stare, he became keenly aware of the worn state of his clothes and the sweat and grime coating his skin. He wasn't sure why that mattered, but he was uncomfortable all of a sudden.
He could feel the brown-haired man's eyes on him; he stayed behind the woman, but did not take his green-eyed stare off of their visitor. Shinki. That was the word, wasn't it? The ones who stood as the brown-haired man did, close behind and waiting silently… sacred ones, the blessed bond… yes, that was it.
The woman crossed her legs at the ankle, hands clasped loosely on her lap. "To the best of my knowledge," she began, "You are a kami of calamity and you are called Rabou. Do you not remember that?"
He stared down at his hands, the sense memory of a weapon in his grip coming back again. Yes… that name belonged to him. Rabou looked back at her. "I am, but I don't remember," he said hoarsely. "You… do you know me? Do you know what happened to me?"
"I might. Do you have any memories at all?" she asked, tilting her head.
"I can see...blue eyes," Rabou whispered. "An angry voice, I can hear its echo in my head… The one with blue eyes, do you…?"
Her shoulders stiffened and she drew herself up, her back straight as a rod.
"Yes," she said, her voice low. "I know the one with blue eyes."
"Who is he, then?" Rabou asked urgently.
"He is an enemy of mine," she replied pointedly. The brown-haired shinki broke his stare, glancing away from Rabou for a brief moment. The woman spoke again, her voice as calm as it had been before. "I'm assuming you don't remember who I am?" Rabou shook his head and she continued, "I am Bishamon, one of the seven kami of fortune. In the old times, our paths would cross once in a great while. It's been many ages since I last heard your name spoken by human voices— five centuries at least, isn't that so? I'll assume that you don't remember much from those days, either."
"Clearly not," Rabou said sharply. She narrowed her eyes at him and he glanced away, sensing that he had gone too far in some way.
"It's strange," she murmured. "It's possible that you have been reincarnated— it would explain the loss of your memories. Do you know what I mean when I say that word, reincarnation?"
Rabou paused, considering it. "It is… a beginning," he muttered. "But not the first beginning…"
Bishamon nodded, "It's when a kami is reborn after death. However, hmm… it doesn't make sense. What is the first clear memory in your mind right now?"
He tilted his head back, gazing up at the cloudless blue sky. "I remember… the silent place, the shrine. The fallen tree and the still water. I awoke in that place, not even knowing my own name."
"When did this happen?" Bishamon asked, frowning.
"It was only a few days ago," Rabou murmured.
"A few days?" the kami echoed, her delicate eyebrows arching. "Then if you did reincarnate, it was recent. And that is what makes it so strange— when a kami is reborn, they begin again in the form of a child, and yet you look no different now than you did all those ages ago, when we last crossed swords. How is it that you have been reborn like this?"
"If I knew that answer, I would have no need to wander so," he retorted. This was getting him nowhere, and he wanted whatever answers she was withholding. The shinki shot him a sharp glance, eyes flashing behind the little glass panes, but Bishamon simply regarded him coolly. But now he intended to ask a question, and he held her eye as he asked, "What do you know of the blue-eyed one? What connection does that one have to me?"
Bishamon's eyes narrowed ever so slightly, her head inclining imperiously. "In those days, five centuries ago, there was another kami of calamity— one with blue eyes. I do know that you and he often fought side by side in those times. His name is Yatogami."
That name jolted in his mind, and suddenly he could picture the younger kami's face— the indigo hair, the wide-eyed innocence at odds with the blood on his hands. The image of a battlefield obscured Bishamon from his vision, strewn with the bodies of fallen soldiers, splashed with red.
"Yatogami," Rabou murmured. Glancing back at Bishamon again, he said, "Then, he knows who I am? He could tell me?"
"Yes, I'm certain that he could," Bishamon said, lips pressing together. "He still remains even today, although the means of his survival is a mystery to me."
Rabou tilted his head at the enmity in her voice, wondering at the unspoken history in it. "What is it that Yatogami did to earn such scorn?" he asked.
Her chin jerked upward, and the air suddenly felt charged between them. "And why should I tell you that? It's not your question to ask," she said icily. "Perhaps he will tell the story to you."
Rabou rocked back on his heels slightly and a chill ran through him, as if a cold hand had pushed against his chest all of a sudden. The strength radiated off of her like a physical force. If they were both kami, they were not of the same level.
"Tell me where I might find Yatogami," Rabou urged. "If he knows of my past, then I must speak to him."
"If I knew where he was, I'd have slain him already," Bishamon replied shortly. "However, I know that he is an associate of a certain kami. Calamity and poverty… seek out the kami of poverty who calls herself Kofuku Ebisu and you may find him."
The shinki stepped around her and approached him, gesturing for Rabou to follow him, and Rabou realized he had been dismissed. As he turned to follow the shinki out of the garden, Bishamon spoke again.
"Do not return to my shrine again without an invitation, kami of calamity," she said coldly. "I told you what I know as a kindness to a fellow kami, but associates of Yatogami are not welcome in my presence, nor are creatures of ill fortune such as yourself. My compassion ends here."
Rabou nodded slowly, mystified by her animosity. He followed the shinki out of the garden, feeling Bishamon's stare drill into his back as he went. A fellow kami… so they really were of the same kind. Although that still didn't explain what a kami was, or what a kami of calamity was. Nor did it explain the disdain with which she'd said those words.
The brown-haired man led him silently through the halls of the shrine, staring directly ahead, never wavering. Rabou considered the way he'd averted his eyes when Bishamon had referred to Yatogami as her enemy; it was the only time that his stare had faltered. Could it be that he knew as much as she did? What if this shinki could tell him what he wanted to know?
"Do you know me?" Rabou asked him urgently. The shinki didn't even glance back at him. He tried again, asking, "Do you know this Yatogami? Will you tell me where I may find him?"
"My lady has already told you what you need to know— you might be able to find him with the kami of poverty," the shinki replied evenly.
"But where would that be?" Rabou pushed. Here was a possibility to get answers, and he knew he would lose that chance once they reached the entrance of the shrine. He walked a bit faster so he could try to catch the shinki's eye. "What is a kami of calamity? Why do I remember so much blood? Please, tell me whatever you can!"
The shinki stopped in his tracks, but he still didn't look at Rabou. He stayed silent for a moment, then he said, "I don't know you, but I do remember hearing of you from those days. You were a human who became a kami. In those times, you and Yatogami fulfilled wishes from humans— bloodstained and malicious wishes that no other kami would touch. That is a kami of calamity."
Rabou stared at him, taken aback. Bloodstained and malicious wishes? A human who became a kami? The tactile memory of a sword in his hands came back to him again, along with Yatogami's rage-filled blue eyes. Was that really who he had been, before this reincarnation? A kami of calamity… the name stirred something up, an urgent feeling, the sense that he needed to do something - and soon. He felt a sudden unease, and his fingers twitched, as if to reach for something that wasn't there.
He felt the shinki's stare upon him and glanced up, only to see the man's green eyes studying him intently.
"If you're hungry, you might want to go to a certain place for some very good oden. It's the right time of year for it, after all," he said offhandedly. Pulling a small pad of paper and a pen from his pocket, he wrote something down and handed the paper to Rabou. He took the paper and stared at it; the characters scratched onto it were almost recognizable to him, and he squinted at it as he tried to decipher it.
"Go to that address. The food there is excellent, you really should try it out. Give my regards to the boss— you'll know her when you see her, she's a sweet but clumsy girl with pink hair," the shinki told him calmly. For a moment, Rabou wondered why he was suddenly so insistent on this… and then he realized that he was being shown the way.
"Thank you," he murmured, gripping the paper. If he couldn't decipher what it said, perhaps one of the passersby on the street would look at it and tell him.
"There is no need to thank me," the shinki said levelly. "I haven't told you anything that my lady wouldn't have. I've simply recommended a good place for a snack. What you may find there is beyond my control. However, this search is your business and yours alone. It's to everyone's benefit that it stays that way."
Rabou knew that there was a reason for the shinki's odd behavior, but of course, he couldn't remember what that was. He nodded and turned to go, but the shinki spoke up one last time.
"You should know that he's not the same now as he was back then," the shinki remarked. "You and he fought recently. I don't know why it happened, but he might not be happy to see you, if you should happen to find him."
Rabou paused as he took this in, but all he did was nod in reply. He had no idea what to say to that. Was it good or bad that Yatogami had changed? At least now he knew why Yatogami burned with such rage in his visions; they were indeed enemies, or had been recently. Even so, if Yatogami knew him, then Rabou would seek him out.
Clutching the paper in his fist, he set off at a fast walk until he emerged into the shrine's front courtyard again. He had a destination now, and as the shrine shrank in the distance behind him, he walked with a fresh sense of purpose.
The home of the poverty kami was quite a distance from Bishamon's domain, and he held back as he approached it. The shinki's warning about the fight rang in his ears; what would the blue-eyed kami do upon discovering him here?
The place that the shinki had directed him to looked nothing like Bishamon's shrine, nor his own. It looked like… there was no name that he could summon for it, but it brought back fragments of memories—steaming bowls of noodles on cold, rainy days, warm broth, the rich taste of meat. He could smell a savory aroma drifting through the air, even at this distance. The shinki had mentioned something called oden, and he wondered if that was what he smelled.
He settled himself behind some bushes just down the path from the place, resolving to wait until the kami Yatogami appeared. Rabou could only assume that he would know this kami when he saw him.
As the sun crossed the sky overhead, Rabou didn't budge from his hiding place. His legs started to get sore after a while, but he stayed where he was— legs crossed, back straight, hands resting on his knees. The sun sank behind the tall buildings in the distance, and as the air grew cold around him, he began to wonder just how long he'd be waiting there—not that he had anyplace else to go.
Rabou reflected on the shinki's words as he waited there. Calamity, bloodstained wishes… was he still like that? Was Yatogami still like that? The shinki said that Yatogami had changed. Rabou wondered if he had changed, as well. Would he even be aware of it, if he had? And what, exactly, had changed?
With the moon rising and the stars beginning to shine, a sense of surging energy radiated to him from further down the path. Rabou, his mind wandering through shards of the past, snapped to attention and he lifted his head. He leaned forward, peering through a gap in the leaves. His eyes strained to catch a glimpse of the figure making its way down the brightly-lit walkway. At this distance, he couldn't see the color of the person's eyes— but he could make out dark hair and a slender build.
This was Yatogami. He could feel the energy rolling off from that person. Even at this distance, it was strong and clear. And he could hear that person's voice, too; the words were indistinct but the enthusiastic cadence and proud tone carried clearly to his hiding place. He knew now that Bishamon's shinki had directed him to the right place. He remembered that voice from ages past.
There were two others as well: a small boy with blond hair and a girl with long, brown hair. A most peculiar radiance spread from the girl, something that felt out of place and ill-natured… but what caught his attention the most was the pink cloth wound around her neck and shoulders. He remembered it.
He instinctively jolted forward and reached out— and his hand struck the leaves, rustling them. The dark-haired one stopped suddenly, falling silent, and the other two stopped as well, looking at their companion. He was looking directly at Rabou's hiding place, and in the sudden silence, Rabou could just barely hear what the dark-haired kami said.
Yato stopped walking and squinted at the shrubs further down the path towards Kofuku's place.
"Hey. Hold on… someone's here," he cautioned. Yukine and Hiyori stopped in their tracks beside him, squinting at the bushes in the harsh glow of the lampposts.
The noise he'd heard just now was faint, like really tiny, but it had alerted him to the presence of a kami in those bushes. He could feel their presence as clearly as could be. Why there was a kami hiding in some bushes was beyond him; he'd certainly never done anything like that. Not at all, never. Not even once, and definitely not more than once.
The thing was, he'd been so busy regaling Hiyori with the tale of the latest Phantom that he and his best-ever shinki Yukine had oh so gallantly slain (and in such a bad-ass way, too) that he hadn't even felt the presence at first. But now he felt it and he kind of wished he hadn't, because he was kind of tired and he didn't want to deal with this. He wanted to go inside and drink a beer or two and have a few laughs with Kofuku. But he'd run into a few too many enemies lately, and he wasn't about to take any chances.
"Better not be another Phantom," Yukine groaned. "There's been tons of 'em today already! Your hands were super sweaty on the last one, too."
Yato gasped and clutched his chest, staring in shock at Yukine. "How could you say that?! My own darling son…"
"You old weirdo!" Yukine growled. "I'm not your—"
"Um… isn't there still someone hiding over there?" Hiyori cut in pointedly. Ah, trust Hiyori to always get to the important stuff! She was right, as usual (not that he was ever wrong, of course, being a kami and all).
Yato stared at those bushes again. Maybe luck was on his side tonight and it was just Kofuku trying to play a joke on him. But he knew it wasn't, of course, because it didn't feel like her. He'd known her for, like, such a long time— he knew what her presence felt like. She had a hard time sneaking up on him these days.
Whoever was in there must've known that they'd been spotted, because the bushes rustled and someone rose up out of them. It was dark and the person was far outside the pool of light from the nearest streetlamp, but Yato was a kami and all, so seeing in the dark was no problem. He could see that the person wore loose, billowy clothes that were clearly outdated. As in, outdated by several centuries. And he saw long, silver-white hair.
Yato froze, rooted to the spot and suddenly feeling cold. No… no way! There's no way it could possibly be—!
"W-what the—" Yukine sputtered, and Yato felt the chill that shot through the boy. Hiyori shrank back, drawing a little closer to Yato; he couldn't even enjoy that, though, because he was too busy being extremely confused and freaking out a little. He had to be wrong about this, there was no way it could be…
The strange figure shuffled unsteadily towards them, and as the person limped into the pool of light from the nearest lamppost, Yato's jaw dropped.
"Wh—wha…" he sputtered. "What the fuck?!" Because that was definitely Rabou, back from the dead again.
HAHAHAHAHA yeah, Yato wasn't expecting that. Sorry, Yato. To be fair, Rabou wasn't expecting this either! So yeah, that's our chapter. I'd love to hear some opinions from those of you who are reading this! Even if it's just a few words, I'm genuinely curious to know what people think of this fanfic so far. Questions, critiques, things you liked? Please throw your comments right at my face. See you in Chapter 2!
