Aofery: Yeah... I did maybe make this a bit worst-case scenario. The thought of just popping out of existence is bad enough, but this whole ghost-ish thing just feels so much worse to me. Like, I can't imagine. Woohoo, back to passing out free trauma lol

Part 3

(In which Yukine visits Hiyori and must be convinced that he needs a new master.)

"Bad idea, kid," Yato muttered as they waited on the sidewalk in front of Hiyori's house.

He had tried to talk Yukine out of it the whole way over, but of course it made no difference. This was not the first time Yukine had sought out Hiyori, and Yato expected it would go much the same way as the others. It never went well. Each encounter left Hiyori shaken, but at least it faded from her mind within a few minutes. The effects on Yukine were more permanent, and each one lowered his spirits further. Yato couldn't help but worry, because he'd seen before what happened when Yukine wallowed in bitterness. He wouldn't be able to protect Yukine this time if he began crossing the line.

Predictably, Yukine ignored him. He stood slouched over, mouth pressed into a grim line and eyes shadowed. He showed no sign of life until Hiyori appeared at the end of the street, walking home from school.

"Hey, Hiyori," he said as she approached. When she didn't acknowledge him, he stepped in front of her. "Hiyori."

Hiyori started in surprise. "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't see you there. Can I help you?"

"I don't suppose you know who I am?"

She bit her lip. "I…don't think so. Should I? Sorry, maybe my memory is bad right now."

"Yukine." He crossed his arms over his chest. The look he fixed on her was not friendly. "We were friends. And Yato, too."

"We were…?" A puzzled look flitted over Hiyori's face. "I'm sorry, I don't–"

"You have to remember," Yukine snapped. "How could you forget us?"

Hiyori's face flushed red and twisted in confusion as she ransacked her memory for anything that might explain the situation. "I…"

"You promised you wouldn't forget!" The anger was building up in Yukine now, sizzling in the air. It was ugly on his face. "You forgot and he disappeared! You killed him! You killed him and abandoned me!"

Hiyori managed to ease past Yukine and inch backwards up the walk to her house, fearful of the alarm bells jangling in her ears. Yato couldn't blame her. Yukine always started sounding a bit deranged when he got worked up during these encounters. A bit dangerous.

Yukine did not follow after her, perhaps the one kindness he was still willing to extend, but continued shouting after her until she whipped around, fumbled to get her key into the lock, and disappeared into the house.

"You said you wouldn't forget! You promised! How could you? He's gone, and it's your fault."

Yato waited until Yukine had shouted himself hoarse and stubbed his toes kicking viciously at pebbles and fence posts and anything else he could find. He didn't go after Hiyori this time. He had followed her the first few times, worried about how it might impact her, but no matter how shaken she was, it faded away within a few minutes and she didn't remember it at all. Sometimes a vague feeling of uneasiness lingered a few minutes longer, but then that too would fade and she would continue on her normal human life until the next time Yukine came looking for her.

He watched Yukine rage himself out instead, even though it broke his heart. Yukine's grief-fueled rages were no easier to watch than his desperate begging and sobbing had been. He had started off begging Hiyori to remember, maybe try this one thing or that to jog her memory, but each failure made the bitterness grow. Yukine wasn't trying to make her remember anymore, not really. He had started to give up. And he hated her for that, as much as he had always loved her.

After a few minutes, Yukine stormed off in a huff and Yato drifted after him. He fair vibrated with tension as he paced the length of the city like a caged beast. He did not go home, even though that was the best place for him and Kofuku and Daikoku would worry if he stayed away too long.

"You should go home," Yato whispered in his ear. "Leave Hiyori alone. It's not her fault. I'm sorry, I know it hurts. I wish it was different. I'm still here."

But his words meant less than nothing, and all he could do was trail along behind.

Yukine stomped around the city for another few hours, until the sun drifted below the horizon and the sky was streaked with all the colors of the sunset. And still he seemed to fizzle with energy that not even his pacing could dispel.

He finally turned towards home as the sky began to darken. Not much could induce him to stay out after dark.

He was still several streets away when the ayakashi started hissing behind him and charged out of an alley.

Yukine slashed his fingers through the air and shouted, "Borderline!"

Nothing happened, and he bit out a curse. Now that his name was no longer connected to a god's life, he had lost the abilities it once conferred upon him. He was little better than a wandering spirit now. Borderlines were beyond him, and that second of forgetting could be the difference between life and death.

The ayakashi lunged at him in a glowing green blur, and he managed to dodge around it and take off running down the street.

"Look out!" Yato cried, running after him.

But Yukine didn't hear, and the ayakashi slammed into him from behind. They went down in a tangle of limbs, and Yukine yelped loudly as the phantom growled and tried to take a bite out of him.

"Hey!" Yato shouted. "Stop that!"

He beat at the ayakashi with useless fists, but his hands went right through. He dug down deep, searching for any lingering shred of magic he could still call upon, but felt nothing at all. He even tried calling Sekki, but Yukine stayed stubbornly human. Yato could cry with frustration, and the fear built and built in him.

He couldn't protect Yukine anymore. He could do nothing but watch Yukine live or die on his own. He couldn't bear to watch Yukine die right in front of him, not like this.

Yukine punched and kicked at the ayakashi. Once he managed to wriggle free, but it caught him again easily and held him down, tearing with sharp teeth. Yukine screamed as it tore into him and blight spread across his skin.

Just as Yato's panic reached a fevered pitch, a gunshot cracked through the air. The ayakashi screeched and vanished.

"Are you alright?" Bishamon asked, and Yato whipped around to see her sliding off Kuraha's back. "You're lucky we were patrolling nearby and heard the commotion. You should be more careful. You know you can't use borderlines and spells the way you used to."

Yukine burst into tears and clutched his arm to his chest awkwardly. Yato didn't know if it was from relief or fear or that grief turned to anger from earlier, broken now that the wild energy had fizzled out. Maybe all of it. The poor kid had been through so much, it must be overwhelming. Add a near-death experience to the mix… Yato couldn't blame him for being a mess. He felt like a bit of a mess himself.

"You scared the life out of me," he croaked.

"Oh dear," Bishamon mumbled. "Come, Yukine. Let's get you home so we can clean you up. We're almost there, aren't we? Come along, you can do it."

She ushered Yukine ahead of her, back towards Kofuku's shrine, with a gentleness that had always been reserved for shinki and broken spirits. And again, Yato could do nothing but follow along behind, wishing he could do something.

"I don't think I can do this," Yukine said. His eyes, which had dulled and faded over the weeks, brightened with thinly concealed panic. "I'm not ready."

Yato watched silently from the corner of the kitchen. He had dulled and faded too, but not even Yukine's distress could break through that now. It was too much bother when his body didn't remember how to feel anymore and his emotions counted for less than nothing.

He said nothing. He had spent weeks shouting into the void and begging someone to hear him, and his spirit was hoarse if his throat was not. Why bother?

"Oh, Yukki," Kofuku sighed. "You aren't going to be ready for a long time."

"Then–"

"You will always be welcome here, you know that. If you truly aren't ready yet, we can wait a few more weeks. But the longer you wait, the more dangerous it will be."

"That ayakashi almost did you in last week," Daikoku added, voice gruff with concern. "You won't be able to use proper borderlines again until you have an active name from a living master."

"You know I would give you a name in a heartbeat," Kofuku said, "but I wouldn't be able to wield you. My shinki become instruments of bad luck and destruction. You deserve to have a master you can build a full-fledged relationship with."

Yukine's eyes were shadowed as he glanced towards the stairs, contemplating an escape. "Maybe I don't want to."

"Oh, Yukki. It might be too soon to move on just yet, but don't cut off your options or give up hope. Give yourself a chance to build a relationship with a new master in the future. Yato-chan was… It might not be the same, but that doesn't mean you can't be happy with someone else one day. It's not a betrayal."

"It was nice of Bishamon to agree to come down here and discuss this with us," Daikoku added. "At least give the discussion a chance. If you decide not to take that step just yet, we can wait. But at least give it a chance before dismissing it."

Yukine picked at his fingernails restlessly and hunched his shoulders until they folded about his chest like wings, but he kept any further protests to himself and stayed put. Yato considered leaving before the show started to idly roam the streets some more, but he did still care about Yukine. There was still a subdued curiosity about what would happen, and he wanted to make sure Yukine would take this step towards securing his future. Watching Yukine indenture himself to another god was the last thing Yato wanted to do, but the bitter truth of the matter was that he had been unable to make his presence known despite weeks of trying. He was incapable of looking after or protecting Yukine. Someone else would have to step in to make up for his failure.

A sharp, businesslike rap echoed through the shrine. Yukine went stone-still, fingers freezing in place. He threw a look towards the back door leading out to the garden. Daikoku dropped a hand onto his shoulder, half comforting and half flight deterrent.

"I'll get it!" Kofuku said. Her smile almost reached her eyes as she pranced from the room. Her eyes never seemed to shine as brightly as they used to these days, but at least they weren't red-rimmed and shadow-smudged from sunup to sundown anymore either.

The front door flew open with a bang that reverberated through the shrine. Yukine flinched.

"Bisha! Kazuma!" Kofuku chirped from the other room. "Thanks for coming! Yukki and Daikoku are in the kitchen. Can I get you some tea?"

"That's not necessary, but thank you," Bishamon replied in a low voice.

"Are you sure? Don't worry about bad luck—Daikoku will get it because silly old me is a disaster in the kitchen."

"Quite sure."

The pattering of footsteps heralded Kofuku's return, and she appeared in the doorway a moment later. Yukine and Daikoku watched with apprehension as she ushered Bishamon and Kazuma into the room. Yato too, if he counted, but he had already begun to think of himself as something less than a ghost. Ghosts hardly counted for anything.

"Sit down, sit down," Kofuku said, flapping her hands at the table where Yukine and Daikoku were seated.

Bishamon and Kazuma exchanged a look before seating themselves. Kofuku plopped down beside Daikoku, who removed the restraining hand from Yukine's shoulder with a warning look. Yukine made a concerted effort not to appear sulky and on the verge of bolting, and failed spectacularly. Yato hung back in the shadowed corners of the room where he was unlikely to be walked through and observed silently.

"So…" Bishamon said. "You're looking for a new master?"

Yukine scowled, eyes glinting with mistrust. "Maybe. Eventually."

Kofuku bit her lip and shared a worried look with Daikoku.

Daikoku cleared his throat. "It's still pretty raw, you understand," he said. "But he can't wander around without a master forever."

"Especially not if he's going to be wandering the streets alone without being able to draw a borderline," Bishamon said, her voice carefully neutral.

"He's right here, you know," Yukine grumbled.

If that didn't ring true, nothing did. Yato folded his arms over his chest, where images of ghostly limbs and digits and torsos shimmered and overlapped at the edges in a funhouse mirror kind of way. He found it less disconcerting if he simply ignored it. It took far too much concentration to make sure his edges matched up with the real world, much less with the rest of his own edges.

"You understand that he still bears the name Yato gave him," Daikoku cautioned. "When he is renamed, he will technically become a nora, although his previous master is…deceased."

"We know it's a lot to ask," Kofuku said, twisting her hands together and looking anxious again. "Gods generally disdain noras. Ebi-chan might… But we wanted to ask. Yukki deserves the best options."

Bishamon let out a breath and studied Yukine with hooded eyes. "These seem like special circumstances."

Yukine dug his thumbnail into the tabletop and twisted it about savagely, as if he might dig out a splinter and stab someone with it.

"Not even you are going to object?" he asked Kazuma bitterly. Apparently there were still hard feelings there, ones that had not been helped by Yato running off to name Kazuma and fight his dad.

Kazuma fiddled with his glasses, pushing them further up the bridge of his nose, and watched Yukine's fingers scrabble at the tabletop. "Normally, I would," he said. "Aside from the issue of being a nora, you're still grieving. It's not in Veena's best interests to take on a grieving shinki, especially since you still don't trust us for going after the sorcerer. You're still Yato's shinki through and through, even if she gives you a name now.

"But you do need somewhere to go, and I think you could grow to love a bigger family…even if your teamwork might need some work. And…I was Yato's friend too. He named me as well, even if only for a few days. I was a nora too, for a time. I think I can understand your situation better than most. These are unusual circumstances."

Yukine snorted none too subtly.

"I think you'd do well in a larger family," Bishamon said optimistically. "We can make allowances while you mourn. I can use a different variant of Yuki and you can keep Yato's family name rather than taking on the Ha clan suffix, if you'd like. We can work out any details to make you comfortable with the arrangement. I understand this will be a big adjustment and there will be pieces of your old life you would like to hold on to.

"We want you to know that you are welcome in our house whenever you wish, and I will offer you a name if you'd like. You can take it now or wait until you've explored your other options and decided you're ready. Daikoku is right that many doors will be closed to you since you still bear Yato's name, but you might find a place with Ebisu or one of the minor gods. But the offer will remain on the table until you decide what path to take."

Yukine stared at her. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"Why? We've never exactly seen eye to eye, and you know it would be a pain to bring on a nora still hung up on his previous master. Seems stupid to me."

Daikoku winced and bent his head to whisper a warning in Yukine's ear. Yukine only leaned away and kept his gaze fixed on Bishamon, eyes blazing with suspicion and mistrust.

Bishamon sighed and looked past Yukine, towards the window. "Maybe," she agreed. "But Yato saved me several times over, and I owe him at least that much. He was a pain, but it's a shame what happened. The sorcerer had to die, but I didn't want Yato to disappear."

Her gaze snapped back to Yukine's face, and her eyes were surprisingly gentle. "And really, don't you deserve a second chance too? I would be honored to work with you and claim you as part of our family. You have endured enough. I would not leave you to suffer more without at least extending a hand. It will not be the same as what you shared with Yato—how could it be?—but you might learn to love it all the same. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. When you're ready."

Yukine's lips trembled and his breath hitched. He tried valiantly to stave off the tears, but conceded defeat after a few moments of struggling and buried his face in his hands. Kofuku reached across Daikoku to put her hand on Yukine's arm and squeeze, while Bishamon and Kazuma politely averted their eyes.

Yato could feel a phantom ache spreading through him, nibbling away at the edges of his apathy. He had not expected such a kindness from Bishamon, even though he found it sharp-edged and bittersweet. He might have hoped for some measure of loyalty from Kazuma after their centuries of tenuous friendship, but not enough to override his protectiveness of Bishamon. He had expected Kofuku and Daikoku to do their best by Yukine, but their efforts and tender care touched something deep inside him. And as for Yukine, Yato never could bear to see him cry. It awoke all the love he had thought buried and reminded him what pain should feel like.

Yato drifted from his corner and slunk up the stairs, leaving the group to hash out their arrangement. He had seen Yukine break many times since his disappearance and didn't need to see one more. He didn't want to listen anymore while they discussed moving on without him or watch Yukine receive a name from another god.

He wished they had not reminded him what it was like to feel, because it hurt too much to bear.

He ghosted around the attic bedroom he had once shared with Yukine. One of the futons had finally been hauled away. The remaining one looked too small in the room by itself. The lamp was still plugged into the wall, the clothes neatly stacked, the school books shoved into a dusty corner to languish. Yato's shrine still sat on the windowsill, now with the tiny torii gate loose from when Yukine had fallen asleep while holding the shrine and then spent two hours fiddling with the broken gate and a bottle of glue.

Everything looked so normal, aside from Yato's missing things. He hardly felt like he belonged here anymore. But then, he hardly belonged anywhere anymore.

He drifted to the window and looked out at the street below as he imagined how things downstairs might be shaping up. He hoped Yukine didn't burn his bridges. Yukine needed a master. Kofuku and Daikoku would care for him as best they could, but Yukine was the kind of shinki who needed to work with and have a partnership with his god—a risky proposition with Kofuku and her miasma of bad fortune. And it would interfere with Kofuku and Daikoku's dynamic and equilibrium. Daikoku had never been eager for Kofuku to name another shinki. After everything they had already done for Yukine, it might be too much to ask.

Ebisu might be an option, but as much as Yato liked the kid and respected his previous incarnation, he had some reservations about Yukine joining his household. A lot had gone on there, and Yato wasn't sure he wanted Yukine to get involved. Yukine's other options would be limited while he would technically become a nora. If Bishamon would make an exception for him, she might be his best bet. For as many problems as Yato had had with that woman, he trusted her with Yukine. They had saved each other enough times that he would trust her to save Yukine too.

But she had better follow through. And Yukine had better play the hand he had been dealt and be grateful enough not to turn into an unstable brat again.

Footsteps thumped up the stairs, and the door creaked open. Yukine's eyes were rimmed with red, and he scrubbed at his nose with his sleeve. He stood silhouetted in the doorway, his gaze roaming over the room with such hungry intensity that Yato might have been convinced Yukine would see him for sure if he didn't already know better.

Then Yukine set his mouth in a tight line and began disassembling the room, unplugging the lamp and shoving everything he could fit into a bag. Yato retreated to an empty corner and watched. It took him a few minutes to realize his elbow was protruding halfway through the wall, but he shrugged it off. He no longer found passing through inanimate objects quite as disconcerting, although he still did his best to avoid passing through people.

Kofuku stuck her head through the doorway to check on Yukine, but didn't say anything as he slammed things around ferociously and shoved the essentials into his bag. Daikoku peered over her shoulder, and Bishamon and Kazuma hung back somewhere behind them.

Yukine hefted the bag over his shoulder but paused when his eye caught on the windowsill. He stepped forward, hesitated again, and picked up the tiny shrine perched there. He held it reverently in his hands, shoulders hunching.

"Maybe you should leave that here," Kofuku said quietly.

Yukine started and turned, his grip tightening around the shrine. "I…"

"You serve Bishamon now." Kofuku's eyes were gentle, but there was a hint of steel in her voice. "Yato is gone, Yukki. It's good to remember him, but don't carry that to your new life and let it hold you back."

Yukine's lips twisted mulishly. "It wouldn't–"

"You can come back and visit whenever you'd like," Bishamon said. "I will not prevent you from doing so. But Kofuku is right. You can't afford to bring anything that will interfere with building a new life or nudge you into crossing the line. Make it into a memorial and visit from time to time, but don't turn it into something to obsess over. Leave it here for when you come visit your old life."

"You are always welcome here, Yukki," Kofuku said. "We will take care of it for you."

Yukine stood frozen, knuckles going white around the shrine. The storm in his eyes spoke of mutiny. But then he replaced the shrine on the windowsill and tilted his chin up against the sting of tears. Although his eyes glistened, he met everyone's gaze evenly and no tears fell.

"If you'd like," he said flatly. "I have everything, then."

Bishamon let her breath out in a sigh and ushered him from the room. "Let's go get you settled in, then."

Kofuku and Daikoku murmured goodbyes, but Yukine didn't look at them again as he passed. Footsteps creaked back down the stairs. A door opened and slammed shut below.

Yato stepped over to his shrine and reached out tentatively for any hint of magic still lingering about it. He tried halfheartedly to summon up a trace of magic to teleport him to Takamagahara.

Nothing happened. He no longer existed and was unable to use anything like magic. His shrine was dead without a god to claim it, nothing more than a tiny wooden sculpture.

Yato's hands curled into loose fists. With no way to get to Takamagahara, Yukine was lost to him now. He had been able to keep an eye on the kid while he stayed here with Kofuku and Daikoku, but he would be left in the dark when it came to how Yukine settled in with Bishamon and her crew, aside from any tidbits he could glean from the lower realm.

The loss left him colder and emptier than before, with an ache he couldn't quite reach. What could he possibly do without Yukine? He could almost feel an empty, barren eternity stretching ahead of him.

"He'll be okay, won't he?" Kofuku asked. Her voice wavered.

"Of course," Daikoku said gruffly. "Give him time. This is what's best for him, for now. One day, he'll understand."

"But now he's gone!" she cried, burying her face in her hands. "How are we supposed to look out for him now?"

"He'll be back to visit. Frequently, I'd wager. At least for now. We'll keep an eye on him."

"He's leaving and Hiyorin has forgotten and Yato-chan is gone. They're all gone. It's so quiet without them."

Daikoku took Kofuku in his arms, holding her close while she sobbed into his chest. "Yukine and Hiyori will be okay," he said. "And so will we."

"But Yato-chan won't."

"…No. All we can do is pray for him. We have not forgotten, even if Hiyori and the humans have. We will remember."

"But what will we do now?"

Yato turned away from their breaking, feeling as if he was eavesdropping on something painful and personal that he had no right to witness. He did not want to hear Daikoku's answer.

He stepped straight through the closed window and dropped to the ground below. He imagined his chest tightening, gasping for breath past sobs, but he felt nothing. Nothing but that overwhelming sense of loss and a soul-deep pain that echoed his friends' grief.

He did not know why he was still here, a shadow skimming the blurred edges of a world he no longer belonged to, when he should have vanished into thin air and winked out of existence. He had hoped it was a second chance, that it left him an opportunity to find a way back to the land of the living, but nothing had worked so far and he was starting to think otherwise. If it wasn't quite a punishment, then it still seemed like its own kind of hell.

He did not understand the point of this tortuous half-existence and was running out of ideas.

"Well," he breathed to no one as the world tightened around him, "what do we do now?"