"Are you Yukine?"

"Yes," murmured the shinki, frowning at the large silhouette looming over him. Though he was safe - Yato was here, laughing at something on the television with Kofuku and Daikoku - the boy could not stop his body from inching back in the warmth of his home and away from the cold. That man was huge; Daikoku, the scariest man he knew, had nothing on him. "Who are you?"

"...You're quite small," he noted. His tone was that of a man disappointed that reality hadn't lived up his expectations. And Yukine didn't fail to notice it; it made him feel sad, for some stupid reason. "Not quite what I had expected after hearing all these rumours about you."

Yukine's left eye twitched in anger, and just before he could tell this rude person to just go away, if they had nothing better to do with their time, the knee of a large, armoured leg went up to collide with his stomach.

Yukine felt his lungs shatter at the hit.

The man nodded with a proud smirk when the shinki started to tear up and gag and cough. "Not falling after I hit you is a proof that you're solid, however. That's very good. This is one of the many qualities one of my shinki must have."

"What..." he wheezed, eyes wide and dull. He didn't know if he was crying, or sweating so much it was dripping from his chin. "T-The hell are you-"

Arms brought over a stomach that had to be bruised, and not just a little, the shinki suddenly folded in two, feeling something threatening to come up at the bottom of his throat so violently his mind went blank and he completely forgot what he was going to say. The warrior grabbed his collar before he could fall, the nails of his oversized hand unvoluntarily scraping against Yukine's neck and leaving thin, red trails there.

There was... something metallic, in his mouth. It's your blood, the part of his brain that wasn't entirely consumed by panic tried to tell him. You must have bitten your cheek when he grabbed you. Which his body, or more specifically his nervous system, took it as a sign that it was it, it was over for him, he was going to die now-

"It seems that there are still many rules of this world that you ignore, young shinki; the most important one being to respect your master. At all times. Even if you are a hafuri, such language will not be tolerated in my shrine."

He hadn't heard the footsteps over his own crazed heart - and he wouldn't have felt the furious, thunderous vibrations either, his feet kicking his unknown aggressor well above the wooden tiles - but the sound of flesh of hitting flesh was close enough.

For a whole second, everything stopped. His tongue had returned to a normal shade of pink, freed of his blood, the bruise was gone, everything was white and safe and absolutely no one was there.

Then gravity took her turn on reality, and any peaceful light vanished from his sight as he fell down like a dropped toy. Someone - surely Yato - caught him before he crashed to the floor, and immediately took a few steps backs. Now, in his world, only him and the person who had hit him existed, and he felt a little safer that he wasn't within reach anymore.

"You get your hands off my kid right now."

His sweat-covered forehead was pressed against his god's heart, and the warm air that left his lips never took more than two second to be inhaled again. "Don't tell me... You're his master...?" A low, disappointed growl erupted from within the warrior's throat. "What a waste. A hafuri belonging to a nameless god..."

"Are you okay? Yukine? Can you hear me?" Yukine squeezed his eyes shut and something like tears fell down the tip of his nose as he nodded a few times. He was sure his face was green now. Green as a ripe, juicy apple, and at the same time green as someone who'd drunk too much and was going to throw up soon.

"Nameless god, I will need you to step aside." The warrior extended a long, thick arm, and ancient blue eyes looked up at the limb with untempered wrath. Yato was seriously considering severing it. "I cannot name this weapon with you getting in the way."

Yato's hold became more protective. "Then maybe you should try to take a hint and leave."

If Yukine could have spoken, he would have told him that his god had a name, and that it was Yato, a god of Fortune, and to never commit the mistake of forgetting it.

"I'm afraid I cannot leave without the hafuri. Since you've yet to be officially registered by Amaterasu-sama, you might not know me... But I am Hachiman, a god of war." His red armour, the pipe tangled in his filthy grey beard and the many, many swords and axes strapped to his hips; they had to be his shinki, then. Gods of war just loved to have a hundred shinki. "You must understand that my work, as the God of the Eight Banners, is simply one of a greater importance than yours. After seeing what I did..."

His black eyes glassed over for the briefest instants when he trailed off, and it was almost possible to see the billows of smoke and screams raising from the battlefield on the surface. Yato almost felt pity for him. It was not a look he wished to see on anyone.

"I have seen too many horrors thorough the centuries. Clans fighting to the death, terrible wars... Quantities of blood you couldn't even imagine. In order for such tragedies not to happen again in the human world, I must have solid weapons at my sides. Ones that will not shatter, truly immortal souls. And your hafuri's twin blades might just be what my collection of shinki is missing."

"He is not a thing," Yato hissed in a tone that Yukine hadn't heard before. The grip on his shoulders lightened slightly, but Yato's voice only grew darker. "He is a person before being another item to add to your prized collection. And the answer is no. I am not going to step aside and let you name my shinki to traumatize him in a war."

"...Are you willing to be that selfish? Keeping this treasure all to yourself, yet knowing that with these blades by my sides, countless lives could be saved? The lives of the very ones who could be worshipping you?"

"I'm not..." Yukine, sobbing, wailing, alone, standing among the many corpses surrounding him, covered in sticky blood that hid his precious name from sight. He gently patted his kid's head, and the boy seemed to calm down a little. "I'm never giving him to you, Hachiman."

"I have money. Whatever your price is, I am certain-"

"I told you to leave!" He shut the door with more strength than it was strictly necessary to use, not even bothering sparing a glance to the silhouette outside because the conversation was over. After an instant of tight, hardly-controlled breathing, Yukine felt himself being lowered to the ground, gently so that he would not be harmed further, and the first thing that came in sight was a pair of eyes as blue as the ocean.

And like he had suddenly breathed its cold, salty air, he shuddered. "It's okay, he's gone now. Tell me where he hurt you."

Catching a glimpse of Yato's frown redicted his eyes to stare at something at his left, on the floor, but he wasn't sure if this reaction had been caused by the embarrassment of having to be rescued or by something else. "Mostly my... my stomach and I... I have some... blood in... in my mouth. Bit my cheek. It'll be... gone in a... a few days."

"I got you some ice," said Daikoku as he knelt next to the duo. Yato had almost forgotten he was there. "Here, press that to your stomach while I get you some medicine. And Yukine, calm down. Focus on your breathing, alright? You're fine. You're going to be just fine. He's gone now."

Yukine managed to rasp out a few words of thanks to the older shinki, as well as to secure the pocket of ice between his thin fingers, but couldn't find it in himself to lift it up yet. Panic was there, not as wild as it had been before, but still there, sapping the little strength he had and coming to short-circuit every thought or action he had. Except wheezing.

After five minutes of waiting, Yato did it himself. With one hand holding Yukine so that he wouldn't fall, he used the other to press the ice against the bruise.

Yukine didn't move.

"I knew I would find you there." Under other circumstances, the god would have laughed. Now, he could only summon a small, soundless smile, as amused as it was sad. "You're a previsible kid, you know that?"

"The sakura is not going too good," Yukine murmured, totally unphased by his god's sudden appearance. Yato only heard him thanks to a quiet breeze that had blown and brought his kid's too quiet voice directly to his ear. "I'm afraid it might be sick again..."

Yato looked down at his shinki for a moment. At this beautiful kid - his kid - who had been murdered in the impenetrable darkness of the planet Earth, yet who was now living and bathed in sunlight. He remembered the colour of the scratches on his neck, the same red as the flowers splattered around him. He thought about all the grass that was surrounding him, how it looked like it was glowing, just like Yukine was, swaying gently in the wind along with the sakura petals.

Then he sat down at the shadow of the tree, quick to find a comfortable position against the rough trunk. He'd had centuries of experience, after all. "You've been acting weirdly since that guy came last time. Did he do anything to you again?"

"He didn't." Sadness was steadily spreading in Yato's chest, like a hundred-thousands tiny drops of freezing water would eventually form a deadly lake, and Yato knew the sun up above wouldn't be able to melt this ice. "He hasn't bothered me since you took care of him last time. I've just... I've been..." Letting his head drop with a watery laugh, he picked one strand of grass that he started to frenetically tear apart. "It's stupid. I've been thinking, that's all. A-About what he said about wars and- and blood and shinki, and..."

And there was a lump in his throat that he couldn't get rid of. It kept cutting his sentences and make him sound like he was about to cry, whereas he wasn't, it was just something stupid, and it was almost as unnerving as Yato's eyes boring a hole in his skull. "I j-just thought that maybe he wasn't that wrong about the whole thing. We aren't really... persons, after all.

"I remember you sounded angry-" Angry, yeah, right, that was an understatement, "When he said things like he'd add me to his collection of shinki, or that... that I would be useful for him to stop wars. But... Even if he might not have said it right, he wasn't entirely wrong. I mean, it's true that I'm dead now. The emotions and thoughts I had as a human- t-they should have died too, because now I'm just a pair of swords named to transform under command and to protect my god from threats, and... and just..."

"...Is that what you truly think, Yukine?"

"I-I... I don't know." The child pressed the heels of his palms against his cheekbones and leant forwards before repeating this answer, his voice scratchy in a way that promised tears would come soon. He didn't know, he wasn't sure, he wasn't sure of anything; just an encounter with some violent deity, a hit to the stomach, and he wasn't working right anymore.

"Then... Do you really think a pair of swords, however strong or robust they are, would be capable of tending to flowers and healing trees like you were doing before I arrived?"

"No," was the answer his mind automatically gave, because no, no. Of course not. Stupid question from a stupid god; swords didn't do that. They were just lumps of metal, they couldn't think, they couldn't feel, they couldn't even move on their own. The only thing they would do to a young tree or a bunch of pretty flowers would be to cut them, if their master decided so.

Still, he...

Yato's gaze softened, eyes filled with something light and pure and beautiful. "Before being someone's apprentice, or someone's friend, or my kid, Yukine, you're yourself. Not a pair of swords to sully in a war or a tool that can be replaced, but an unique, breathing being who loves taking care of what others left behind and who has feelings that should not be hindered or ignored for any reason. Giving you a new reason to live and a true purpose and making sure you're happy and not missing anything is one of the god's responsibility to a shinki. A very important one.

"That's why... I don't want to see that creep around you again. I personally think he's not a good master for his shinki, even if I'm judging him from the very little I saw. That guy, he... he hit you with enough strength to bruise, just to see if you were capable to resist the pain and not faint. That's... That's plain sick. You're a kid, for god's sake. Even if he's rich or famous in the human world, I'm never letting you go to someone like that. I can't give my kid to someone who doesn't respect his other shinki's feelings and forces them to witness events as violent as human wars."

And Yato shuddered slightly, thinking of all the shinki he'd seen on this man reduced to the state of equipment. All those buds of life forever forbidden to bloom, all these emotions numbed for more convenience. Maybe, among these shinki, there were some even younger than Yukine, and they might have the same eyes Hachiman had.

Maybe, after losing their first lives, they had died at his hands because neither on Earth and neither in the world of Gods their voices had been heard. Sending these souls to war, just because they were immortal and supposed not to feel and just obey their master...

How... How horrible.

"Have you... Have you already seen wars, Yato?"

The god looked up sharply and cocked his head to the side. "...Why do you ask that?"

"N-No reason..." Yukine looked down at the grass, pretending not to be worried. And it would have worked, if he couldn't feel his emotions. "It's just that, when you told Hachiman that you weren't going to give me to him, your voice sounded a little weird. Maybe I imagined it. Forget it."

The cold in his chest started to melt a little. The smell of something sweet and warm and familiar was wafting down the street, stretching Yato's lips in another sad smile. Maybe he had already eaten something similar with someone, a very long time ago. Long fingers intertwined on his tummy, and he let his eyelids dip shut with a contented sigh.

The knot in his stomach was so tight he wanted to throw up. "What are you saying now? I've been around for longer than you think, kiddo! I could write a history book with all I've seen. Among catastrophes and earthquakes and stuff... Of course I've seen wars. Plenty of them. For a ton of different reasons." The last sentence came out a lot more sadder than he'd intended. "Humanity will never stop surprising me, that's for sure."

These creatures were certainly capable of doing the best things... Saving and loving each other, like Sakura had tried to show him. If he opened his eyes now, though, he'd be reminded of the worst, of why Father wanted to cull the herd, of death and tears and begging and underserved agony, so he decided to paste on the warmest grin he could summon after such grim talk and hope once again he could just forget all he'd seen during his too long life.

"Well, looks like I did it! Thanks to the great Yatogami's kind actions and loving words, Yukine's not sad anymore! Hooray, hooray!"

"Stop acting like a child," grumbled Yukine, wiping the moisture gathered in the corner of his eyes and looking away with a blush dusting his cheeks. "Even a five years old would be better than you. Saying all that ridiculous stuff and acting all sappy."

"Well, you were super super super upset, so I had to be super super super kind so that you'd get better! And it worked! I'm a genius, am I not?"

"No, you're not. You're just a noisy, childish, lazy god, and I don't even get why you came here. Normally at this time of the day, if I'm not forcing you to do something useful, you're either lazing around at home or harassing Hiyori with stupid stuff."

"How mean! I told you the reason I came here was to cheer you up, alright?! It's the only reason, I swear!" Yato didn't mean for his smile to twitch, or for his eyes to stray from his kid's face the way they were doing, but the kid was just giving him the flat look of 'I know you're lying, and stop that before I hit you' so he dropped the act and started to play with his thumbs like a child. "And also because Daikoku said that he wouldn't give me yakitori if I didn't do something for someone today."

"...So you're just here because you needed an excuse to get some food."

"I am not! I told you I was here to cheer you up! Seriously, teenagers... They're so stubborn. Only hearing what they want to hear."

Yukine quirked a half-smile at his mutterings and stood up, carefully, even if his stomach hurt significantly less than a few days ago. "Well, now that you're here, I guess I don't mind your help with gardening. I don't think I could do it alone, anyway. Put on the gloves in the bucket. You're going to take care of the flowers before helping me with the tree."

"Oh, do you mean these flowers?"

"Not the red ones- the ones you're walking on! Bakagami, get away! They're fragile!"