Note: Lol yes, the communication issues are strong with this one. Crazy how much simpler everything would be if people learned how to just talk to each other XD

Chapter 7

(In which Yato's condition turns critical and it's time to talk about the sorcerer.)

Yukine couldn't turn his mind off as he paced around and around his borrowed room. All he could think about was Yato and Nora and his half-formed plan to betray his master. He didn't think he could handle the guilt without cracking if he actually saw any of his friends—and especially not Yato—and had locked himself in his room without speaking to anyone. He could explain it away as still being upset with everyone about not wanting to do anything to save Yato. They'd believe it, given his earlier outburst, and it was hardly an untruth.

He had less of a good reason to avoid Yato, but he somehow didn't think the god would be surprised. It wasn't, he reflected a little bitterly, the first time he had shut down or ignored something too emotional or uncomfortable. He knew he should be there with Yato as his hafuri and friend and kid, that he should take the opportunity to express his own feelings instead of leaving everything unsaid, that he should apologize for running out without acknowledging or reciprocating anything Yato had said, but he just couldn't make himself do it. And now that he was colluding with Nora, he was afraid that Yato would be able to read the impending betrayal on his face.

Yukine paced long after the night sent its shadows creeping through the windows and he had to flip on the light. Even though he wasn't asleep, he was so wrapped up in his spiraling thoughts that it was a long time before he registered the muffled noises coming from the room next door.

Hushed voices drew his feet to a stop, and he paused in the middle of the floor to frown at the blank expanse of wall separating him and his master. Muffled coughing almost drowned out the rustling of tossing and turning. Yukine drifted over to press his ear to the wall. Buried beneath the heartbeat pounding in his ears, he could just barely make out the creaks and groans of the bed as Yato shifted about restlessly. Over the coughing, another voice mumbled something.

Was Yato okay? And who was in there with him?

Yukine hesitated a second longer, but then his worry and curiosity overtook his guilt. He opened his door and crept a few steps down the empty, shadowed hallway. He paused outside Yato's door and pressed his ear up against it in the hope that perhaps he had been imagining things and there was really no reason to go in there after all.

But then someone said something and someone else—undoubtedly Yato—devolved into another round of grating coughs that ended in some kind of wheezy groan that set Yukine's hair standing upright.

Before he thought better of it, Yukine grabbed the knob and twisted. It gave half a centimeter and then ground to a stop no matter how he twisted and tugged at it.

"Yato?" he asked. "What's going on?"

He jiggled the doorknob again, but it refused to budge. The voices rose to a fevered—if hushed—pitch, and then footsteps thumped across the floorboards. The lock clicked and the door swung open, revealing Kazuma wedged in the doorway, shirt rumpled and face pinched tight.

"What are you doing here?" Yukine demanded. He shifted to get a look around the other hafuri, but Kazuma kept the door pulled tight and blocked his view. "What's up with Yato? Yato?"

"Yato is…fine." Kazuma cleared his throat and looked supremely uncomfortable. His obvious lie was given away by a series of coughs followed by wheezing breaths from inside the room. "You should get some sleep."

"Are you crazy? Let me in."

Kazuma straightened up and shook his head. "I don't think that's a good idea. He doesn't want visitors right now."

Yukine stared at him like he was crazy, which he was. "Visitors?" he repeated incredulously. "I'm his hafuri. If anyone is a visitor, it's you."

Kazuma threw a look over his shoulder. "I don't–"

"It's okay," Yato rasped in a voice that grated painfully enough to make Yukine wince.

Kazuma hesitated but stepped aside just enough to unblock the bed from view, although not enough to allow Yukine easy entry. The covers on the bed had been thrown back, and Yato was twisted in the sheets. Sweat beaded his waxen skin in a sickly sheen, and his chest fluttered with shallow, gasping breaths. Dried blood was smeared around his chin and dotted the sheets and crumpled wads of tissues littering the floor, and the blight painted his skin in splotchy bruises.

"Yato?" Yukine asked in a small voice.

"It's okay," Yato said again, and Yukine really wished he could believe him. The god winced and gritted his teeth as he choked back another cough, but managed a tight-mouthed smile and a strangled croak. "I'll be fine in a minute. You should go back to bed."

"But–"

"We'll talk in the morning, 'kay?" Yato shuddered with the force of another cough and clawed at the mattress as he squeezed his eyes shut and curled up. Yukine stepped forward automatically, but Kazuma stepped back in his way.

"Move!" Yukine said loudly.

Kazuma shook his head, already shutting the door and turning away. "Go to bed. I'll take care of him tonight. You can talk to him tomorrow."

"Hey!" Yukine tried to jam his foot in the door, but Kazuma kicked it aside impatiently and shut him out. The lock clicked. Yukine kicked the door hard, and only succeeded in stubbing his toes. "Let me in!"

He pounded on the door and yelled some more, but Kazuma didn't reappear. The only response he got was from a handful of shinki cracking open their doors and peeking down the hallway with sleep-glazed eyes. He didn't care about them.

Yato was falling apart in there, coughing himself to pieces and burning from the inside out, and Yukine wasn't there. Only Kazuma was, and Yukine didn't trust Kazuma with Yato anymore. Who knew what his one-time mentor was doing in there? Yukine kicked himself for not drawing a borderline or casting a spell when he had the chance. But maybe he could still break down this stupid door.

"What's going on?" Bishamon asked.

Yukine turned to see her drifting down the hallway, Kinuha and the twins trailing behind her. Apparently no one wanted to deal with him themselves. Easier to run to mummy to handle the crazy kid.

"Something's going on with Yato, and Kazuma locked me out!" he said indignantly. He kicked at the door again, and received only a hacking cough from somewhere within the room in return.

A frown stole over Bishamon's face as she glanced around at the bleary-eyed shinki hovering on the sidelines. She looked between them and Yukine and the closed door. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath before opening them again.

"Let's talk inside." She took Yukine's arm and steered him back to the room next door. When he tried to pull away, her fingers tightened like a vise. She nodded to the silent shinki looking on. "You can all go back to sleep. I'll handle this."

Bishamon's grip was iron, befitting of a war god, and Yukine reluctantly let her tow him back inside. He sat on his bed while Bishamon shut the door behind them and sat down beside him.

"You have to make Kazuma let me in," he said.

"I'm sure Kazuma–"

"I'm Yato's hafuri. I should be in there. And Kazuma should be with you, shouldn't he? Doesn't it bother you?"

Bishamon folded her hands neatly in her lap and frowned down at them for so long that Yukine considered making a break for it.

"Kazuma and Yato have been friends for a long time," she said finally. "Sometimes it's unnerving how much loyalty Kazuma has to him, but I respect that they've shared a lot and have a special bond. Besides, I know that Kazuma's loyalty is to me first, like Yato's is to you."

"But it's my job–"

"I know. It's your job to protect him, not Kazuma's. But it's his job to protect you too. You hafuri can get really touchy about it, but…" She sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "Kazuma is still upset that I wouldn't tell him what I was planning and named Nana rather than letting him help me. But the truth is that it wasn't because I didn't trust him or didn't want him around. It was because it was dangerous to involve him and my other shinki, and I looked for a way to get around using them in order to protect them.

"Yato is protecting you too. Maybe you don't like it, but a god wants to protect their shinki as much as you want to protect them. And a parent always wants to protect their children. If Yato doesn't want you in there right now, it's not because he doesn't want you there or thinks Kazuma can do a better job or doesn't trust you. It's because he doesn't want you to see what's happening to him. He's protecting you. And maybe you don't like it, but you can't blame him for trying when you would do the same for him."

Yukine fisted his hands in the covers and pulled his legs up to balance his feet on the edge of the bed. He dropped his chin onto his knees. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair because she was right and he knew it. And it didn't make anything better.

Yukine had done a miserable job of protecting Yato lately. He had failed to keep Yato away from his dad, had been able to do nothing about the ayakashi and the blight, had yelled at him and run away and made plans to betray him instead of sticking by him like he should have. He had messed up at every turn, and it made Yato's smile hurt even more. Even just in smiling, Yato was protecting Yukine more than Yukine had managed to protect him.

Yukine didn't want to be protected right now, especially not by Yato. It only reminded him of how he had already failed to protect his god.

Another round of muffled coughing shivered through the wall dividing him from Yato.

"I want to be in there," he said in a small voice.

"Of course you do." Bishamon reached over to cover his trembling fist with her hand, and her smile was bittersweet. "But Kazuma will take care of Yato. He's made mistakes, but he'll do everything he can to help. And while they're handling things together, I'll stay here with you."

Yukine wanted to tell her that he didn't need her support or her sympathy or her charity, but he didn't want to be alone either. So he kept his mouth shut and let her sit up with him through the night while they listened in silence to the coughing and wheezing and creaking of bed springs through the wall.

Yukine didn't realize he'd drifted off to sleep sometime during the long, merciless night until he was blinking around blearily, wondering what had happened in a groggy sort of way. He was alone, and it took a moment to remember what had transpired the night before. But when he did remember, it hit him in a sudden flash like lightning and he scrambled up from the bed, wincing as his cramping muscles protested.

He stumbled out into the hallway before remembering that the door was locked. He tried it anyway, a little halfheartedly, and was relieved when it swung open.

Bishamon and Kazuma were already inside, standing over the bed and talking in hushed voices.

"–did what we could," Bishamon was saying.

"It's just not enough," Kazuma mumbled, sounding unbearably tired. "There's nothing I can do. And even if there was, what then? We'd still have to kill the sorcerer anyway. It's just…"

"Not fair," Bishamon finished for him. She sighed and put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry."

Yukine inched into the room—quietly, because he was half-afraid of being kicked out again after the fiasco last night—and tried to peek around them to get a glimpse of Yato. Creeping around behind them, he finally got a look at Yato lying still in the bed, eyes closed and breathing so shallow his chest barely seemed to rise. The blight seemed to cover every inch of his skin now, staining him the purple of death. The sheets were twisted and rumpled around him and spattered with rusty pools of dried blood.

Yukine made an involuntary sound somewhere between a gasp of horror and strangled moan as he stared wide-eyed at the battered god. Bishamon and Kazuma started and turned around.

"Yukine–" Bishamon started.

"What happened?" Yukine asked, even though that was a stupid question.

Kazuma cleared his throat and looked away. "Yato…had a rough night."

Hysterical laughter bubbled up in Yukine's throat, but he managed to choke it down. A rough night? Really?

"Can we wake him up? Or…I guess maybe we should let him rest, but…"

"I would if I could," Kazuma muttered as he turned away to cross his arms and frown down at Yato.

"What?" Yukine demanded. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I tried to keep him awake, but once he finally passed out… We haven't been able to wake him up again. We've tried."

Yukine's throat felt tight and he couldn't breathe. Yato couldn't be dead. Surely he would be able to feel it if his master died, and he was sure Yato's chest was rising and falling ever so slightly—wasn't it?

"I'll wake him up," he said. He rushed over, pushing Kazuma aside, and shook Yato roughly. "Wake up. Bakagami, wake up. Yato, you have to–"

He wailed like a banshee when Kazuma grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"Stop," the older shinki said tightly. "You're blighting yourself."

So what if there was a little burning at his fingertips? What did that matter when Yato was riddled with blight inside and out, barely breathing, hanging on to life by a thread? Yukine had known Yato was dying, but seeing him like that, like he actually was dead, hit him like a punch to the gut.

"Let me go!" he cried, struggling in Kazuma's grip, unable to tear his gaze away from the fading god swaddled in sweat-soaked sheets like a shroud. "Let me go, I have to–!"

"Yukine."

The quiet firmness in Bishamon's voice drew him up short despite himself, and he blinked at her through a film of tears. She looked between him and Kazuma and Yato, and then took a deep breath.

"I think," she said, "it's time to talk about the sorcerer."

"I thought you didn't want anything to do with this," Daikoku said, eyeing Bishamon and Kazuma from across the table.

They had reconvened in the boardroom to discuss their newest scheme, and a very cautious, tentative hope welled in Yukine's chest. It was tempered by the knowledge that Bishamon and Kazuma were still shaky allies and the horrifying memory of Yato fading beneath the blood and blight, but if Yukine was grasping at straws, this was a straw he would latch on to with a stranglehold.

"It's still dangerous and we really shouldn't, but…" Bishamon glanced sidelong at Kazuma. The normal air of cautious disapproval still radiated from him, but his eyes were shiny with suppressed hope. "Look, we're still going to have to get rid of the sorcerer either way and we can't afford to let him actually get his hands on Yato again, but maybe it's worth at least trying to set a trap."

"Yay!" Kofuku cheered, although the dead look in her eyes didn't match the brightness of her voice. She had grown very quiet and withdrawn since seeing Yato's state this morning, and not even the threadbare promise of a saving grace could pull her out of it. "Let's save Yato-chan!"

"Thank goodness, I'm glad we're all on the same page now." Hiyori smiled a little shakily. She had also been in tears earlier, but determination shone in her eyes now. "Although I don't know how it's going to work… I've been trying to get in contact with Yato's dad, but he's refusing to make an appearance. It's weird. Usually he's all too eager to come by and mess with us."

"You did what?" Yukine demanded.

Everyone stared at Hiyori in horror, but she only raised her chin and stared back steadily, uncowed.

"I never said I didn't want to look for a way to save him, just that I thought we should be careful about how we did it."

"And that's careful?" Daikoku asked.

Yukine swallowed hard and felt guilty for doubting Hiyori. She could be nearly as crazy as he was, and he should have known that she'd never give up.

Bishamon closed her eyes and kneaded her forehead. "You're…" She sighed and shook her head. "Well, we'll need to get in touch with the sorcerer to arrange an exchange, and soon. Yato's barely hanging on by a thread."

Yukine opened his mouth to explain that he had already arranged such an exchange, but Bishamon shook her head at him before he had the chance to say anything at all.

"You can't come," she said. "It's bad enough that we're risking him getting Yato again. We definitely can't put you at risk too. We can handle it."

Yukine huffed out an irritated breath. He was tired of being left out of things.

"I was going to say that I already talked to Nora," he said sulkily.

Now it was everyone's turn to stare at him.

"You did what?" Hiyori asked.

"Well, they weren't going to do anything, so I was," he said defensively. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the tabletop. "I already told her I'd bring Yato out, so they're expecting us. She's been watching, so she'll know as soon as we leave. And I made her agree that she and their dad wouldn't touch me."

"You're all insane," Bishamon muttered, dropping her face into her hands. "Why does Yato always attract the crazy ones?"

"And you believe her?" Kazuma asked.

Yukine shrugged. "I don't trust her, but I believe that she'll convince Yato's dad to give me a one-time pass in exchange for handing him over. They think I'll come running after them to try rescuing Yato once they have him, so they aren't really worried about getting me right now."

Kazuma stared back solemnly. "And you won't?"

Yukine looked away. "Anyway, I can defend myself and you guys will be there, so it's not like they'll have an easy time of grabbing me. And we're going to take Yato back with us—no one's getting stuck with Nora and Yato's dad. I'll be fine."

Bishamon waved a hand in weary resignation. "You know what, knock yourself out. I'm not sure I could stop you if I tried. But keep yourself under control no matter what they try on Yato or you'll jeopardize the mission."

Yukine grumbled his assent.

"But how do we make sure they fix Yato without taking him?" Hiyori propped her elbows on the table, cupped her chin in her hands, and frowned down at the gleaming wood with pursed lips. "It won't be easy, and they'll be expecting us to try something."

A deadly serious look descended over Bishamon's face like an iron shroud. "If they don't agree to bring the ayakashi with them, the plan is over. It's already risky enough. There's no way to win if that ayakashi doesn't come too, and it's much too dangerous to just hand Yato over and let them make a puppet out of him. If we don't have good reason to believe that they'll bring that phantom, we're calling the plan off. And no one here will be trying anything on their own."

She leveled a flat look at Yukine and Hiyori, and the promise was clear: if she didn't believe the ayakashi was coming, Yato would die and there was nothing they could do about it. Yukine swallowed down the lump in his throat and licked his dry lips.

"I already asked Nora that," he said. "It's not like I want to hand Yato over if they're just going to run off with him again. She said they'd bring it because I said they wouldn't get Yato back otherwise."

Kazuma raised an eyebrow. "And you believe her?"

Yukine looked between him and Bishamon and read the doubt and reluctance written across their faces, the evidence that they wanted to save Yato too but weren't entirely convinced this last-ditch plan was worth the risk.

"Yes," he said. "I do."

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Daikoku murmured.

Yukine cast a sidelong glance his way but didn't comment. Neither did anyone else. It was as rhetorical a question as any now that they were all gathered in the lower realm, moments away from either the best or worst decision they had ever made.

Daikoku and Kofuku had positioned themselves next to Bishamon in front of the others, ready to create chaos at the first sign of trouble. Yukine and Hiyori had been ordered, in no uncertain terms, by everyone, to stay in the back. Yukine chose not to complain about this, because being in the back meant he was beside Yato.

Yato had still failed to awaken, which was horrible but had a silver lining: he wouldn't be awake to see Yukine betraying him to his dad. The new game of the day was Check If Yato's Still Breathing, and it had nearly given Yukine half a dozen heart attacks already. With the god's breathing growing shallower and more insubstantial, sometimes it was impossible to tell if he was breathing at all without a great deal of panic.

Yukine was watching him rather than paying attention to searching for Nora like he should, because he was terrified that Yato was going to slip away the second he wasn't looking.

Kuraha, covered head to toe with thick fabric, long sleeves, and gloves, held the god carefully, like a fragile thing. Kazuma had originally volunteered for this task, but Bishamon insisted he be at the ready to coordinate the attack the second something went wrong. He was already transformed and tucked in her earlobe, and Bishamon was at the ready with a reduced arsenal of shinki. There had been a heated debate about which shinki to include since this was all top secret. Bishamon and Kazuma went back and forth for way too long trying to figure out the right balance between keeping the mission contained to the smallest number of people possible and having enough shinki to properly launch an attack or defense. By the halfway point, Yukine had been ready to ditch them and do this himself, convinced Yato was going to die while they were still arguing back and forth.

In the end, Kuraha, Kinuha, and the twins had been included since they were part of the original group who had seen Yato possessed. Aiha was brought into the fold because she already knew something was up from following Hiyori around and Bishamon thought it would be safer to have armor. Just in case, she said. She didn't say it was in case Yato was possessed again and she had to fight him off. No one was willing to acknowledge that possibility.

"Are you sure they know we–?" Bishamon started.

"Of course we do." Yato's dad seemed to materialize from behind the row of buildings across from them, Nora following a step behind like his shadow.

Hiyori had suggested they make their stand just outside Kofuku's shrine so that they were in familiar territory and had quick access to a friendly shrine and escape to Takamagahara if necessary, but the precaution seemed silly now that their enemies were standing there, solid and real. Yukine stole another glance at Yato, who only seemed more faded and insubstantial by the second.

"There are more of you than expected," Nora murmured. She stared at Yukine without expression. "I suppose you're more persuasive than you thought."

Hiyori shifted between them and glared. Yato's dad chuckled.

"How cute," he said. "Don't worry, we agreed not to touch Yaboku's kid…for now. Just give us Yaboku and we'll be on our way."

"Where's the ayakashi?" Bishamon demanded, quickly taking charge of the situation.

One eyebrow inched up the sorcerer's forehead, and amusement twinkled in his eyes. "Why would I bring it here where you could set a trap for it?"

"You agreed to bring it! I knew we shouldn't trust you."

The other eyebrow joined the first up near his hairline. "I said no such thing. I'm wounded that you wouldn't trust me."

"Of course you–"

"Is that what Yukine told you?" Nora interrupted. Her empty black eyes never left Yukine's face, and her stare made him shift uncomfortably. "That's not what I told him. I said I would ask but it probably wouldn't happen." She shook her head ever so slightly. "You're just betraying everyone left and right, aren't you?"

Yukine opened his mouth to tell her to shut up, but his voice withered in his desert-dry throat as everyone turned to look at him.

"Yukine?" Hiyori asked uncertainly.

He didn't have an answer. He wanted to justify himself with the excuse that Bishamon and Kazuma had betrayed them first or that he didn't have a choice, but those weren't real excuses. But no matter how sick to his stomach he felt, he didn't regret it. Bishamon would have never agreed to this if she had known the truth, and Yukine would do anything to make this happen.

Bishamon's look could cut through steel as she raked it over Yukine, lips pursed in disapproval, and then she turned on Yato's dad again. "Then there's no deal."

Yukine straightened up, shame eclipsed by desperation. He had known there would be a reckoning and come prepared to fight, but he had no illusions about Bishamon's willingness to capitulate. He had come this far, betraying his own values and friends along the way, and he couldn't back down now. He had come too far to step down and watch Yato die despite everything.

"We have to!" he hissed, shouldering past Hiyori to confront Bishamon. "He's going to die otherwise!"

Bishamon's gaze held a strange mixture of contempt and pity as she looked down at him. "I already warned you: it's too dangerous. I don't want to see him die either, but… If he's possessed again, people will die. People already have died. I can't conscience sacrificing so many lives for his, and we will create our own worst enemy."

Yukine's heart lodged in his throat, but he didn't let himself dwell on the truth of that. He had been trying very hard not to think about what might happen if worst came to worst and Yato was possessed again.

He lowered his voice to a mere breath, and Bishamon had to lean down to hear him. "If we let him take Yato, we can follow them back to their hideout. Then you can kill the ayakashi before they possess him again, and you'll have found their base and can attack them however you want."

She did not look convinced. "Too risky. I think I'd rather just kill the sorcerer right here."

Her hand tightened around the gun sticking out of the holster at her hip, and Yukine spiraled back into panic.

"You can't do that!" he hissed. "If you kill his dad before he fixes Yato, he'll die!"

Her eyes softened just a little. "But he won't if I kill him later?"

Yukine opened his mouth, but no words came out. There was nothing to say to that. This was exactly why he hadn't trusted Bishamon and Kazuma before, because they wanted to sever Yato's lifeline. But this threat was more immediate, more real. He could worry about keeping them away from Yato's dad later, but none of that would matter if Yato died here. He would do whatever it took to buy them some more time.

"Please," he said in a small voice.

Bishamon sighed and opened her mouth, but then paused and tilted her head as if listening to something. Kazuma, no doubt. Resignation clouded her features.

"Fine," she said. "But this isn't over."

Yukine didn't ask what had changed her mind. He knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Hiyori pressed close to his side, and they huddled together and watched with bated breath as the switch was effected. Bishamon was clearly half a second away from reneging, practically vibrating with the tension of a string stretched taut, and the obvious smug enjoyment plastered across the sorcerer's face was infuriating.

Bishamon watched like a hawk as Kuraha stepped forward and held out Yato's shadow. Yukine watched her, ready to intervene if she decided to back out. Beside him, he could practically feel Hiyori doing the same. Yato's dad hefted the god's slight frame with ease and clicked his tongue as he examined him more closely.

"You really waited to the last second, didn't you?" he asked. "He's just about gone."

"Fix him," Yukine snapped.

"Oh, I will." The sorcerer looked down at Yato with a possessive smile that made Yukine's skin crawl. "He'll be good as new in no time, and finally behaving again."

"You're sick," Hiyori said in disgust.

Watching Yato dangle limply from his father's arms, lifeless and defenseless, Yukine felt the sharp sting of regret and wondered if this had been a mistake. He needed Yato to live, but at what cost? Seeing Yato so totally at his dad's mercy hammered the betrayal home.

He did his best to shake off the unsettling thoughts. They were still going to kill the ayakashi before it had the chance to possess Yato again. It barely counted as a betrayal at all if he made sure Yato pulled through unharmed. It would be okay.

"Well, we'll be on our way," the sorcerer said, not bothering to mask his triumph. "Thanks for bringing back my stubborn kid."

Everyone seemed to ease forward half a step, barely daring to breathe as they readied themselves. There was no plan for how to follow their foes and kill the ayakashi before it all went to hell again, but they would surely try.

But, Yukine realized, it wouldn't be enough. What had he been thinking? What sounded fairly reasonable in theory hardly held up under scrutiny. How did they actually expect to stalk such elusive prey? Nora and Yato's dad weren't stupid enough to lead them back to the ayakashi when they knew they were being watched. And even assuming Yukine and the others could manage that, what were the chances they'd manage to kill the ayakashi before Yato was possessed again? It could be a matter of seconds.

It was a wild, futile plan with more holes than a sieve, but Yukine had been willing to grasp at anything in his desperation. It only fueled his hopeless panic to realize that it wouldn't be enough.

"Wait!" he cried, lunging forward. "Take me with you!"

He couldn't just abandon Yato to his dad. Maybe if he went, he could do something. Maybe he could hold the ayakashi off himself or rescue Yato or do something. He was so tired of sitting by helplessly and watching it all fall apart.

"Yukine!" Hiyori said, her voice high-pitched with fear as she grabbed at his arm.

"Absolutely not!" Bishamon said at the same time. "There's no way he's getting both of you."

The sorcerer watched the exchange with no little amusement, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. "As much as I'd love to bring you along, we promised not to touch you this time."

"But I–" Yukine started.

"Not now when Yaboku is vulnerable. We wouldn't want you getting any ideas." The smile widened. "Now, after Yaboku is safely on his feet again and ready for a weapon, you're more than welcome to drop by. In fact, we'll make sure you do."

Of course they wouldn't want him around before Yato was safely under control again, but it wasn't fair. Yukine couldn't tear his gaze away from Yato's slack, waxen face, barely recognizable under the blight. He already looked so dead and unlike himself, and if his dad had his way, he'd be even less of himself next time anyone saw him.

Then the sorcerer turned away, swinging Yato around with him, and the spell was broken. Yukine lurched after him, hand outstretched, but that was the moment a horde of over a dozen ayakashi appeared out of nowhere and descended upon them.

"Something to keep you occupied until Yaboku is ready to play again," Yato's dad said with a chuckle as he sauntered off down the street.

Everything exploded in a riot of sound and color and motion, but Yukine only cared about one thing. He dodged around an ayakashi to race after Yato's dad. After Yato. Dodging around another that took a swipe at him, he came face to face with Nora and skidded to a stop just before slamming into her borderline.

"Let me through!" he cried. She stared at him impassively through the glowing barrier. "You have to let me save Yato! You don't like seeing him possessed either, right? If you care about him at all, let me go."

He imagined he saw a flicker of uncertainty cloud her features, and she threw a glance over her shoulder at where the sorcerer was retreating with Yato. For one brief, blinding moment, he dared to hope.

But then she looked back. "Yukine, restraint!"

His muddled reflexes almost got him ensnared, but he had practiced this with Kazuma so many times that he managed to throw up a clumsy borderline despite his distraction.

"Nora–"

Her borderline dropped, only to be replaced by a barrage of attacks. The onslaught was too much for Yukine while he was in such turmoil, and he took a hit to the chest that sent him flying backwards.

When he scrambled back to his feet, still gasping for breath, Nora was gone. So was the sorcerer.

Yato was gone.

Hiyori was racing down the street, heedless of the ayakashi snapping at her heels, but the hopelessness and panic in her voice as she called after them told Yukine everything he needed to know. Behind him, Bishamon was cursing loudly as she cut through the horde.

It only took a few minutes to get the situation under control, but those few minutes might as well have been a lifetime. They searched high and low, but it was too late.

Yukine was sick to his stomach. He might have saved Yato, but he had damned him too.

Note: Good job, Yukine x.x