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Chapter 8

(In which everyone must face the consequences of their choices, Hiyori is threatened, and Yukine is offered some unwelcome advice.)

The door opened, and Yukine uncurled from the ball on his bed, ready to snap at whoever had dared invade his borrowed sanctuary. Every once in a while, one of Bishamon's shinki would knock tentatively and he would send them away. Until Bishamon came back, he didn't want to see any of them.

But it was Hiyori who poked her head in and then closed the door behind her before crossing the floor to sit in the chair beside the bed. One look at her face told Yukine that something had finally happened, something worse than the agony of not knowing.

"How are you doing today?" she asked in a subdued sort of way. Her eyes were shadowed. Haunted.

"What happened?" Yukine sat up in a flurry of blankets and leaned forward, his heart jumping into his throat. "Did you hear something about Yato?"

Yato, his dad, and Nora had dropped off the face of the earth since disappearing four days ago. None of them had made contact with Yukine or the others, and any attempts to draw them out of hiding had failed. Yukine had tried getting Nora's attention because he was sure she was still watching him, but she hadn't taken the bait. He would have risked leaving Bishamon's property or even abandoning Takamagahara entirely—he was that desperate for news—to improve his chances of luring her out, but he had been under heavy surveillance since his betrayal.

Everyone who had been there and knew what had happened—aside from Hiyori, Kofuku, and Daikoku—had been treating him coldly ever since, and he was never allowed to be alone outside his room. He couldn't exactly blame them. Bishamon had told him in no uncertain terms that he was to stay inside the mansion at all times, and she made no secret of the fact that he was being watched. He wasn't sure if he was under such close surveillance because he had done something wrong or because they were simply worried he would go chasing after Yato without regard for the consequences.

He knew he couldn't leave the safety of Bishamon's grudging protection, but he wanted to. It was probably a good thing he didn't have the chance to run, because otherwise he might. He hated the not knowing. Yato had disappeared entirely, and Yukine had no way of knowing if he was even alive. What if they had been too late and his dad couldn't fix him in time? What if Yato was gone?

Hiyori heaved a sigh that left her looking deflated and heartsick. "My dad was reading the paper this morning," she said. Yukine opened his mouth to ask what that had to do with anything, but she produced a folded page of newsprint from her pocket and handed it to him. "It's all over the news, too."

Yukine unfolded the page and smoothed it out over his knee. Bold black letters proclaimed the reemergence of last month's serial killer: twelve deaths in twenty-four hours, and the kill count was steadily rising.

"It might not be him," Yukine suggested weakly.

"Of course it is. Fujisaki is just…" Hiyori closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. "He's alive, at least. But…"

"Lots of people are going to die. It will only get worse until we can stop it."

"And Fujisaki will be coming after you, I'm sure. Now that Yato's back on his feet…"

"You could become a bigger target too, to lure me out."

"Yeah, Kofuku keeps lurking around and Bishamon seems to circle around my place an awful lot. But it will be way worse if he gets you. Be careful."

"I'm under lock and key anyway." Yukine swallowed hard and ran his fingers over the small black letters. His throat knotted up as he wondered about the people who had lost their lives: their names, ages, occupations, hobbies, passions, loves. What had the world lost because of his choice? "I'm so sorry," he whispered.

Hiyori's gaze snapped to his face, and she leaned forward as she studied him with big eyes. "It's not your fault," she said earnestly. "We all agreed to take the risk. I know Yato wouldn't blame you."

"Yeah, he'd blame himself," Yukine muttered.

He dropped his gaze back to the news article as he remembered how shaken Yato had been when they first pulled the ayakashi out of him, the pain and fear in his eyes when he admonished Yukine for not drawing a borderline. "Oh yes, because I would feel so much better watching myself kill you," he had said. And he already had too many demons in his past to give him more.

"It's his dad's fault," Hiyori said sharply. "No one else's."

"Maybe, but I chose to send him back, even when he didn't want to go. Even when he warned me what would happen." Yukine hunched over and crumpled the paper into a ball. "Those people are dead because I… And I don't know if…"

If I made a mistake, he wanted to say, but he couldn't force out the words. It was horrible and he knew he was a horrible person for placing one life above dozens, but he couldn't bear to call saving Yato a mistake. If he could even call it 'saving'. It seemed like Yato's situation was nearly as bad.

"But you thought about it beforehand, didn't you?" Hiyori asked. "You considered the risks."

"Yeah, but somehow it's different when it's actually happening."

It had been one thing to weigh a hypothetical worst-case scenario against the very immediate, painful reality of Yato's decline, but it was a whole other to hold the weight of a dozen lives in his hands. The paper ball was lead between his fingers.

"Of course it's hard," Hiyori said gently. "Hard situations require hard decisions. We took a gamble and we lost, but we already decided beforehand that it was a risk we were willing to take. I'm not saying that it was the right decision or the wrong one, but we made our choices and we have to stand by them. And we were trying to save a friend, which is always something worth fighting for."

Yukine sniffled and scrubbed at his eyes, lips trembling. He hadn't realized how badly he'd needed Hiyori's support until she'd given it. Whatever mistakes he'd made or trouble he'd caused, they would accept what they had done and stand by it until the end. They didn't have a choice. Yukine still felt horrible, but Hiyori was right: he had already accepted this risk a long time ago.

He didn't say anything else, but Hiyori seemed content to let it go and lose herself in her own thoughts and sit with him while he tried to come to terms with the consequences.

As much as his conscience nagged at him, there was something even more pressing.

"Do you think we'll find him now?" he asked, torn between dread and hope.

Hiyori's face was bleak. "I'm more worried that he'll find us."

Yukine had nothing to say to that. He wanted to find Yato more than anything, but the cold reality was that it wasn't going to be a happy reunion. And some small, selfish part of him was so afraid of seeing what he had done to his god that he almost didn't want to see him at all.

But he wasn't even allowed down the hall without supervision, much less given the opportunity to go searching for Yato. Only Bishamon was allowed to be looking for him. This set Yukine squirming, because he was sure she would aim to kill rather than take any more chances. And as much as he wanted to blame her, he was afraid that Yato would be aiming to kill too. The two gods were set on a collision course, and Yukine didn't know how to stop them from destroying each other.

Did he want to keep them away from each other? But if he did, how would they ever save Yato? And how could he do either while under house arrest?

Hiyori cleared her throat and began rambling about her day and what he was missing in the outside world, and Yukine did his best to let her distract him. The look in her eyes told him that he wasn't fooling her, but they were willing to play the game for a little while longer. There wasn't much to do except brood and worry until Bishamon got back, anyway.

Hiyori suggested they head to the kitchen to get some lunch, but Yukine waved her off. His stomach was still in knots when he thought about Yato or the people who had died because of his choice, and he couldn't think of anything else. Besides, the last thing he needed was a dozen pairs of eyes watching him everywhere he went. No, he would prefer to hide in here as long as he could.

And this plan worked quite well until the door burst open not even an hour after the aborted lunch attempt. Bishamon stormed in, already calling all her shinki by name to transform them back to their human forms. Yukine straightened up, eyes wide, and Hiyori twisted around in her seat with a soft gasp.

Every shinki was spattered with blight, some only mildly so and some covered with huge patches. Bishamon herself had purple blotches creeping along what seemed like nearly every inch of exposed skin, and blood trickled from beneath sloppily wrapped bandages.

"Go get cleaned up," she snapped without looking back at her shinki.

They exchanged looks and filed out the door, which Kazuma closed behind them. He hovered just behind Bishamon, staring at Yukine and Hiyori expressionlessly. Even he had purple splashed across his cheek, and he shouldn't be in range of attacks.

"You found him?" Yukine burst out the instant the door clicked shut.

"More like he found us," she said. Amethyst eyes glinted coldly as they bored into Yukine, and Bishamon's face was set in hard, unforgiving lines. "You'll be glad to know that he's alive after all. He's also gone on a killing spree since his reemergence late last night. People are dead. People are dying."

Yukine swallowed hard and hunched his shoulders. "I know," he mumbled. When her eyes flashed, he added, "Hiyori saw it on the news."

The suspicion lining her face subsided, but her eyes didn't soften. "He has to be stopped. Obviously I would rather kill the ayakashi than kill him with it, but that has become exceedingly difficult now that they're joined again. I can't afford to waste any chance I get. It's looking unlikely. You've put us in a position where he's our enemy, and a dangerous one at that. He must be incapacitated, and then I'll kill the sorcerer as well. You understand?"

Panic flared along every nerve again, even though this was nothing unexpected. While Yato was under his father's control and attacking Bishamon, Bishamon would fight back—even if it meant killing him. Yukine's stomach churned at the thought.

"Maybe I can–"

"You," Bishamon said, "have already done enough."

"I got through to him last time," Yukine said. "For a few seconds, he shook off the ayakashi. Maybe I can–"

"I said no. You will not be leaving the premises. It's bad enough that Yato has gone crazy. Our only saving grace is that he doesn't have a shinki and doesn't seem to be focused on strategy while his brain is fried." Bishamon gestured at her ravaged body curtly as she said, "But he can still do more than enough damage. The last thing I'm going to do is hand him a hafuri."

"But if I could just–"

"Could just what? I highly doubt it will be as easy to break the sorcerer's control this time, and even before it was barely a few seconds. The only thing running out there like a fool is going to do is give him the chance to summon you. Can you imagine how many people would die? He'd make a good show of trying to kill some of us gods, too. A few seconds isn't going to do you any good. Do you see yet, why we didn't want to risk handing him back to the sorcerer?"

Bishamon shook her head in disgust and spun about to stalk back to the door. "This is my fault too for humoring your foolish scheme, but… People are dying because of the choices you made, Yukine. Their deaths are on your head. Think about it."

She threw the door open and stalked off down the hall without waiting for Kazuma. Kazuma frowned after her, but glanced back at Yukine and hesitated in the doorway. Yukine wished he would just leave.

He had considered all of these things when debating how to save Yato, even if his judgment had perhaps been a bit clouded with desperation and bias. He had known people could die, had known how difficult it would be to get Yato back if things went wrong, had known it would be his fault. But to have it all thrown in his face still hurt.

Not only had he brought about the deaths of innocent people—and he could feel the blood warm and sticky on his hands—but he had completely and utterly failed his duty as a guidepost and exemplar. Yato had entrusted him with the responsibility—burden and privilege—of guiding him to become a god of fortune and outrun his bloody past. Yukine had always taken that so seriously, and now he had thrown it all away. In betraying Yato, Yukine had turned him back into the magatsukami he had struggled so hard to bury. He had only wanted to save Yato, but he had done it in the most destructive way possible.

"Veena is being a bit harsh on you," Kazuma said, startling Yukine out of his self-recriminations. "Her duty has always been focused on justice and righteous retribution, so this is…a rather black-and-white situation for her. And the current situation with Yato is putting her in great immediate danger, which isn't helping. It's not that she's wrong, because she's not. Just…"

Kazuma sighed and frowned at the ground. "For what it's worth, I know why you did it. I don't agree with your decision, but I understand it. And in your place, I might have done the same thing."

Yukine sneered, not in the mood for pity and especially not from Kazuma. "What do you understand?" he asked bitterly.

"We're hafuri," Kazuma said with a strange sort of half-shrug that didn't eclipse the weariness lining his face. "Sometimes it seems like we'd do anything to protect our gods, no matter how terrible. But whatever choices we make, we stand by them. I betrayed my entire clan and Bishamon to save her, I betrayed you despite the trust you put in me and Yato despite how much I owe him. When loyalties are divided, our gods always win. No matter what I've done, I've always managed to justify it in terms of protecting Veena. That's why I don't sting her. Even if we regret the choices we have to make, we make them anyway because our duty to protect our gods is the most important thing to us and someone has to put it first.

"So no, I don't agree with what you did and I resent that it has put Veena in danger, but… I understand that's a hafuri's burden. And I guess it's good that someone is looking out for Yato and putting him first." He turned away to follow Bishamon down the hall. "I understand your need to help, but stay here. We'll do what we can for Yato."

He shut the door behind him, and his muffled footsteps clicked off down the hall. Yukine stared at the door blankly. Kazuma had a bit of a problematic moral compass when it came to justifying Bishamon's best interests, but…maybe Yukine did too, when it came to Yato. Maybe that was what it boiled down to.

It didn't make Yukine feel any better. If anything, it made him feel worse to have Kazuma take the high ground with him and force them to see eye to eye. He still couldn't forgive the earlier betrayal, and maybe he didn't want Kazuma to forgive his either. As much as he wanted to make himself believe he had done the right thing, that this wasn't really his fault, he wasn't looking for justification or excuses.

"Did I make a mistake?" he asked quietly.

Hiyori took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Leaning back in her chair, she tilted her head back and stared up at the ceiling.

"I think you made a choice," she said. "Whether or not you call it a mistake is up to you. In the end, it's a choice like any other, both the good and the bad of it. And soon we'll have to make the next one."

That sounded a little like something Kazuma would say, minus the part where they should never consider it wrong so that they didn't blight their god. But it felt different coming from Hiyori, maybe because she wasn't pressuring him to be right or wrong. Maybe because he just liked her a whole lot better than Kazuma.

Either way, he had made his choice, and he would stand by both the good and bad that came out of it. And he would have to be ready for all the choices that came after. He would have to prepare for the consequences.

Still, he wasn't surprised when he peeked over his shoulder before his bath later that night and found a small cluster of ayakashi eyeballs nested just below his shoulder blade.

Resolve became harder and harder to come by the longer the stalemate dragged on. Yukine demanded Hiyori bring him the paper each day and forced himself to read the articles detailing the ongoing investigation into the new serial killer plaguing the area and the rapidly rising death toll. Partly he needed a way to stay informed when he was totally cut off from the outside world. Mostly it was some strange kind of penance, acknowledging who died because of his choices and what he had forced Yato to become.

Watching Bishamon and her shinki come home empty-handed every day while the deaths piled up curdled the guilt twisting Yukine's stomach into knots. Some days they came home having found absolutely nothing, some days covered in blight and bandages. Bishamon didn't want Yukine involved in any way, but occasionally Kuraha or Kazuma would take pity on him and offer him small snippets of information. There wasn't much to be told beyond how Yato and the sorcerer seemed to disappear off the face of the earth one day despite the continuous killings and then reappear out of nowhere in a flurry of savage attacks the next, only to disappear like smoke before anyone had a real chance to apprehend them. And every time Bishamon and the others came limping back with new injuries, it only made the next encounter harder to survive.

Bishamon herself said very little to Yukine and hardly acknowledged him at all, but he came to the slow realization that she wasn't so much angry with him as scared. Obviously she wasn't happy with him, but it was equally clear that she had bigger problems. Yato attacked fast and hard from the shadows and disappeared before she had the chance to strike back, often flanked by his dad's ayakashi for protection. He—or, in truth, his dad—had carefully weighed the odds and stacked them all against the war goddess. And although Bishamon said she was aiming to kill, it was quite possible that she still had more inhibition than Yato. She was still heavily injured from the fight against the sorcerer and the heavens, and each new skirmish broke her down a little more. She was, quite literally, fighting for her life and the lives of her shinki.

And, Yukine suspected, she had more than a few regrets of her own. He could see himself reflected in her eyes, all the frustration and fear and grief and guilt and the wish that things could be different.

It didn't make him trust her any more, but he understood, just a little. He didn't like to look at his regrets too closely either, if he could avoid it. He hadn't checked his back once since that first time. He didn't feel good about blighting Yato, but it wasn't like the god was here for a proper ablution. And he had the feeling that there would be more eyeballs sprouting between his shoulder blades before this was all over.

Hiyori helped keep him sane, but it was a big job and nearly a week of waiting with bated breath was enough to wear anyone down.

When Yato's phone, carefully tucked away in Yukine's pocket to wait for the return of its owner, began ringing right in the middle of the day and Hiyori's name lit up the screen, Yukine feared she was calling to say she wouldn't be able to come over after school. The thought made his heart sink down all the way to the soles of his feet. He desperately needed to see a friendly face, someone he trusted fully. He lived for those few short hours in the evenings. Without Yato there, he needed Hiyori more than ever.

"What's wrong?" he demanded as he answered the call. "Are you okay?"

"Hmmm… Let me ask her," replied the last voice he wanted to hear. "What do you say, Hiyori, dear? Are you okay?"

"You!" he blurted out. "What the hell are you doing with–?"

"Hey, hey, it's not nice to ask a question and talk over the answer. Let the girl talk."

"I'm fine," Hiyori said, her voice a little farther away and muffled like she was speaking through gritted teeth. "I'm at school. Or right outside school. Fujisaki just wanted a word."

Yukine's heart thundered like a jackhammer in his chest and his fingers tightened around the phone. They had known Hiyori could easily become a target, but there was no easy way to protect her while she still lived apart from them in her mortal life. And he had been worrying so much about Yato that he hadn't spared as much concern for Hiyori as he probably should have. His panic burned hot and bright as he realized that Yato wasn't the only one he stood to lose.

"Let her go!" he cried.

"I'm not doing anything to her," Yato's dad said with an audible pout. Yukine's fist clenched tighter around the phone. "We were just having a chat."

"How did you even get to her? We had–"

"Please. It's not like your guard dogs can be around all the time. The god of poverty isn't here. Bishamon and her brood are off licking their wounds from their encounter with Yaboku earlier. And the girl you left here is down for the count."

"Aiha?" Yukine asked. "Is she alright?"

"She'll live."

"I wasn't asking you. Hiyori, what's going on?"

"He pulled me aside after class," Hiyori said. "It's not like I can just attack him right outside the school. Aiha is…down. She'll be okay, but… She put up a fight, but he brought too many ayakashi and…" She hesitated so long that Yukine knew what she wasn't sure she wanted to say. "Yato is here."

Every muscle in Yukine's body tightened up all at once in some strange mixture of horror and desperate hope. "Is he okay? Did he hurt you? Do you think he–?"

"Awww," cooed Yato's dad, voice syrupy with amusement and mockery. "Yaboku misses you too. I mean, it's not like he's very talkative these days, but I know he wants his kid back. So, what do you say, Yukine? Don't you want to come rescue Hiyori and work with Yaboku again?"

The threat itched like a fine dusting of gunpowder beneath Yukine's skin, waiting to explode on a hair trigger.

"Leave her alone. Leave them alone."

"But I'm not doing anything. I really only stopped by for a chat. I'm not going to do anything to Hiyori today, and neither is Yaboku. I'm still being nice. Also, I wanted to make sure you knew that I'm going to need you two days from now. This would be so much easier if Yaboku hadn't released Mizuchi, but he did and you're his only shinki so now this is your responsibility. If you still don't show up, my patience might be wearing a little thin."

"You won't be able to–"

"To what? Look, kid. Hiyori doesn't belong to your world. You can't just hide her away in Takamagahara for weeks at a time. You can't protect her all the time when she goes about her daily life. Even if you tried, Bishamon is stretched thin and Yaboku is on a roll. And even if you could keep her away from me, her family is fair game. If I want her that badly, I'll take her. It would be a shame if it came to that, though. It would be so much easier if you just cooperated."

It was true. Hiyori couldn't stay locked away in Takamagahara like Yukine. She couldn't even stay locked away in her own house. If the gods monitored her constantly, they wouldn't be able to do their jobs, and Aiha obviously wasn't enough protection. It would be hard enough protecting just Hiyori, but if Yato's dad started targeting her parents or friends too?

What could they even do? Yukine couldn't just give in and let the sorcerer do what he wanted with him, but if he didn't cooperate, how could he save Hiyori and Yato? And how could he do anything while stuck here, too afraid to move?

"Yukine, don't," Hiyori said, but her voice was weak and reed-thin and he knew the threat to her family had rattled her. "Don't come down."

Yato's dad only chuckled. "We'll see how long you're saying that. Well, I'll be off, then. I'll see you in a couple days, kid."

"Hey, wait!" Yukine burst out. "You can't–!"

The phone went dead in his hand. He cursed loudly and dialed back. Pick up, pick up, pick up. The phone rang, again and again and again, and he had the heart-stopping realization that there wasn't going to be an answer. Hiyori could be–

"Hey," Hiyori said, her voice strained and thick with tears.

"Hiyori!" Yukine sagged in relief for half a second before remembering that this wasn't over, not by a long-shot. "Are you okay? Did he–?"

"They're gone," she mumbled. "I think he just came because he could, to let us know that he could swoop in and grab me at any time if he wanted to."

"Trying to threaten me into coming down." And trying to threaten Hiyori into influencing him to in order to protect her family. It was a dirty move.

The pause was just long enough to let Yukine know that Hiyori was thinking much the same thing.

"Yeah," she said finally.

"And Yato? Was he…?" Yukine trailed off. Yato obviously wasn't okay, and he didn't know how else to end the question.

"He's alive," she said. "He's alive. But he's not… He's not himself. I couldn't get through to him at all and it's like he's not even alive in there and I can't–" She broke off her disjointed ramblings and took a deep breath. "Well, we'll just have to figure out a way to get him away from his father."

Yukine swallowed hard as an old, familiar weight settled in the pit of his stomach. "Hiyori…"

"I'm–I'm just going to skip the rest of the day and come up to Bishamon's."

"Good idea. You'll be safer up here."

Until you have to go back home, was left unspoken.

"Yeah," she said. Her voice softened a little as she added, "It will be okay. We're going to figure this out and save Yato and all be together again."

"I know," said Yukine, but in his heart of hearts, he was finding it more and more difficult to believe.

Yukine slunk off to his room that evening as soon as Hiyori headed home, exhausted and worn down but buzzing with tension and helpless worry.

Hiyori had run to Takamagahara with Kofuku and Daikoku mere minutes after hanging up, the fear bright in her eyes and her smile wobbly. Hearing Kofuku wail apologies while Daikoku watched in grim silence only accentuated the air of thinly concealed panic weighing them all down. The only bright spot was that Aiha was awake and able to hobble around by herself, but she was holding her arm at an awkward angle and was immediately ushered away to have her blight cleansed and injuries dressed.

Things hadn't improved when Bishamon had come limping back, drenched in blight and blood, wearing an expression of intense frustration mirrored in the eyes of her shinki. Hearing what the sorcerer had been up to while she was recovering from the lightning attack and searching for the culprits did not improve her mood.

Everyone was a mess, shackled in threats and a terrifying potential future that was seeming more likely by the minute.

The ensuing debate had been less than productive. All the planning and brainstorming to keep Hiyori protected and rip Yato out of his dad's clutches amounted to nothing particularly useful. It was bad enough keeping Yukine tied up and running futilely after Yato while he seemed to flicker in and out of existence, but keeping Hiyori and her family safe was a whole other challenge unto itself.

Yukine needed to save Yato, but he had to protect Hiyori too. The time for sitting around and doing nothing was over. By the looks Bishamon had given him, he wondered if she could sense his thoughts. He wouldn't be surprised if he had extra eyes watching him now.

That was why he waited until late at night before sneaking out. He had made it a point to explore the mansion and figure out the backways and layout, and his preparation came in handy now.

He was quiet and stealthy, afraid that someone might still be awake and set to guard him, but he made it out unmolested and darted across the lawn to hide in the shadows at the edge of the property.

"Nora!" he whisper-shouted into the darkness. No hesitation tonight. He knew who he was looking for, and he didn't have time to play games.

"Ready to come with me?" Nora asked, sliding out of the shadows in front of him in one fluid motion.

He jumped despite himself. Even knowing she was there never quite prepared him for her sudden appearances. Her face shone white in the moonlight, eyes glinting coolly from the shadows etched across them like a mask.

"I don't…know…"

She made a sound something like a sigh. "Your indecision is getting old."

"I need to protect Hiyori, but I need to save Yato too. I'd have to go with you to save Hiyori, but Yato…"

"We'll get you sooner or later," she said. "You might as well come now before Father loses patience and things get ugly. You're lucky he's found your resistance amusing so far."

Yukine's lip curled in derision. Amusing. Just like he'd found it amusing to watch Yato slowly dying as the blight ate him from the inside out. Unforgivable.

"If I went with you and let you use me, Yato would die," he said flatly. "We might kill a lot of people first, but the heavens would come after us with a vengeance. And if I don't go, Bishamon is going to get a lucky hit in eventually while he doesn't have a shinki to defend himself. The only way to save him is to get him away from his dad, but I don't know how to do that either. You have to help me."

Nora's expression didn't change. "Do I, now." It wasn't quite a question. "I already told you–"

"Do you really hate him that much?" Yukine burst out, clenching his fists at his sides.

She tilted her head as she considered it. "I do hate him," she said finally. "He hates me too."

"But you love him too, don't you?"

She shrugged. "We were family. And then he left and chose you over me."

"He…still cares about you too," Yukine said through gritted teeth, every word pulled out of him with great reluctance.

Nora arched an eyebrow. "He's made his position quite clear."

"You were together since the beginning, right?" This was shaky ground since Yato had told Yukine very little about his relationship to Nora, but he thought back to the night he and Hiyori had hidden in the shadows and watched in shock as Yato released Nora. He could take a few guesses. Nora's expression didn't change, which he took as agreement. "Even though he hates what he did with you and wants to break away from anything that has to do with his dad, including you, he still…"

Yukine swallowed hard and hunched his shoulders. "He still thinks about you a lot," he muttered, swallowing down his jealousy. "I can tell. You were like his first friend, the one that was there from the beginning when he had no one else. He still cares."

Leaves rustled in the gentle nighttime breeze, the only noise breaking the silence. Yukine glowered at the ground. This might be cobbled together from half-baked guesses, but he knew that the conclusion he had drawn was true. And he hated it.

"Interesting," Nora said finally, her voice giving nothing away. "An expected ploy to win me over, but you're too proud to say it unless it's true."

"Whatever," he growled. "Will you help save him or not?"

Another long pause.

"The problem is that if you stay away, you can't do anything to help him, and if you get too close, he'll summon you and use you against your will—yes?"

Yukine looked up from the ground and eyed her warily. "Yes. I got through to him for a few seconds last time, so if I could just… But if it doesn't work and he calls me first, that's it. I don't know if I'd be able to get through or not."

"Probably not. Father's hold on him is strong. It's definitely not something you should rely on."

"I'm just afraid… Bishamon is going to end up killing him sooner or later, if he doesn't get her first. Even if she doesn't really want to, she has to defend herself. I could keep him separate from the ayakashi because I don't see him as an enemy and could limit my attacks accordingly, but I think it's too hard for her shinki to hold back like that even if they tried. I could do it, I know I could, but I can't get close. No one even wants me to leave Takamagahara because the risk is too great."

"The real paradox is that you can't help him because you're his shinki and he has a hold on you, but you're the only one who has the chance to get through to him and separate him from the ayakashi without killing him along with it," Nora mused. Yukine's heart fluttered weakly with cautious hope. Maybe she would actually help. "You have to be his shinki, but you also can't be."

"I…guess?" Yukine shifted uncomfortably under her flat, piercing gaze. He got the feeling that she was trying to prod him into an epiphany, but he had no idea what that might be. "What are you trying to say?"

Her steely gaze didn't waver. "How do you feel about becoming a nora?"

Note: Ah, Yukine. Back to Nora again? Desperation does make people do crazy things sometimes, and everyone is pretty desperate. What a mess they're getting themselves into, the innocent author says.