.

Chapter 12

(In which the only plans left are the crazy ones.)

"Kuraha!" Bishamon cried. "What did you–?"

She broke off with a sharp intake of air and doubled halfway over, fingers tightening around Yukine until it felt like something would snap. The concern of the other shinki was a grating whine in his ears, but it didn't take long before they all knew what was wrong. Yukine gritted his teeth as blight burned down into his core, creeping up the blade and sinking down to the soul beneath with little needle-teeth. The purplish-black contagion stood out sharply against the pale skin of Bishamon's hand.

"How did you think you possessed someone with an ayakashi?" Yato's dad drawled, leaning forward comfortably on his staff as he watched the goddess struggle for breath. "Of course, sadly, you can't just control a shinki the same way you can a human. Too susceptible to corruption since they already straddle the line. I guess it will just kill them."

Yukine was hardly paying attention, too entranced by the blight spreading bruise-like from Bishamon's fingertips and distracted by the burning sting latching its claws into him. He was not the only shinki facing contamination. Aiha seemed to have it the worst if her breathy whimpers were anything to go by, undoubtedly because her vessel had the most skin contact.

"It's spreading so fast," Yukine said, horrified. Bishamon was strong and he had seen her fight while blighted from within before, but to have been corrupted to this degree within seconds? How long could she stand that as it grew steadily worse?

"Well, she was already blighted, remember?" Kazuma said grimly, and Yukine flinched at the blunt reminder of his own contribution. Of course it was spreading quickly—it was just adding to all the blight Yukine caused and multiplying it. "Veena, look out!"

Yukine sprang into action and just barely managed to twist in her grip to block the opportunistic ayakashi that had decided to take advantage of the situation. He hit it at an awkward angle, but it was all he could do when Bishamon couldn't take her eyes off Kuraha long enough to lift the blade herself.

"Kuraha…"

"Veena!"

Bishamon shook her head sharply and whipped both blades up and around in a fierce whirlwind of steel that shredded the ayakashi and nearly cut Yato's nose off as he tried slipping under her guard. One blade smacked into the handle of the brush, but no matter how hard Yukine pushed at it, there was no satisfying splintering of wood. When Yato scrambled back with a strange sound somewhere between a hissing and a clicking of teeth, eyes shining dully in the noonday sun, only a small chip a few inches down from the bristles marred the brush. Yukine couldn't believe it—he had hit that thing with enough force to shatter it into a million pieces.

"Fix him!" Bishamon demanded.

Her eyes blazed bright and hot as amethyst coals, and she aimed a ferocious strike at Yato that sent him scurrying backward and Yukine struggling to hold back. Yato escaped with only a shallow gash across his chest, thanks to his lightning-fast reflexes and Yukine's desperation. This did nothing to check Bishamon's ferocity, which only seemed to burn hotter with her own desperation as fuel.

"I don't know that he can be fixed, honestly," Yato's dad mused, eyeing Kuraha's twitching form with mild curiosity. "I wonder if it's just possessing him or pushing him over the line to become an ayakashi… I suppose I can keep him around until things run their course so I can see. The corruption will kill you, of course, which is just as well. I'd like you out of the way so Yukine passes back into Yaboku's hands."

He turned his gaze on the goddess, and a sly little smirk curled the corner of his mouth. "Unless you could kill him to stop the process and save yourself. You don't have the guts for it, but maybe Kazuma could."

Bishamon went utterly still. Kazuma said nothing, but his tension was palpable and his sudden silence was louder than the stream of issues he'd been barking nonstop the whole time. Someone breathed a word that sounded a lot like 'Tsuguha'.

Yukine twitched restlessly, wondering why they had stopped when the battle was far from over. He didn't want anything to happen to Kuraha either, but their best chance to save him was to fix Yato and get their hands on the brush. This was a time for action, not hesitation. Their friends—their family—were counting on them.

And then, as if reading his thoughts, Bishamon sprang forward in a rage-fueled whirlwind.

Towards the sorcerer.

"Veena!" Kazuma cried. "Leave him! Yato is the immediate threat. The best way to cripple the sorcerer now is to destroy his weapon!"

For once, Bishamon paid him no mind. Yato's dad quirked one eyebrow and whipped Chiki around to block the overhead blow with the stem of the staff. Yukine's blade bounced off harmlessly. The sorcerer twirled the staff to deflect the secondary strike as well, the blade scraping down the length of the pole and sliding off the rounded surface.

"Oopsie," he said. "Wouldn't want to damage Yukine too much. I still need him."

No comprehension shone through Bishamon's rage-twisted features as she rained a hail of savage strikes down on him. There seemed to be nothing but her and the storm of her emotions, and any protests, even Kazuma's, slid off her like water. Whatever reservations she'd had about attacking the sorcerer head-on seemed to have vanished into thin air.

It was all Yukine could do to keep up with the offense. Bishamon's lightning-quick attacks made his head spin as he tried to lend her his strength. His disorientation wasn't helped by his uncertainty: should he give this bastard what he had coming, or should he hold back and preserve Yato's lifeline?

But maybe the agony of his indecision was pointless, as Yato's dad threw up a solid defense and blocked strike after strike with a great deal of skill. He retreated several paces under the barrage and stayed on the defense rather than attacking, but a shallow slice on his cheek and a brow furrowed in concentration were his only battle wounds.

"I wonder who should take his place," he said a little breathlessly as Bishamon's onslaught forced him back another step. He grunted and winced as a particularly hard blow reverberated along the length of the staff. "Dear Kazuma, perhaps?"

The sudden gleam in his eyes was the only warning they had before he deflected a strike with a blow of his own, sending Yukine's blade skittering off at a sharp angle, and whipped Chiki around so that the pointed tip was pointing straight at them like a spear. He punched it forward faster than thought, angled directly towards Bishamon's face. Then it veered to the side, and Yukine had a split second to wonder at the bad aim before realizing that it wouldn't miss her at all but was aiming at the earlobe where Kazuma's earring was nestled.

Bishamon's eyes went impossibly wide, and she jerked back. Chiki flew past the side of her face, the point scraping the air just a hair's breadth away. She scrambled back, drawing Yukine's blades up in front of her in preparation as she assumed a defensive position.

Yato's dad only smiled. "Checkmate," he said.

Bishamon hesitated, thrown off guard, and Yukine was caught up in his own confusion. What did that mean? Why didn't he just attack and get it over with? Unless–

"Veena!" Kazuma cried. "Look out!"

–he was waiting for someone else to do it for him.

Bishamon whirled about the second the warning left Kazuma's lips, but it almost seemed like slow motion to Yukine. Yato had closed in behind them while they were focused on his dad, and the brush was slashing toward Bishamon like a sword.

Yukine didn't always trust Bishamon, didn't always like her that much, but they were bound together now and, finally, he felt the protective urge well up inside him, the one that was usually reserved for Yato and Hiyori. Whatever their differences, she had taken him in and done her best to help within the constraints she'd imposed for their safety and the sake of the greater good. He owed her. And he didn't want to see her—or anyone—reduced to a hollow shell like Yato, jerked around like a puppet on its strings.

He threw himself between the gods without considering whether he could actually go full force against Yato when push came to shove…or what might happen if the brush inked its seal across his steel instead.

Someone yelled something, indecipherable over the roaring in his ears, but he was moving too fast and didn't have time to rethink his split-second decision.

Movement flashed across his field of vision, and shock pulled him up short as he recognized Hiyori's brown hair fluttering behind her as she appeared out of nowhere and threw herself at Yato in her signature kick. He had far too much momentum to pull himself to a stop in time, and he desperately reined in his power as much as possible, dulling his edges and setting his borderlines to avoid his friend. The blade passed harmlessly through, failing to find an enemy to connect with while Hiyori was protected by borderlines.

She and Yato went crashing to the ground, but she quickly picked herself up and scrambled away. Yukine blinked in incomprehension.

"Hiyori…? What…?"

Where had she even come from? She wasn't supposed to be here. She was supposed to be at school, safely out of harm's way and guarded by Kofuku and Daikoku and Kinuha to make sure Yato's dad didn't have the chance to snatch her up as a pawn. Where were her bodyguards? What was going?

"What are you doing?" Bishamon asked, her confusion just as evident. "Where is Kinuha? And the others?"

"Sorry, but I couldn't just stay away and hide." Hiyori's eyes burned bright with steely determination as she met the goddess's gaze squarely. "Yato is my friend too."

"But–"

"You're welcome." She lifted her hand to reveal the ayakashi brush clutched in her fist. "Now save him."

No one moved for a long moment, still stunned by the sudden turn of events. Yukine still couldn't quite believe that Hiyori had shaken off her bodyguards, swooped in out of nowhere, and snatched the lethal brush right out of Yato's hand like it was nothing. Then again, this was Hiyori they were talking about, and he should have known better than to think that she would be content with sitting back and waiting on the sidelines. Of course she would do something crazy. And she was just amazing enough to pull it off.

But still…

"Has she totally lost her mind?" Yukine demanded.

What was she thinking, getting between Yato and his quarry when he was possessed by a bloodthirsty spirit? Was she trying to get herself killed?

"Hurry," Kazuma urged. "This is our chance to–"

Yato picked himself up in a tangle of limbs and lunged again—thankfully at Bishamon rather than Hiyori. The single-mindedness of his goal blotted out any urge to take a detour and recover his weapon.

Bishamon whipped the blades back up, and Yukine automatically dulled down despite everyone's protests now that Yato didn't have a proper way to defend himself again.

"You," Yato's dad said somewhere off to their left, "are becoming a real thorn in my side."

Hiyori cried out, and Yukine risked a glance back to see that Yato's dad was grabbing at her.

"Hiyori!" Yukine said. Bishamon hesitated a split second, but she had to spin about to fend Yato off as he ducked around her side and attacked again. "We have to help her!"

"We can't help her if we're dead," Bishamon said grimly. "Stop going dull on me, and maybe we can incapacitate Yato and get Hiyori. He's had no weapon for most of the fight—honestly, we should have already been able to take him down by now if you weren't always holding back."

Maybe it was his fault they hadn't saved Yato yet. Maybe he was holding back so much that they'd never make any progress.

But what else was he supposed to do? Despite his grand plans, it didn't look like he was going to be able to cut out the ayakashi harmlessly after all, and he didn't have the heart for an all-out attack. This was Yato. He might be annoying and childish and a real pain, but he'd saved Yukine and stood by him time after time. He was…family.

It wasn't fair to pit them against each other.

Hiyori was as good as family too, and Yukine couldn't just leave her behind either.

"But we need to–"

His protest was cut off by Bishamon's low curse as Yato attacked again—how could he move so fast and do so much damage when he didn't even have a weapon?—and an ayakashi that had survived the earlier onslaught hurtled in from the other side. Everything was so fast, a whirlwind of movement, but even Yukine could tell how much Bishamon had slowed from earlier. With the injuries and blight, who could blame her?

He couldn't focus on the fight, too worried about Hiyori. Heedless of Kazuma's sharp warnings, he kept shooting looks her way. Yato's dad had her pinned against him now, face all twisted up as he held her tight with the staff trapping her body. She squirmed and kicked and spat right back, looking more furious than scared although she had to be terrified.

"Hiyo–"

"Oh, forget that!" Bishamon cried in frustration. She aimed a kick at Yato's chest and twisted around. "He's not going to focus until she's free, and honestly, he's right. We can't just leave her in the sorcerer's clutches."

"Veena," Kazuma started.

"Gaiki," she interrupted. She dropped the left blade, and Yukine winced reflexively as it clattered on the pebbles hiding in the grass. The pistol sprang to her hand in his place, and she aimed it at Yato's dad while slashing defensively with the right blade to keep a thin barrier of steel between her and Yato and the ayakashi. Yukine grabbed the reins to compensate for her distraction and managed to twist just in time to slice the tip of a spindly leg off the spider-like phantom. "Kazuma, can you hone in on a good shot?"

"Not without hitting Hiyori," he said. "They're in bad position and she's practically a shield for him right now. You'd have to go in for close quarters combat to force him to let her go and take up his own weapon."

She made a guttural sound of frustration that ended with a hiss of pain as Yukine missed his mark and Yato scored a shallow slash across her exposed arm. It seemed like his very touch was making the blight worse.

"Sorry," Yukine blurted.

She didn't bother answering. "We can't do that," she said instead, palpable aggravation seeping through her gritted teeth.

"Why?" Yukine demanded. "We already did once."

He didn't understand her insistence on only long-ranged attacks, especially when she'd attacked head-on after Kuraha went down.

"That was a mistake," she said. "I shouldn't have let myself be goaded into it."

"But why–?"

"Revert Karuha," Kazuma said. "Karuha, draw a borderline between Hiyori and the sorcerer. Be careful—it will be tricky with them tangled together."

"I'll do my best!" Karuha said immediately, no questions asked. Yukine sure hoped she was better at drawing borderlines than she used to be.

Bishamon barely waited a second longer before nodding. "Karuha."

She called on Karuha and snapped out Yukine's vessel name in practically the same breath, and the other blade jumped back to her hand just as the gun left it. Yukine fended off another attack by Yato and slashed the other ayakashi until it wailed in its otherworldly cacophony of voices and retreated a pace. Karuha materialized beside them and drew in a breath.

"Borderline!"

She faltered, mouth half-open. It wasn't her borderline.

Yukine darted a glance back to see Kinuha behind them. She was gasping for breath, her normally impeccable clothing rumpled and her hair a flyaway mess. A moment later, Karuha found her voice.

"Borderline!" she cried, and Yukine looked back as Yato slammed into the glowing barrier with a loud thump. He winced at how close he'd come to letting Bishamon take another hit while he was distracted.

Bishamon lowered the blades until the points rested on the ground as she tried to catch her breath. She nodded to Karuha before frowning over at Kinuha and Hiyori, who were backing away from the borderline separating them from Yato's dad.

"Is she okay?" Yukine demanded.

"Where have you been?" Bishamon asked at the same time. Then, more importantly, "Are you both alright?"

Kinuha scowled, a strange mix of peevishness and sheepishness. "Hiyori thought it was a good idea to leave us outside the restroom and climb out a window. I've been looking for her everywhere. The goddess of poverty and her guidepost are still searching."

"Sorry," Hiyori mumbled as she shook herself off and cast an uneasy glance back at Yato's dad through the glowing barrier. "But I wanted to help. I'm fine, just…"

"Are you giving up already?" Yato's dad called. He twirled Chiki casually in his hands and his lips curved into a half-smile, but his eyes glittered hard and cold and furious. "It would be a shame to run away now."

"We aren't going anywhere," Bishamon snapped back. "Not until you fix Yato and Kuraha."

Yukine swallowed hard and looked back at Kuraha's lifeless form stretched across the ground just behind where Yato was clawing at the borderline. He hadn't been able to think about it while fighting for his life, but now bitterness at the unfairness of Kuraha's fate welled up inside him. No one deserved something so horrible, especially not someone as steady and supportive as Kuraha.

"Maybe we should think about retreating and regrouping," Karuha said tentatively, earning a mumble of assent from her brother. She twisted her hands together as she looked between their opponents and then back at Bishamon. "You're hurt and worn down, and Aiha… And the blight isn't helping."

Aiha didn't offer her own opinion, but judging by the bits and pieces of metal that had been torn off her armor, she wasn't in good shape. Yukine couldn't imagine how much that would hurt.

And the reminder of the blight only made it burn hotter. He could feel it inching along his skin, spreading from Bishamon like plague. It made him want to crawl right out of his skin to make it stop. How had Yato endured it for so long?

Bishamon looked terrible. Her shinki were shuddering under the blight she was unwillingly inflicting on them. Yukine wasn't feeling all that great either.

But as sensible as the suggestion to regroup and fight another day might be, Yukine could not give up now. No matter how hopeless it might seem, he couldn't just leave Yato here like this. And considering that Yato was looking pretty terrible too, they needed to end this now.

"We can't just–" he started

"No," Kazuma interrupted. "We can't give the sorcerer the opportunity to regroup and come up with a plan to negate Yukine's value as a weapon to us. You can bet the next battle will be fought on his terms. And if we leave now, Kuraha has no chance."

Hiyori watched them curiously, trying to gauge how the conversation was going when she could only hear one side of it. "We aren't giving up, right?" she asked. "Yukine–"

"No," Bishamon said flatly. "We can't afford to drag this out any longer… We just need Yukine to cooperate fully."

"What–?"

"What happened to Kuraha?" Kinuha asked, stepping forward to peer at his unmoving form on the other side of the barrier. She stepped back as Yato slammed into the borderline full force, practically making it shudder at the impact.

"Yato got him with the brush," Bishamon said grimly. "It seems to be some kind of attempted possession by an ayakashi…hence the blight."

Kinuha's eyes widened. "You can't be serious? An ayakashi would kill him!"

"Exactly," Kazuha said, exchanging a look with his sister.

"Do you think that's the same way the sorcerer possessed Yato?" Aiha wondered aloud, the first words she'd spoken in a long time.

Kinuha threw her a disbelieving look. "What does it matter?"

"Well… I just thought… That eye symbol he painted on Kuraha, it reminded me of–"

"The masks," Yukine said with a sudden jolt of realization.

"Yeah."

"And with the masked ayakashi from the first brush," Kazuma said slowly, "the mask was a weak point."

Yukine's heart lifted in elation as he remembered how easily the masked ayakashi vanished once he and Yato broke their masks. But then it fell precipitously and sank back down into his stomach.

"But it doesn't need masks anymore," he said. "And even if the symbol is some kind of weak point, it disappeared right away. We'd never find it on him."

Bishamon opened her mouth, only for Kazuma to cut her off.

"Be careful, Veena," he said. "Don't give anything away to the sorcerer."

She pressed her lips together and nodded before saying, "Of course. But I think it's worth a shot."

"What is?" Hiyori asked. Kinuha leaned in and whispered into her ear. Her eyes widened. "Do you really think so?"

Yukine thought their excitement was premature, even if the same hope lighting their eyes was stubbornly tugging at his heartstrings too.

"You can't hide forever," Yato's dad said. His trademark smug amusement was back, and the anger had faded from his eyes as he smirked at them. "Yaboku still wants to play with you."

On cue, Yato slammed into Karuha's borderline again. Yukine did a double take as he noticed the hairline cracks spiderwebbing the barrier.

"He's breaking through!" Kinuha said in alarm.

Bishamon cursed. "Not again. I thought maybe last time he was doing more damage because Yukine's borderline was weak to him."

Maybe Yukine could have accepted that explanation, that his borderline couldn't have held Yato at bay for long because he couldn't truly see him as an enemy regardless of the ayakashi buried in his chest, but Karuha should have no such qualms. Yato really was just that strong… The unholy combination of god and phantom was fearsome. And even with all that power, Yato's dad still treated him like a tool, like the lowest of shinki made to serve. A god possessed by a phantom and used as a shinki. It was cruel, but the frightful power of it was undeniable.

"It's not going to hold," Karuha said, her face white and drawn in tight lines.

"We don't have long," Kazuma said briskly. "Listen, this is the best thing we have to go on right now, since our strategy clearly hasn't been working. Maybe the connection tying the ayakashi to Yato does have a specific weak point…or maybe the sorcerer found a way to reduce it to that afterwards to make sure Yukine couldn't separate the phantom from Yato so easily the second time around. Or maybe there's no connection at all. Either way, it's worth a shot."

"Yeah, it sounds good, but where is it?" Yukine shot back. "I can't just stab him all over in the hopes of hitting some magical weak spot that may or may not exist."

Kazuma was quiet for a moment before saying, "The sorcerer always put the masks over the forehead, didn't he?"

Yukine swallowed hard, and the tension built up inside him until the swords were practically vibrating in Bishamon's hands. "You could be right…but you also might not be. What's going to happen if I try stabbing him as hard as I can through his freaking brain and it turns out there's no weak point there at all?"

"You just have to trust yourself," Bishamon said. "You've been losing faith in yourself the whole time, which is undoubtedly part of the reason you're having a hard time hitting the ayakashi without getting Yato too. And you need to trust us too. We need you to be part of our team to pull this off."

There was a moment of silence, in which Yukine imagined everyone was waiting for his answer. He couldn't deny that his self-confidence had been steadily draining with each failure. Most traitorous of all, he was having a harder time than before of separating Yato from the ayakashi with his borderlines. Which wasn't fair to Yato at all, but those dead eyes were so unlike him and Yukine was having such a hard time finding traces of the god he loved there.

But underneath all that, he was sure there was something different from last time, that something was making it more difficult to just slice cleanly through with a borderline. He couldn't just set his borderline and tug Yato through to leave the ayakashi pounding impotently on the other side, not this time. Yato's dad had almost certainly looked for a way to make it more difficult to pull off such a trick again, and he'd had plenty of time to search while performing his other experiments. They weren't going to be able to save Yato the same way this time.

So maybe it didn't matter if this was a long-shot or pipedream, because they had no other plan and were quickly running out of options. They had to try something. With all the crazy things Yukine had done over the past couple weeks, what was one thing more?

"Okay," he decided. "Let's try it."

He tried to sound more confident than he felt. What choice did they have?

"Good," Kazuma said. "Follow instructions. We only have a shot if we're working together. Kinuha, cover Hiyori and keep up your borderline. The last thing we need is the sorcerer sticking his nose in. Try not to lose her this time."

"Got it," Kinuha said. "You're with me, Hiyori. No more running off for heroics."

"Okay." Hiyori's gaze skittered back and forth in the empty space around Bishamon, searching for something she couldn't quite make out. "And…is Yukine alright?"

"Are any of us?" Bishamon asked dryly, acid pessimism bleaching her voice before she shook her head and let out a harsh breath. "As well as can be expected. Better after we finish this."

Yukine couldn't argue with that.

Yato clawed at the borderline, fingers scrabbling along the surface and searching for purchase in the cracks. The cracks pulled ever wider, and Yukine watched in horrified fascination. He'd never seen a borderline do that before.

He tried to look past that and see Yato. Not an ayakashi wearing Yato's body, but Yato. Yukine would anything to bring back his stupid grin and loud laugh and the mischievous sparkle in his eyes.

"We're out of time," Kazuma said as Karuha's borderline began to crumble. "I hope you've had enough time to rest, Veena. Karuha, follow my lead on your next borderline. We can use it to corral his movement now that we can't rely on Kuraha. Veena, we need to draw him in close and maneuver him into the optimal position so that Yukine can hit him. We'll have to get close, but don't let him get a hit in on you. Kazuha, stand by. We might need you in a second. Aiha, hold in there. And Yukine, pull yourself together and hit him with everything you've got. Everything is riding on you right now."

There was a chorus of agreement, varying in degree of enthusiasm, determination, and tension. Yukine managed a wordless sound of assent, the best he could do when his vocal cords were too tight to manage proper speech.

"Karuha, drop the borderline and follow Kazuma's instructions," Bishamon said.

The girl hesitated before nodding. The damaged borderline shimmered and dissipated.

Yato had no such reservations. The instant the barrier vanished, he came hurtling straight at them without so much as a second to catch his breath. The injured but still feisty ayakashi followed close on his heels in a tangle of ghostly green limbs, chittering loudly.

"Karuha, put up a borderline to keep the other ayakashi back," Kazuma barked. "Keep it behind Yato—we'll restrict his movement between the two borderlines."

"But we can just kill it," Yukine said. Bishamon stabbed at Yato's face, but the god dodged around the strike quicker than a viper and took a chunk out of her side before she beat him off. "It's just an ayakashi."

"Not the priority. Forget that one—it's just getting in the way. Just do what I say and follow orders."

Yukine pressed his lips together, but he didn't have much time to sulk before he was back to fending off Yato. Karuha threw up the borderline, blocking out the other ayakashi and limiting Yato's ability to retreat backwards.

"We need to be able to work at taking out Yato without having something else sneaking in to hit us from behind," Aiha explained quietly as Kazuma went back to his calculations, trying to maneuver everyone into getting a clear shot at the spot they hoped Yato's weak point might be. "And now that he's stuck between us and the borderline, he can really only go left or right. If we can predict that and corner him, it'll be much easier to hit our target."

Yukine was too busy struggling to fend off Yato to respond, but he could—grudgingly—see the logic. His mistrust of Kazuma was only slowing them now. He couldn't afford to question all of his former mentor's motives and reasons and orders right now. Grudges could be held afterwards. Yukine did his best to focus on Kazuma's string of calculations and orders, along with Bishamon's own movements and attacks.

This new resolve was sorely tested when Kazuma had Bishamon aim Yukine's right blade at a spot well to the right of Yato's head, at a patch of dead space. But Yukine remembered the last time, when Kazuma's calculations had pushed Yato there right as Yukine veered off because he thought he knew better, and he made the split-second decision to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Summon Kazuha," Kazuma said.

The pistol was in Bishamon's left hand before Yukine even realized she had dropped his other blade. Kazuma was spitting out angles and trajectories that set Yukine's head spinning, but Bishamon was already firing off the shot. Yukine's heart jumped into his throat, but the bullet whizzed by a hairsbreadth from Yato's ear.

Yato jerked to the right reflexively to avoid the bullet—right into the path of Yukine's blade. Yukine had half a second as he went hurtling straight at Yato's face to decide if he should really do this. If they were wrong, he could skewer the god right through the brain. He caught a blurred glimpse of dull blue eyes staring through his soul, and a sudden impulse seized him. He didn't have time to think it through and decide whether it made sense. All he had time to do was act.

He angled downward, just a little lower than Kazuma's projection, right at those blank eyes. If there was anything that made the god the most unlike himself, it was those eyes. There was nothing of Yato left in them, and it made Yukine hate them more than anything. If eyes were the windows to the soul, these only reminded him of how Yato's had been stolen from him.

His anger turned into panic again—what if he was wrong and he was going to kill Yato and how could he possibly do this?—but there wasn't time to correct his trajectory anymore. He squeezed his eyes shut, too afraid to see the aftermath, just as he slammed into something hard and unyielding.

He cracked one eye open to see the symbol of a large, unblinking eye shimmering in the air a hairsbreadth from Yato's face like a hidden mask. The tip of his blade was planted right in the center. Bishamon threw her whole weight behind it, and Yukine's surprise hardened into steely determination. He pushed as hard as he could, desperate to break through the magic.

Yato—the ayakashi wearing Yato's face—reared back with a loud hiss, but Bishamon pressed her advantage and followed after him. She pushed at the seal mercilessly, even when Yato slammed back against Karuha's borderline and began to wail in a voice that was laced with an otherworldly ayakashi note but still had a little too much of Yato in it. Yukine only hesitated a moment before gritting his teeth and forging on. He tried to shut out the sound, but he could hear Yato's cries slicing through his very soul.

He could feel the resistance of the seal, a little slippery like glass and solid as if it were actually one of the old masks. But that was good. Yukine hadn't been able to get any purchase when trying to hit the ayakashi before, but he had a solid opponent now.

Yato flattened against the borderline and squirmed, hands scrabbling claw-like at Bishamon's arm as he tried to push her off. He tried the same desperate tactic on the blade itself and sliced his hands open. Blood dripped down the steel and Yukine's stomach turned, but he felt something starting to give.

The seal shuddered under the force and then began to crack apart, slowly first and then all at once. It shattered in an explosion of breaking magic, drawing one more agonized scream from Yato.

The shockwave pushed Yukine back, so at least he didn't immediately skewer Yato through the eyeball. Bishamon didn't wait for the dust to settle to take stock of the situation. She whipped up the other blade—somewhere in the midst of all the chaos, she'd unsummoned Kazuha and called Yukine's other half back to her hand—and slashed it diagonally across Yato's chest. Yukine threw caution to the wind and put everything he had into the blow, more confident than ever that he could separate the ayakashi from the god.

The blade passed through Yato like air and connected with something solid and supernatural coiled tight inside him like a spring. Hope surged in Yukine's chest—this time his borderlines were working!

The ayakashi screeched and parts of its draconian form emerged like a ghost floating free of Yato's body now that the connection was severed, but it didn't give its dying cry and disappear.

"That should have been enough to kill it!" Yukine said in dismay. He'd certainly put enough force into the blow, and so had Bishamon.

"It must still be getting some protection from Yato, using him like a shield," Kazuma said. "We need to separate them completely. If we–"

Bishamon dropped the left blade—again, and Yukine was getting a little tired of being thrown around—and reached out to grab the ayakashi's neck with her bare hand. Locking the phantom in a viselike grip, she yanked at it with all her strength. After a moment of resistance, it screeched and came tumbling forward as she tugged it right out of the other god. Yato's eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the ground in a boneless heap without another sound.

No sooner had Bishamon pulled it free than she swung the other blade up with maximum force. The sight of the beast that had been killing Yato from the inside sparked Yukine's rage into a full-fledged inferno. He didn't think his blade had ever been sharper.

The ayakashi wailed as it was practically cleaved in half and finally—finally—vanished. Yukine blinked at the empty spot where it had been, not quite able to believe that it was finally over.

"Or I guess we could just do it that way," Kazuma muttered.

Yukine snapped out of his daze as his gaze fell on Yato sprawled across the ground. "Is he alright?"

Bishamon pivoted on her heel and glowered at Yato's dad through the barrier separating them. "I will see you rot in hell," she said coldly.

The sorcerer's knuckles were white and bloodless clenched around Chiki. Yukine was taken aback by the fury contorting his features. He'd never seen him lose control like that.

"You have been nothing but problems from the start," he snarled, eyes burning like coals. "All of you. But if you think you've won, think again. I've had centuries to build my plans, and this is only one piece. Don't worry, I'll get Yaboku back. He's always been mine, and I've put too much time and effort into grooming him to let you take him from me. Enjoy your victory while you can—I'll kill you all in the end and bring the heavens to its knees."

"Just give it up already," Hiyori snapped. "And leave Yato alone. As if we'd ever let you win."

Yukine silently cheered her on for saying exactly what he wanted to.

"We should take him out while we have the chance," Kazuma said. "Before he disappears again."

Bishamon clenched her jaw. "Now isn't the time," she said through gritted teeth, reluctance tugging at every word. "We're in no shape for fighting him head on right now. We need time to recover."

"But–"

"I know you're upset about Tsuguha and Kuraha and Yato. I am too. But as much as I'd like to take his head off, I'm one good push from falling over and you're all blighted too. And it's more important to take care of Kuraha right now. That's our priority."

"…Right." Kazuma didn't sound happy, but the logic seemed to clear the bloodlust from his mind.

Yukine wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed. He thought he might be just angry enough to actually kill someone, and that bastard was high on the list. But yet again, he found his hands tied when he considered that Yato's dad might also be the god's lifeline.

"He's still dangerous, but at least he won't be running around possessing people now that Hiyori has the brush," Bishamon said in a conciliatory tone.

Hiyori flinched and a troubled expression flitted over her face. "Actually… He got it back from me when he was attacking me."

Yukine's heart sank. He didn't want that brush anywhere near the man, not when he might be able to use it to possess Yato again. But remembering the earlier struggle, Hiyori was lucky that the brush was the only thing she'd lost.

Bishamon cursed.

No hint of the expected smirk tugged at the sorcerer's lips. His face was still painted with fury as he backed away from the borderline.

"We'll meet again," he said, halfway between a threat and a promise.

He retreated hastily. Once Nora materialized beside him again, they seemed to vanish into thin air. Obviously he wasn't keen on sticking around to see if Bishamon changed her mind, but Yukine knew this wasn't the last they'd seen of him. Once he set his next scheme into motion, he'd be back.

But for now, Yukine didn't care about that.

"Do you think he's okay?" he asked, fidgeting anxiously as he searched Yato for any sign of life. "He'll recover, right? Do you think–?"

"Yukine," said Bishamon.

She was already striding off before he'd finished materializing, leaving him to rush over to Yato and fall to his knees in the grass. Hiyori had beat him there. She had already managed to roll Yato onto his back and was feeling for his pulse.

"I think he's just unconscious," she said uncertainly. "He has a lot to recuperate from."

Yukine had no patience for that, and shook the god's shoulders roughly. "Hey, wake up!"

"Let him rest," Hiyori said. "He probably needs–"

A gunshot rang out with a loud crack, followed quickly by a second. Yukine jerked back instinctively and stopped shaking Yato. His head snapped to the side, and he saw that Bishamon was still pointing Kazuha's pistol at Kuraha's side. He hoped that had been enough to sever the connection and kill the phantom…and that it was still something Kuraha could recover from.

"Did it work?" Kinuha asked in a hushed voice from where she and Karuha were also gathered around the lion's still form.

"I think so," Bishamon grunted. "It's dead, anyway. We need to get him and Yato back home immediately to treat injuries and blight…and the rest of us, too."

"What happened to the other ayakashi?" Karuha wondered aloud. "The one that was behind my borderline? It's just…gone."

"We did a lot of damage to it…" Kinuha shrugged. "It's probably dead."

Yukine wasn't in the mood to dwell on any of that. He swallowed hard and looked down at Yato's slack face.

They had won, so why was he still too afraid to celebrate? Maybe because he knew it wasn't over. Yato's eyes were closed and his features still and expressionless, but they wouldn't stay that way. What would happen when the life came back to his eyes?

"Don't worry," Hiyori said. "I'm sure he'll wake up soon."

"Yeah," said Yukine quietly. Yato's face blurred behind a film of unshed tears. "That's what I'm afraid of."

Note: Y'all might recall that I hate writing fight scenes. Even just editing this chapter was exhausting x.x But yay, at least we're finally getting somewhere?