Shiro had to wonder why this only ever happened to him, out of all the people in his class. Crying in the bathroom, yet again. The second time that day.

Fuck, this was a pathetic pity party, but it wasn't as if he could just stop the tears. The buttons were pushed, his emotions rubbed raw, and he couldn't stop them leaking out from beneath his eyelids. Perhaps, if he were a little stronger, a little better at controlling himself, this shit wouldn't happen. The problem was that, if he had the ability to control it, he would, but those fucking comments wore him down. He just couldn't deal with it.

The logical part of him tutted, reminding him that he could have it a lot worse, but... Couldn't he also have it much, much better? He just wanted to be treated like a normal fucking human being, not this psychopathic school shooter. He wasn't that violent. He never actually hurt anyone. He just... got angry.

But the more he got angry, the more people talked - and the more people talked, the angrier he became. It was a fine little destructive cycle he'd gotten himself trapped in. If he was truly a smart kid, he'd have surely worked out how to get out of it already -

"So, here again, huh?"

He jumped, recognising the voice of the auburn-haired pretty boy from earlier way too easily. However, it was a little softer than before. Not without its harshness, but... sympathetic. Like he could relate in some way. Maybe crazy people really do flock together...

"You know, crying never solved anything -"

"Shut up!" He snapped, cutting the other boy off before he got any further into that stupid cliché, and rising to his feet. He all but kicked the door open, the slam echoing through the bathroom and startling the two other crazies – who were still creepily hanging around a high school bathroom, "Yeah, I'm fucking crying. I always fucking cry, and you want to know why I can't hold it in? My classmates are all assholes who love nothing more than being cruel to me. Just me! I didn't fucking ask for this! I didn't do anything wrong! I just…"

His breath shuddered, tirade coming to an end, the two young men waiting for him to stop patiently, not butting in or trying to speak over him. How long had it been since someone did that? Well, no one had since she left, but here they were. Three crazy guys in a bathroom stall, one sobbing about his stupid problems, like an idiot.

"I just get angry sometimes… And I don't know why…" He nearly whispered.

The air was still for a moment, the others seeing if he'd actually finished, before there was a statement that cut through the silence like a knife.

"Big mood, my dude."

"Hikaru, shut up," The blond sighed, taking a few steps towards him, "Look… I could give you a million condolences, a million lines people have come up with over the years to try and make people in your situation feel better, even though they have no idea what it feels like. Human emotion… It's like fire. Beautiful and warm, necessary, but keep it bottled up too long and you burn yourself and everything around you. Look over there."

Shiro turned to where he pointed, freezing as he laid eyes on some monstrous, black apparition. It oozed out of one of the stalls like black tar, but less tangible. Smoke was the wrong word, everything looking utterly viscous and disgusting.

He wasn't embarrassed to scream, to fall on his ass and scramble back further. He could hear its growls, which twisted and brokenly formed into rancid words.

Drop… de…ad. Slit wri…sts… Kill… Kill… Hurt them…

"It's called an Ayakashi," Tamaki informed, kneeling down to his level and placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, "It's been following you for a while now. If it attaches itself to you… Let's just say it'll do bad things. To you and those around you. It wants to just pounce on you, take advantage of the anger you desperately try to bottle up."

It didn't come any closer, but it didn't have to. Fuck, why?! Why was this happening and why here and why now? He squeezed his red eyes shut, a few more tears falling from his lashes, and almost shit himself when he heard the same strange chirping he'd heard in class.

His eyes snapped open yet again, that weird thing back on his ring. Fuck, if the black thing was dangerous, who's to say that it wasn't? Tamaki said about things pouncing on him. He flailed, completely stressed and freaking the fuck out.

"Hey, hey, it's alright," Tamaki assured, taking a gentle hold of his arms in an effort to avoid being hit in the face by his gangly limbs, "These things are usually invisible to humans, hiding in the blind spots created by the unwillingness to look at and acknowledge death. You can't have life without it, but whenever you guys refuse to see, it creates a place for us, for demons, for Ayakashi, to hide. It's a space between the near shore - the land of the living - and the far shore. I guess the most apt comparison for the far shore is the afterlife..."

Tamaki took a breather, letting all that information - which was a lot - sink in.

"Right now, you're standing right between them, just like Hikaru and I," He finished, and Shiro didn't know what to think. If this guy really was a God, if he was actually seeing these things in reality, then... He was basically just told a fact of the universe. That was... a lot. Too much. But he didn't really have time to think about that now, not if he wants to fix whatever the hell was going on with him.

"You said... bad things happen..." He began, voice trembling, "Like... what, exactly?"

"When you're weak, when you can't take anymore and you just want to give up, those things cling to you," Tamaki sighed, "And once they get you, the evil inside you – and there's evil inside everyone – takes over."

The chirping, again, only this time he didn't flinch. He felt too heavy, limbs bogged down with the weight of everything he'd been told. It crushed his shoulders, forcing his lungs to work harder to draw in each ragged, unsatisfyingly shallow breath.

"That ring on your finger – it's special," Tamaki smiled, taking his limp wrist with a smile, a bird-like creature – about the size of his thumb nail – perched on top of the silver band, "It's blessed. You have someone on your side, even if you can't always see them. They're going to protect you from these gruesome, horrifying things."

The dark creature growled, backing away as the bird-like chirping grew in ferocity. It turned tail, and ran away, because somewhere out there… She was still on his side. Perhaps she still thought about him with all the tenderness he thought about her, and this distance wasn't a sign that she hated him. It was sad, and unfortunate, but they weren't five anymore. As people grow, distances can begin, but it isn't always a bad thing.

The epiphany really could've come sooner, or at a better time. Here he was, on the bathroom floor, between two worlds, and he'd had the realisation that could've helped him grow beyond the angry boy he was now.

"Hina gave this to me before she went away… She said it would keep me safe…" He breathed, blinking back yet more tears. It felt like he'd cried enough for a lifetime in a single day, but this was the first time in a while that they'd fallen because of… relief. It was always bitter, angry, but all he could think of now was the pressure relieving from inside his skull, the slight sweetness of old love, and gratitude. Thankfulness for her because, well, without that ring he definitely would've fallen victim to these Ayakashi sooner.

"A good luck charm," Tamaki nodded, "She must've cared for you quite a –"

The other boy cleared his throat, causing both him and Tamaki to jump.

"Not that this isn't cute and all, Tono, but aren't we supposed to solve a problem here?" Hikaru shrugged, almost seeming to glide over to the single window looking over the school, "While the ring protects him from Ayakashi, it doesn't protect him from humans – which are kinda the problem here. It's not even like that's it, either. I mean, just look outside… The wind's picking up."

"Oh."

That was all Tamaki said before he stood, walking over to join the other boy at the window. Shiro only sniffed in response, rubbing at his eyes as Hikaru's words brought him down to earth. He was right, after all; the ring was a constant, and practically unrelated to everything going on – even if it was a nice thought to have.

"I see what you mean – the storm's picking up, and the air wasn't good to begin with. Exams do that to humans, I guess…" Tamaki hummed, and at this point Shiro levered himself off the ground to go to the window, see what all this fuss was about for himself, "It's never good."

Shiro felt himself go cold when he saw the Ayakashi the two were staring at, his jaw hanging agape. It wasn't that the creature looked threatening – not like the one oozing smoke, telling him to slit his wrists, all teeth with an aura of ancient evil. No, it looked kind of like a sting ray, but the different was the size alone, and the fact it wasn't in a shallow pool kids were encouraged to stick their hands in.

It wrapped itself around the main building of the school several times, it's voice loud yet contrastingly soft, murmured in a growl that seemed to echo.

Drop dead…

If he were stupid, he'd probably yell that someone – anyone – had to be seeing this thing other than the three of them. It was big, and loud, and spat disgusting words over and over.

So drained…

But they already told him. It seemed these blind spots could get pretty fucking big, and that people were more affected by these things than he could've imagined.

I hate entrance exams…

Was this the source of his utter misery? The ring could keep away the smaller ones, but there was no way it'd help something like that.

So pissed…

It murmured acrid words they all thought they couldn't hear, and it turned them all on a convenient target – loud, unruly, angry him.

I just wanna have fun…

His shoulders were trembling, unable to steady himself in the face of… all this. Secrets of the universe, the embers of her love still glowing, the reason for his isolation and the hate his classmates felt for him.

Stupid Takaoji… I wish he'd die…

"Tono," Hikaru began, shoving his hands deep in his pockets, "Do you think they'd stop picking on the kid if we killed that thing?"

Shiro's ears perked up at that, turning over what Hikaru said in his head. Was it truly that simple? Well, not simple – that thing was huge – but… So comparatively easy to anything he'd thought of before. Surely this was easier than standing on the roof, leaning forwards and forwards until he began to fall…

"P-please Tamaki-sama," He choked, too overcome to even feel ashamed of the desperate plea in his voice. Because he was desperate by this point, and he didn't want to die, to throw away her gift of protection and wish for him to be safe. He even got on his knees, bowing so low that his face touched the grimy bathroom floor, "If killing that thing'll make the bullying stop, then please!"

"Wow," Hikaru snorted, "Grovelling like that, how can you deny him, Tono?"

"Hikaru," Tamaki warned, voice curt, before turning back to him and pushing on his shoulder, prompting him to sit up, "We'll definitely try to help you, Shiro, but there's something that we need to address first…"

He nodded, biting down on his lip, willing to listen and just go along, the idea that all the shit in his life finally being cleaned up was too close to give up on now. His fingertips were brushing it, almost managing to curl it into his palm to hold close.

"Down payment, please."

Well, that cut through the atmosphere with all the subtly of a record scratch. He sputtered, not knowing how to respond, given that nothing about payment had entered the conversation beforehand. All he could do was choke back his own spit, eyes still closely resembling a deer's in headlights.

"Down payment?" He parroted, hope of relief from his torment dying in his chest, "You… You didn't mention anything about charging me! How the hell was I supposed to know you charge for this?!"

"I can't exactly grant wishes for free, you know," Tamaki smiled sympathetically, "I mean, I am a God, after all."

Right…

"I'll do it for this!" The blond exclaimed cheerfully, holding up five fingers, and Shiro froze.

"Five thousand?! Five hundred thousand?!" He blurted before he could stop himself, something cold wrapping around his lungs. He was only a broke high school student, and he didn't want to even attempt asking his parents for the money.

A grim thought murmured that it would certainly be more cost effective to just give in and kill himself, but he quickly shook it away.

"I'm a God!" Tamaki scoffed, "Everyone knows that the monetary offering is five yen!"

Oh. Oh.

Hikaru was chuckling in the corner, making it too obvious that it was something to do with his reaction to the news, but he ignored that. Didn't he kind of get himself into this by relying on violence in the first place? Best not push it by punching… whatever that guy was. He simply dug around in his pocket for the small, gold coin.

Tamaki grinned when he handed it over, twirling it between his fingers, and throwing and catching it, playing with it like a child would with a toy.

"May you be blessed with good ties," Tamaki smiled, finally putting the coin away, and turned to look out of the window, at that giant behemoth he'd agreed to slay, and immediately took off. He easily vaulted through the open window, causing Shiro to actually rush after, but not out the window. He leaned heavily on the sill, trying to discern whether the guy was actually just crazy and had gotten seriously injured.

Or worse, dead.

However, rather than some macabre, awful scene, it was almost like the so-called god could float along the breeze like a sakura flower. It was almost beautiful, in a way, but he was just too focussed on the sheer impossibility of all this to process it properly.

"Grasping thy true name, I bind thee here. With borrowed name, I dub thee my servant," Tamaki recited, and Shiro could only watch on, spellbound, "The name answers, the vessel to sound. I call thee my divine instrument..."

"Welp," Hikaru shrugged, shocking him out of his state of... shock? Awe? Probably both, "That's my cue."

"Come, Aoi!"

Before Shiro's eyes, Hikaru was engulfed in a bright, burning light that flickered and morphed into something he couldn't recognise at the time. It hurt his eyes, and he was forced to turn away and shield his eyes, the colourful blotches of retina burns disturbing his sight. It stung, but he blinked it away forcefully, ignoring any lingering pain to redirect his attention on the fight in progress.

Rather than fighting empty-handed, in Tamaki's hand there was a pistol that almost seemed pearlescent in the afternoon sun, tones of blue clear despite the distance. Beautiful, but not exactly the first thing that sprung to mind when one thought of what could be a "Godly" weapon.

Still, it definitely seemed to work. The God wove and evaded the beast like a dancer - beautiful and strong, confident in his movements. He couldn't tear his eyes away from it, and the man's marksmanship was incredible.

Gone was the dolt who'd surprised him in the bathroom, blond brows drawn in concentration and eyes sharp, mouth a tight-lipped line. He actually seemed... dangerous, in that moment, but he didn't dwell on it. After all, the guy was fighting in his corner, so why worry over nothing.

It was fair to say that he made short work of the beast, the man - God - standing in the centre of a cloud of dust, victorious. He couldn't help but clap and cheer, happier than he'd been in months, and Tamaki gave him a wide grin in return. The glowing returned, and the gun was gone, Hikaru standing beside him and straightening out his rumpled clothes.

He got his wish for once, it seemed.

A/N: So, I've changed up the format of this series due to pacing issues, but plot is going to continue as normal. Hope you're all enjoying, as this is a chapter I've been trying to finish for literal months, and comments would be much appreciated.