Note: Here, have the random Izanami-plots-revenge-and-screws-over-Yato-and-Yukine fic that no one asked for.

Chapter 1

Yato pivoted neatly on his heel and slashed Sekki's twin blades across the insectoid ayakashi glowing an otherworldly blue-green as it tried to catch them from behind. It screeched in a cacophony of a hundred ghostly voices rolled into one and exploded unceremoniously right in the middle of the street. A dark-haired middle-aged man, voice tight with irritation as he barked into his cellphone, strode through the middle of the carnage without so much as a second glance. Humans. Truly oblivious creatures.

"Seventy-one!" Yato said with a grin.

"Yes, yes, you're doing okay today," Yukine conceded. "But you don't have to announce every single one."

"Of course I do. You're the one giving me quotas to fill. We have to keep track somehow! Otherwise you'll lowball the numbers just to say I didn't make it and call me lazy. I'm on to your tricks."

"I don't do that!"

"Oh really? Because I count even when I don't say it out loud, and I've found quite a few discrepancies between your count and mine."

Yukine didn't have the grace to look embarrassed, spiteful child, but Yato felt a telltale tingle of mild guilt run down his spine and smirked.

"Your accusations are outrageous," the kid said primly. "Pay attention."

Yato cackled loudly and jumped high into the air as a long, spindly ayakashi leg slammed into the pavement where he had just been standing. He managed to catch the very edge of a lamppost with the sole of his boot and threw his bodyweight into it to redirect his trajectory towards the neat row of buildings lining the street. Flipping about in midair, he slammed his boots into the stone façade of a store with enough force to send the impact jarring through his body in an electrifying fashion as he launched himself ever higher and back out into the street.

A satisfied smirk pulled his lips tight as he slammed directly into the large body of the spiderlike ayakashi hanging suspended high above the street. His on-the-fly trajectory calculations were spot-on. But to be fair, he'd had centuries of practice.

"Stop congratulating yourself and kill it already," Yukine said in irritation.

"Your wish is my command, oh guidepost mine," Yato sing-songed. "You are my dearest bundle of joy and intense aggravation."

Yukine spluttered uselessly in some combination of embarrassment and anger, but he stayed sharp and that was all Yato needed right now. The god thrust the blades down and easily pierced the ayakashi's body before ripping the creature apart with a couple powerful strokes, still chortling to himself.

The ayakashi wailed and burst apart at the seams he'd carved into it, freeing from its influence the little boy staring thoughtfully through the window of the candy shop below. The kid shook his head sharply and wandered on down the street with empty pockets, and Yato plunged through the air to land in a neat crouch on the sidewalk.

"Seventy-two! Although that was a pretty big one. Maybe it should count as two."

"Absolutely not," Yukine said in a tone that brooked no argument. "Each ayakashi counts as one. Maybe that's why your count is always off."

Yato highly doubted that, but decided to be the bigger person and not call the kid out on it again.

"Smells nice," an ayakashi rasped behind them.

Yato bit out a curse and threw himself to the side, rolling out of the way of the phantom's attack and popping back up to his feet.

"What a pain," he grumbled.

Something barreled into him from behind, and he yelped as he pitched forward and a new ayakashi snapped its jaws closed around his right shoulder and upper arm.

"Yato!" Yukine cried.

Yato gritted his teeth and swung around to bring his free arm up and slash the blade across the eyes of the ayakashi chewing on him. It squealed and released him, and he had only half a second to twist out of the way of the first phantom lunging at him again and thrust the blade out to tear along its side as it hurtled past. A messy tear since his dominant arm had been compromised, but more than powerful enough.

"Seventy-three."

"Are you okay?" Yukine asked, forgetting his gruffness as concern leaked into his voice. A prickle of guilt stronger than the last pinched the ends of Yato's nerves, even though he'd already told the kid several times that he couldn't prevent every injury. "I'm sorry."

"Relax, kid. It's fine. Considering we're standing twenty feet from an open vent, we've been getting off lucky."

The sky had been a clear, sunny blue earlier, but a supernatural storm had been clouding the air with streaks of black gloom and hordes of ayakashi for the past forty minutes or so. Yato normally steered clear of an open vent's epicenter, preferring to lurk around at the edges of the storm if he needed to bother at all, but he had a quota to fill and Yukine was pushy about cleaning up the ayakashi clogging the streets and it was a pretty small storm, all things considered.

It was hardly the most dangerous situation Yato had ever found himself in and he rather thought they had it well under control by now—better than earlier, at least, when the escaping phantoms were as thick as flies—but it still paid to be on guard. There were still a couple dozen ayakashi floating about the block, and every once in a while the vent spit out another, although the flow had slowed considerably.

And more than one had managed to nick him, although this was the first injury bordering on serious. There were little patches of blight itching at his skin like stinging nettles, but they were easily ignored. Except for this last one, obviously. The blight was already burning like fire, and he could feel it creeping down his arm and across his shoulder and back. His upper arm felt like it had been hit by a freight train, with some stabbing pains and blight to round things out. He made a note to take a look at it later, after cleansing the blight.

"Yato," Yukine said in warning, but Yato hadn't forgotten the other ayakashi.

He was already spinning on his heel and gritting his teeth as he raised his injured arm along with the other.

"Seventy– Hey!"

A gunshot cracked the air, and the ayakashi exploded as the bullet lodged itself in its head.

"You're always in the thick of trouble, aren't you?" Bishamon said, quirking one eyebrow in contempt as she studied Yato like he was something particularly disgusting stuck to the bottom of her shoe.

"What do you want?" he asked with a scowl. "That was my ayakashi."

"Well, excuse me," she said dryly. She twisted around on Kuraha's back and sent another volley of shots into the half a dozen phantoms lurking on the other side of the street. "It's my job to monitor vents and clean up the mess."

"We were here first," Yato muttered. "I didn't see you forty minutes ago."

"Some of us are important gods with busy lives."

Yato opened his mouth, but was brought up short by Yukine's tone of withering exasperation. "Quit being a child. Let's just finish this up already."

Yato huffed out a breath, turned his back on Bishamon, and went back to slicing up ayakashi in the hopes that she would take the hint and go away. Unfortunately, he had no such luck. He had never been a particularly lucky god, and Bishamon had always been a particularly annoying one.

He was very aware of her rampage somewhere behind him, and might have kicked up a bigger fuss if he wasn't so worn out. He'd wait to pick a fight until his arm didn't feel like it was about to fall off.

On that note, he didn't appreciate the psycho bitch's scornfully amused commentary about his clumsy work. He couldn't help it that his dominant arm was turning into a lump of fiery jelly. And even if he was a little sloppier than usual, he was still doing a damn good job of butchering ayakashi. He had worked around injuries far worse than this before and knew plenty of techniques to favor his non-dominant arm. In fact, he was still a better fighter than Bishamon, so there.

Still, he was exhausted by the time he and Bishamon had cleared the area. They poked around a bit longer, but found no more ayakashi sneaking about. The vent had mostly closed up and wasn't spitting them out anymore, and they watched it for a few minutes longer before shrugging it off.

"I'll keep an eye on it until it closes completely," Bishamon said. She stood beside Kuraha and Yato, eyeing the vent thoughtfully. Yato didn't doubt Kazuma was taking note of everything to add it to their oh-so-busy agenda. "We'll drop by again later to make sure it hasn't started up again."

"Eighty-seven," Yato wheezed. "But you came and stole my phantoms, so now I'm going to have to go hunt some more so that Yukine gets off my case. Darn, I was so close to a hundred, too."

"After you hit a hundred, we're moving on to a hundred and fifty," Yukine said serenely.

"What? One hundred and fifty? You're a slave driver, Yukine!"

Metal slipped from between the god's fingers like a liquid thing as a blonde-haired boy appeared beside him. Yukine glared.

"It's the only way you'll stop being lazy and get something done."

"I get lots of things done," Yato protested.

This whole god of fortune thing was quickly becoming a pain. Yukine had latched on to the idea of killing ridiculous quantities of ayakashi to make that happen, and Yato didn't have the heart to point out that it only did so much good when no one even believed in him. He could only be a real god of fortune if he could break free from Father, and he could never do that unless enough people remembered him that he no longer relied on that lifeline. But he would follow his guidepost, and maybe he would get lucky for once and things would work out.

"Pestering Hiyori doesn't count," Yukine said in a voice as dry as the desert. Then he frowned a little, brows pinching together above worried amber eyes. "Although we need to go cleanse your blight first and take a look at that arm. Let's go."

"It's fine," Yato grumbled.

Yukine was already stalking off down the street, presumably back to Kofuku's place, and didn't deign to look back.

"You two are such a weird pair," Bishamon said, shaking her head. "Come, Kuraha."

She began walking after Yukine, her head swiveling around as she searched the streets for…something. Maybe still just double-checking for any ayakashi they might have missed. The lion rose to his paws, stretched, and padded after her. Why they had to be going in the same direction was beyond Yato.

"You don't have to walk us home," he said with a smirk as he trailed several paces behind them all. "Although that's awful nice of you."

"Oh, be quiet," Bishamon said without even looking back. "I have better things to do with my time."

"Ohhh? What–?"

"Yato-sama?" asked a voice from behind him.

A vise clamped around his chest in one sharp, blinding snap and sent all the air whistling out of his lungs at once. He didn't give himself time to consider the familiarity of the sound before spinning around.

The dark-haired girl with the soft eyes and beads in her hair was as eerily familiar yet alien as her voice. She couldn't be here, not when he had killed her a thousand years ago.

His mouth opened, but only a strangled sound emerged. He drank in the sight of her hungrily, in some dangerously combustible mixture of shock, hope, disbelief, guilt, unease, grief.

"You're all grown up," Sakura said with a gentle smile. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

"Yes," Yato croaked. His voice was a weak, strangled thing that scraped painfully along his dry throat.

"What in the world?" Bishamon asked. "Who…? What is that?"

"Yato," Yukine said sharply.

Yato barely heard.

There was something not quite right about Sakura. Her features were so familiar, yet blurred ever so slightly like the ravages of time on memory. Her voice was familiar, but there was a strange note woven into it, like a second voice laid beneath.

"I've missed you," she said, stepping away from the vent beside her and towards Yato.

And suddenly he realized that it didn't matter. It didn't matter that this wasn't his Sakura, that it was only an illusion preying on his mind. It spoke in her voice, wore her face, read his thoughts and desires. Even if this wasn't his original Sakura, she knew everything he knew about her, born from his mind as she must be. In a very real way, that made her his Sakura too.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. Tears filled his eyes but didn't fall, because he had long since given up shedding real tears. Sakura's face blurred behind them, smoothing over the slight haze that clouded the features reconstructed from his memories. "I didn't understand. I didn't know what would happen."

"It's okay." Sakura's face came back into focus as Yato blinked back the tears resolutely. She was so gentle, so forgiving, as she stopped directly in front of him. "We're together again. That's what's important, right?"

Yato's face crumpled. "Right," he rasped.

Sakura held out her hands, and he reached out and took them. It felt like forgiveness, like finally being able to say the words and express the regret he'd held for so long and finding forgiveness and peace from the person who mattered the most.

It also felt like blight. There was a small, sharp sting on each hand where their fingers touched, and itching fire began spreading slowly across his hands and up his arms like a rash. He hardly noticed.

Sakura took a few slow steps back, tugging Yato along gently, and he followed without complaint. He was docile and compliant, still wrapped up in the whirlwind of emotion battering his insides. It was impossible to tear his gaze away from her face, even when he saw an unnatural, reflective light lurking somewhere in the depths of her eyes.

"Come with me," she said in a voice like the soft rustling of leaves in the wind, a hundred whispers all rolled into one. "We can be together forever."

Yato nodded once, jerkily, swallowed whole by the fantasy that was real and yet not. Sakura's hands were warm in his as she led him one step at a time, even though the itching on his skin was turning painful.

"Yato," Bishamon said in a strange voice, hard and sharp-edged. "Get away. That isn't…whoever you think she is. That's an ayakashi."

"I know," Yato said, his voice sounding distant and far away in his own ears, like it belonged to someone else.

But she was right here with all her warmth and kindness, and he had missed her so much.

As if in response to his acknowledgement, Sakura's body seemed to waver and then melt into a grotesque creature plucked straight from Yato's nightmares—and memories. Her body stretched and expanded into a monstrous hunk of muscle and sinew, her ears lengthening and folding back while her hair spilled down her gnarled spine like a coarse mane. Her mouth widened impossibly long and filled with thick, sharp teeth, while large eyeballs sprouted across her face and along the ridge of her back. And they were streaming tears, still. Tears that ground Yato's shattered heart to dust.

Yato's lips trembled and he flinched, but he didn't try to pull away. This was somehow expected, because it was how he remembered it to be. Sakura's hands and arms were the only part of her left recognizable and intact, and her fingers tightened around his painfully as she pulled him closer. He went without protest, transfixed by the half-dozen weeping eyes marring her form.

He felt like a child again, small and horrified and lost and terribly, terribly sad.

"You wouldn't leave me alone, would you?" Sakura asked in a voice like nails on a chalkboard.

Yato shook his head mutely, and she retreated back towards the vent again, pulling him along with her.

"Borderline!" yelled a voice from behind him.

A line of white light slashed through the air between them, slicing Sakura's skin and sending her reeling back with a screech. Yato blinked at the line dividing them in incomprehension for a long moment before panic set in. He slammed his hands against the barrier, which didn't budge. He had to get through, had to get to Sakura and help her and make her stop crying.

"Yato–"

He spun around and glared at Yukine with such venom that the shinki, who had been hurrying towards him, stopped short.

"You don't draw a borderline between a god and their shinki," he snarled, fury searing hot through his veins and sizzling along every nerve.

Yukine's eyes went wide and a funny expression twisted his lips, almost as if Yato had slapped him. "Yato," he said in a small voice, "that's an ayakashi."

Something fragile inside Yato trembled and threatened to break.

"I know!" he said, his voice cracking. "I know that. She's been dead for centuries. But you don't understand, I have to… She's crying so much, I have to…"

He didn't know how to explain. It wasn't Sakura, but in a way it still was. Some piece of her, at least. The piece he held in his heart.

"Yukine, drop the borderline," Bishamon said firmly.

Yato's heart lifted in fevered hope. Bishamon was crazy about her shinki—she would understand why he needed to help Sakura. She had always–

It hit him like a slap to the face. Bishamon had been so in love with her shinki that she had refused to free them even after they were beyond saving and were slowly killing her. He had always held her in a bit of contempt for that, but wasn't that exactly what he was doing here? He was so desperate to do anything for Sakura that he would throw himself at an ayakashi in the name of someone who had been dead for a millennium. Even if this was, in some strange and twisted way, some part of Sakura, it was also an ayakashi using that for its own ends.

Yukine bit his lip, gaze darting between the gods and the monster lurking on the other side of the borderline, but then nodded. The line shimmered out of existence, and Yato understood Bishamon's intentions in a flash of clarity as she raised the whip and sent it snapping through the air.

"Stop!" Yato cried. He lunged to the side and threw up his damaged arm.

Bishamon's eyes widened and she tried to pull back the strike, but the tip of the whip slashed across his upper arm. He grabbed it before it had time to retreat, wrapping the cord tight about his hand and holding Kinuha captive even when Bishamon tried tugging her away.

"I don't know why that thing looked like one of your old shinki, but it's an ayakashi," Bishamon said, frustration and an unidentifiable mix of other emotions clouding her voice and face. "You have to let me kill it."

"No." Yato glared, his lips pressed tight around the word. The cord criss-crossing his hand bit deep into his skin and stung like a scourge. "It's a god's responsibility to look after their shinki—including putting them down when they're beyond saving. Just because you couldn't do it doesn't mean that I can't. I did it last time, and I'll do it again. She's my responsibility, even if it's just an impostor wearing her face. Stay out of what doesn't concern you."

Shock and hurt flickered across Bishamon's face, but Yato didn't have time to consider anyone else right now. He untangled his hand from the whip and turned back to the ayakashi stealing Sakura from him again.

"Sekki."

He was already lunging forward before the swords fitted into his hands, trusting Yukine would be there. The first slash was too shallow to do the job. Yato's fault, because he'd forgotten to take his injuries into account. The ayakashi squealed and retreated a few paces. Yato charged forward again, but its words drew him up short.

"Yato-sama, please remember this," it said, stealing Sakura's words right out of his head. "People die even if you do not kill them, and that means you will never see them again."

It was a shot to the heart. Yato could feel himself shaking, cracking.

"Yato!" Yukine cried.

The fetch lashed out, wrapping around Yato's injured arm and dragging him back towards the vent. Blinding pain exploded up and down his arm, and the sword fell from his nerveless fingers to clatter to the ground.

"You wouldn't kill me again, would you?" asked the ayakashi in its otherworldly voice.

And Yato hardened his heart just like that, because he knew what needed to be done and this thing wearing Sakura's face had no right to presume to understand her death and what it meant to him. He twisted around in a sharp, neat motion, bringing up the blade in his left hand to slice deep through the ayakashi.

"I'm sorry," he breathed. "Again."

The ayakashi screeched and exploded. Yato stared at where it had been with dull eyes, both half a second away from falling apart and perfectly dead and hollow at the same time.

He gradually became aware that Yukine was babbling anxiously in his ears, but it was hard to focus.

"Yukine."

"Are you okay?" Yukine demanded as soon as he'd materialized just behind the god. "I…"

Blight was creeping across Yato's body in burning swathes, his right arm was racked with stabbing pains, and wild emotions ricocheted off his insides, bouncing off his ribs and slamming into his heart with enough force to crack it. The sensations were overwhelming enough, but he realized that the tight pains in his chest weren't only coming from him.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you," he said hollowly.

"It–it's okay, just… Is…?"

"You saw her too, right? It wasn't just me?"

There was a long pause before Yukine said, reluctance tugging at every word, "It looked like a girl. And then it changed into a monster."

Yato stared vacantly at the empty stretch of ground in front of him and didn't look back. "They were both her."

"Both? But…"

"I've never seen an ayakashi do that," Bishamon said, sounding thoroughly unsettled. "What in the world just happened?"

Yato had never seen an ayakashi do that either, but he'd seen someone else who had.

"Some kind of glamour," he said. "An illusion meant to ensnare. Obviously targeted at me if you saw the same thing instead of someone who meant something to you. Someone sent it. Someone who can control ayakashi and create glamours." He considered the two possibilities that first sprang to mind. "I wonder which one it was," he mused.

"Is it your da–?" Yukine choked on the word and hurried to cover over his misstep. "The sorcerer?"

Such a slip-up would usually put Yato on edge, but Bishamon and Kazuma had already been poking around and discovered a little too much since his return from Yomi a few weeks back. That wouldn't be a surprise to them, though Yato was doing his best to restrict any more information they might stumble across. In any case, with everything else that had just happened, he couldn't bring himself to care about something so small.

"It's the kind of thing he would do," he conceded. "And only he and Nora knew about her. I don't know if his new locution brush can create and control ayakashi with glamour, but it's more advanced than his first one so it's possible. But I don't think it was him this time." His gaze traveled slowly across the few feet of pavement in front of him and locked on the small vent ripped into the earth. "I think it was Izanami."

"Izanami?" Bishamon repeated incredulously. "She controls the underworld, but up here?"

"She'd dropped the charm by the time you showed up, but she uses glamours. She prefers to look and sound like someone you're comfortable with so that you'll want to stay with her." And, Yato reflected bitterly, she had already used elements of Sakura in her glamour. She might have looked like Hiyori at first glance, but the style of her hair and a few other subtle details had been undeniably Sakura. "And she made the brushes to create and control ayakashi. It wouldn't surprise me if she had a brush that could manage this."

And if nothing else gave it away, the ayakashi's insistence on him being with her forever was enough. That had Izanami's name written all over it, even if most of the rest sounded like things pulled directly from Yato's own thoughts and memories. It was more surprising that it could talk so much at all, but he supposed they did possess rudimentary speech and Izanami had said she taught them to talk to keep her company. It was feasible, as long as there was a glamour to smooth over the rough edges.

Yato walked to the vent, his boots dragging along the ground, and stared down into the little black crack. It was silent and still now, and he could see blackness plunging deep into the heart of the earth. He stared down into its depths for a long moment before drawing in a deep breath.

"Hey!" he yelled down the crevasse. His voice echoed and bounced in the void. "Keep your bony fingers out of my head!"

He glared down until the dying echoes of his voice faded away, and was just about to turn back when a faint whisper echoed back up from the depths.

"We had a deal," it hissed in a low murmur punctuated by the soft clacking of teeth and bone.

It took him by surprise, and a niggling sense of unease in the back of his head whispered that it wasn't a good sign if she really was taking enough interest to become so closely involved.

"I hate to tell you this," he called back down, "but I never agreed to your deal and the one who did is dead and reincarnated. Let it go."

"We have a deal," Izanami whispered back from somewhere far below.

Yato's hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Stay away from my shinki! All of them."

Away from Sakura's memory, which was precious and aching. Away from Yukine, who was Yato's kid and unbearably precious. And even away from Nora, who had been released and had caused Yato immeasurable grief over the centuries but would always hold a place in his heart for everything they had shared. Away from every shinki he'd ever had, no matter for how short a time. Poking at Sakura's memory had awoken a fierce protectiveness for all his shinki and a fear that they'd be caught up in his mess, but he hoped it didn't come to that. Nora was the only one Izanami had met, and that girl wasn't likely to get caught.

"We'll be friends," the echoing whisper replied.

Yato ground his teeth together until his jaw ached. The vent was slowly sealing up, the earth knitting together the wound torn into it, but Izanami's voice promised that this wasn't over. He watched as the scar in the pavement shrank to nothing.

"What deal?" Bishamon asked from behind him.

He spoke to the ground, where the vent had been. "She told Ebisu that she'd give him the brush if one of us stayed down there with her. I was the lucky winner. He never really intended to negotiate, but I guess Izanami doesn't want to let it go that easily."

He had pitied Izanami a little before, felt a little sorry for her despite her obvious madness and desire to keep him trapped in the underworld forever. She reminded him a bit of himself: lonely, desperate, and a little bit crazy. But any last trace of that had been pulverized to dust. Her manipulative methods were too much like Father's, and they made Yato feel weak and helpless and broken. They left him seething with righteous fury that did no good when he was powerless.

"She can't actually force you back down, can she?" Yukine asked. His voice sounded funny, a little too high and squeaky. "Is–?"

"I was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time," Yato said, toeing the unassuming patch of pavement where the vent had been. "I don't know how she realized I was up here, but I just happened to be right next to a vent and she seized her chance. I wouldn't worry too much. She's unbeatable in Yomi, but she holds little sway up here. I don't make a habit of poking around vents and I'm a pro at killing ayakashi. If she could force me down, she would've done it instead of trying to trick me into it."

"Still," Bishamon murmured, sounding troubled, "this is unprecedented."

"Yato?" Yukine asked hesitantly.

He crept up beside the god, but Yato only hunched his shoulders and continued to stare at the ground.

"It's fine," he said in a rough voice.

"Yato… You're crying."

"I am not," he said fiercely. He didn't realize how badly his hand was shaking until he lifted it to scrub at the tears he wasn't supposed to be shedding and hadn't realized he was. "I stopped that centuries ago."

But his throat felt tight anyway, and he had to press his lips into a hard line and swipe his sleeve across his face.

Yukine was quiet for a long moment before asking, "What was her name?"

Which one? Yato thought bitterly. The one I gave her or the one that killed her?

"I named her Sakura," he said in a low voice. Yukine's emotions were wound tight in his chest, but they were impossible to untangle when he was already such a mess himself.

"She…crossed the line?" Yukine asked. He sounded cautious, uncertain, worried.

That was treading too close to dangerous territory, but Yato couldn't let the misunderstanding stand.

"It wasn't her fault," he said. "She didn't do anything wrong. Someone else forced her across."

"Forced…? How even…? Was it your dad?" Yukine coughed loudly as if trying to drown out his misspoken word, but that ship had already sailed and Yato didn't much care.

It was me.

Yato dropped his hand and closed his fingers into a fist. He stared at the diseased flesh and welcomed the burning of the blight. He wished the pain was enough to distract him, but instead it just felt like justice for his atrocities. That line of thought made him uncomfortable, as it always did when it reared its ugly head.

"I will fight until the end to save my shinki. But when they go beyond saving…" Yato finally looked up and met Yukine's wide, worried eyes with his own flat gaze. "Be careful, Yukine. If you cross over, I will be the one who puts you down. And it will break both of us."

Yukine stepped back, his eyes shimmering with whatever it was making Yato's chest feel so tight, and Yato wondered absently if that had been too much. Yukine might still be too young and innocent to understand that it was a gift of sorts, albeit a bitter one.

But Yukine just swallowed hard and dropped his gaze. "I'm sorry," he mumbled.

Yato wasn't sure what exactly he was sorry about, but assumed it was the generic response to watching someone break down and not being able to say anything to really help.

"It's fine," he said as he turned away and walked toward Bishamon instead, stone-faced. "It was nearly a thousand years ago, way back when I was still just a kid. It doesn't matter anymore."

"Doesn't it?" Bishamon asked, and he wished she would go away. "The holes shinki leave never quite go away." She was staring at him, but not at his face. He looked down to follow her gaze and found his hand fisted in his jersey above his heart, as if he could hold his shattered pieces together and close up the empty space. He hurriedly pried his fingers apart and jammed his hands into his pockets. "But it helps if you have one left to rely on."

Yato half-turned back to look at Yukine as if Bishamon had physically yanked him around. The kid was looking small and sad, chewing on his lip and rocking on his heels. Purple splotches bloomed on his arms, and Yato winced.

"I blighted you. Sorry. Come on, kid. Let's get you cleaned up."

It had been necessary, but not having even considered that Yukine would be blighted if Yato used him in his current state was an unforgivable oversight.

"You're way worse," Yukine muttered as he shuffled over.

"Yeah, but I'm used to it." Yato waited for him to catch up before turning on his heel and striding past Bishamon without another look. "We'll cleanse the blight and then finish today's quota." He frowned, brows drawing together as he came up blank. "I…don't even remember what we were at anymore."

"You just managed to hit a hundred," Yukine mumbled. "We'll wait to go for one-fifty until tomorrow."

Yato's eyebrow quirked upwards. "You're a horrible liar. I think it was like eighty-something. But hey, better to round up than round down. It would be more fun to hang out with Hiyori anyway."

"I already told you, I don't do that!"

"Uh-huh. Oh." Yato looked back over his shoulder and fixed Bishamon with a look. "Izanami didn't seem too interested in you before, but be careful, yeah? Just in case."

Bishamon blinked at him with a funny expression twisting her features and then nodded. "Yeah. You too."

Yato was already walking away again. He didn't know what to say to Yukine, whose mood was impossible to read, and Yukine himself seemed uncertain of how to handle the situation and stayed quiet. They headed back towards Kofuku's shrine in silence, walking side by side but a million miles apart.

Yato was trying very hard to block out what had just happened, but he could still hear Sakura crying in his head and it ate away at his frazzled nerves. He couldn't afford to go back and drown himself in old memories, but how could he not?

"It won't happen," Yukine said finally. His voice was solid and real, dragging Yato back and anchoring him to the present. "I won't let her take you back."

A faint smile ghosted across Yato's face despite everything. "I know. Don't worry so much. This was just an unlucky coincidence."

"I'm sorry about Sakura." Yukine gnawed on his lip and stared at the ground, his hair shadowing his eyes. "I know I can't… But…"

Yato blinked at him blankly for a few seconds before grasping what the kid was trying and failing to articulate. It was a different kind of protectiveness than he was used to. Yukine could be exceedingly protective when it came to physical threats, but he had rarely touched any emotional scars. Mostly because Yato tried not to share those, and maybe also because Yukine didn't understand how to fix such things and they made him uncomfortable to start with. It was sweet, in a way.

"All shinki are different," Yato said quietly. "Each one is unique and special. You couldn't take her place even if you tried, just like no one could take yours. But you don't have to. Just be yourself. That's enough."

Yukine snuck a look up through his eyelashes, and his lips trembled. "I…"

Yato grinned. "Didn't I already tell you? You're my dearest bundle of joy and intense aggravation."

Yukine turned red as a tomato. "Gross. You're impossible."

Yato huffed out a laugh like a sigh. He wasn't okay, not really. He was still shaken and grieving and more than a little broken.

But with Yukine and Hiyori, he could build new, better memories to balance the old, painful ones, even if they wouldn't magically heal all the wounds he'd sustained over the centuries. They couldn't make Yato whole again—it was much too late for that and he was far too broken to somehow jigsaw all the pieces back together like nothing had happened—but they could help him survive through it and find some kind of happiness and learn how to really live again. He thought—hoped—that Sakura would be pleased by that.

So for now, he let Yukine ground him in the present. There would always be time to mourn, but for now he wanted to appreciate what was left.

Still, there was a tingle of unease running along his spine. The feeling that it wasn't quite over.

Note: The original idea was some unfounded, self-indulgent musing about what could happen if a Sakura-lookalike showed up in ayakashi form courtesy of Izanami, and I was going to leave it here like a one-shot. But then I made an actual plot, so we've got whole chapters and everything :O

Title comes from the good old "fire and brimstone", of course :3