Note: To be honest, this kind of serves as something like an epilogue or resolution, but we needed to tie up a few loose ends lol

French: I didn't know you were familiar with Noragami too lol Oh yeah, nightmares for everyone! Personally, the things I find the most disturbing are things that are just a little off or things that manipulate your emotions for their own ends. The glamours just happen to fall into both categories. I find them harder to deal with than a villain that's just "evil". They get into your head better. Oh, it's alright. I doubt most people saw it coming. It was a little out there. Small fists and ugly crying are the best XD No problem. Thanks for reading and reviewing, and I hope you have a great day :)

Yato-sama: Well, this is the last chapter, unfortunately, but at least you got a little more? I didn't want to drag it out too long lol That's sweet, though. Thanks for reading and reviewing, and I hope you have a great day :)

Chapter 5

Yato sat up abruptly, choking on a wail, and clutched at his chest as his gasping breaths filled the darkened room like a living thing panting from the shadows. He could feel the blood hot and slippery as it ran through his fingers, taste the cloying bite of iron on his tongue, hear the sharp screams bouncing around his skull in a haunting echo, see frightened eyes going glassy before being swallowed by the dark. His heart battered against the cage of his ribs relentlessly, fluttering with desperation, and he hunched over himself.

It took a small eternity to swallow down his harsh breaths and blink away the last remnants of the nightmares clouding his mind like sticky cobwebs. It was still dark, but not the dank, deathly dark of Yomi. Yukine's lamp was casting a soft glow from the other side of the room, lightening the shadows to a hazy gray before they bled into blackness in the corners.

A soft shushing sound of skin against sheets made his head snap around, and he was unsurprised to see Yukine sitting up. He had been having vivid nightmares since their return from Yomi—fine, he might have already been having nightmares about Sakura since the first incident with the glamoured ayakashi, but they were a thousand times worse when his kid was added to the mix—but he wasn't the only one. Yukine wasn't getting much sleep either, and it hadn't been an infrequent occurrence for the two to catch each other awake sometime in the middle of the night or early morning over the past few days. They didn't talk about it—Yukine seemed all talked out after he'd spent a good ten minutes straight sobbing when they'd first escaped the underworld, and Yato had no intention of telling the kid about waking nightmares of killing him and Sakura—but Yato figured that Yomi would be a bit traumatizing for anyone.

"You alright?" he asked in a hushed voice that rasped along his dry throat like sandpaper.

Slightly narrowed amber eyes blinked back at him for a few seconds, but then Yukine slid out of bed, paused, and grabbed his lamp before padding across the floor. Yato squinted against the light as Yukine moved the lamp by his futon and climbed in to sit with his knees drawn up to his chest. Yato raised an eyebrow but didn't comment. The last thing he wanted to do was chase the kid off. All he did was rearrange the blankets to cover Yukine too, and they sat in silence for a few minutes with only their breathing for company.

Yato didn't mind. It was nice to have Yukine so close after watching him die so many times. A reassurance that he was still here. And although Yato had never been particularly afraid of the dark before, he was grateful for the warm glow of the lamp tonight to chase off Yomi's shadows.

"Can I ask you something?" Yukine asked finally, his voice almost low enough to be swallowed by the night.

Yato bit back his instinctive retort of 'you just did' and said, "Of course."

Yukine was quiet for several more seconds as he dropped his chin onto his knees and stared at the opposite side of the room with narrowed eyes, but then he sighed. "What…exactly is it that freaks you out so much about the ayakashi with glamours? I mean, I get it, but… I was right next to you and you knew it was an ayakashi. And whatever Izanami said, you know it wasn't me."

Yato stifled a groan, closing his eyes and pressing a hand to his forehead as his brow wrinkled. The last thing he wanted to do was think about that mess and he doubted he could explain it in a way that really made sense when he didn't entirely understand it himself, but he didn't want to shut down on Yukine when the kid was finally opening up a little bit.

"It's…complicated," he said. He braced his arms behind him, palms pressed against the mattress, and leaned back a little to stare up at the ceiling. "Of course it wasn't you, but in a way… It's like… Think about if someone took your memory of a friend—who they are to you and everything you love about them and all the emotions you feel for them—and plucked it right out of your head and then made you destroy it. Maybe it's not them, but it still feels like you're losing something and destroying that makes you feel like you also…" He sighed harshly. "It wasn't you and I'm not as naïve as Izanami to think so, but that doesn't mean that I don't still feel like I lost something.

"And with Sakura, that was the only thing… That's the only thing I had left of her, and resurrecting her memory just to make me kill her again… I don't want to feel like I'm killing you. It's not real, but in a way it really is. Even if it's not you, I'm still destroying something precious to me that makes you who you are. It seems silly when it doesn't change anything in the end and you're still here and my memories are undamaged, but it still feels like I destroyed some part of you…and some part of myself."

Yukine fiddled with the corner of the blanket absently, and Yato watched as the kid found a fraying thread and began picking it apart. Maybe he had found the wrong words, but he waited patiently while Yukine chose his own.

"I guess it still doesn't make sense to me why we should feel that way," Yukine said finally. "If we know it's not true."

"Truth is a funny thing," Yato said, feeling tired and old as he looked back up to watch the shadows flickering on the ceiling. "It's not always as objective as we'd like to think. Sometimes we make our own truths."

"Someone's feeling philosophical," Yukine muttered with a thin note of sarcasm that paled in comparison to his normal snark.

Yato just shrugged, a slight rolling of his shoulders that brought them up around his ears for a moment before he settled back against the arms propping him up. "When you've lived long enough, it becomes unavoidable."

"I guess. Just… That thing wasn't really much like you at all, I could tell something was wrong with it, but it still feels like we left a piece of you down there."

Yato pursed his lips and let his head fall back. The shadows at the edges of the light wavered as Yukine shifted restlessly.

Naming an ayakashi had been a peculiar experience. It wasn't like naming a shinki, not really. The bond wasn't the same and no emotions filtered through and the name wasn't inked so prominently across his heart or twined so thoroughly with the thread of his life. It was less personal and intimate, maybe because there was no naming ceremony or promises made and he hadn't used his life but a proxy.

But there was something. A faint, prickling knot buried somewhere behind his ribs that itched like sand in an oyster to remind him that he had an ayakashi servant somewhere beneath the earth. Directly controlling it had been stranger still. Its presence was not so prominent now and fell far from the forefront of his mind, but that little itch lurking in the shadowy part of his conscious didn't let him forget entirely.

He wanted nothing to do with it.

"The glamours work with what the target knows," he said. "Izanami knows precious little about me, so the ayakashi has barely anything of me in it at all. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it."

Yukine hummed noncommittally and worked at unraveling the blanket for a few more minutes before sighing. "I don't think it's really like that, though. I can separate it from you without much trouble and it doesn't bother me the same way it bothers you. Maybe it's more that… It feels like what could have happened. I don't care about the glamour or ayakashi in themselves, but seeing them is like seeing a future that could have been."

Yato's head fell to the side and he studied his kid's wan profile in the dim light. Maybe he wasn't the only one waxing a little philosophical tonight.

He turned that piece over in his head and searched for a way to fit it into the unsolvable jigsaw of messy emotions swirling around the issue. Sakura was already in the past, although perhaps it hurt so much because there had been just a moment where it felt like things could be different. Yukine, though… Perhaps part of the reason killing that fetch had been so difficult was because it could be a future, like it had been with Sakura. And with Sakura looming so large in his mind, perhaps he couldn't help but make the connection.

Yato wouldn't let that happen, not again. He knew better than to go revealing dangerous secrets now, and he wouldn't let Father and Chiki anywhere near the kid if they took an interest. He was not going to put down another one of his shinki, not if he could help it. And definitely not this one.

"Don't worry so much," he said. "Your amazing master saved the day, as usual."

Yukine looked over with a scowl. "By which you mean you were totally useless but got lucky, as usual."

"How cruel." Yato smirked but then sobered and sighed. "I wasn't going to leave you there. You know it was me she was after."

Yukine's hands fisted in the blanket and strangled themselves white. "You idiot," he hissed, venom dripping off every word. "You really thought it was a good idea to run around in Yomi without a weapon or any way of defending yourself?"

"There is such a thing as a worthy sacrifice, but it's pointless if you're just throwing your life away for a war you know you can't win," Yato said mildly.

"I'm your hafuri! Your guidepost and exemplar! You're stuck with me, you fool. We're supposed to stick together. You can't just…"

"It's my job to protect you as much as it's yours to protect me," Yato said gently, his eyes softening at the distress concealed behind Yukine's anger. "It's not that I don't trust you. It's that you're the best shinki I've had in a millennium, and I'm not going to sacrifice my kid for something so stupid." Yukine turned abruptly red, though it was washed out and dusty in the shadowy light, and Yato chuckled. "I'm not planning to go anywhere, so relax. No need for silly nightmares."

Yukine scoffed and hugged his knees closer as he looked away. "Like I'd have nightmares about you. Please. It was really dark down there, that's all."

"What a troublesome shinki. I'm going to ditch you next time. I only didn't this time because you get all weird with the dark and would give me a heart attack if you stayed there."

"Hey!"

Yato chuckled and slipped an arm around Yukine, pulling him closer. Yukine stiffened, but then leaned against the god's side and dropped his head onto his shoulder. They didn't say anything else, just watched the lamp's glow dusting the room with pale gold and the shadows held at bay at the edges. Yato didn't feel like going back to sleep with the disturbing scenes his mind conjured up, and Yukine seemed similarly disinclined to face what haunted his nights.

It was enough to shelter each other from the night's shadows and relax in the knowledge that they were both still here.

Yato fidgeted restlessly as his elbow went numb against the hard wood of the floor, but merely shifted a little and kicked a foot idly into the air as he erased a bit of a line and started over. Lying down was not his preferred position to draw in, but today he had felt like sprawling across the floor on his belly and taking his time instead of resorting to his quick, off-hand sketches. This one was more…important.

He'd had little trouble detailing the cherry tree, the slender trunk curving along the left edge of the page and the delicate branches spreading their blossoms across the top. He had seen more than enough trees in his long life to be able to shade every whorl and grain of the bark and brush the suggestion of fluttering petals. In fact, he'd taken much longer on it than he really needed, as a measure of procrastination.

The girl standing in the grass below was a different story. Yato knew the proper proportions of the human body, knew how to insert every joint in delicate fingers and shade hair in locks, knew how to draw two eyes alike and brush in that hint of spark to bring them to life. He'd had plenty of practice, after all.

But the more he tried to draw Sakura, the more he doubted himself. Did her hair really fall just so? Were her fingers quite that long and slender? Was she maybe a touch taller? And her face.

His sigh of melancholy frustration lingered in the air as he carefully erased the small oval of her face for the seventh time. He had called it good enough on the rest of her body, but the face had to be perfect to be her.

The problem was that it had been nearly a thousand years since he had last seen her in person, and that was more than enough time for the edges of memories to begin going fuzzy. Nothing looked quite right, and he wasn't even entirely sure if the picture of her in his head was what she had actually looked like.

What a pain. Well, he had until Yukine got bored of helping Daikoku in the shop to figure it out.

"Yato!" The door slammed open, and Hiyori's screech of fury made him wince. So, maybe not. "I've had enough of your interfering! We need to talk about you interrupting me at school and…"

She trailed off, and Yato feigned undivided interest in sketching in the curve of a lip so that he didn't have to sit up and turn around and face her. To be fair, she probably had a sort of legitimate reason for being upset. He had just been so bored and maybe kind of lonely while Yukine was working in the shop, and the kid had only put up with his pestering for a few minutes before kicking him out. So Yato had gone to Hiyori instead, except that Hiyori was still in school.

There had been some shenanigans which may or may not have resulted in Hiyori growing so frustrated that she yelled at him right in the middle of class before catching herself…and getting in trouble, not to mention knee-deep humiliation, for it. At which point she had given Yato the most poisonous glare he'd seen in all the centuries of his life and, thoroughly cowed, he had slunk out with his tail between his legs and come back to hide out in the attic bedroom and get lost in finally acknowledging the ghost that had been haunting him for weeks…and, to be honest, centuries.

He wondered how many bruises this incident would be worth. Hiyori could get a bit violent when she was angry at him.

But the expected jungle savate never came. The footsteps that approached were soft and hesitant, and Hiyori wavered for a moment before slowly kneeling beside him. His hand twitched as he felt her eyes on the drawing, but she had already spotted it and there was no point trying to hide it now. He drew on instead, his hand tight around the pencil and his mouth set in a grim line as he dabbed the eraser across the oval of the face once more and started again.

"I…" Hiyori swallowed and tried again. Quiet anxiety threaded through her voice as if she was unsure if she really wanted to speak the words. "I know about Sakura."

"Everyone does now," Yato said bitterly. Izanami had made sure of it. That was one secret, one part of his life, that he hadn't wanted the rest of the world to touch, but it was too late for that now.

"No, I mean… I already knew. I know about how you named her as a child and how she called you Yato and how she tried to teach you a new way to live and how you lived a double life trying to make both her and your father happy. I… I know what happened to her with–"

"What?" Yato stared at her in disbelief, wood straining in his hand as his fingers tightened around the pencil almost to the point of cracking. It didn't make sense. "How could you possibly know that? Only Father and Hii–Nora know. You couldn't…"

Hiyori bit her lip and looked down at her hands fiddling nervously in her lap. "It's… Well, I think I saw some of your memories. You were asleep and I was there and… I think it has something to do with my cord. I wasn't entirely sure if they were actually memories or it was just a really vivid dream, but when Yukine told me about that ayakashi… I… I wasn't sure if I should tell you. I didn't know how you'd take it."

Not well, was the answer. A clotted mess of emotions knotted Yato's throat. No one was supposed to know that, no one but Father and Hiiro. And especially not Hiyori. Hiyori and Yukine were the ones Yato least wanted to learn about his bloodied past. He didn't want them to know about his childhood or the things he and Father and Hiiro had done or what had happened to Sakura. It was all so ugly, and he didn't want to think of what else Hiyori might have seen if she had indeed infiltrated his memories.

"You can't tell anyone," he said harshly, and she flinched back at the intensity raging behind his glare. "It's dangerous."

"I–I know." She swallowed and hunched her shoulders as she dropped her gaze. "I wouldn't want that to happen to Yukine." If Yato had any doubts about the veracity of her claims, the look on her face when she spoke of Yukine swept them away just like that. She knew exactly how he had killed Sakura and what could happen to Yukine. "I just thought… I know you can't really talk to anyone, especially not Yukine, but since I already know… If you ever need to talk or anything, I'm here."

Yato eyed her suspiciously, waiting to see if she was going to drop any more bombshells on him, but she only twisted her hands together anxiously and looked thoroughly miserable, like she was starting to regret having said anything. He didn't necessarily want her to feel guilty for speaking up, even if he didn't really want to hear what she had to say.

He also had no intention of ever talking to her or anyone about Sakura or many of the other calamities of his past. They were his burdens to bear, and he preferred it that way. He had already told Hiyori and Yukine too much about his past with Father, more than he had ever told anyone. Couldn't they be satisfied with that and leave him Sakura?

But he felt like he owed her something. Maybe a token to wipe the nerves off her face and let her know he wasn't really upset with her.

"I named all my other shinki after her," he said, turning back to his drawing and trying a new angle for the nose. The floorboards creaked as Hiyori shifted, but he didn't look at her.

"What? But–"

"The family name," he clarified, his voice carefully neutral as he swept the pencil across the page. "The '-ne' unifier. From Tamanone."

"O-oh, I didn't realize…" Hiyori said nothing for a few minutes, and her voice was gentle and distant when she next spoke. "That's…kind of sweet. You named her and she named you, and you keep a piece of her alive by naming the rest of your shinki after her too."

It was a reminder of his mistake, mostly. A tangible mark of the sin he bore so that he would always remember—as if he could ever forget—and would never do it again, as if he really needed the reminder. But Hiyori wasn't wrong, either.

Sakura was gone, but Yato liked to keep small reminders of her around. Hiiro was the only shinki that was excluded from that tradition, but she quite literally belonged to a different family, along with Father. The '-ne' line wasn't affiliated with Yato's other family, and he preferred it that way. It was the line Sakura had founded when she gave him the faintest sliver of hope that he could change and someday escape the web Father had trapped him in.

Perhaps it could only be called a family in the loosest sense. He hadn't been very close to most of his shinki, preferring to keep them at arm's length and release them when they'd had enough. It was easier that way. Still, he had used his life to name each one and given them all a place in his heart, however small. He still cared about them all.

And now that he had Yukine, the closest thing he'd had to family in a long time… He was glad that Yukine had received Sakura's inheritance. They were the two shinki that had had the biggest impact on Yato outside of Hiiro, the two that had made him happy and given him a family he could love wholeheartedly and take pride in.

"I'm not sure I remember what she looks like anymore," he said instead of voicing his thoughts. He tapped the pencil on the page with a sigh.

"Huh? That looks right. I mean, I saw her in your memories and–"

"But that's the thing with memories. They fade and change over time, and I've had a millennium to twist them around. This is what I remember of her, but I don't know if that's what she actually was."

They stared down at the intricate drawing of the faceless girl in silence for a few seconds before Hiyori let out her breath in a light sigh.

"Does it matter?" she asked.

Yato scowled at her. "Of course it–"

"She's gone," Hiyori said gently. Her eyes traced the lines up and down the page, and her lips were pursed in a thoughtful frown. "What she was is long gone. If not for you, she would have disappeared a long time ago. Your memories are what is left, and you keep pieces of her alive with them. Even if she's gone, who she was to you remains. What you knew about her, thought about her, felt about her… That's what's left. That's what matters."

Sometimes we make our own truths, he had told Yukine. Maybe those kinds of truths were themselves a type of glamour. As horrible as the glamours had seemed to him… This was maybe a different kind. Sakura was gone and he couldn't bring her back, but he had reconstructed her in his memories and held on long after she had faded away. It wasn't her, but it was still everything he had loved about her. When that wasn't being twisted around and used as a manipulation against him, it wasn't such an ugly thing after all.

"You're a smart girl." The strokes of the pencil were strong and sure as he drew in the sparkling eyes and upturned nose and bright smile just as he remembered them. Whether they were perfect or not, they were what made her Sakura to him. "You remind me of her."

They had that same kindness mixed with a fierce righteousness they used to chide him when he went astray. They saw the beautiful parts of the world when he couldn't see past the charnel and rot. They were so alive.

Hiyori began spluttering an incoherent stream of sounds and mangled words, and Yato didn't have to look over to know she was blushing crimson. Before she could find something coherent to say, new footsteps thumped up the stairs and into the room.

"Now I'm done," Yukine said, sounding rather cranky. "Bakagami. You don't always have to bother me while I'm working. Hi, Hiyori."

"H-h-hi," Hiyori squeaked.

Yato rolled onto his side to regard her with an amused quirk of his eyebrows, and thankfully his arm only gave a faint twinge in protest. It was healing nicely.

Yukine blinked at Hiyori and then scowled at Yato. "What did you do to her, idiot god?"

"Nothing!" Hiyori said too quickly as she scrambled to her feet and dusted off her skirt. If anything, the blush only darkened on her cheeks.

Yukine looked sufficiently skeptical. Yato pulled himself to his feet at a more leisurely pace and tossed the pencil onto the table. He paused, glancing between the drawing in his hand and the two children beside him. Sakura was gone with only memories and glamours to keep her alive, but Yukine and Hiyori were bright and vibrant and here. In that moment, he was more grateful for them than he'd ever been for anything else.

He threw his arms around them and pulled them in tight for a hug.

"Hey!" Yukine protested, whacking the god's side. "Let me go! You're all sweaty and gross."

Apparently Hiyori had been pushed too far, and this was the last straw. "Jungle savate!"

Yato went flying into the wall, and crumpled into a slightly dazed heap on the floor. He rubbed at his pulsing bruises with a groan. "You're so violent."

"Hm?" Yukine bent down to pick up the drawing that had fluttered back to the floor. He frowned down at it, his brows knitting together over curious eyes, as if searching for the answers to all the mysteries of the world in the pencil strokes.

Yato picked himself up and pulled the page from between Yukine's fingers. He didn't want to talk about the past anymore. He knew Yukine was curious about Sakura, maybe even a little jealous, and wanted to know everything, but he had been feigning ignorance of the child's interest ever since they'd killed the ayakashi wearing her face and he wasn't about to stop now.

"Heeey, now that we're finally all here, do you want to go out?" he asked brightly as he left the drawing on the table and steered his friends back out of the room and down the stairs. "Let's see if Kofuku and Daikoku want to come too!"

For today, he wanted to leave the past in the past. He was drunk on life today, and there was no one better to share the heady feeling with than the family he had found.

"Not too bad," Yukine admitted. He had always been a bit miserly with praise. Stingy brat. "Looks like we'll be able to get you back on your ayakashi quota starting tomorrow."

This was the point at which Yato began to backtrack hurriedly. "Wait, wait, I'm not feeling so good. Ahhh, I think my arm is falling off! Yukine, is my arm still there? I think I might be dying!"

Yukine shot him an unamused look and picked up the pace. "You killed that ayakashi just fine. Time to stop being useless and get back to work."

Yato had to increase his stride to catch up with the huffy boy as he turned the corner down the next street. It had seemed like a stroke of luck when they received a call about a job this morning—work had been slow, which was fine when Yato and Yukine were still recovering from their injuries but led to a cranky shinki if it went on too long—but Yato was starting to regret it.

"I'm not useless," he said, affronted. "I'm injured."

"At least that gave you more of an excuse than usual for why you're always so useless," Yukine muttered.

"Yukineee! That's meaaan!"

Yukine might have said something even meaner, but that was the moment the lion seemed to fall out of the sky and land on its paws right in front of them in the middle of the street. Yato suppressed a groan as Bishamon shifted on Kuraha's back and narrowed her eyes at him.

"Oh," she said. Her lips twisted in a little moue of disappointment. "You're still alive."

"You don't have to sound so disappointed," he muttered.

"I was rather hoping you'd succumb to your injuries so that I didn't have to deal with you anymore."

"I knew I should've traded you to Izanami."

Bishamon tossed her head, eyes bright with scorn. "As if you could have forced me to do anything. Speaking of Izanami, she hasn't bothered you again, has she?"

"Careful or I might start thinking you actually care about me." Yato smirked as Bishamon glared at him. "No, she hasn't tried anything else."

"Are you sure she'll let you go, though?" Yukine asked quietly.

Yato turned on the kid in mock surprise. "Careful there, Yukine, or I might start thinking you actually care about me!" The punch to the arm was totally worth it. "But in all seriousness, we made a deal and I don't think she'll break it."

Bishamon did not look impressed. "You tricked her."

"I beat her at her own game and she knows it. It's a valid deal by her own rules. Now, if I ever find my way into Yomi again, I'm sure she'll eat me for dinner and that will be the end of that. But I have no intention of going back down there and I'll keep my distance from vents when possible just in case. I don't think she'll interfere again unless I wind up back in her domain."

"If you say so," Bishamon said doubtfully.

Yato started walking again and strolled right past her with a smirk. "It's cute how much you worry about me."

"Ha! As if!"

"For what it's worth, she shouldn't mess with you either," he added as he walked away, Yukine hurrying after him. "I made her promise not to interfere with anyone involved with me, and she'll know you from last time. If she does try anything on you, bring that up."

"You did…what?"

Yato smirked to himself at the confusion in her voice. Crazy bitch. He raised a hand over his shoulder in farewell and didn't slow.

"Awww," Yukine said loudly, "it's cute how much you worry about her."

Yato came to a halt so fast that he nearly tripped over his own two feet and choked on air as he stared at the kid in horror. Yukine was wearing a satisfied smirk, the little imp.

"It has nothing to do with her!" Yato protested. "It's blanket protection for everyone. I just didn't think to exclude her like I should have."

"Uh-huuuh…"

Bishamon started up an extremely undignified cackle. "Your hafuri is so much more fun than you."

Yato stuck his nose in the air, thrust his shoulders back, and stomped off without another word. Let them think what they wanted. Yukine snickered quietly as he wove through the streets at the god's side, but Yato didn't bother speaking to him again until they were walking down the path overlooking the cherry tree.

Yato's feet slowed to a stop as he frowned down at the tree. It wasn't blooming anymore, of course, the branches devoid of the delicate pink flowers, but it still tugged at his heartstrings.

"Yato?" Yukine asked.

Yato chewed on his lip, torn with indecision, but then looked over to meet the kid's worried amber eyes. "If you go find some flowers, I'll tell you."

Yukine blinked at him once, twice, and his entire face screwed up in confusion. "Huh? What are you talking about?"

Yato shook his head, wondering if he was going to regret this spur-of-the-moment decision later. "Just go get some flowers, preferably pink ones. And then wait down by the tree when you're done and I'll meet up with you."

"W-wait, but–!"

Yato hopped off the path and took off down the grassy bank without a backwards glance. Leaving the kid behind to stew in his confusion, he made his way down to the river and got to work.

He stalked along the river's edge, crouched low to the ground, and searched the marshy banks for any flicker of movement. Five minutes of searching turned up a frog buried in a clump of reeds, but it was too big and not cute at all. Not good enough.

Then he finally spotted what he was looking for, but the little critter was fast! He spit out a tangle of censor-worthy words as he lurched forward and his boot disappeared into muck halfway up and water surged over the top to fill it up. But he managed to slap his hands over the tiny frog, and he held it carefully in the cage of his fingers as he retreated. His foot squelched wetly in his boot, but he couldn't very well take off his boot and empty it out while stuck holding the feisty frog.

Resigning himself to his fate, he squelched off back to the cherry tree. Yukine was already waiting by the base of the trunk, lost in thought as he frowned up at the branches. He was holding a bouquet of flowers with curling petals in all shades of pink.

"Wonderful," Yato said as he stepped up beside Yukine, who startled out of his thoughts and eyed the god first with surprise and then confusion tinged with wariness. "Those are perfect."

"What did you want flowers for?"

"She always liked them. You can put them there." Yato jerked his chin towards the base of the tree.

Yukine hesitated but then laid the bouquet carefully on the ground. The burst of pink brought a hint of life back to the barren tree.

"Who–?" He straightened and a strange look of almost-understanding flashed over his features. "Sakura?" he ventured, caution spilling into his voice and flooding his face.

"Yeah. Know what else she liked?"

Yato held out his hands. Yukine blinked at them but then held out his own to accept the offering. Yato's hands unfurled, and a tiny green blur leaped out the instant his fingers parted. It hit Yukine smack in the face, and the shinki's eyes went wide as dinner plates as an unholy screech tore its way out of his throat and he flailed about wildly.

"What the hell?" he wailed. "Get it off! Get it off!"

"Hey!" Yato clicked his tongue as the little frog went flying and disappeared somewhere in the grass. "He was supposed to go with the flowers."

He briefly considered a recovery mission, but it seemed like a lot of work and he'd had quite enough of frog hunting for the day. He didn't have the same patience for it that he'd had as a kid. Anyway, the poor thing was probably traumatized already.

Instead, he took advantage of his liberated hands to pull off his boot and shake out the water puddling inside it.

"What the hell was that for?" Yukine demanded in outrage.

"I used to collect things she liked and bring them to her." Yato bent over and tugged his boot back on, his hair falling across his face and shadowing his eyes. "Flowers and little frogs and other bits and baubles. They made her smile. I was a naïve kid, always trying to make people happy with stupid things. But as long as she liked them, there was no harm in it."

"You…" Yukine trailed off, at a loss. His anger had softened into something sadder and more unsure.

Yato stayed hunched over for a moment longer and smiled faintly down at the grass, his hands clammy against the wet leather. "I think she would have liked you."

It wasn't hard to fluster Yukine, and Yato wasn't surprised by the red staining the shinki's face when he finally straightened up again. But it was honest, and he briefly indulged himself in thoughts of Yukine and Sakura meeting, being a family with him. Silly thoughts since they each belonged to a different part of his life, but it brought a sad kind of smile to his lips anyway.

"Y-you don't have to tell me," Yukine mumbled, toeing at the ground and looking steadfastly down. "I know you don't want to talk about her."

"But you've been dying to ask, haven't you? I've known for a while. I was honestly going to keep ignoring it, but…" He shrugged and sighed. "I haven't ever told anyone about any of this. Hiyori figured out a bit of it on her own, but I didn't tell her much either. You understand?"

Yukine swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "I won't tell anyone."

"I know."

That was a given. The important part was what it meant to Yukine, not Yato. Yato was a lot of things, but stupid wasn't one of them. A bit oblivious sometimes, occasionally even painfully so, but not stupid. He noticed things. He had learned how his kid's brain worked.

Yukine could be insecure. He was troubled by talk of past shinki like Nora and had taken a keen interest in Sakura since learning of her. He hated finding out about secrets and felt like Yato didn't trust him when he learned of them. That had come to a head when Yato had run off to follow Father's orders one last time, and Yukine had been a mess afterwards.

It was impractical to tell Yukine everything—Yato had lived for a thousand years and had more than his fair share of secrets and pieces of his life that he didn't want to relive or share with anyone—and there were things Yato intended to take to his grave. But he could give the kid something small. Talking about Sakura could be painful, but it was a small price to pay to help Yukine out a little. And it wasn't like the kid didn't already know too much.

Yato was offering Yukine a small piece of his heart as a gesture of trust. And Yukine would recognize it for what it was, knowing how stingy Yato was with handing out personal information. Yato did not dole out such information easily and wouldn't do it for just anyone. But Yukine had earned his trust, and he would offer some of it back to him. Just a little.

"What did you mean about her being forced to cross the line?" Yukine's curiosity finally got the better of his nerves, and open curiosity was written across his face as he leaned forward.

Yato's lips tightened and the familiar tingle of guilt eased down his spine. That was something he couldn't explain to Yukine, and something he didn't want anyone to know. That Hiyori had found out was bad enough.

He didn't want to remember Sakura for her death, for the way she had twisted into a horrifying creature and wept to drown the world. He didn't want to remember the agony he had caused her and the cruel peace he had given her in the end. If his memories were his own glamour, if he chose what to keep alive, he wanted to remember Sakura smiling and laughing. He wanted to tell Yukine about the way Sakura had named him and tried to teach him a better way to live and been something like a mother or older sister. About how she smiled when he had brought her little gifts and told him that she was sure he'd have a shrine someday and showed him the beautiful parts of humanity and the world. About how she had blazed through his life like wildfire and left an indelible mark despite how short their time together had been. About how he still loved her and would never forget her and wanted to keep pieces of her alive in the ways he knew how.

Yukine was like a child sitting on the edge of his seat, squirming in eagerness to hear a story. He was so small and warm and bright, like a little ray of sunshine easing Yato's frigid heart. And Yato realized quite suddenly that this was how he wanted to remember Yukine. Not as that copycat ayakashi with the blade sliding between its ribs, the one that haunted his nightmares. He wanted to remember this Yukine, with all the snark and sass, the big eyes and shy smiles, the strictness and sweetness. The snow and sunshine, lights in the dark, hats with silly pompoms and coats pulled tight, casual insults and fond exasperation, twin blades forged in trust and loyalty.

Yato felt a surge of fondness for his kid, and a sharp sense of protectiveness. This was what he fought to protect.

"Not today," he said. "I don't want to talk about death today. Today I want to talk about life."

Note: And thus ends the obligatory philosophical musings/psychological evaluation section. I can't help myself lol

Well, that's it for this one :3