A/N: I finally thought of Yukine's plan! Well, actually im just making it up as I go along, but they're the same thing, right?

Also, thanks to ANONymous for your comment! You're the first!

On with the chapter~

Disclaimer: I do not own Noragami

Yato gazed out the window, lost in thought. Yukine didn't know as much as he did about…everything, really. And then he had the nerve to go round complaining about how he ran his business! But the god couldn't supress the feeling of guilt within him. Maybe he had been too rough on the kid. After all, it usually took an hour or so before he'd come back, after having calmed down somewhere else. But he'd been gone for nearly two hours now, and Yato kept getting the feeling that Yukine wasn't alone.

Shrugging, Yato got to his feet and climbed out the window, jumping up to the roof of Kofuku's house. He was surprised to see Hiyori already there.

"Oh, hi Yato." She murmured, although she seemed distracted.

"Hey." He sat down beside her, and a silence descended upon them.

Eventually, Hiyori glanced at him and asked, "Are you worrying about Yukine?"

Yato met her gaze. "Nah, he can handle himself." He returned his gaze to the space in front of him and added, "He's a tough kid."

Hiyori smiled softly at him. Even though he wouldn't admit it, she knew Yato was concerned about the lateness of Yukine's return. She wanted to go look for him, but Yato would only hold her back and say he needed to calm down or something like that.

"If he's not back in, say, half an hour, then we'll go look for him, 'kay?" She suggested slowly, unsure of his reaction.

However, she was surprised when Yato nodded, as if unable to speak. Strange, she thought.

"Yeah, sure," he said, although his voice was quiet. He looked at her with unease in his eyes. "I get the feeling he's not alone, and possibly in danger, but I'm not sure if that's true or not."

Hiyori patted his back comfortingly. "Don't worry; it's like you said. He's a tough kid, and he can handle himself."

Yato nodded, feeling like a weight had been lifted off his chest at telling someone about his bad feeling.

Meanwhile, Yukine gripped a large branch in his hand, although not large enough that it was too heavy. It was around the length of his weapon form, actually. He kept casting small borders, ignoring the pain it caused on his injured arm. He repeated it over and over at different angles on one end, until it was sharp enough and looked like a rough spear.

When he'd finished this, he clenched the makeshift spear tightly in both hands, and closed his eyes. He searched in his mind's eyes for the light that shone within him; the same light he used to make borderlines.

Taking a deep breath, he focused on this light, gently drawing it out and slowly sending it into the branch. Borderlines are essentially this light made thin and sharp, but strong and effective, like a shield of unbreakable ice. But if he focused on making the light softer, but equally as strong, then he could send it into the branch without causing it to break.

He opened his eyes when he felt enough of his power in the branch that it would be effective against the phantom below him.

"Two heads, three tails, six legs, but only one heart…if you could even say that phantoms had hearts." Yukine mumbled under his breath. "My guess is that where their heart would be is their core. If that's destroyed, the phantom will die. Then again, this might be completely wrong. But it's worth a shot."

Glancing down, he saw the tiger phantom pacing below the tree, tails lashing from side to side.

Taking another deep breath, he dropped down from the branch he was sat on, aiming straight for the phantom. It noticed the movement, and growled. But at the last second, it jumped to the side, just out of reach for Yukine's jump to have any effect.

But the Regalia had predicted as much, and as soon as he landed, he turned on his good heel and shot the branch straight into the phantom's chest.

Caught off guard, it couldn't do much as the light within the branch seeped out, destroying the phantom from the inside out.

With a small puff, the phantom disappeared, dead.

Panting from both exhaustion and pain, Yukine fell unceremoniously to the floor, and gripped his blighted ankle. Climbing a tree was one thing, but jumping from a tree and landing on his feet was a lot more painful.

"Well done, Yukine. Impressive indeed. I definitely wouldn't have thought of that, I have to admit." Nora praised, walking towards him. "I think that deserves a little break, don't you agree? You look like you need it. But only twenty minutes, alright? And you can't leave this clearing." She walked right past him, heading into the trees.

All Yukine could do was sit and try to regain his lost energy.

~Twenty minutes later~

Yato was getting restless. He kept getting slight, dull pains in various parts of his body, but there was never any injury. It only made the feeling that Yukine was in trouble grow worse. But the pain was very faint, and fairly distant, which meant that Yukine was a fair distance away.

Ten more minutes, he said to himself, then I'll go look with Hiyori.

"Just…hang on 'til then, Yukine…" He mumbled under his breath.

"Did you say something, Yato?" Hiyori asked.

He shook his head and forced a smile. "No, nothing at all."

"Step Five now, Yukine, of my plan. Are you ready for it?" Nora asked innocently, but with a small amount of sadisticness in her voice.

Sighing, Yukine nodded, even though he could do with some holy water, a first aid kit and about three days of rest. Just get it over with, he told himself. If there was three 'Steps' in 'Easy Level', then hopefully there's only three in 'Medium Level'. I hope there isn't a 'Hard Level'; God knows how I'll survive that.

Getting to his feet, Yukine prepared himself for the next attack.

Nora smiled, knowing plain well that the chances of the blonde boy surviving this round were about fifty-fifty. "Alright then." She clicked her fingers, and six phantoms appeared. They were neon yellow, with red eyes and sharp stingers. They strongly resembled giant wasps.

Nora stepped back, allowing the phantoms to advance.

Yukine prepared to perform a border, but one of the wasps moved with lightning-fast speed. He reflexively jumped back, regretting not preparing another branch-spear. The other one had snapped when the tiger phantom exploded.

He cast a border, and the first wasp recoiled a bit. Satisfied that that would hold them, he decided to count them, just in case.

One…two, three…four…fi- His thoughts were cut short as he felt something thin and sharp enter his right upper-arm. A stinger. Damn, one of the wasp-phantoms got past my border. A cold fire spread through his body, and he gasped in shock and pain.

"Nora! What…the hell…is thi-AH!" He felt another stinger enter his left upper-arm, and he staggered. But neither of the stingers were removed. It was an uncomfortable feeling, to have something in your arm that wasn't normally there. It didn't belong there. It felt like a needle jab, except the needle wasn't removed.

His attention distracted, the border vanished, and the other four wasps buzzed loudly, approaching him.

With both of his arms completely useless, hanging by his sides numbly, Yukine couldn't do much as the numbness slowly spread through the rest of his body. The wasps were too quick to try and avoid, especially with the added weight of the first two by his shoulders.

However, he still struggled, but stopped when he felt yet another stinger enter his left thigh. Gasping in pain, he dropped to the floor, unable to stand up straight (not that he was stood up straight to begin with anyway). Seeing this as a 'golden opportunity', the other three wasp-phantoms flew right to him.

The first one of the three went for his right thigh, while the other two went for his stomach and chest. No, he thought desperately, don't sting me! Go away! Go! I don't like it, it hurts and it's uncomfortable! Shoo!

But he watched helplessly as three more stingers entered him, and the pain within his body escalated to an unbearable point.

"Alright, off you go now." With a wave, the wasps disappeared, and Yukine fell onto his stomach, lifting his head up to glare at Nora, who was now approaching him with a wicked smile on her face.

"How does it feel? Does it hurt?" She asked. Yukine wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and let the tempting darkness claim him. But he couldn't. He couldn't give Nora the satisfaction of knowing she'd made him pass out.

She crouched down beside him and said, "I bet it does hurt. Do you want to know what's in your system, Yukine?"

He hated how she used his name. It made him want to hit her even more. "It can't be poison, I know that much. Phantoms don't have poison; only blight."

"Mmm…half right." She hummed. "You see, those stingers originally only contained blight. But I got my hands on some poison," she added emphasis to the word as if to make sure Yukine didn't forget it, "and decided to run a little…experiment."

"What…sort of…experiment?" He forced out between strained breaths.

"I made the phantoms drink lots of the poison. After all, only gods, alongside Regalias, can kill them, right? I've been dying to see if it worked or not, and it appears it did! If left untreated, you won't last long. Don't worry; I'll make it as painful as possible."

As if her words were a trigger, the pain in Yukine's body suddenly rose so that black spots danced across his vision. I'm going to pass out in a minute, he thought miserably.

Meanwhile, Yato and Hiyori were dashing through the forest, leaving five minutes earlier than planned because the pain Yato felt got a lot worse.

Yato suddenly gasped and tripped, falling over as he panted, gritting his teeth. Hiyori stopped and hurried back to him.

"Yato! Are you alright?" She asked worriedly.

"We're getting closer…the pain got worse…" he trailed off, struggling to get to his feet. Ignoring the pain racking his body, although it couldn't have been as bad as Yukine's, he declared, "Come on, let's pick up the pace. My body will get used to it soon, and we won't be able to track him using my pain." It was a weird thing to say, but that didn't matter.

Both of them picked up the pace, desperate to reach Yukine and know what was wrong with him.

Yukine couldn't stay awake any longer. His eyelids were drooping, and the darkness was filling his vision. He gathered his energy to make one final thought before he passed out. He hoped Yato could hear it, wherever he was.

Yato and Hiyori saw a clearing coming up, and hoped they would find their missing friend there. But just as they were about to enter it, Yato stopped short as he heard a faint voice in his head. He instantly knew who it belonged to, and frantically stopped Hiyori and shushed her. He listened to the voice intently.

Ya…to…m'…sorry…it…was…Nor…a…

A/N: And I'm stopping it here. Cause I'm me. Hooray. Also, it's a long chapter. Words.

The light-into-branch thingy and the poison-plus-blight-in-phantom thingy are both probably so wrong it's funny.

Don't attack me with comments of 'dat so wrong, silly author-chan' or something like that (even though I'm pretty sure no-one would ever say that), just…lightly correct me, yeah? Cheers.

Bye for now~