A/N: I know, I know, late update. Well, pfft.

I just want to say thanks for all the reviews and stuff I've been getting.

Anyway, on with the chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own Noragami

After Daikoku basically told Yato to go ("Bye, Yato"), he walked down the hall to see Kofuku. She glanced up as he walked in, and noticed his grim expression.

"Yato? What's up?" She asked, starting to get up.

"Nothing." He muttered through clenched teeth.

She frowned at his response and walked over to him. "Come on, don't lie. What's the matter?"

Yato sighed, closing his eyes, before opening them again. There was raw hatred and fury in them. "Nora's gonna pay." He spat, each word dripping with venom.

Kofuku knew where he was going with this. "Listen, Yato. We all want some kind of revenge on Nora for making Yukine suffer. But what you have in mind is violent, and too drastic."

"You don't know what I have in mi-"

The God of Poverty raised her hand to silence him. "You're planning on attacking her and possibly even killing her. Evil or not, you're still killing a person." She sighed. "Just…consider what you're doing before you take action. Don't do anything you'll regret."

Yato didn't say anything, mulling over Kofuku's words.

"Also," she added, "I know this is a cheesy line, but think about Yukine. He probably wants Nora to pay for what she did personally, but how would he react if he found out that his master had seriously hurt her or even killed her?"

"…"

"He'd be scared of you. And a true relationship between two people doesn't have any fear towards each other in it. And if he's scared of you, his blade won't be very sharp in battle, as his vision will be too clouded with fear to actually fight. Do you get me?"

Yato nodded.

Kofuku smiled. "Good. Honestly Yato, you're such a piece of work sometimes."

Yato managed a small smile. "I didn't realise you could be serious, Kofuku."

She shrugged. "Well, when dealing with you lot, I feel like a life coach, so I've got to be serious sometimes."

Yato gave a short bark of laughter before going silent, his eyes narrowing slightly.

The pink-haired god frowned. "What's the matter now?"

"You know, I'm pretty sure Nora acted out of jealousy."

"Jealousy? How so?"

"She said things, like how 'small and insignificant' Yukine's life was. She also kept going on about how he's going to die; like it was inevitable. She also said that she hurt him so I'd use her."

"Interesting."

Yato nodded. "I think she was jealous of Yukine and took drastic measures to try and get me to use her. Of course, now I want to kill her, and Yukine's going to live, so her little plan didn't exactly work out."

"…You sound certain that Yukine's going to live."

Yato tensed, locking eyes with Kofuku, before she lowered her gaze to the floor. "And what do you mean by that? Don't tell me you think he's going to die!"

"…I…just don't know. Like you said, Nora thought that Yukine's death was inevitable. And sure, he was pretty beat up, but he's recovering as we speak. It was only flesh wounds and blight. They can be healed."

"Well, actually…" Yato trailed off, but Kofuku instantly sensed he was hiding something.

"What?"

"...Yukine's got some sort of poison in him. Presumably, Nora's got the antidote."

"How could you not tell me this?!"

"I told Daikoku not long ago. Hiyori no doubt knows now, as well. I meant to tell you all as soon as possible, but this whole thing's just stressful and I kept putting it off, you know? You were all already miserable about Yukine's condition, so telling you it's worse will just make everyone even more down."

"I see your reasoning, but you should have told us."

Yato hung his head. "I know."

"Hey, don't be sad. Was there anything else Nora said that might help us get the antidote? Presuming she has one, of course."

"Well…she did say that she would 'give Yukine some time to die', and then come and ask me to use her again."

"Wow…she seems really confident that Yukine will die."

"I know." Yato clenched his fists. "It's sickening."

"…"

"So what should we do?"

"She'll probably show up here or somewhere nearby. If she does…" Kofuku trailed off, unsure of what to say next.

"Then we act like Yukine's getting worse, or died. We trick her into thinking that she's winning, and then say something like 'how could you create such a nasty poison and then not bother with an antidote'. If she mentions that she does have an antidote, then there's two ways to go about it. If it's on her, then we could forcefully take it. If it's not on her, then we retreat and somehow find it."

Kofuku raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure that will work?"

Yato shrugged. "I don't know; I just thought of it off the top of my head."

"Wow. So you can be smart."

The former god of calamity playfully punched her shoulder. "Shut up."

Meanwhile, Hiyori and Daikoku were taking a fifteen-minute break before working on the final stage of getting rid of Yukine's blight. They'd originally planned to the do it straight after the rest, but Hiyori felt exhausted, and no doubt the internal cleansing would hurt a lot more than the external cleaning, thus more work to restrain the poor boy. So they thought that a short break would restore some of their energy.

She went to the bathroom to go to the toilet and splash some water on her face. When she returned, Daikoku was gazing out the window, looking thoughtful.

"Something on your mind?" She asked as she walked in.

He glanced at her, before shaking his head. "It's nothing. Are you ready now?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

Nodding, Daikoku crouched down beside Yukine, before frowning. "Should we wake him?"

"What?"

"Should we wake him up while he drinks it? It would make things easier." Daikoku reasoned.

"True…alright then." Hiyori leant down and gently shook Yukine's shoulder. "Yukine? Can you hear me?"

All she got in response was a slight twitch of his fingers. Sighing, she tried again. "Hey, you need to wake up. Come on."

Yukine groaned, cracking one eye open. A blurry figure was hovering over him. He could make out brown hair, as his vision was a bit clearer than earlier, but still blurry.

"C'n y' h'r m'?" Was all that reached his ears. It was distorted and obviously missing a few sounds.

"-ne? Yuk'ne? H'y, can y' h'r me?" His hearing was slowly improving as his senses gradually came back to him.

The person above him said something that he didn't catch, and then said, "Plea'e fo'us."

He closed his eyes, focusing what little energy he had (he felt surprisingly drained) into his hearing.

"-clos'd his e'es. 'M not 'ure." He felt someone shake his shoulder. "Are 'ou awa'e?"

There was a short silence, before the voice came again, "Yuk'ne. O'en your eyes." He understood most of that sentence, and obeyed.

As he opened his eyes, he saw the person above him open her mouth and a distorted noise came out of it. He guessed it was a sigh, but now his hearing had gone bad again because his eyes were open. He was so tired; couldn't the person just let him go to sleep?

Hiyori sighed with relief as Yukine slowly opened his eyes. He'd scared her when he closed them; she thought he'd passed out or something. His eyes were glazed over when he looked up. In fact, they were unfocused, so she guessed he wasn't even looking up. His eyesight was probably blurry. He also looked like he was having a hard time listening.

"Okay, Daikoku, you can come back over now." She'd sent him a few metres away so Yukine didn't feel cramped if there were two people kneeling over him. "We better start. He looks exhausted; not to mention his body needs rest in order to recover."

Daikoku nodded, preparing the bottle of holy water. They weren't going to make him take sips from the lid; he just had to drink it straight from the bottle.

Hiyori gently wrapped a hand underneath Yukine's shoulders, and then slowly moved him into an upright position so he wouldn't choke on the holy water. His eyebrows creased into a frown as he was moved, but he remained silent.

The brown-haired girl knew there was no way he could open his mouth on his own, so, with her free hand, she opened his mouth and Daikoku placed the neck of the bottle on Yukine's bottom lip, and very slowly tilted the bottle upwards, letting the liquid inside enter Yukine's mouth.

Automatically, he tried to swallow, but found he struggled with that quite a bit. Hiyori pressed a couple of points on his neck and throat, and he managed to swallow the holy water.

Almost immediately, his eyes widened and his body went rigid, a silent scream on his lips. Both people grimaced at the sight. Neither of them wanted to do this; but it was helping out a friend in need. They had to do this.

Hiyori didn't like it at all. She didn't like how much pain Yukine was in. She didn't like the fact that she had to cause some of that pain, even if it would make him better. She didn't like how this whole thing was partially her fault. If only she'd gone after him instead of staying behind, then she could have helped him fight Nora, or prevent the confrontation entirely.

This was just one little sip, the brunette thought miserably, he probably has to drink the entire bottle. I can't even imagine how painful this must be for him. But at least we know it must be working.

She was drawn out of her thoughts when she noticed Yukine's eyes drooping. "No," she muttered, before saying to him in a clear voice, "Don't fall asleep, Yukine. Stay awake." His eyelids slowly opened, eyebrows creased into a pained frown.

"That's it. Don't fall asleep." Hiyori coaxed. She could tell the blonde boy was struggling to stay awake, but he had to. They had to get rid of the poison as soon as possible, and the blight was part of it.

Daikoku brought the bottle to Yukine's mouth again, and once Hiyori had opened it, he poured some more holy water down Yukine's throat. This time, though, it seemed that Yukine had found his voice, as he screamed and started weakly flailing about. Hiyori held him down as best as she could, and once he calmed down, they repeated the cycle. It was a simple cycle, but it was so hard for them to do.

This lasted for about half an hour, as each sip and the after-effects took about three minutes, but the bottle was nearly empty. Yukine didn't sound like he was in as much pain as when they started, but it still hurt him.

Little did they know, Yato was stood quietly outside the room, listening to his only Regalia's cries of pain, fists clenched and itching for revenge.

A/N: Chapter complete!

Don't worry; Yukine's not going to be suffering toomuch in the next few chapters. Maybe.

I don't have anything else to say, except I hope you like this story.