~Yato~
I was sleeping comfortably on my new bed when I heard a tapping on the window next to me. I tried to ignore it and continue sleeping until it got to the point where it could have woken Yukine. I slowly sat up and looked through the window.
"Are you kidding me?" I whispered to her, even though she couldn't hear me as she tilted her head a little.
I groaned, getting out of bed and throwing on my clothes. Since I still didn't want the cool air from the window waking Yukine on the other bed, I stuck out of our room and quietly went out the front door. In fact, I really hope he doesn't wake otherwise he'll have a freak out finding himself alone in the dark. After I exited the building, I saw her standing not too far from it, waiting just for me.
"What do you want, Nora?" I asked harshly. "And seriously, you already know where I live?"
She stared into my eyes, tilting her head again. "Call me by my real name please. We're too close to use my stage name." she requested.
"Yeah, like what you do is a real show." I muttered, staring into her soulless eyes silently until she finally gave in and changed the subject.
"Why have you joined a guild?"
"Of course you already know that too." I snapped, throwing my arms in the air as I began to pace around a little. Nora remained silent, I guess she literally wanted an answer. I hated myself for giving in so easily, but I ended up telling her everything that had happened. The whole time she didn't interrupt, giving me her complete full attention until I was finished.
"He's not happy with you." she stated.
"Like I care."
"Yato. You know what he's capable of. He could take out your two...friends if he desired."
"Well, he hasn't yet so obviously he's got some big reason not to. Look, you woke me up from sleeping in a bed for the first time in years so I'm starting to get more and more pissed off as we speak. Are we done here?" I asked, feeling more annoyed than anything as I began to walk away, mentally and physically tired of this conversation.
"Fine." she giggled. "But one last thing Yato. I heard that someone is out for your guild."
I turned back to her. "Are you threatening me?"
"I'm not, but it seems like someone else is gonna do more than just threaten you and your friends. I thought you should know."
"Wait what? Who? When?" I demanded.
She giggled, again. "That would ruin the surprise my dear Yato." then she skipped past me.
"Hey wait!" I yelled, but knew it was no use. Soon Nora left my sight, leaving me standing in front of Hiyori's -well our- apartment.
After I snuck back inside of our home and quietly walked to our room, I laid back down and looked over to Yukine to make sure I didn't wake him. He looked totally knocked out, but he did shiver a little. I decided to push the blanket off of my own body and walk over to his bed to let him use it instead. After he got snuggled in the larger amount of blanket, his body stopped shaking. I smiled a little, despite being a bit chilled myself.
"Can I come in?" I heard Hiyori ask from outside of our room.
"It's too early for that." I groaned, feeling exhausted after being forced to wake up in the middle of the night.
"But I have breakfast." she added. I shot out of bed and threw myself at the door, opening it widely.
"C'mon in." I welcomed, but finding that she only had a few granola bars. "Where's the rest?"
"Rest of what?" she asked.
"The rest of breakfast!" I told.
"This is breakfast!" she snapped back.
"No." I poked at the two bars in her hands. "That's a snack. I wanted an actual meal."
She closed her eyes for a minute and looked pretty irritated. Meanwhile, Yukine was finally beginning to get up.
She opened her eyes back up and aggressively set the bars down.
"Fine. You can make yourself something. I'm gonna head on over to the guild." she then stormed out of the room and a few moments later we heard her slam the apartment door closed.
"Way to go, Yato. First time we get to eat breakfast and you have to be a bitch about it." Yukine spoke up.
I sighed, being irritated that she overreacted so much. All I wanted was some actual food since we finally lived in a house and all.
"Sorry." I apologized, grabbing the granola bars left for us on the table. "Let's start motivating to meet her at the guild."
In about the total of less than thirty minutes, both me and Yukine entered the guild. It's been a little over a week, but I was still getting used to having a home. Or, I guess this was my second home since the three of us shared an apartment. I smiled, putting my hands in my pockets. Two homes.
"Can you believe it?" I accidentally pondered out loud.
"Believe what?" Yukine asked.
"Nothing little buddy." I replied as I patted his head a little, in which he responded with swatting my arm away.
Not long after, we met up with Hiyori who looked a little disappointed.
"Guys," she began. "There's no more easy jobs available. The board's full of missions that require actual magic and fighting." she sighed, with her shoulders hunched over.
Yukine turned around and began to walk away. "I'm going home then." he stated, giving the two of us a wave. I pulled him back before he could get too far.
"Whoa there, why don't we just ask gramps over there by the bar if we can go on a harder mission."
"Yeah I think we've done enough easy jobs." Hiyori agreed.
"Okay fine." Yukine mumbled, probably feeling embarrassed that I was parenting him so much.
The three of us walked up to master and sat down around him.
"What do you kids want?" he asked, being able to tell from our faces that we weren't here to have a casual conversation.
"So there's no easy missions left." I stated.
"Guess you guys get the day off."
"Or... we could maybe try some harder ones?" I asked as nicely as possible.
"No."
"But master! We've been doing easy missions all week, I think we're ready for something that requires us to use our actual skills." Hiyori argued.
"No means no you two. And you I guess." he glanced over at Yukine who didn't seem very interested in the conversation.
"But why not?" she asked.
"Because I don't think you've truly recovered yet Hiyori."
"What?! I'm totally fine and-"
"We don't need to risk you getting re-injured to find that out." master stated. I felt bad for her, I hope she didn't blame herself for this. Now that I thought about it however, I was beginning to feel drained due to the fact that I used to only do maybe one job a week.
"Well, guess we just gotta accept our fate, Hiyori." I told her and receiving a confused look. Yukine shrugged, agreeing with me. "C'mon, a day off can't be awful right? Let's go to Capypa land!" I cheered as the three of us went to sit down at a table in the guild hall.
"No." Yukine decided.
"Why not?" I complained. Truthfully, I've never been able to go but I've always wanted to. I see ads for it all the time and they always say that I could meet a real Capypa…
"Yato," Hiyori started seriously. "that's really far from here. If we were gonna go, it'd be for a lot longer than one day."
"Well that's okay, what if there isn't any easy jobs available for a while?"
"I'm with Yukine on this one, we can't just drop hundreds of dollars to go take a vacation!" she argued and I began to sulk a little.
"Fine. Then what else are we gonna do?" I asked.
"Who says we have to do anything?" Yukine answered my question with another question. "I don't know about you two, but I think I want a day to myself." he stood up and gave me and Hiyori a wave. "Later."
"Where do you think he's going?" she asked.
I shrugged. "Beats me." I smirked a little. "Wanna go to Capypa land?" she then gave me a 'really?' look and got up in silence.
"Hiyori don't leave me!" I whined, stretching out my arm hopelessly to her. She continued walking away anyway and I watched her leave the guild. I sighed, coming to a loss of what to do.
~Hiyori~
"Open, gate of the martial artist, Tono!" I yelled as I summoned Tono at home. I decided to dedicate today for some training. After all, Tono insisted that I learned some fighting moves from him.
He gave me a bow. "Hello Miss Hiyori. Ready for training to begin?"
I gave him a nod. "Yes. But how long did you want to train? Cause I was hoping that later today I could train with Cyclone a little bit too."
"I'm not too familiar with time in this world. We're gonna train for however long it takes until we've made some progress."
"Right." I replied back.
4 hours later I laid on the floor, barely breathing. "Can we, maybe, take a break now?" I asked through inhales and exhales.
He stood above me, barely breaking a sweat.
"I guess. Actually, I think we'll call it off for today. I have composed a list of materials you should go out and buy in order to make this training meaningful." he replied, handing me a piece of paper. All of that wasn't meaningful?!
"Okay." I said as calmly as possible while I accepted the list from Tono. I began to read it and looked at the prices. "Tono! This is gonna cost a fortune!"
He shrugged. "Do you want to be a stronger wizard or not? You know they say that a celestial wizard's weakest point is their own physical body. Miss Hiyori, do you want to be that venerable?" he asked, looking right into my hot pink eyes.
I looked away awkwardly. "No…"
"Then go out and buy all of the items I've requested."
"Yes sir." I whined, giving in as I said goodbye to him and my money.
I shopped around until about sunset. I looked over the list again, checking to make sure I got everything Tono asked for. "Looks about right." I mumbled.
"Hm?" I heard someone say as they stopped walking past me. I turned back to find that someone to be Yukine.
"Oh, hi Yukine!" I greeted, he gave a little smirk.
"Hey. Spent your day shopping I see." he said, looking down at the dozens of bags I was struggling to carry.
"Just about, although I did spend a lot of time training with Tono. He's really intense! It's gonna make me a better wizard by the end however." I replied.
"Good. I guess." he responded and I realized how he looked...different somehow.
"Are you okay, Yukine?" I asked.
He gave me a serious look. "Yeah."
"Alright…" I replied, not sure if I believed him or not. "Hey! There's this really cool place I want to show you, it's not too far from here actually."
He shrugged. "Okay."
We walked awkwardly in silence for the whole way there as we crossed over a bridge and stopped at the top of the little grassy hill.
"See? Look at the sunset from here. It's such a beautiful view, especially with that river down there." I told as we began to move down the hill a little.
"Well the pretty view got ruined by that over there." Yukine stated, pointing to the bottom of the hill where Yato stood, heaving as he leaned onto his katana.
"Yato?!" I said, surprised to find him here. He finally noticed us and gave me and Yukine a wave.
"Yo. Decided to spend some time training and it took at least an hour, but I found this quiet place. Well, it was deserted and peaceful until you two showed up." he replied while wiping some sweat off his forehead with his 'fluffy-fluff scarf' (as he called it).
"Could say the same to you." Yukine mumbled. I began to feel the tension form and tried to resolve it.
I put my bags down and went to sit along the hill. "How about we watch the sunset here and then go get something to eat at the guild?" I offered.
"Sure. I'm starvin'." Yato replied as he went to take a seat by me. Yukine reluctantly came over too and the three of us sat in silence until we could barely see the sun.
"Alright, close enough. Can we go now?" Yukine asked as he zipped up his jacket. Yato stood up too.
"Sure thing buddy, starting to get too cold out here for you?" he asked, patting Yukine's head.
Yukine stepped away. "No, just bored is all." he replied, avoiding eye contact with both of us.
"Aren't you a snow user?" I pondered. "You would think they wouldn't get cold."
"I just do, okay?!" he snapped and Yato gave me a look that said 'don't push it'. I kept my mouth shut about that and picked up all of my bags.
"Alright, let's go." I said, hoping that maybe one of them would help carry my dozens of bags but of course they didn't.
On the way there however, we stopped by my-well our- apartment to drop off all of my items. So, it took some extra time to finally make it to the guild and by the time we got there, Yato looked like he was gonna collapse.
"You shouldn't be this weak." Yukine started. "We've gone days without eating before." I laughed, amused by his insult.
Yato stuttered as he tried to defend himself. "Well I've, I've gotten so used to, uh, eating three times a day so now it's hard to go without eating for over, a long time."
I was still laughing, and Yukine was sort of smiling too, being proud of his own comment. We took a seat at a table and right away got some food. Yato and Yukine, like usual, wolfed their meals in about five minutes and sat at the table, awkwardly watching me eat.
"You take forever Hiyori." Yato stated, looking bored.
"I'm sorry I actually try to eat at a normal pace." I replied back. "If you're so bored, how about you two find some game to play or something?"
Yato and Yukine looked at eachother and nodded. "Alright, we'll go see what we can find. This is a guild right? There's gotta be plenty." Yato responded as they stood up and left.
Just as I finished eating, the two of them came back running. Yato pushed my plate to the side quickly and set down a box on the table.
"What did you guys find?" I asked, then looked down at the label to see for myself. "Jenga?"
"Have you ever played before?" he asked.
I pursed my lips as I tried to remember. "I think so, it was a long time ago."
"Then you should teach me because I've never actually played before but it looks so cool! The big buff guy started explaining it to me and it sounds so fun!" Yato cheered, clearly he was eager to play. "Although, I don't know why that guy said it was a 'manly' game…" he wondered.
"You mean Elfman?" I asked and he nodded. Of course it was. I looked over to Yukine. "Have you played before?"
"No." he answered.
"Well, I think I remember the rules. It's really not too hard." I said as we began to set the game up. "Okay, first we gotta stack all of these pieces on top of each other in groups of three." I explained. Elfman then came over and stood by our table.
"You guys playing a real man's game?!" he asked, clearly interested in what we were doing.
"Yep. Just started." I told him. He ended up still staying as he watched our game of jenga begin.
"Alright, so what we do is one of us pulls out a piece and puts it back on top, and then the next person does the same thing until the tower collapses. Does that make sense?" I asked and they both nodded.
"Let's get this show on the road!" Yato exclaimed, deciding he would be the first to go. Right away our game ended as he pulled out the bottom piece way too fast. Me and Yukine sighed as he watched our tower fall with a confused look on his face. "What did I do wrong?"
Yukine shook his head. "You pulled out the piece way too fast idiot! Of course the tower was gonna fall like that."
"I'll come back later when you guys have figured the game out." Elfman commented, leaving the three of us.
Yato tried to laugh it off a little as he looked embarrassed. "Can we try again?"
"Sure." I answered. We set up the game again and this time, it went much better than the first. However, the tower still collapsed when it was Yato's turn.
"Damnit." he muttered and then he began to quickly picked up the pieces again.
"We're going for another round?" Yukine asked.
"Well I don't want the tower to fall when it's my turn." Yato replied. Yukine looked to me and I shrugged.
"We got nothing better to do, so I guess why not." I commented as I started to help him pick up the pieces and set the game up again.
By the sixth time around, all three of us were getting really good. Before we knew it, everyone here at the guild stood around us as we had to be standing up on our chairs to reach the top of the jenga tower.
"How many stories do you guys have?!" Loke asked.
Levy gave him an answer. "They're on thirty-six!" she exclaimed. There were a lot of 'wow's and 'amazing's being spoken among the crowd. All three of us didn't focus on the people watching too much though. We were all incredibly glued to the game, trying to keep it alive as long as possible.
The tower barely survived Yato's previous move as it stood on a single piece, and I knew it was gonna be the end. I analyzed every possible move, but nothing seemed like it would work. I heard people whispering among the crowd, and I could tell they were worried too.
I finally gave in and pulled out a piece around bottom that looked most likely to survive, but of course it didn't.
It almost felt like slow motion as everyone cringed away from the falling tower. I sighed, but Yato on the other hand was actually excited.
"Ha! It didn't fall on me this time! Take that Hiyori!" he cheered, meanwhile everyone else walked away disappointed.
"Oh wow, it's already almost midnight!" Levy noted.
"Well," I began as we picked up the pieces once again. "let's go put this away and close up the guild."
"Are you sure, Hiyori?" Mirajane asked. "I can shut down the guild tonight, you guys provided an awesome source of entertainment after all!"
I smiled. "It's no big deal really, we got it."
"Okay, we'll leave you three to it then!" she replied as everyone began to leave the guild.
"Sounds good!" I responded as me, Yato and Yukine began to go return jenga to wherever they found it.
We opened up the closet at the end of the guild hall and found many other games stacked inside of it.
"Wow. Who knew we had this many games?" I asked, shocked by amount.
"We just joined, so us two didn't, obviously." Yato commented. I shrugged and reached to the top shelf to place the game back on top.
"Well that was fun, we should do that again sometime." I replied.
"Yeah, and maybe we can get the tower to collapse on Yukine." Yato smirked and I laughed a little as Yukine turned away.
"Whatever, you losers don't stand a chance against me." he snapped, and I began to laugh even more along with Yato joining in.
"I look forward to the challenge little buddy."
By the time we came back to the center room, the hall was completely empty.
"Guess it's just us left." my voice echoed across the large room.
"Let's shut down the place." Yukine stated. I nodded and grabbed the keys left on the table where we played jenga.
"I suppose we just lock the doors, turn off the lights, and call it good?" I wondered.
"It's your responsibility, Hiyori." Yato said, receiving an eye roll from me as I thought about how lazy he could be sometimes.
Right when I went to grab the keys however, all three of us stopped moving as we heard a loud sound coming our way.
Suddenly the guild hall doors were forced open. No, more like the guild walls were completely torn apart as a giant metal rod flew in, landing not too far from where we stood.
"What the hell was that?!" Yukine yelled as we all went into defense mode. Me whipping out my keys, Yato pulling out his katana, and Yukine beginning to form some snow magic to prepare for whatever was coming.
"It's an ambush, obviously!" Yato screamed. We heard the sound of another one flying in, and the three of us each jumped out of the way to escape it, causing me and Yukine to land on the right of the iron rod while Yato leapt to the left of it.
I jumbled through my keys, trying to decide which one to use.
"How are we supposed to fend off these things?!" I asked loudly.
"We're not! We've gotta retreat!" Yato exclaimed, frantically looking around like all of us were doing as we tried to anticipate the next attack.
"What?!" I screamed. "We can't just leave, we've gotta defend the guild hall somehow!" This was like our second home. This was one of the last things left of my family. I looked over to the third table in the second row. That's where me and my parents shared our first meal together as three wizards. This was the place where I remember seeing Erza come into our lives for the first time as she covered one of her eyes with a white bandage. This was the place where I remember seeing many of our best guild members come to Fairy Tail for the first time.
This was also where I spent the last moments with my parents, hugging them as they left for another mission. Well, their last mission…
And this is the place where me and Yato got to converse for the first time. Right now, Yato had a much sadder look in his eyes than he did that night.
"Look around you, Hiyori. The place is already destroyed."
I let go of my keys, not realizing how hard I was holding onto them.
"Okay, let's try to find a way to escape before another one comes for us." I sighed as we three ran to the front. We slowly climbed over the iron rod by the doors and then picked up the pace again as we fled from the guild.
"Shouldn't we go tell the master, or at least somebody in the guild of what we just survived?" Yukine asked.
"No, we can't." Yato answered.
"What?! Yukine's right," I started. "we have to tell someone, we were-"
"Tell them what Hiyori? That we let the guild hall, everyone's second home get demolished?" he snapped.
"It wasn't our fault! Like you said, we were completely ambushed! And you were the one who told us to retreat!" I argued.
"We just can't...I'm sorry but I won't allow it." he stated.
"Who do you think you are, we don't have to take orders from you-" Yukine began but Yato interrupted once again.
"Just please," he started, his voice wavering as though he were on the brink of crying. "please just listen to me on this one."
"Fine." Yukine pouted. I remained silent and as did the other two the rest of the way back to our apartment, dreading when the rest of the guild found out about what happened to Fairy Tail.
A/N: And we have arrived at the Phantom Lord arc!
I got the idea of them playing jenga since in the ending of Noragami Aragoto it shows Yato playing jenga so I figured, why not?
Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and thanks for reading!
If you want, feel free to review or ask any questions XD
I got some Teen Wolf to catch up on now, wish me luck lol