"So. You're the one Heaven is in an uproar over."
The voice whispers through the air, breathless, insidious.
It carries with all the liquid grace of a snake, caressing his skin with it's venomous curiosity. He is not afraid, but still, he cannot help a shiver of trepidation pass through his spine.
A deathly white smile flashes at him, teeth sharpened to needle-like points.
"Does this appearance unnerve you, child?" the voice asks, tone sultry and amused. A bony finger comes to rest against his clavicle, ice cold and sharp. He instinctively flinches away from it, prompting a high, cold laugh.
"I'm fine," he mutters defiantly. In truth, his skin is crawling, but he won't give any god the satisfaction of his discomfort.
"Poor, lost little boy," the voice croons, taking his face between it's awful, skeletal hands. "You gave everything you had, didn't you? And in the end, you were abandoned, forgotten... Foolish, pitiful child... even after that betrayal, your heart cannot lie, can it?"
Flesh blooms over the decaying remains as it speaks, soft and healthy. Lush hair falls in waves over a young, plump body, clad only in a loose, thin robe. Soft eyes blink up at him, bright pink lips parted as though drowning for lack of his touch.
For one horrible moment he almost forgets what's happened, almost allows himself to hope. She looks so real, her hands are so warm, and all he wants is to bury his face in her shoulder and cry tears of relief.
And then he remembers where he is.
"How dare you!" he snarls, shoving her away with all his strength. "I don't care who you are, you cruel, heartless bitch! How dare you use that face?!"
The woman stumbles, wide eyed, and laughs.
"It's been some time since I met a mortal who resisted the pull of Yomi," she chuckles. "But you're mistaken, child, I do not choose the form I take in your eyes; I have neither control nor insight into what you see. It's only an illusion, to soothe my unfortunate, lost little guests." She steps forward and runs her fingers lightly over his cheek and lips. "But I suppose in this unique circumstance, I do have some idea of who you're seeing just now," she breathed. "Poor, poor, boy... How cruel fate has been to you."
"Don't touch me!" He insists, slapping her hand away.
"Now, now," the woman chides. "Your hatred is misplaced. I am not like the gods of the Celestial Plain; I have no interest in their affairs or quarrels, and I am not bound by their laws either. Though the Heavenly Court has demanded I hand down further judgement for your sins, I have no interest in doing so. You're quite fortunate that I find you rather interesting, and that Amaterasu holds no power over me. This is my realm, and I will do as I please."
She turns away and walks deeper into the dark cavern, her bare feet padding along with a soft, enticing sound on the rock underfoot.
He doesn't believe her for one second. Gods are liars, manipulators. Even when they don't mean to, they are selfish and untrustworthy. Humans are nothing to them.
Instinctively, he glances around, wondering if he might find some way through the darkness and away from this awful creature.
"Well?" she asks, looking at him over her shoulder when he doesn't follow, one eyebrow quirked up in amusement. "Are you not coming? You can stay here in the darkness for the rest of eternity if you wish, but I think you, of all souls, may just be interested in what I have to say..."
He didn't have time to think about it until after Yukine had all but dragged him out of Hiyori's rooms, but now that he was alone in his own apartments, Yato couldn't help feeling a little dazed by everything that had happened that morning.
She was so soft... so small, he thought blankly, his head leaning back against the frame of the open balcony. It struck him as odd almost as soon as he'd picked her up. True, Yato wasn't weak; whatever his deceptively thin build and pale coloring suggested, he was still a laborer by trade, and he was no stranger to heavy lifting. But since he'd always been a pariah, he'd also never had any cause to carry another person before. For some reason, he'd always thought living people must be very heavy and ungainly, and more difficult to lift than an inert wooden beam or a sack of rice.
But carrying Hiyori had been so easy. Effortless, even. Her weight settled wholly in the curve of his arms as soon as he held her, and she naturally turned inward so that her cheek was pressed to his shoulder as if she belonged there, had always belonged there. Vulnerable, but safe with him. A perfect fit.
It bothered him.
He'd seen Hiyori at her most dangerous, her most powerful, and he knew that slight and pretty as she might look at a glance, his wife was fully capable of ripping his head off with no more effort than it would take her to tear a piece of paper. It was wrong, seeing her so white and drained, her brow furrowed with pain as she trembled and groaned in his arms. It scared him; how could such a deadly god be reduced to such a small, helpless wreck that a mere human could so easily carry her where he willed?
Yato shivered, the hair standing on the back of his neck. Hiiro had been rather vague about her mistress' condition, but Yato had felt the wrongness of it all just the same. There was something terrible and dark plaguing Hiyori-no-Kami, something ancient, raw. Even with his pathetic magical sensibilities, Yato could tell that much.
"What could do that to a god, though?" he wondered aloud, thinking back to the stories he'd been raised on. They all seemed rather vague and untrustworthy on this side of the celestial schism, now that he could actually put a face to the fearsome deity of legend. Mortal betrayal seemed like such a small, petty thing, something even a seemingly kind god like Hiyori shouldn't care much about; it seemed unfathomable to Yato that it could still cause her grief even thousands of years later.
He sighed, his eyes fluttering closed with exhaustion. He hadn't wanted to say anything in front of the shinki, but his head was also pounding now that the excitement had died down. Hiiro had told him not to worry, that Hiyori's condition wasn't his fault, but Yato wasn't sure that was entirely true. Something about the bit of magic he'd used, or perhaps the words he'd said... some detail of their conversation had affected the War God, he was sure of it.
As to what part, or why, Yato couldn't even begin to understand.
"Just one thing, please... swear you won't-"
The words repeated themselves in the depths of Hiyori's subconscious, empty and foreboding. But no matter how many times she fought with the haze of tainted memory, she couldn't remember anything but those words, disembodied, lost to time. Who had spoken them? What had she sworn? When?
Hundreds of names threatened to flood and overwhelm her senses, a dizzying tally of each painfully brief memory. There were so many of them, but she never forgot a single one, their lives forever woven into the thread of her fate.
Suzuki. Yuna. Kenjou. Saki. Hinami.
(No, those were others. They came later, much later.)
Haruno? Koizumi? Perhaps Fubuki?
(No, not them, they never-)
Tomoki trembles in awe whenever she passes him in the garden, his lips mouthing deep-rooted prayer even when she asks him to forget formality. But his bright, honeyed eyes sparkle when he thinks she isn't watching, absorbed as he is in yet another tome from the library, and how lonely it makes her feel that he won't even so much as look at her with even a fraction of that interest for fear of her divinity-
Beautiful Komari, so delicate, so soft-spoken... Laughter and music echoes in the halls whenever the fancy takes her. The lazy, content afternoons in which they lay in each other's laps and speak about nothing of consequence are some of Hiyori's dearest memories-
A brash, irritating voice is Akito's worst trait, which is saying something, all things considered. He lacks both wit and empathy, insisting on human traditions when it comes to their very inhuman marriage, but even he has qualities worth praising. His pursuit of her affections, while misplaced, is still earnest in its determination to make sense of their situation-
(No, those are wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.)
How she loves Misaki's seemingly carefree smiles, always at the ready, even up until the moment Hiyori finds her standing on the railing of the realm bridge and she turns to give the god one last, achingly sweet smile before she steps forward into the void-
Then there's Eisuke, an old priest who minds his manners and does his very best to treat her with detached, formal fondness, refusing even the smallest intimate gesture on the grounds that he is much too old for her, a stubborn belief that won't change no matter how many times she reminds him of her immeasurable age-
(But the voice in her dream doesn't belong to Eisuke, nor is it Aiko's, or Nami's, or even Jirou's-)
The grass tickles her cheek as gentle fingers run through her hair, her eyes drifting closed with each soft caress.
Someone is speaking, she can feel the vibrations in the air around her as words trickle like running water into the atmosphere, displacing her elemental aura. But whoever it is is behind her, and she can't hear anything but her own aching heart pounding painfully in her chest.
"Who are you?" she tries to ask, but her voice won't reach her lips.
She wants to turn and look up at her companion's face, but she can't move, can't do anything but lie helplessly at their feet. Panic fuels her increasing frustration.
"Who are you?" she wants to demand, trying to find some control over the situation.
Nothing.
No, that's not quite true. There's a sound now, but it's not words.
Soft, ethereal... like wind whispering against her skin, like sunlight dappled on her face...
Something casts a shadow over her and then a flower is held out in front of her eyes, an unnaturally white-blue lily that she knows doesn't grow anywhere in these hills.
"For you," comes the faint, voiceless whisper. "It won't last long, but I like this better than the wildflowers."
Tenderly, the lily is tucked behind her ear.
"It's strange, but the color of the sky suits you so perfectly," the voice says, brushing a stray strand of her hair out of her face. "It shouldn't, with your coloring, but it does."
For some reason, the words strike fear into her heart and her throat is suddenly very tight.
Stop, she wants to cry. Don't look at me, don't touch me. I'm not what you think I am.
She's not even sure what she is. Not anymore. She was once the manifestation of something beautiful and mysterious, but now... Now she can't even call the wind, or feel the ever-changing currents of heat and air swirling around her. All she is now is a force of destruction, a base, ugly, aberration, driven by the worst, most primitive instincts-
Blazing white pain returned her to a nothingness darker than anything she'd ever known. Here there was no sky, no grass, no warmth from someone's presence. Oblivion pressed in on her, stealing away every thought and half-surfaced memory, so that by the time she finally woke in her own bedding a few hours later, the only thing left of Hiyori's stolen past was a faint, half-forgotten snippet of an old melody lingering in the back of her exhausted mind.
She waits until she is alone, after most of the blood has been cleaned up and broken condolences have been pressed to her collarbone. She has said nothing, so they think she must be in shock. Her suffering has been prolonged enough, so they don't force her to let go when they step out to let her rest. She is grateful for this consideration; it makes her resolve all the stronger.
Quietly, though her body aches almost more than she can bear, though she can barely muffle a pained wince as she moves, she edges herself out of bed. With only one hand, she manages to pull on a thick fur cloak and a pair of leather boots, but she can't manage to secure the straps around her calves, so she leaves them behind. She grabs the woolen blanket off the bedding as an afterthought, stopping only long enough to loop it over and under her shoulder as best as she can, careful to tuck her preoccupied arm in under the layers of warm fabric.
No one notices her slip out the door and into the shadows.
Snow is falling softly in the darkness, muffling the sound of her sore footsteps as she circles back into the woods, away from the subdued gathering drinking solemnly in the light of a fire outside.
She reaches the treeline and grimaces, stopping against the trunk of an old elm to grit her teeth against the debilitating pain still pulsing through her marrow. She can't submit to it, not when she still has so far to go, so she somehow forces herself onward through the pitch darkness by memory and sheer willpower alone.
When she is far enough from the house, she stops again, frozen sweat melting uncomfortably into the creases of her cloak, and fumbles with a small piece of weathered paper folded away into a small pocket. She allows herself a small, triumphant smile, vindicated at last for all the years of ridicule she's endured in the name of preparation and safety. She doubts her husband even remembers all the secret creases she's sown into his clothes, but she knew it would come in useful, someday.
"Who worries too much now?" she murmurs, and places the square of rice paper on her tongue.
The name of the Seeker forms in her throat as the ink and paper dissolve into nothingness, and she feels a keen sense of relief that she correctly remembers which invocations she's pocketed in which places.
She opens her mouth and a language she can't speak issues from her lips as fluidly as though she has known it all her life. The sounds hang for a moment in the dead silence of the bitter air, but then they become solid darkness, twisting and writhing until a small, disembodied light blinks to life in front of her, and an unspoken voice chimes inside her thoughts.
"You Seek that which you cannot find?" it asks without preamble.
"I do," she affirms aloud.
"And the price?"
"Paid in blood, mixed in the ink of the seal, as you well know," she reminds it firmly.
"... Very well. We shall lead the way," the voiceless light says, clearly somewhat disappointed that it's failed to take more than it's due.
They walk deeper into the woods, the light keeping pace with her increasingly staggered footsteps. It offers no encouragement, asks no questions, simply floats in the direction she needs to go. She is grateful for that too; she needs every shred of strength she can muster just to continue putting one foot in front of the other.
She never knows how long she trudges through the piling snow, only that the night never seems to end. On and on, the light leads her into unknown darkness, where not even a lifetime of experience can find a single recognizable landmark.
At last, they arrive in a clearing deep in the woods, ringed with towering trees and open to a perfect circular view of the night stars above.
"Have we completed our contract?" the light asks as it comes to an eerie, hovering stop. "Or will you pay the price for the return trip as well?"
"If you've led me true, I will contract you on the way back," she promises. "Wait for me here."
"That's a higher price," it calls as she steps forward gingerly, toward the shadows of the pines.
"You will be paid," she replies. "Greedy little miser," she adds viciously under her breath. As though blood were a limitless commodity she could afford to waste now!
The light says nothing more, and if it heard her, she doesn't know. Instead she takes another unsteady step through the snow, and another, and then-
"Take one more step and I'll rip your throat out, human!"
Two viciously bright eyes glare out from the darkness, reflecting the light from the clearing back at her, as a low growl thunders through the air.
She shivers despite herself, the vibrations of the terrible, unearthly voice crawling over her skin unpleasantly. Slowly, so as not to startle the speaker, she lowers herself onto the snow until she is kneeling in reverence, her bundled blankets settled on the ground before her.
"Please, my lord," she begs, bowing her head to the snow. "I do not wish to offend you. I have brought an offering, in the hopes that I might receive your divine guidance."
Slowly, she takes an offering of rice and venison, bundled in herb leaves, from another pocket and holds it up, cupped between her hands expectantly.
At first nothing happens, but slowly the shadows around the eyes distort and grow pronounced until a great black wolf, monstrous in size, materializes from within the forest, sniffing the air suspiciously as it approaches.
"What exactly is it you want, woman?" it asks, fixing her with those enormous, lupine eyes.
"Help, my lord," she replies, gently lowering her offering so she can unwrap the blankets and show the wolf its contents.
It stares for some time, inscrutable.
"How long?" it asks.
"A few hours. I came as soon as I could but I can't be certain of the exact time."
The wolf leans in to sniff at the bundle, and she has to fight the natural instinct to snatch it back to safety. Its snout pushes the rest of the blankets, still bloody, away from the contents and studies it in silence.
"Hmm," it finally says, apparently satisfied. "And what exactly is it you think I can do for you, woman?" Its eyes pierce her soul, a blue so cold and deadly she can't help trembling under its gaze.
She swallows her fear and takes a deep breath.
"I... I would like to speak with Lady Izanami, my lord."
"Yato-sama? Are you awake?"
Yato sat up with a start as Hiiro's voice echoed just outside the door to his apartments. He hastily blinked the uneasy sleep from his eyes and wiped the corner of his mouth, trying not to look as though he'd dozed off against the balcony door like a manner-less peasant... which of course, he had.
"Uh, y-yes, I'm here," he called, trying to smooth the creases out of his clothes. Hiiro slid the door open, her short hair tied back with a white cloth as she peeked in and found him sitting on the floor.
"You can just go to bed if you're not feeling well," she told him flatly as she eyed his disheveled hair with a pointed scoff.
"It's still daytime," Yato argued, fighting the urge to yawn. "And I'm tired of sleeping so much."
Hiiro gave a small shrug, clearly uninterested in the details. "I thought you might like to know that although Lady Hiyori is still resting, she is faring somewhat better. She will likely be present at dinner."
Yato immediately straightened up. "So soon?" he asked, concerned.
"It's been four hours, Yato-sama," Hiiro snorted. "Gods recover quickly from the few ailments they are subject to, especially while in Heaven. They aren't weak little sponges for disease and malaise like some of us."
Yato grimaced. "You'd think being dead would cure that particular aspect of human suffering," he said.
"It would, if you were properly dead," Hiiro said without so much as a hint of sympathy. "But as you've managed to get yourself murdered in a very particular way, you'll have to put up with mortal annoyances a while longer. Feel free to rest until dinner is ready." She turned to leave, but Yato managed to speak up before she could excuse herself.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" he blurted, a bit ruder than he meant to sound. "Hiyori, I mean."
He thought he might have imagined it, but Hiiro seemed to go slightly rigid for a moment before she addressed him again.
"Why?" she asked cautiously, her brow furrowed with suspicion. "I already told you it wasn't your fault."
"M-maybe so, but I can't just ignore that she's suffering," he insisted. "What kind of person would I be if I didn't do anything?"
"A human one," Hiiro shrugged, shooing him nonchalantly away from the door as she snapped her fingers and a broom materialized into her open palm. "It's not about whether you care or not, it's just that there's nothing to do. Not even another god can help Milady, so there's no reason to worry yourself about her health; she's immortal, remember?"
"That doesn't mean her pain is inconsequential," Yato frowned as the broom came dangerously close to smacking his ankles.
"Of course not," she said simply.
"Isn't it my duty as her hus... I mean, her consort to worry about and tend to her?" he asked, hiding a small flustered cough in his sleeve.
"Is it?" she asked flatly. Yato watched her sweep as he sorted out his thoughts.
"Maybe it isn't," he admitted slowly. "It's not like I know anything about court life or marriage. But I do care, and I want to do something, even if it's just bringing her a cup of tea. Isn't that enough?"
Hiiro gave him a tiny, half-hearted imitation of a rather complicated smile.
"Enough for whom, milord?" she asked him, but he had no answer to give and Hiiro didn't seem to mind. She probably never expected an answer to begin with.
To her shock, the wolf suddenly tilts its head back and gives a harsh, mocking laugh, its awful fangs bared for all to see. After a minute, it seems to calm down, and with a few harsh snorts (a wolf's approximation of an amused chuckle, she imagines), it lays upon the snow, paws crossed and ears twitching, looking remarkably dog-like, all things considered.
"You are either the bravest soul in these woods or the stupidest," it says flatly. "What makes you think a mere human can demand an audience with the ruler of Death herself?"
"I don't demand anything," she says truthfully. "I merely ask for advice, my lord."
"Advice, she says!" it scoffs. "Why would I have any advice for you, human? What have I to do with Izanami or the underworld?"
"T-They say... the stories..."
The wolf's eyes glint with increased suspicion.
"Stories are just that. Stories."
She hesitates, wondering if she should stop now, before she truly upsets it.
"I... I do not think they are," she says very quietly, reminding herself that she would rather die than fail here. The wolf growls.
"Who are you to question my word?" it asks angrily.
"No one," she bites her lip, hoping this is the right thing to say. "It's only..." she takes a deep breath and forces herself to look the creature directly in its terrible eyes, allowing her senses to drift between the material and the world she was not meant to know. Some sorcerers in the village are sensitive to such things, but it is an exceedingly rare gift, almost unheard of for generations. As far as she knows, she's the only living descendant left with the ability, possibly because magic has always come so easily to her.
"...Only that I can See it," she breathes.
The wolf's eyes narrow.
"See what?"
If ever there is a time for recklessness, she supposes all her efforts would be a waste if she starts treading lightly now.
"You, milord... And every twisted, tainted thread of fate that keeps you bound between the Shores and in the form you're made to wear."
The wolf stares back unblinkingly for what feels like eternity, and she can feel what's left of her nerve deserting her by the second. She's pushed her luck as far as it will go, all that's left is judgement.
Silently, the wolf rises to its feet and closes the distance between them until she can feel its hot, fetid breath against her face. She wavers and has to shut her eyes, too drained to force herself to stand firm.
"Who are you?" it asks, and for the first time she hears not the gruff growls of a beast, but the clear, articulate voice of another person.
A very striking person, she knows, because if she focuses as she is now, she can see his shape overlapped in the otherworldly aura of the wolf. Handsome, dark, but as pale and weary as death herself, and that same, flickering ice gazing back at her, a magic she knows is so old and so arcane there can only be one possible source.
She swallows and licks her painfully dry lips.
"Tamanone," she whispers. "My name... is Tamanone."
A soft knock at her door startled Hiyori in the middle of her evening repast. She felt considerably better and less disoriented now that she'd had some rest, though she couldn't remember what had triggered her migraine in the first place. That in itself wasn't unusual; the effects of her corruption were permanent, and no power existed that could reverse it completely. Hiyori had long stopped trying to force herself to overcome its maddening pull; the past was in the past, and even if she could salvage the tatters of her once unblemished self, it wouldn't change anything now.
"Yes?" she called, setting her teacup down at her table.
"Hiyori? Can I come in?"
She blinked, surprised.
"Yato?" she asked, incredulous. Surely Yukine would never have brought him to her rooms, and Hiyori couldn't imagine that Yato was familiar enough with the house yet to know where she took her tea in private.
"Uh, y-yeah, it's me," he said awkwardly, and though she couldn't see him, she could easily imagine the sheepish, nervous look on his face. "I have... there's something important I need to... talk with you about... if that's ok."
"Oh, uhm, y-yes, of course, come in," she said, feeling strangely conscious of the fact that she hadn't changed out of her yukata yet, or that her hair was probably still a mess after sleeping for so long. Such things had never really bothered her before; it wasn't as though her attire was entirely inappropriate for receiving visitors or anything. It was really very unlike her to even notice such unnecessary little details in the first place.
Yato slid open the door, his eyes cast down onto the tatami beneath his feet.
"S-Sorry to bother you, I asked Hiiro if she could show me the way here..."
"It's alright," Hiyori assured him, a little more at ease now that he wasn't hiding behind a wall. "You don't have to be nervous, you can sit down," she said when he made no move to do so. He hesitated but in the end he strode forward and sat politely across from her little parlor table.
"I didn't really think Hiiro would bring me over," he admitted, watching her hands as she poured him a customary cup of tea. "I thought she'd tell me to stay in my own apartments and just wait for dinner to see you."
Hiyori smiled despite herself, placing the cup in front of him. "Hiiro and Yukine are very different shinki," she said, reading the unspoken comparison in his carefully worded statement. "Hiiro follows the rules, but the rules never said you were forbidden from coming to my apartments."
"I'm not?" he asked, surprised.
"Of course not," she said, though her cheeks grew slightly warm as she explained. "You're my husband, so... technically these are your rooms too... sort of. A-As long as you knock first," she added quickly with a small cough. She expected him to be even more flustered than she felt, but to her surprise, he didn't seem to catch the implications of what she'd said at all. Perhaps if he'd been aware that a consort's rooms were traditionally connected to the lord's, or that they were considered part of the same marital space...
At least that means he hasn't found the secret passageway in his room yet, she told herself with just a tiny drop of relief as he nodded automatically, his lip caught between his teeth.
"Right. Well I figured it was worth a try, anyway," he said slowly. "This is really important."
Hiyori watched him with concern. Not once since he'd entered had he looked her in the eye, and he looked paler than usual, if that was even possible. Could he have really been that worried? Hiiro had mentioned it when she came to check on Hiyori earlier, but Hiyori wasn't really sure whether her guidepost was exaggerating or not.
"Does this have anything to do with what happened during lessons?" she asked carefully, meaning to reassure him that he didn't need to be upset.
Yato took a deep, slow breath and swallowed audibly before he replied.
"Yes... and no," he said. "But before that, I have to apologize to you, Hiyori."
"Whatever for?" she asked, confused. "It wasn't your fault-"
"Everyone keeps saying that, but you're wrong. It was my fault," he said firmly. "Everything has been my fault all along."
Hiyori had no idea what he was on about, but he shook his head when she opened her mouth to argue.
"Just, let me tell you the truth before you say anything," he said softly. "All of it."
In his later years, he still remembers the moment everything fell apart, though he knows now that it's a far more insidious event than he could have ever imagined at the time.
How stupid, how naive had he been? Why had he let his guard down when all the signs were there? Because it had always been that way? Because no one ever thought to question it?
It must have happened before, to plenty of others. He couldn't be the exception. It was just that he had the power to do something about it, the fury and hatred to fuel an effort that no one had ever considered before.
Rebel, they call him. Sorcerer, blasphemer, savior.
None of them realize that under it all is just a grieving boy, a boy who foolishly gave his heart away to something inhuman, a boy who can never go back to the innocence of the days before he discarded his simple existence.
How he hates that boy now, and how he hates the ache that still burns in his breast for the things he will never get back.
"This is a tale everyone in my village knows. It's supposed to be a true story, but I have no way to verify how much of it's been changed or forgotten. I only know the stories I was told, or the rumors I heard when I was a kid," he began.
"Most of them are probably lies, but it's not like I know which ones, or what was embellished over the years. I don't even think it matters that much; sometimes a lie is far more powerful than the truth, as long as enough people believe it.
"All I really know is that they all start seventeen years ago, on a bitter winter night, in a small hut on the outskirts of an isolated mountain village," Yato said, rubbing the inside of his palm as he fell into the natural, detached cadence of an old story he'd heard many times before.
"That evening, a woman from the village went into labor. The midwife and the woman's husband attended to her with all the skill and magic available to them, but for a while it seemed it was inevitable that she would die in childbirth. The father resigned himself to the loss, but when his wife miraculously lived and successfully bore the child after hours of torture, no one was more devastated than him.
"N-not that he wasn't relieved his wife didn't die," he added, suddenly feeling defensive. "I'm sure he loved her enough to be grateful she was still alive. She was definitely happy to live with him, at least... I think," he tacked on awkwardly.
Hiyori gave him a bemused sort of smile but didn't interrupt.
"Anyway," Yato hurried, blushing slightly at his clumsy delivery. "T-The baby was born, but whatever relief his parents felt in that moment must've vanished almost instantly. The boy wouldn't cry, and he never once opened his eyes. The midwife tried everything, but the truth was that he was probably gone long before he arrived. When he was finally placed in his mother's arms, it was only as a tiny helpless corpse, a pale imitation of the blessing she'd prayed so hard for," he said with a small, morbid flourish, imitating Mayu's particular gift for lurid details. Her version was a favorite of most of the old drunkards, including his not-so-reputable Master.
The thought of Master Kuraha made him pause as he caught himself a moment later.
"Er, sorry, I'm not supposed to tell it like this, but... actually, I don't think I ever have told it," he realized as he spoke. "I never had to, I only ever heard other's interpretation of it," he said thoughtfully.
"Oh," Hiyori said softly, taking a sharp intake of breath as a glint of understanding finally took root. "This... this is your story, isn't it?"
Yato grimaced, uncomfortable. "Well, it's a story... like I said, whether it's the truth is debatable. I definitely never felt like I'd died before that stupid priest slit my throat last week; I feel like I'd remember that agony even if I was just a baby."
"That's also debatable, Yato," Hiyori noted with a slight tease in her voice. "As is whether or not you're truly dead now."
"So I keep being told," Yato grinned despite himself. It was impossible not to fall into an easy banter when she hung on to his every word like that; until now, no one ever really listened when Yato spoke, and they usually didn't have much to comment on unless it was some kind of lecture. The heaviness on his heart that had only a few minutes ago threatened to drown him in fear and anxiety felt much less dire now, and though the topic was still as grim as ever, he sensed that Hiyori was nevertheless enjoying his company...
Or at the very least, she wasn't in any hurry to end it any time soon, if her relaxed, easy grace was anything to go on.
"So you were thought stillborn...?" she asked as she reached for her tea tray and began peeling a mandarin orange with her fingernails. "That must have been awful for your parents."
"Mm," Yato agreed, watching her hands work with an artists' eye for detail. "My master once said he'd seen babes breathe so shallowly in the first few minutes after birth that everyone thought they were dead at first; it's possible people changed the story later to suit their own prejudices. I do think it's true that I was sick, though, probably seriously enough that I would have died very soon."
"What happened then?" she asked, carefully segmenting the orange into several pieces and placing it on the tray where they could both reach it. He spent a moment too long watching her raise a piece to her mouth before he remembered to look away and hide the inappropriate direction of his thoughts.
"Oh, uh," he stalled blankly as he reached for a slice, still visualizing the captivating contrast of bright orange flesh against the pink, wet glimmer of her parted lips. "Uhm, well... t-they say my father was so grieved he drank himself into a stupor and didn't even notice when my mother went missing," he continued once he'd gathered his wits again.
"She went missing?!"
"Not missing, exactly. But she refused to accept I couldn't be saved. She was a very stubborn woman, my mother; a kind, passionately devoted woman who always found beauty in even the smallest things she shared with me, but a stubborn one all the same. So that very same night, as soon as my father was out, she dressed herself for the cold and took me deep into the woods with her."
Hiyori looked stunned. "What?! Right after a difficult birth?!"
Yato nodded, a little proud on his mother's practically heroic behalf.
"Every version of the story agrees on that part, and my father once admitted it was true when I got old enough to ask. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure he thought she'd committed suicide, though of course he didn't tell me that; he just said he panicked and spent the entire night searching the forest in the middle of a snowstorm. Of course, he was drunk, so there's that.
"Nobody knows what happened between her disappearance and when she returned home safe and sound the next morning. The only person who ever knew the truth was my mother, and she refused to tell anyone, even my father. All anyone knew was that both the midwife and my father swore the stillborn child they delivered that night was terribly small and had light brown hair, but the healthy child my mother brought back was dark and his eyes- my eyes- were... were d-different," Yato's stomach gave an unpleasant dive as he realized he was about to tread into the truly dangerous part of the story.
"Y-you see... In my village, there's another old tale," he said after a moment, his voice frayed and thick with barely suppressed fear. "Long ago, only a couple of generations after the gods abandoned us, a demon came to our village.
"At first, he appeared as a man, and he said he came to warn us, to remind us that we came from a proud line of sorcerers who weren't cowed by the sheer terror and majesty of the gods, who knew better than to grovel and beg for mercy they would never be granted.
"He... he told us... He said we ought to abandon the War God, that she hated us as much as any god, that we were fools for believing her change of heart had anything to do with their willingness to sacrifice someone just to save their own skins. He s-said..." Yato's lip started to tremble and he had to stop a moment to force himself onward.
"He said that even... Even if the War God... Even if you forgave us, we shouldn't so readily forgive you. He reminded us of the terrible cost of that war, that while the rebels were in the wrong to antagonize a force we couldn't hope to defeat, the gods were not devoid of blame... Especially not..."
You, he bit back, looking anywhere but at the woman he was currently slandering to her face. But as hard as it was to keep speaking badly of her, it was so much more preferable to what he still hasn't said.
"W-we didn't listen, of course," he said, hoping he could get away without repeating the exact, sacrilegious charges Mayu always worked the crowd up over so she could relish their outrage and channel it into the rest of the narrative. "And he grew impatient and furious with our refusal to take him seriously. His anger and hate revealed him for what he really was, and his human glamour fell away as he transformed into a monster and attacked us. He killed a lot of people, but eventually the priests were able to drive him back, and some say he was given obeisance, that his aramitama was tamed and he became a nameless, invisible guardian of the woods, forever on the prowl for anyone foolish enough... t-to venture into forbidden territory..."
Yato gasped slightly; he'd forgotten to breathe.
"Yato?" Her voice was worried, but he still couldn't face her, he'd lose his nerve if he let himself be swayed back into cowardness by her allure.
"T-There... There w-was one more... One more thing," he managed past the excruciating lump in his throat. "The demon, he... He had... His... He looked... H-his eyes..."
No!
Some part of him was screaming at him, clawing desperately through his mind, drowning out anything but the pure, unadulterated terror of his own voice.
Stop, don't say anything more, stop it! She'll know you for what you really are, she'll hate every fiber of your being! She'll look at you and know you're just a disgusting, worthless monster, that you're tainting the very air she breathes just by sitting here like you think you're coming clean, like you really believe that you're protecting her!
"They s-said he was sent from... From..."
STOP! I don't want her to look at me, I don't want to see my ugly heart reflected back at me in her eyes! I can't take it anymore, I don't want to live like this! Please, please shut up, what's wrong with protecting yourself just ONCE in your stupid, cursed life?! Don't lie to yourself, don't pretend you really care about doing the right thing, don't act like a martyr and sacrifice your one chance at anything even RESEMBLING a normal life! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!
He swallowed hard and nearly choked with the effort of it.
"I-Iza... na... mi," he managed in a tiny, strangled whisper.
NO!
"You're a blight on this village!"
He's five years old at most, and all he wants is to return the doll another child dropped. He never gets to give it to her because suddenly a woman screams and he's knocked violently away as the girl's mother rushes to scoop her up and away from his outstretched hand.
"Get away from her!" she shrieks as though he's holding a knife instead of a scruffy straw doll.
"I just wanted-!" he begins, terrified by her reaction.
"I don't care! You're a monster, a demon! You should've stayed in hell where you belong!"
Hiyori was saying something, but he couldn't focus. He saw her lips move as though in slow motion and knew it was all over.
Why?
He knew it all along, that he would lose the one thing, the one person he would have done anything, given everything, willingly have died for, had he only known it was his choice to make.
And he knew it was silly, to be so attached to a woman he knew for less than seven days... But why did that have to be any less precious than the seventeen years of misery he'd fought so hard for?
It was such a small, simple thing, to belong to someone, even if only in name... but it was everything. Wife, husband, parent, lover, friend... labels didn't really matter, as long as there was just one person somewhere who was okay with belonging alongside him.
"Poor thing... All alone in the world, no one but this old fool to look after you. What a sad life, cursed to kill anyone who cares enough to get close, a tiny, helpless, innocent murderer, just trying to find his place... Well, don't worry 'bout me, I'm well on my way to the other side even without your help, so I'll make myself useful, for Tama's sake."
He's not supposed to hear those words, spoken quietly at his bedside as a large, rough hand gently tousles his hair. He shuts his eyes tightly closed as he pretends to sleep, not wanting to listen, but desperate to understand the fear he's come to hear in so many other voices, though this is the first time he's heard it tinged with sadness...
He'd killed them all. He thought about it every day, the fact that he had led every person who tried to love him to their inevitable deaths without so much as lifting a finger. They didn't deserve that; he never wanted to hurt anybody.
But that didn't change it was his fault, or that he deserved it.
After all, he was a murderer, but he was also the victim: he was the little boy on his knees over his parents' grave, digging desperately with his bare hands, ignoring the bloody cuts and broken fingernails in the vain hope that if he can only reach them, he can curl up in their arms, close his eyes, and everything will be okay; he was the child that saved a kitten that someone tried to drown after they decided it was a runt, a kitten he then painstakingly nursed back to health behind his master's back, only to discover that a fox broke into the little enclosure he'd hidden in the woods one night, and all that was left was a bloody, unrecognizable mess; he was the boy who had to take over as carpenter at only the age of fourteen, still grieving his master's death even as he feared he would starve for lack of anyone to contract him; he was the young man who had taught himself everything his parent figures never had a chance to, the one who worked long hours to make wistfully beautiful things no one wanted just to make sure his skills were ready for the one or two emergencies he got every few months, when all anyone expected of him was to go in, fix a broken rafter or re-thatch a roof, take whatever measly payment they felt he deserved and get the hell out before his curse caught.
It was a sin, wasn't it? To know he would be the death of his loved ones and still crave a family so badly that he couldn't help looking out his workshop window, praying that today was the day that someone, anyone, would come, unafraid, smile and say, "Hi, I'm looking for the missing part of me, the one I've always needed to be whole. Might that be you?"
Wasn't it an even worse sin that the minute he found that missing part, a chance at the family he always wished for, the moment he finally understood the simple joy of waking up in the morning and finding someone else waiting for him, he was stupid enough, messed up enough, to choose to let it go?
"Let's just push him already. It isn't killing him if he's already dead."
Rocks pelt his head as he cowers in fear of a group of boys older than him. They've chased him all the way to the ravine, and rocks are starting to bore them now that he's cornered.
"Not like anyone wants you around. The elders would probably reward us for it," someone sniggers. The rocks stop and Yato looks up to see a looming shadow so close it can almost touch him-
Lightning strikes the tree next to them though there's not a cloud in sight. The boys scream in unison and no one bothers to stick around and see how Yato manages to put out the flames that have already caught on his clothes and are steadily licking their way up his arms as the sound of his agonized shrieks echoes in the ravine below-
He never should have come here.
"This is for your sake as well, Yato-san."
Silver flashes in the firelight, agony is in his soul, and all he can hear are the cheers of a world that never wanted him, and the keening of the cicadas that never knew if he was actually worth mourning-
He never should have been born.
"Yato! Stop!"
Soft pressure suddenly snapped him back to reality with a jolt as Hiyori reached across the table and hastily reached to take his hand and unfurl his numb, bone-white fingers; he'd crushed a piece of fruit in his fist and hadn't noticed the juice leaking onto the table and down his wrist... or that it was tinged red with the blood from where he'd dug his fingernails into his flesh.
"Please, stop it!" she implored again, pale with obvious alarm. "You don't have to tell me anything more-"
It's too late.
"Oh damn it, I have to get Hiiro to look at this," she was saying, fretting in the way someone who cared might, and yet-
She won't look at me.
Her eyes darted from his wound to the door and back.
"You'll be okay if I go get her, right?"
She wants to leave.
"It should only take a moment..."
Look at me, please!
"Yukine is better at tending to injuries, but Hiiro is less hostile-"
Please...
Dark rose irises flicked up toward his face.
Don't. Don't look.
Everything seemed to spin, and suddenly he couldn't stand it anymore. He scrambled back, away from her, frightened to think he might hurt her, might do something awful to her just from that thoughtless touch that still burned on his skin, still filled him with a reprehensible, selfish want, an animalistic need to reach out and take her, to claim her body and soul, to mark her with more than just one spell, to defile that untouchable holy aura, to break it apart until she was only a woman and he only a man, and just...
Just...
... just have one, quiet moment to be her equal, to gaze at her and stroke her hair and bask in her beautiful smile. Just a second to know what it was like to have something worth living for.
Before he knew it his vision was completely obscured by the tears he hadn't even realized he'd been holding back.
"I-I'm sorry, I-I didn't-" he hiccuped, and his self-hatred only grew with each wracked, childish sob stuck in his throat.
He couldn't see her, but he knew she was probably looking at him with the same disgust as Mayu, as Shinsuke and Kouto, the same fear and hatred as every person who had ever looked him in the eye. He was so convinced of it that he couldn't understand the weight suddenly thrown over him, or the soft murmurs of reassurance as an unfamiliar feeling ran down his back in comforting strokes.
"You're okay, shh. You're safe here, with me."
All thoughts faded as he gripped the back of Hiyori's yukata and buried his face to cry in the crook of her sweet-scented shoulder, thinking only of the mother he both resented and missed more than life itself.
"Why? Why would you go this far?"
He knows he's being rude, he knows she can hear the blatant suspicion and distrust in his voice.
She smiles sweetly at him from her seat at the head of the table and moves a plate of mealy, rotten food in his direction.
"Because I want to," she says airily, watching him wrinkle his nose in disgust. "Do I need any reason more than that?"
He watches her, thinking.
"So far I only see how this would help me. What do you stand to gain?" he asked carefully.
"Oh, it's nothing that devious, child. I simply want to see how things pan out... And if a bit of trouble is stirred outside my realm... well, I certainly won't object to entertainment when it's so kindly offered to me."
"You want to see Amaterasu squirm," he scoffs as all the pieces suddenly line up and make sense.
"Very much," she admits easily. "Don't you?"
"I don't really care one way or the other. She doesn't mean anything to me."
"Ah," she says, her eyes glinting like black pearls in the shadows. "I forgot. You never witnessed what she did to wrong you."
He frowns, lost.
"Wronged me?!" he asks, incredulous. "Why on earth would the ruler of Heaven ever bother with me?"
The smile she gives him is so wide he almost fears she'll swallow him whole.
I can't do it.
Hiyori shut her eyes, overwhelmed by the raw pain and emotion of the boy trembling in her arms. He was so young, so fragile. She'd always sensed his trepidation, knew he had been lonely and that he felt out of place. She'd wondered what had made him so wary and quick to expect the worst, but now, what all her observations make perfect sense. How could it not, when what little he could divulge painted such a dark picture of the fate that awaited a child that everyone likened to a demon?
She was well versed in the human fear of the unknown; gods once reveled in the vanity of the fact that humans had little choice but to tremble in awe at their unfathomable power. It was that same vanity that turned the tides in the war, the mistaken belief that if the humans were frightened enough, they would forget their grievances and return to a placid, obedient state of being.
But Heaven sorely misunderstood, nor did they sense fhe danger in othering themselves, in insisting they were different, better than humans. They never suspected that a frightened herd of prey could easily work itself up into a blind, manic frenzy that easily tore an unsuspecting predator to shreds.
Even now, all gods were keenly aware that to be different was to be dangerous. Anyone could turn, anyone could rebel. One difference of opinion, one person who didn't quite fit in... If sweet, mercurial Hiyori-no-Kami, darling of the seas and of the harvest, always going where she pleased, always getting up to little mischiefs... if she could turn her gentle wind against her own people, could pick up and hone a blade so sharp and hateful that it bathed in the blood of rebels, innocents, and gods alike... if she could only be stopped by the sheer depths of her own madness, so lost to twisted grief that in the aftermath, the remains of the Heavenly Army had to trudge through gales and torrents of freezing rain to take her into custody, expecting to fight to the death in the effort, only to find her at the center of the storm, kneeling lifelessly in the mud with her face raised blankly to the sky, her arms cradling a single drenched corpse to her breast, that bedeviled shinki pristine and white as snow as it lay in a pool of red water... If she could do all that, then what of every other god or shinki that didn't fit the mold of the most loyal at court?
If even those same haughty, mistrustful gods, already afraid of her wrath, were still more frightened by the unknown power they'd felt lurking inside Yato that Amaterasu had risked antagonizing her greatest threat... how terrifying must he have seemed to a village of people who had no explanation for his strangeness?
She sighed quietly into his hair, lost in her thoughts.
I know I can't fight it forever, not on my own. I thought this time, things would turn out differently, I hoped by breaking one small rule, I could protect you and stop the wheel of fate from turning. I knew it would cost me, and that I'd have to answer for it, but if telling you saved your soul, I would have hurt you as many times as it took, for your own sake.
Perhaps one day I'll be able to spare someone... I'm just so, so sorry it can't be you.
She pulled away reluctantly and very carefully wiped his cheeks with her overlong sleeves as he sniffled, his face red with shame.
"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, Yato," she assured him softly. "I don't know the details, but I do know that this... this power you have, it affects you in more ways than either of us can really understand. But I can tell you this much: I don't know or care if you really were summoned back from the dead, and I know you're not a demon or a monster. Even if that were true, what would that make me, the fallen god who really has been a demon?" she asked with a tiny, wry smile. "Still... it must have been hard," she admitted, her gaze falling to the jagged puncture marks of the rough, calloused hand held open between her thumbs. "I wish I could have done something to help you... but I'm afraid that even if I'd known what was happening, it would have been difficult, even without the barrier that prevents passage between realms..."
"Y-you d-don't... don't understand," he whispered, his voice strained and frightened. "It's my fault-"
Anger rose in her breast for a moment. Not at Yato, but at his circumstances, at the people who made him believe he was detestable just for existing.
"If you take anything from this conversation, please understand this," she insisted, squeezing his wrist with just a little more pressure than necessary. "You aren't at fault for what happened to you, and you're not at fault for whatever else you think you've done to me. Not then, not now, not ever."
He shook his head pitifully but she wasn't having it.
"My corruption is my own burden, I promise you. And I'm alright now, aren't I?" she asked, privately thankful of how masterful a liar she'd had to become.
"Y-yeah," he managed, clearing his throat as he vigorously wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. "I'm sorry, I- I dunno... I just... I couldn't..." His words failed him and he caught her eye, silently imploring her to stay, to prove he wasn't imagining this.
He really thinks I would abandon him... That I'd really hate him for something he has no control over, she thought, saddened and confused by the utter helplessness that so haunted his ephemeral blue eyes... Why would anyone ever blame him-
Something clicked into place.
Surely not, she told herself, focusing with renewed interest on his face, on the pallor of his skin and the inky darkness of his hair, so at odds with his eerie irises. A mortal would only see these surface details, would only take in his unnatural, willowy beauty and feel the presence of something beyond comprehension.
But Hiyori was certainly not a mortal, and she had long seen the signs that every god in Amaterasu's court must have noticed after just one glance at her seemingly unassuming companion.
In fact, she'd noticed it within seconds of him taking her down onto the ground with him in the bath that very first day.
It was impossible not to, she'd just never paid it any real mind.
"Yato..." she said slowly, feeling slightly foolish for asking something that probably should have been mentioned much earlier. He couldn't really think she didn't know... right?
"Were you... did you..." she paused, unsure how to phrase her suspicion. "This whole time... you... were you afraid I didn't know about your... affliction?" she asked cautiously, hoping she wasn't insulting his intelligence too badly.
He blinked at her with such a look of bewilderment that Hiyori almost laughed out of pure relief that she'd somehow guessed correctly.
"Oh... fuck," she breathed, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose. "I should've realized... I'm such a fucking idiot," she groaned into her hands. "Of course you've been worried about this! How could I be so bloody fucking blind?! I should know better! Fuuuck!" she cursed again, just to get the frustration out without hitting something.
Yato looked like he'd just had the ground pulled out from under his feet, the dazed confusion in his expression only growing more bewildered by the second. Hiyori cursed a few more times for good measure and took a few calming breaths, suddenly exhausted.
"I'm so sorry, Yato," she apologized in earnest. "I thought... I don't really know what I thought," she amended with a sigh. "It's been such a long time since I had to socialize with any humans, I forgot they don't always see the world the same way gods and shinki do. Not that that's an excuse for making you feel so unsettled in your own home..." she muttered as an afterthought. "I should have clarified things right away, but I assumed, correctly I think, that you've always been aware of it, so I didn't see any reason to point it out. I thought maybe you just didn't like to talk about it; or that you didn't think too much of it, not everyone does.
"Some people are just born with it, you know. An unfortunate attachment to the Far Shore, a tie left over from when a soul is still roaming the realm of the dead. It's a constant force, tugging them toward the boundary, trying to entice them back over it; it manifests in strange ways. A little annoyance here, a small, frustrating accident there, just a prediliction for unluckiness in general. It's usually not even noticeable, but I suppose yours, at least in the eyes of a human, is certainly abnormal enough to cause regular concern... But that's not true in Heaven. A god wouldn't worry themselves over a constitution like yours much at all, other than to maybe remark on how uncommonly strong it is."
She grimaced, wishing she could go back and slap some sense into herself. She'd been so preoccupied with her own problems, so worried about her secrets... It never occurred to her that something as banal as an affinity for Yomi wasn't quite as inconsequential for someone who could actually die from a terrible accident.
"I knew from the beginning," she admitted when he continued to stare blankly at her without a word. "Any god would notice it right away. I did think it was curious, but compared to your far more unusual aura, it wasn't that noteworthy. Even Amaterasu-Omikami ignored it, remember? She didn't even mention it.
"I didn't either, I knew it was there, and so did you, so I foolishly assumed that was the end of it. I couldn't figure out why you had that attachment, but I always knew what it meant, even before I witnessed it in action," she noted sheepishly. "Not that it was at all difficult to notice that the recent uptick in chaos around the house coincided with your arrival, if I'd been looking for evidence. But I wasn't, because the place has always been a little... well, chaotic. It happens when there's only three regular occupants in an enormous building saturated to the rafters in divine and elemental magic... and whose housekeepers are far better at setting fires than cooking with them." She flinched at the thought of the sprites, resolving to apologize later for saying something unkind behind their backs.
Figuratively speaking. They didn't, after all, have backs.
"I don't think Hiiro or Yukine even registered the difference, we're that used to things going awry at a moment's notice," she reluctantly added as an afterthought. "So, yes... I've always known, Yato. Bad things happen to you a lot, don't they?"
There was a moment of bewildered silence and then a strangled sound from somewhere in his throat.
"Y-You... you WHAT?!" he shouted, and suddenly it was just too much, it was too ridiculous a situation, and though at heart it wasn't at all a laughing matter, Hiyori just couldn't stop as a fit overcame her and she all but fell over onto the tatami, clutching a horrifically painful stitch in her side.
It was just so... so stupid.
She was stupid.
With each laugh came a stab of guilt, a sympathetic ache for her husband's collective misfortune, for the terrible things he'd probably seen and heard every minute of his unfairly short life. How could she have recognized his aura for its sheer power and not realized that it was a warning sign that she should have heeded, not for herself, but for the sake of Yato's mental wellbeing?
How long had he been agonizing over the thought of having to come clean, of explaining the awful past he clearly didn't want to think about? How desperate had he been, alone and afraid in a strange realm, that he clung so tightly to the tiny thread of their newfound connection and dreaded the thought of having to return to his miserable life of solitude, surrounded by people who wished him dead from the minute he was born?
It was so painfully obvious to her now, how small and insecure he must have felt, how her obliviousness must have made his life a living hell over the last few days...
But... maybe hell wasn't quite right.
He'd always smiled at her readily, hadn't he? He'd laugh and talk and sometimes just sit quietly near her in cat-like contentment when she chose to sit in the garden and read in silence. He hadn't been miserable then, she supposed, nor was he right now as he let himself down to lie next to her with all the questioning nervousness of a child hoping he was allowed to stay.
Did he want to stay? Did he just not have any other place to go? Did it really make any difference?
Surely it had to count for something, she thought, that sometimes, when he thought she wasn't looking, she was sure she could feel those bewitching eyes boring holes through her elaborate kimonos, seeing past them to the memory of her gazing up at him with her hair tossed wildly on the ground, her skin bared to his touch, lost in an unbearably hot daze she still allowed herself to linger in whenever she thought he wasn't looking.
Would someone without a choice make an attraction like that so painfully obvious?
She thought it again, that forbidden little note she'd locked away for her own protection... that the way his eyes lit up when he saw her, and the nervous, almost clumsy way he tried so hard to hide his flustered reactions to things she did and said... that from the moment he first laid eyes on her, he had surrendered everything he had, given his heart, his soul, his very life, entrusted them into her hands and never once thought of taking them back... that he had all but declared he wanted her more than anything, that she had once, just once, gone through that passageway, intent on sitting at his bedside to check on his condition and think on what her next step might be, and had to stop dead right behind the hidden door because there was a sudden, drawn out, unmistakeably sensual sigh on the other side, followed immediately by her name murmured with such blatant desire and such utter tenderness in one, longingly sharp breath, that she had to turn on her heel and flee before her stupid aramitama betrayed her to her baser self...
That he loved her, plain and simple. That he couldn't help but love her, not only because he was her husband, but because he chose her, because it was always written in his thread of fate that he would belong to her, long before either of them ever felt its tug.
And... wasn't that enough? Did she really need anything else to sway the walls she'd built around herself? Hadn't she also, in that moment they'd met, already given him some part of herself, some unconscious acknowledgement that she was as captivated by him as he was by her? Wasn't she simply plugging her ears and shutting her eyes to a problem she had already unconsciously surrendered to?
He loves me, she told herself, letting the certainty of that thought settle pleasantly on her skin, in her bones, through her blood for one dangerous, reckless moment. He loves me, and all I want, more than anything in all of creation, is to love him back.
Her delirious laughter faded bitterly, her eyes fixed on his as her thoughts returned to reality, studying the shifting, unnatural blues that ought only belong to something divine... or perhaps, something beyond the divine.
She'd thought it before, but part of the reason she'd been so oblivious to his worries about his ties to the Far Shore was because Hiyori was far more concerned about what her eyes couldn't see, the true nature of that mercurial, inhuman thing reflecting itself back at her in the azure windows of his soul. What was truly unnerving about Yato wasn't that Yomi had such a powerful claim over him; it was the fact that despite that irresistible allure, something else, something unknowable and ancient, refused to let him go.
Who are you? she wondered, reaching out her hand to brush the hair from his brow without really thinking it through. I always knew, somewhere under my denial, that I would find my way to you whether I wanted to or not, but this is more, this is different. Why do you have this power over me? What is it about you that makes me want to forget thousands of years of heartache for just a taste, a fraction of a second where I don't have to struggle to free myself from your spell?
"Sorry," she said instead. "I wasn't laughing at you, I just..."
"Lost your head a minute," he said, voice low and serious as he tentatively reached up to press the fingertips of his uninjured hand against her palm. "I know. I'm pretty sure it was your turn anyway."
She grinned despite herself, strangely comforted by the innocence of his expression as she allowed the tiny, barely tangible show of intimacy against her better judgement.
"You... you really knew all along?" he asked, his voice and faint touch wavering slightly in his uncertainty.
"From the moment I saw you," she said.
"And you don't... you don't hate me?"
"No."
"Not even for thinking I was hiding it from you...?"
Hiyori interlaced her fingers into his, trying to reassure him in the least reckless way that her aramitama demanded she close the distance between them.
"Not even for a second."
How could I, when I can't even do the decent thing and push you away while you still have the tiniest hope of escape?
Silence fell over them for a long while, neither of them saying anything, just existing together, red finger marks pressed to one another as though the thread that bound them still had corporeal form, as though this moment was every bit as sacred and as terrifying as the implications of the actual marriage spell they'd already agreed to.
"Hiyori..."
"Hmm?"
"What do we do now?"
They both stared for just long enough to wander into what must have been eerily similar ventures into less innocuous interpretations of his question because almost at exactly the same moment they were both suddenly very interested in what Hiiro and Yukine were preparing for dinner and they hastily let go so they could go have a look and get Yato's injury looked at.
"We live," Hiyori said a few minutes later as they set off down the corridor toward the kitchens, side by side but deliberately keeping a respectful distance from one another.
"Huh?"
"Your question. What we'll do from now on," she explained. "We'll live here, and we'll try not to cause too much trouble at court, and hopefully I don't have to kill anyone if they threaten to hurt you."
"That got violent very quickly," he noted, his mouth twitching slightly.
"You are the War God's consort, you know. Once in a while you'll have to put up with a severed arm or two."
"... As long as they're not my arms."
"We'll see," she teased, and she was pleased to see him chuckle, utterly oblivious to her purposeful misdirection.
I am a terrible person, Hiyori thought. It's so much crueler this way, knowing that it's my own selfishness, my own ego, that's decided I'd rather postpone a wound that will hurt far worse later, just so I can avoid inflicting it now.
But what choice do I really have, when our fate has been sealed from the moment you died for me? How many others have I already tried and failed to save? If it must happen, if I can't do anything to avoid it... I can't bear the thought of hurting you before I absolutely must, not when I already feel my own curse weaving itself into my heart.
I won't do it. I can't tell you the truth, that you were brought here on purpose to either love me or hate me, that I've never been able to choose how I feel about it, and that it's all part of a horrible, cruel game designed to punish me, torture me, for something you never had anything to do with, and which I've forgotten all about.
All I can do is try my best to resist and give you some time to be content, to feel wanted without the full, disastrous consequences of what my curse can do, will do, when I inevitably, completely, have no choice but to give in.
By then... I'll love you more than enough to do anything in my power and pay any price... so I'll make sure you won't suffer too much or too long, Yato.
I promise.
Notes:
July 13: *WHEEZES* DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG I'VE BEEN WORKING ON THIS? I HAD TO KILL SO MANY OF MY DARLINGS THIS IS BUT A TINY FRACTION OF SUFFERING THAT MADE IT TO THE LIGHT OF DAY T-T
I really hope people are still interested in this after that long-ass break, I never meant to take this long to update, and Nightbound is in much the same state hhhhhhhhhhhh
As always, like and review, please! I probably have more typos and continuity errors than usual but my OCD will probably clean them up later. Pls validate my pain.
July 14: I have issues and some of those issues are that I decided to pretty much just redo the entire second half of the chapter and add 500% more angst and at least like double the original content-
Oh and I typed it all on my stupid, autocorrecting fiend of a phone over nearly 20 consecutive hours because I could Not Be Assed to get out of bed and use my laptop like a functional human being.
TLDR: Carpal tunnel is real, and if I have to suffer, we ALL have to suffer (sorry)