Nightbound

by Hadi42

While Hiyori struggles with the implications of loving a god, a young girl named Yasumi finds herself drawn into the same threads of fate that bind Hiyori, Yato, and Yukine together. [Yoru no Kizuna Part 1] 100% Yatori, OCs are plot relevant only.

22. Fault

Yukine was on the cusp of breaking something. Anything.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this angry. This betrayed.

Well, no, that was a lie; he'd felt so much worse when Yato had named Kazuma, but that had been a different kind of betrayal. That had been about Yukine's jealousy and his father-complex. This was about Yato being a selfish piece of shit who never took anything important seriously.

It was just so infuriating, so fucking unfair; why did Yato always have to ruin everything?! Why couldn't he just fucking grow up and stop making Yukine and Hiyori pick up the slack?!

He kicked out at a trash bin, deriving twisted satisfaction from the surprised human passerby that couldn't see him as the contents spilled out onto the street.

Let someone else clean up the fucking mess, he scoffed, ignoring the stab of guilt branding itself on his flesh. He was vaguely aware of the creepy-crawlies peeking at him from the shadows, of unnerving little whispers chattering excitedly about the good smell passing through, but he wasn't afraid of them in bright sunlight. Even corrupted, Yukine was still a goddamned hafuri, and he was in another class altogether from most shinki; he'd been tempered and experienced enough to know when his powers weren't up to scratch, and he knew he wasn't far enough gone to kill or seriously mutilate Yato. It rather pissed him off that he knew that, or that he was still carefully keeping tabs on his master's condition even though he was so angry he could have thrown Yato off Tokyo Tower.

"Quit fucking worrying about that asshole!" he scolded himself, slamming his fist into the wall of a building. "He can get himself killed without me!"

Several small ayakashi cried out in fear and ducked into the dark alley like scurrying insects, and Yukine snorted at them in disgust.

"Yeah, fucking run, you little shits," he grumbled. He'd always hated ayakashi, but he was even less amenable to them after nearly turning into one on multiple occasions. He stuffed his hands violently into his pockets and stalked off aimlessly, just wanting to put as much distance between himself and Yato as possible.

I ain't going back this time, he swore to himself, though he knew it wasn't true. If he were really upset enough to leave Yato, he would have actually tried to hurt him, stayed until the blight got so bad his stupid god had no choice but to release him. If that didn't work... well he'd probably be pissed enough not to care if the idiot died.

But he hadn't done that; Yukine hadn't been able to bring himself to do more than he already had. If he weren't so upset, he probably would have been proud of himself for holding back; the Yukine of just a couple years ago would have raged and lashed out without thought for the consequences, even if it meant Hiyori and Amane got hurt in the process.

Guilt settled like a heavy stone in his chest. He'd been furious that Hiyori had tried to excuse Yato's behavior, but now in hindsight, he understood her actions better. Hiyori could be equally reckless with her own safety when it came to doing what she felt was the right thing. If she'd been in Yato's shoes, Yukine was pretty sure she would have been just as reluctant to refuse someone a helping hand. She wouldn't have been able to hold that against Yato without being a hypocrite, and it was true that she didn't always take Yato's side. Yukine had just been too mad to think her rationale through.

"I'm an ass," he muttered to himself, feeling ashamed for having yelled at her. He'd wanted to make her feel as hurt as he did, as abandoned as he did... but he never should have said Yato didn't love her. Yukine was probably the only person in the world who knew that deep down, Hiyori was sometimes a little bit insecure about her relationship with Yato. She'd never outright told him so, but he'd gathered enough from the little things she said and brushed off a moment later, the way she sometimes flinched at the mention of her growing older, the anxious gestures when he and Yato were gone on a job for a bit too long.

It had to be a little scary, being alive and loving a god. As normal and human as Yato could act, the truth was that he wasn't. His life and experiences were very different from Hiyori's, and he didn't always think or feel the way a true human would. Yukine knew his master loved Hiyori to pieces, but that didn't mean there weren't decisions he wouldn't make in the name of that love, decisions that could very well hurt Hiyori in exchange for her life. Yukine had always suspected that a little part of Hiyori had wanted so badly to have Amane because she needed a physical way to keep something of Yato close, to ensure she would always have a connection to him that he couldn't break. She probably didn't even realize she felt that way, never gave the thought form, but Yukine had seen it in the way she sometimes looked at Amane, in the gentle, heartbreaking sigh as she caressed the child's soft black hair or gazed into her bright blue eyes, as though she were relieved the baby was undeniably her father's daughter.

I really shouldn't have said he doesn't love her, he thought guiltily. He'd only said it to hurt her, to make Hiyori feel even a shred of the betrayal he'd felt. Some things weren't okay to say out loud even if he believed they were true; especially not when Hiyori had sacrificed so much to be with Yato already.

He'd apologize first thing, he decided... after he'd blown off some steam. Yukine couldn't be held accountable for anything he said or did until he calmed down a bit first.

---

Deep within the dream that was her weakening consciousness, a small, overwhelmed god bitterly wiped her eyes and forced herself to stop crying long enough to focus on her job.

This is no time to cry, Ame. Father will save her, she told herself, willing it to become the truth despite the horrible feeling of foreboding settling in her stomach. She sniffled, feeling unbearably young and vulnerable; in a god's eyes, she really was no more than a toddler, though in truth Ame-no-Mikoto had lived far longer than any elderly human could dream of. That she could only recall as far back as the fifty years it took for the spell to run dry and require a new resonator changed nothing; she was forever trapped in a loop of forced youth that kept her from becoming any god of real strength or ability, and little more than a middle aged human by mortal standards.

Nevertheless, Ame couldn't remember the last time she'd considered herself a child. She supposed it must have been in the first few years of living through Iki Reiko that she dropped her childish way of speaking in the third person and picked up her vessel's habit for outdated polite speech. In many ways, her current incarnation was very much a product of Reiko's mature and polite nature rubbing off on her formative identity, but none so obvious as the mild-mannered bearing she'd long adapted as her own; it seemed to throw others for a loop, seeing a tiny, dark child act with all the grace and thoughtfulness of an old woman.

More importantly, Ame felt like an old woman, most of the time; it was hard to distance her naturally innocent mind from the varied life experiences she had been deeply involved with as a voyeur in Reiko's life. She could hardly feel like the fresh-faced babe she was when she lived every day in the body of an adult human woman; she might not have had any control over what she saw and felt, but she still experienced nearly all of it, from Reiko's first kiss to the agony of childbirth and the dull aches of age.

But Reiko's time was all but over, and Ame couldn't rely on her host to do the things she couldn't anymore. She couldn't even rely on her own body, spelled into sleep as it was. Her one remaining connection to the outside world was the same as the reason she was trapped in this dreamless darkness: her barrier.

It was a curious thing, her ability. Her barrier had remained unbroken for over two centuries, but Ame naturally had no memory of that. Even so, she had always been able to feel it, a near-tangible field of energy she could feel like a constant, pleasant hum on her skin. She could even feel the secondary barriers scattered in and around Tokyo that protected the various branches of the Iki family who had left the shrine, though those were fainter, less definite than the one she lived in. The shrine barrier was special; each time someone crossed in or out of her domain, she got the distinct impression of someone faintly brushing past her, though for the most part she was able to tune the sensation out with a handful of exceptions.

Those exceptions were almost all members of the Far Shore, with the notable exclusion of her host, in the rare event that Ame wasn't seeing through them. Otherwise, only the handful of gods and shinki with permission to cross were clearly announced to her as if they'd been calling her name all along; she could also sense any violent attempt to break through, which was how she found Kirine.

The depth of emotion in Ame's breast as she felt her father's unique shinki come in contact with her barrier was so painful she couldn't stop the tears that inevitably followed. This incarnation very rarely cried, so mature was Reiko's personality and its influence, but now Ame could only sob into her hands with a terrible grief she couldn't recall ever feeling before.

Not once since that awful disaster had Ame been anywhere near Kirine, after all. If Amagiri-no-Mikoto and Yukine were to be believed, then it'd been over two hundred years since Ame had said her goodbyes, and she fully intended never to break her word that she would do everything in her power to stay away. To this version of Ame, Kirine was a stranger, nothing more than a story repeated over the years, a legendary figure Ame ached to meet with every fiber of her being, but which she knew was forever out of her reach.

Her father seemed to sense her complicated feelings about this, could probably feel the wistful ache in his own heart each time Kirine was mentioned in front of her, so he often reminded her that though she would never meet her mother, she could always find pieces of her in the family she protected. Indeed, the few secret photographs she had tucked under her shrine's floorboards confirmed her mother's Iki blood, that same brown hair and lovely clear eyes she'd seen around her her entire life. Ame always felt somewhat sad that she herself had so little of the family's genes; she knew she took after her handsome father in almost every way, but she wished she could see some of her mother looking back at her each time she glanced in the mirror. Kirine, or rather, Hiyori, in her photographs was always happy, always smiling, a pretty young woman who clearly loved the little baby she cradled with her entire being; Ame would have given anything to have that smile turned on her even once before she was reborn.

The closest, most uncanny thing she had was, of course, Reiko. Ame may not have inherited much of Hiyori's looks, but her Uncle Masaomi's bloodline was strong even several generations down the line, partially amplified by the spell that protected them all. Reiko in particular was so reminiscent of her own long-deceased great aunt that Yato actively avoided coming into contact with her.

"It's not that I don't like her," he told her whenever Ame asked why he wouldn't be in a room with her host. "I just... I can't be near her. It hurts too much, she's just like... I feel like I'm looking at your mother as she was, long ago."

"Don't you see Mother every day?" she asked.

"It's... it's complicated," he said softly. "Kirine is... she's your mom, but..."

"She's also not my mother," Ame said, knowing exactly what he meant. After all, Ame herself was a half-existence, both Yatogami's daughter and not. She had always felt that part of her was missing, that some precious piece of who she was meant to be had been lost long before Ame became aware of it. She didn't even like to use her given name in private, since without her memories, she felt like an imposter who had no right to call herself Iki Amane. Only her father and her brother Yukine called her that, and only ever when no one else was around.

"It is her," Yato insisted. "But Reiko reminds me of the life Kirine never got to live... the normal happiness she might've had if she'd never had the misfortune to meet me."

"Does that mean I also brought her misfortune, Father?" she asked once. She would never forget the horrified expression reflected in his eyes as he pulled her into a crushing embrace.

"Never, Amane! Don't you ever think that, you hear me?! Your mother and I love you and Yukine more than life itself, we'd do anything, we have done everything we could to keep you both safe. I never meant to imply that you were responsible for her death."

"But it is my fault-"

"No it isn't, my little god, I promise you, it was never your fault," he'd insisted, pressing a kiss to her brow. "I failed her, no one else."

She'd tried to take his assurances to heart, but she still felt guilty, especially when she allowed herself a very fleeting, very particular fantasy.

Sometimes, on the rare occasion when she and Reiko were acting as independent entities and physically present in the same place, Ame looked at her host and pretended, for just a minute or two, that Reiko was actually the mother Ame never knew. For a precious instant, she could imagine what her mother would have been like had she lived past nineteen.

It was such a beautiful illusion. The mother Ame saw in Reiko was warm and kind, intelligent and strong in that way mothers were supposed to be. She could pretend that the terribly loving smiles Reiko reserved for her daughter Rin, and much later her son Noriaki, were also meant for her, that if Ame were pushed in a scuffle at the place they called 'school,' or fell and skinned her knee, then she too would be wrapped in that unconditional, motherly love, that concern and possessive protectiveness she so craved.

But Reiko never turned that maternal devotion on Ame either. It wasn't out of a sense of cruelty; Ame was simply too intertwined with Reiko's consciousness, too ingrained as her host's other 'self,' that despite their constantly growing bodily age gap, the two of them struggled not to think of themselves as two sides of the same coin. They rarely even referred to one another by singular pronouns; if Ame spoke about Reiko or Reiko spoke about Ame to anyone else, it was always as a joint plural, as if the two of them were inseparable twins; that meant that as soon as Reiko did or said anything that involved Ame in any way, the illusion was broken, and Ame had nothing of her mother left.

Which was exactly what she deserved.

Amagiri-no-Mikoto claimed that gods had no sins, reminded Ame constantly to keep her head high and feel confident in knowing she was always in the right, but... did the same truth really apply to her? All gods were born from humans, but Ame was different. She was more than just a wish, she was a natural-born denizen of the Boundary instead of a Far Shore entity walking the line like every other god in existence. It seemed like a small difference, but it had dangerous connotations. It meant that despite the fact that there was no such thing as a half or demigod in Shintoism, she was somewhat human, and she was even living in a way gods weren't supposed to be. If she truly wished it, she could step into the Near Shore and blend in almost perfectly; humans did tend to get unnerved when people aged too slowly, and Ame wasn't entirely certain she wasn't done growing. It depended on each god and their natures, and sometimes had nothing to do with actual time. Either way, she was too close to the mortal world to pass for a god, and too godly to pass for a human either. Did her divine nature make her human spirit obsolete? Or did her human self invalidate the rules that normally applied to deities?

Ame never could find an answer to that dizzying question. Humans could be deified, but it always happened after death, when a vengeful spirit was appeased. It was definitely not what had happened to Ame. Living gods were not actual gods... they weren't supposed to be, anyway. In fact, sometimes Ame wondered if she weren't some sort of hanyou like her mother, a half-apparition, a half-demon. Demons and gods had a lot in common in folklore, and ayakashi did share traits with the divine to some degree, but she had no trappings of an ayakashi at all. Her aura was as pure as it was supposed to be, and she wasn't a spirit in the way Kirine was said to have been in life.

Whatever she was, Ame often felt like an imposter, a fraud. She was neither human nor god. She couldn't rightfully say she was both either. And no matter what her father and older brother said to the contrary, Ame felt the terrible, aching pain in Yatogami's heart every time they spoke and knew, somehow, that she was responsible for the two-hundred-year old loss that haunted and tortured him every single day.

He didn't blame her, no, but... sometimes Ame was sure he worked very hard, too hard, to act the doting father he always was for her. Like he was trying to apologize, to make up for being a poor excuse for her only remaining parent, a parent who had, in essence given up his living, bereft child in exchange for a dead woman's soul. Even though Ame no longer remembered the sadness and loss she must have felt at his decision, and though she knew it wasn't one he made lightly, she could sense that her father would never forgive himself for having chosen his wife over the daughter he'd sworn to protect, despite the fact that Ame would never have begrudged him the choice.

It hurt him almost as much as losing Hiyori had. More, sometimes. After all, Ame knew that Yato was a god of his word, and he had promised to raise and take care of the child Iki Hiyori left behind, the child he loved in every way a god could. But he'd also promised Hiyori his heart, his soul, and he was bound by another promise, a wish, to bring her soul back to his side at all costs.

So he'd done his best to fulfill both. He and Yukine had found Ame her shinki, had struck deals and called in every favor, even reluctantly signed paperwork that essentially gave the Iki family sole custody of his daughter in exchange for their cooperation and later, their faith. Once Ame and the Iki bloodline were secure, Yatogami brought a newly-named Kirine home to Kofuku's house and erased memories and bonds where he had to, then cut off all ties with every Iki family member but the one who acted as his lifeline. He'd crossed out every single threat to both Kirine and Ame's safety, set up precautions and alliances that no other god would have gotten away with, and hoped it was enough to make up for the emotional and personal betrayals he'd had to pretend didn't matter. Ame couldn't hate him for any of it, even if she'd wanted to.

Another child might have become resentful of him for exiling her so he could keep the family he'd had before, might even have resented Kirine for taking her father away from her.

But Ame was not like other children, and even without the special connection she and her father shared, even without the memories to back up her beliefs, she couldn't look away from his suffering, couldn't shake the feeling that Yatogami had never betrayed any of them. Ame had betrayed him first, the minute she'd failed to keep her mother safe and single-handedly destroyed their fragile, precious family.

She was keenly, terribly aware of how much Yato had loved his wife, how much he still loved her, and how much pain it caused him just to see Kirine's face every morning and know she would never understand the truth of his broken heart. Ame sometimes wondered if her father didn't regret naming her, so acute was the ache she felt in his heart, how terribly dark and sad his thoughts became when he thought his daughter wasn't listening.

She couldn't begrudge him choosing Kirine first after knowing that, no matter how lonely their necessary separation made her feel.

And Ame was lonely... every single day.

Family was Ame's entire reason for existing. It was the wish she bore in her deepest, most integral part of herself. She was a child who had been born to two loving parents and a kind elder brother, a small, found family that held on so tightly to one another that they were willing to risk their lives to fight for their right to exist together. Her brother had wanted a little sister he could give all the affection he never got himself, her mother had wanted a happy, healthy child that would always remind her of the husband she was so terrified of forgetting, and her father... Yatogami had given Ame the chance to fulfill those wishes, and subconsciously asked her to be the proof he needed to feel secure in his painfully complicated, deeply troubled form of love.

She was a god whose nature was intimately wound around familial love. She was meant to bring her parents joy, her brother sorely needed acceptance, to act as the binding force that kept them all from drifting apart, kept them safe and happy. Forgetting her memories every fifty years couldn't erase the instinct that searched for that very particular family, even when it didn't exist in the same form anymore.

From the moment she'd opened her eyes and heard the terrible, awful truth of who she was and what she was needed to do, she'd simply told herself over and over that her father would look after her mother's spirit, that Kirine was better off, happier, without the child who had betrayed her, who let her die despite everything Kirine- or rather, Hiyori- had sacrificed for her. It was only right that Ame kept her distance after that. She truly believed it.

But now that she could sense Kirine dangerously close to her own aura, there was a part of Ame that viciously wanted to free herself of her spell and forget everything except the childish urge to run right into her mother's arms.

Okaa-sama... Mother... Please, I beg you, don't come here! I want to see you more than anything, I do, but I can't let you do this, I can't. I can't bear to live in a world without you. I can't bear to know I've stolen you away from Father a second time, that I've taken you away from Onii-sama when I know how much he needs you, how much he loves you. I'll never forgive myself if I'm the reason I let our family fall apart more than it already has. Please, Mother, please leave!

She focused her barrier to a weapon's edge, trying to force Kirine to stop trying to break through, even though she could almost feel the pain she must be causing. Still, Kirine fought on, though Ame couldn't understand her determination. Any moment now, her mother's half-ayakashi form would be purified out of existence, her tenuous tie to the Near Shore severed for good, but pain didn't seem to be enough to deter her as she struggled forward into sacred space.

Ame panicked, frightened of hurting her, and abruptly let her through, but she was horrified with herself a moment later.

Kirine could not be there. She was not safe there. The main house and the land around it had expanded beyond the place Kirine had once known, but it was still the home she had lived in for several years of her lifetime. Anything could trigger her memory, anything could erode her god's greatest secret. And if it did, there was virtually no chance Kirine's soul would survive. They couldn't hope for that same, impossible miracle a second time.

Fear once again took hold in Ame's heart, and the tears she'd half-stymied returned with a vengeance.

"Father! I need you, please!" she cried, all but screaming into darkness. She could still sense him nearby somewhere, but he was preoccupied, she knew, probably defending the barrier, and not even their unique bond could penetrate the strength of the spell that kept her unconscious. "Save her! You must help her! I can't stop her, I can't even talk to her! FATHER! REIKO, TOSHIYA, ONII-SAMA, ANYONE! DADDY!"

But the response she prayed for never came. Instead, a hand found her head and she felt the sensation of someone crouching next to her, caressing her hair in total darkness.

"Hey, don't cry," a voice said gently. "Everything's gonna be okay, Ame."

"Y-You can't promise that," Ame sniffled, ashamed at her lack of control. "You don't even understand-"

"I don't, you're right. But I do know that you're scared, and I know you and I were always meant to meet. Even if it weren't for this spell, or curse, or whatever it is, I can feel that connection right here," the voice said, pointing a finger into Ame's chest, over her heart. "Whatever else happens, I can tell that much: there's a reason I was chosen for this, and it isn't a coincidence. I couldn't tell you why, or how I even know that, but I'm here, and you're here, and we'll get through this."

Ame shook her head, unable to straighten out her thoughts; something important was fighting to take shape in the back of her mind, but she was far too worried about her mother to really consider the implications of what her instincts were telling her.

"We can't, there's no way to leave this place-"

"You might be stuck, but I shouldn't be," the voice said with something like a shrug. "It's not like I'm really here anyway, I think I can force myself back. I dunno what I can do or how I'm gonna do it, but you need me to help, so I will. You're not alone, Ame; I'll protect her with everything I've got. I promise. Wait for me, alright?"

There was another gentle pat to the top of her head, and then Ame was once again alone in the darkness with nothing but her barrier for company.

---

High above the city, where the Heavenly subjugation force was deploying from amongst the churning clouds, the rearguard deities milled around the nearest watchtower, waiting to see if they would be needed for the battle taking place in Nakatsukuni below. Most of them stood at the ready, peering down at the flashes of light and sparks of clashing weaponry with tense curiosity, their shinki either already in vessel form or standing alert at their masters' sides.

At the back of the gathering, apart even from the aloof Emishi lazily drinking together in their relaxed northern accents, a lone god sat by himself, his feet dangling carelessly over the railing edge and into the dizzying abyss below. A few of his fellow deities had tried to coax him back into the fold, but the god merely smiled and waved them away until no one bothered to check in on him anymore. It helped that he was one of the only gods who had answered the call of the Heavens in completely casual attire; everyone else was in their formal kariginu, their white hoods draped imperiously over their shoulders, but this god stood out like a sore thumb in his wine-red T-shirt and worn black skinny jeans, his ears covered in piercings and his leather boots covered in metal studs.

Striking currant-red eyes completed the heavily dated, almost visual kei look, and the god was often mistaken for some sort of cosplayer, a vampiric wannabe with contacts and an unhealthy aversion to sunlight, if his pallor was any indication (he had no idea why vampires were still in vogue; he'd always found the idea ridiculous, but the concept kept coming back to bewitch new generations of idiots every so often). He was only missing the makeup.

The other gods had always assumed he had a rather odd fashion sense for casual wear, but truthfully, the god just disliked people.

Humans tended to flock together, so when someone went out of their way to dress the way he did, they often assumed that person meant trouble. That suited him just fine, he'd always been something of a lone wolf, and while he'd been born in the feudal period, he'd always worn somewhat striking colors and styles in order to warn people to keep their distance. He couldn't rightly remember when 'vivid' turned to 'punk' but it was very effective against mob-minded modern Japanese norms.

He also thought it looked a little cool, but he never said that out loud.

Thankfully on days like today, even the gods were wary of associating with someone who would wear something so disrespectful to Her Majesty. His many years of loyalty didn't count for much when it came to etiquette, and while he seriously doubted that Amaterasu cared what anyone wore, his outfit meant he could focus on more important things.

Things he didn't particularly feel like being questioned about, and which would likely land him and his shinki in quite a lot of trouble if he carelessly spoke about it in front of other deities. He had a vested interest in tonight's events, but it was deeply personal, and he'd spent too much time and effort laying traps over the last two centuries to risk getting caught up in the excitement of a battle before he was sure he could lure out his prey.

He stared down at the gap through the clouds, head propped up lazily in his open palm, wondering if he'd have to bide his time for another fifty years.

Fifty years, five hundred, what difference does it even make? he thought, yawning loudly. I'm bored, I'm not suited to all this cloak and dagger shit. I should've joined the vanguard and cut loose if things were gonna be this dull.

That always backfired, though. He'd tried the direct approach multiple times over the years, and each time, he'd either been soundly beaten back or tricked into wasting his time. He'd had enough of failure. If stealth and planning were what was needed to take Amagiri-no-Mikoto down once and for all, then he'd put as many years of tedious work into it as it took.

But he was bored enough to wish he'd gone anyway.

He stretched his arms over his head and paused to ruffle his rather disheveled brown hair, sending the messy waves tumbling even further into disarray.

"Milord, please," a woman's voice sighed from behind him. "You already look like you've been asleep this whole time, what will Her Majesty Amaterasu Omikami-sama say if she notices you're not only dressed like a hoodlum, but acting like one too?"

The god scoffed and cast a pointed glance back at his companion. If he looked like some troubled, barely-legalized misfit youth, then she looked like what he thought a parole officer might, a serious adult in her mid-twenties, stern and disapproving, her brutally short, sand-colored hair and thin mouth only reinforcing that bookish, librarian-like impression that would have been perfect if she'd used glasses. Physically, she wasn't much older than him, certainly young enough to pass for a relatively young student at university, but she was also jaded and tired enough to be visibly too old to put up with his bursts of mischief.

"Her Majesty doesn't even remember I exist," he said with another heavy yawn. "And she wouldn't care about my outfit, have you seen the sorts of things the God of Poverty wears on official functions?!"

"Kofuku-dono is an exception, milord."

"Once there's an exception, it means there can be others. Which means there's no reason I can't be one," he said, waving her concern away as he leaned back to stare up at the starry sky.

The woman let out an aggrieved sigh and returned to tapping irritably on her phone. He watched her from under his lashes, feeling somewhat nostalgic as his thoughts turned to the first time he'd ever laid eyes on her.

He'd been a child when he'd found her all those years ago. He'd liked her immediately for a shinki; even in death, she had plenty of practiced grace and elegance as she sat quietly on a bench in town, her back straight and well-mannered, eyeing the people around her with a lonely gleam in her brown eyes, like she was wondering what to do with herself, or perhaps waiting for someone she knew wouldn't come. He'd liked that despite her bearing and obvious education, she was approachable, likeable simply because she lacked the haughty, displeased look of every spoiled so-called princess of the era. There was a plainness to her face, not unattractive, but motivated, firm yet idealistic, and adorably freckled.

He'd come right up to her and offered her a flower to pin in her hair, imitating an exchange he'd seen in town earlier. He'd made her an earnest, upright offer, too shy in his newborn godhood to simply name her.

She'd smiled and thanked him, and asked for a few days to think about it. He had his own shrine, so he wasn't completely defenseless, and he said he'd wait for her answer.

He came back the next day. And the next.

On the third day it was him she was searching for in the crowd, and she had a knit-grass bracelet for his thin little arm as a thank-you for all the flowers he'd gifted her. So he asked again, and this time she knelt politely on the ground, bowed, and said yes, she placed herself in his care, and that she would be honored to serve a war god.

Her demeanor all made sense when her memories replayed in his thoughts a moment later. She had been the young mistress of a samurai clan like the one that had deified him, raised from birth to become an unusually independent and resourceful woman who would be more than just the passive bride of some wealthy lord. Her father had never forbidden her from pursuing passions and interests usually reserved for men, for successors to the family name, and while she'd lacked the skill to wield the sword herself, she'd developed a strong sense of duty, justice, and noblesse oblige, just like the somewhat eccentric man who'd raised her. When he died and her mother decided she would be best served as a bargaining chip in a political marriage, she had made plans to become an asset to her soon-to-be-husband, a partner who could support him in all his endeavors and raise their sons to be noble swordsmen in their own right.

But her fiance was not the man she'd hoped for. He was a jealous, spiteful second son, and he was unpleasant and cruel to everyone around him. Still, she tried her best to find good in him, prepared herself to be his bride and head of his household, only for him to witness an innocent and polite exchange between her and his older brother one afternoon and convince himself his fiancee was no more than a harlot who would betray him before they were even married.

He'd caught her on her way home that evening, dragging her by the same long hair he'd said was her only real asset, ignoring her screams and cries for mercy as he subdued and beat the fight out of her. Then he took her to his estate, stripped her naked, tied her to a post in the yard and cut off all her hair for good measure, saying he would never let her hold her head up high in public again. He left her there in the winter chill overnight as punishment. She didn't survive.

The god had never killed before, but that night, once he'd Named his first shinki (Fuyuna, "winter purification") and shown her to his shrine, he snuck out into the darkness when she fell asleep. The man who had killed Fuyuna lived in the next town over, and the god followed her memories right up to his estate. Armed with nothing but a sharp piece of broken pottery and his small, bare hands, he found his target and brutally sunk the shard right into the side of the man's throat. Then he pulled it out and watched with deep satisfaction as the bastard choked on his own blood, his fingers scrabbling desperately at the wound. Right before he died, he caught the god's sharp red eyes and the child knew that the man understood he was receiving his judgement. Fuyuna hadn't been the first girl he'd hurt or killed in a fit of jealousy, and the god was more than pleased to watch the disgusting pig stare up at him in terror until his eyes grew empty and glassy.

It was divine justice of the highest order, the god's most sacred purpose in life, and from that moment on, he took to his calling with zeal.

But Fuyuna was horrified the next time he slaughtered a human being; not because it was the wrong thing to do, but because he'd done it so cruelly, made the man suffer on purpose. She took to teaching him everything about honor and mercy, about the proper way to dispense justice, how to kill without causing undue pain, how to protect without necessarily killing in defense. Slowly, he learned to rein in his righteous fury and channel it in ways she approved of. Under her guidance, he'd become quite a well-known deity in his time, an occasionally rogue samurai god known for avenging the worthy and protecting the weak.

But that had been quite a long time ago; samurai no longer roamed Japan, justice was no longer dealt with blades, and the god had had to modernize to stay relevant in a rapidly changing world.

Fuyuna though... she was as stubborn as ever. She couldn't keep up with trends and struggled to adapt to technology, so she stuck to what she knew best. Even now, she insisted that all the shinki in their household wear traditional shrine attire, regardless of how new each soul was. But not even Fuyuna could force her master to comply with her strict rules, not if he didn't want to. He went along with most things, because he cared about his household and wanted to keep his Regalia happy, but freedom of expression was where he drew the line.

Besides, it wasn't like Fuyuna didn't have her own quirks when it came to appearances. No matter how many years passed, she kept her hair as short and boyish as possible, even in the old days when women with short hair were considered ill-bred. Her master knew she did it unconsciously; it was a lingering trauma, a fear of leaving herself open to attack, a fear of men who could reach out and yank her to the ground, wrap their fists tightly against her scalp and hurt her in ways she didn't dare imagine. Didn't dare remember.

The god grit his teeth in residual anger.

No one, ever, hurt his shinki and got away with it. Not back then, and certainly not now.

He barely noticed when he clutched at the fabric of his jeans so hard that his knuckles turned white.

"This era has been such a bad influence on you, milord," Fuyuna groaned as she noticed him stretch out on his back a minute later, his t-shirt riding slightly up to expose his midriff like a child.

"Has not," he scoffed. He leaned his head back to stick his tongue out at her.

"Milord!" she cried, scandalized."I beg you, act your age!"

"I am!" he insisted grumpily. "Do I look like I'm older than twenty to you, Fuyuna?! This is exactly the age and the era to be as punk-rock as I like and no one can give me shit about it."

"I don't even know what that means!"

"It means authority and rules can fuck right off," he said lazily, knowing it would make her angry. "Screw society, screw laws, I'll do whatever I fucking want."

Just as he expected, she seemed to be struck dumb for a minute before all the indignation rushed to her face. "Y-You- MILORD! You're doing that on purpose!"

He offered her a cheeky smirk. "Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not. What I do know is that you have got to loosen up," he said, sighing dramatically to annoy her. "You have like, five hundred years of vacation saved up, would it kill you to take it?"

"My place is here with you!"

"Tch. There go all my plans to drink myself into a coma."

She glared at him, her freckles bunching ominously over the bridge of her nose. "Milord," she growled. "What ever happened to that sweet child who listened to everything I said?" she asked under her breath as she rubbed her temples.

"Hey! I'm sweet!"

"You are a nightmare."

"Not to you I'm not!"

"And to think you were once respected by warriors all over Edo..." she grimaced.

The god huffed. "You always bring that up, as if being a samurai automatically made someone a rigid, noble soul. Don't forget that we've always been somewhat ambiguous in the memory of this country. Some samurai were loyal and obedient, and they followed a strict moral code like yours, but there were also plenty of ambitious, corrupt warriors who killed for their own gain or worked for masters that weren't interested in the good of the people they oversaw. And there were also many of us who preferred to make their own rules. I may not have been a ronin or a warrior-turned-bandit like some were, but I wasn't exactly the most straitlaced swordsman. Humans were right to be afraid of me."

"Because you are a god, milord, and you have the authority and right to hand down judgement that humans shouldn't."

"Yeah, but even then, I've always followed my own code, and I've also kept to myself. I'm not here to make friends. Today's equivalent of that lone-wolf spirit is something kind of like these fashionably ripped jeans; stupid, pointless, but a statement nonetheless." he noted, lifting one of his knees and wiggling his ankle slightly for her before letting it slip back over the porch edge, dangling carelessly in the air. "I've been asking you and the others to relax the old ways for years; Akina and Natsuna weren't even born in the Feudal Era, so why force them to dress like it?"

"Because we are your shinki, milord! And a samurai must always present himself as such!"

"Fuyuna," he sighed exasperatedly, "did you miss all the piercings in my ears or something? I haven't dressed like a samurai or any kind of lord in ages. There aren't any of us left. You can relax."

"I do not relax."

"Clearly," he muttered, rolling his eyes.

He was saved the scolding that would have followed because the text tone of Fuyuna's phone suddenly went off and she scrambled to check her mail.

"Milord... they found her," she said breathlessly.

He tensed up immediately.

"They're sure? It's her?"

"Yes, they're positive. Our hunch was correct, it was the Kobayashi girl."

"Good for them," he whistled. "They've been itching for an excuse to kill her for months. I have no reason to order them to hold back if she's really the resonator. How'd they figure it out?"

"Natsuna says she voluntarily broke the barrier in her home and fled a couple of hours ago," Fuyuna explained as she read. "They correctly assumed that if she was the resonator, she'd be headed for the shrine."

"That's not very helpful, though," he frowned. "All we know is that the barrier is somewhere in..." he paused to wave vaguely in the direction of the fighting without looking, "that general area. Which is several kilometers we can't-"

"Milord..."

"-actually search without getting thrown off by that stupid repellent spell-"

"Milord..."

"-I mean, seriously, what a fucking pain in the ass of an ability. It's stupid overpowered, you know; if this were a manga, I'd be very annoyed by it, gods don't generally have such powerful individual skills-

"MILORD!"

"WHAT?!"

He threw his head back to give her a reprimanding look, but she had gone pale and bloodless, her hands trembling around her phone.

"It... it's her, milord... S-She's here!"

He sat up immediately and all but jumped to his feet. "Where?!" he snarled.

"N-Natsuna says she... she's with the... t-the host... They're sure of it, they s-spoke with her, t-they saw her tail!"

He gaped at her, dumbstruck. "No... no way... not even that bloody fucking idiot would do something this stupid, would he?!"

"I-I don't know, milord..."

His cheek twitched as he bit the inside of his cheek.

"H-He's never let her anywhere near this mess, how did he... what made him... but he's not even using her-"

He fell into a pensive silence, his mind racing. Yatogami never used Boukki in battle; it was always Sekki that took the front line. He was, after all, a very rare, very powerful hafuri vessel, and the bond between him and his master was practically the stuff of legend. No other shinki could compare, not from among their enemies, at least. Most gods weren't even aware that Boukki existed, other than as the mysterious aberrant of Yatogami's household. No one even seemed to know what she looked like... but he did, and thanks to all his careful information-gathering, he also knew she didn't act the way most shinki did-

Everything clicked into place, and a fierce joy, a red hot anger, a hatred like nothing else he knew spread through the god's veins.

"Heh... HAHAHA!" he laughed mirthlessly. "That stupid, foolish, hardheaded little idiot! She must have left her master's protection all on her own! There's no way Amagiri-no-Mikoto would let her out of his sight, and he'd never risk sending her to help the resonator!"

The fool, he thought savagely. She always did think too highly of herself, she always acted as though she were special rather than a filthy mongrel, a cursed, unholy blight of a little girl. She had no right to call herself a Regalia, she had no business interfering in the matters of gods.

But this time... this time, that ego would work to his advantage. If Akina and Natsuna had visual confirmation of the stupid creature they could even follow her all the way to Ame-no-Mikoto's front door! In a single stroke of luck, things were finally, finally, going his way.

"Come, Toukki!," he shouted gleefully, his scarlet irises burning in the evening darkness as he held out his hand for his oldest, most loyal companion. A flash of light later and the slim, red hilt of a tanto sword fit perfectly in his palm, its double-sided moroha blade sharp and true. "It's about time we join the party, we'd be remiss if we didn't give Yatogami and his household Haruna's regards on such an auspicious night!"

"Yes, Akakiha-sama!" Fuyuna said, and he felt her equally bitter emotions spike at the sound of that old name. "This time, we'll make them pay for what they did," she said through gritted teeth. But she didn't blight him; they were, after all, in the right. They were justified in their actions.

They were seeking righteous vengeance. Just as they were meant to.

"We'd better hurry," he clicked his tongue as he grabbed his hood from the ground and pulled it over his head. "We don't want Akina to go into one of her rages and kill her before we do, or we'll miss our chance to see that fucking bastard's face when we slit his pretty little whore's throat in front of him!" he laughed as he leapt from the platform and down into Nakatsukuni. "What a day to be alive, Fuyuna! we have traitors to slay!"

---

"C'mon, c'mon, kid, answer your goddamn phone!" Yato growled as he jabbed the call button for the 64th time. "I bought you that fucking thing for emergencies, and you promised you'd always pick up! No matter how pissed you are!"

The call rang pointlessly for a minute and went right to voicemail.

"You've reached Yukine. Why are you even calling in this day and age? Mail me like a normal fucking person, whoever you are. Just kidding, I know it's you, Yato. Fuck off."

"YOU fuck off!" Yato snarled bitterly as another sharp pain cut through his chest and his phone gave a warning that it was about to run out of battery. He snapped the lid closed in stressed agitation.

He turned uselessly on the street, half-hoping he'd catch a glimpse of golden hair ducking behind another alley or hiding in a crowd somewhere. Yato had been chasing him all afternoon, but Yukine was proving to be more resourceful than usual. It made sense; it'd been practically two years since the last time he ran away, which meant he'd been using that time to become a stronger, wiser Regalia... and learning all about how Yato's mind worked.

He hadn't been that worried at first; the blight hurt as usual, but he could sense Yukine's conflicted heart refusing to go too far in either direction. He was upset enough to relish a sinful thought here and there, but he wasn't actually acting on most of them. Yato was sure that if he could just catch up, he'd be able to convince the kid to go home so they could have a proper talk.

The problem was, Yato was much slower than usual when he was being blighted, and Yukine practically fed off his own anger to do whatever it took to get away from his master. Not even knowing his kid's usual haunts was helping much, and before Yato knew it, it'd started to get dark, and there was a Storm coming in.

That's when the panic hit. Not just his, either. He was worried for Yukine and his paralyzing fear of the dark, but he could also feel Yukine's sharp spike of terror as he realized the same thing Yato had.

"H-Hah..." Yato gasped, leaning against a lamppost for support as his lungs seemed to contract painfully. "C-C'mon, Yukine, just go somewhere bright and safe, somewhere I can come get you... Don't be stupid, kiddo..." he groaned as another sting shot through his nerves. "Fuck, I messed up, I know I did!" he called out, raising his voice as far as he could. "Yukine! Let's go home! You can beat the shit out of me there, I promise!" he shouted. "Yukine!"

A cheery tone echoed in his tracksuit pocket and he snatched the phone out, hoping Yukine was finally coming to his senses.

Hiyori, he realized, slightly disappointed. He moved to answer but before he could hit the button, the screen went completely dark and the phone went dead.

"DAMN IT!" he groaned. "Now I don't even have a way to get to him if he gets scared, and Hiyori is gonna worry..."

He set off down the road at a slight jog, clutching his jacket over his chest as if that could help him breathe better, cold sweat trickling down his neck and his back.

"Yukine! Oiii! Hiyori is worried about us! If you wanna be pissed at me, fine, I can take it, but don't make your mom worry- GAH!"

He gave a strangled cry as he fell flat on his ass, shocked by the sudden appearance of an enormous lion landing weightlessly right in front of him, and riding on it's back-

A gorgeous, voluptuous woman in armor, a whip thrown over her shoulder casually as her long blonde ponytail fluttered in the wind.

"Yato," she said simply, by way of greeting.

"Fucking hell, Bishamon!" he snarled once he'd caught his breath. "I almost had a goddamn heart attack!"

"You're the one running around without paying attention to your surroundings," she scoffed, flicking her whip almost lazily at a spot to his left. For a moment he thought she was trying to hit him, but then he realized she'd just squashed a small ayakashi that had been creeping up on him.

"Fuuuuck- don't do that!" he groaned, pulling himself up. "Would it kill you to just fucking say 'hey, watch out, there's something after you!' before you use a weapon in my direction?!"

"You're blighted again, I see," she noted, ignoring his outburst entirely. "Where's Yukine?"

"Gone again," he huffed bitterly, rubbing his aching neck. "S'my fault, but with this storm... I'm getting worried. You haven't seen him have you?"

"Obviously not, or I wouldn't have asked," she said coldly, annoyed as usual by his mere presence.

"And Iki Hiyori?"

"Home. She's fine, she's with... uh, you know..."

"Do I?" she asked pointedly, but they both knew better than to talk about that openly. "Do you require assistance in tracking your Regalia down?"

"Are you offering it for free?" he asked suspiciously.

She shot him a dirty look. "I am not you, ingrate. I do not charge people whose debt I'm in."

"That again? I told you, just forget it," he winced, uncomfortable. "You're one of my drinking buddies, it's normal to go help a friend."

"He's not wrong, Ojou," Kuraha's voice echoed. "We're already considered to be part of the same faction in Heaven, there's no reason to keep track of favors and debts. We renegades ought to stick together and strengthen our bonds of friendship-"

"We are not friends," she snapped, glaring down at her mount. Kuraha visibly flinched.

"We are so," Yato insisted. "Quit being such a stubborn skank already-"

He only just managed to duck out of the way of her whip before it struck him across the face.

"HEY!"

"I should've killed you when I had the chance," she scowled, turning Kuraha away. "I have work to do. You're fortunate that I am above petty violence."

"Ha! You?!" Yato snorted. "You are the least pacifistic god in the entire country-"

The whip snapped over his head and he yelped instinctively. Bishamon shot him the dirtiest look she could manage.

"Farewell, Yatogami. Do try not to get blighted to death, won't you? Iki Hiyori will be very upset if you don't make it home to her."

"You're such a tsundere, Bishamonten!" he called after her as she and Kuraha bounded up and over the nearest rooftop. "Fucking coming to check up on someone you pretend to hate, you're worse than Yukine," he muttered mutinously.

He sighed, feeling even more drained than before. Yukine wasn't coping well, he was too upset to think straight and seemed to be working himself up into a panic attack. The longer Yato took to find him, the more likely his boy would either fall into an ayakashi's hands or became so messed up he would need another ablution.

"Which is the last thing either of us need," he groaned to himself, knocking the side of his head gently to try and gather his sluggish thoughts and get going again.

Another hour passed. Yato combed through the city as best as he could, chasing every glimpse of pale yellow just in case it was his son. But after the fourteenth t-shirt and sixth airy scarf, he started to feel that all too familiar sense of hopelessness and trepidation rising up in his stomach like bile. He gagged on the street corner next to a convenience store, fighting his nausea with all his might.

Not now! he thought, his heart pounding like a drum in his ears. I thought I was over these attacks! I haven't had one since Amane was born-

He clamped his hand over his mouth.

"G-Get a fucking grip, Yato!" he told himself once he managed to tamp the bile down, taking deep, desperate breaths. "It's bad enough Yukine is fucking terrified, you don't need to pile on with your own shit!"

But... something was wrong, he realized after a moment. Not just with him and Yukine. Some unnameable dread seemed to be taking hold, crawling over his skin like tiny invisible spiders.

The Storm? he wondered, shivering as he glanced around at his surroundings.

To the people in the Near Shore, the street looked as inconspicuous as ever. A few evening stragglers made their way home, while a group of high school age kids hung out on a low wall nearby, killing time. An occasional car drove by, slowly so as not to hit any passerby that might be walking in the road. They couldn't see the shadows stalking up and down just outside the apartment buildings, or the low thrum of otherworldly voices carried on the heavy breeze.

But it was all too real for Yato, and anyone else with a foot on the Boundary. Several ayakashi had been following him at a safe distance, dissuaded only by the bottle of holy water Hiyori had made him accept, and which he kept dabbing onto his throat and wrists as though it were cologne. He hoped it would dull his scent enough for the ayakashi to realize he wasn't entirely unprotected and stay away. The air was thick with malaise, and while he could sense that Bishamon was probably drawing a lot of attention, he still felt distinctly unsettled without Yukine to protect him.

Still, that wasn't enough to account for the magnitude of Yato's discomfort. Not even his blight should have made him feel this ill, not when Yukine was being so careful to stay on the Near Shore.

"The fuck is going on?" He wondered, wincing as a headache started forming behind his eyes. Why do I feel like something terrible's coming?

He shook himself, determined not to get distracted. Yukine might not be in immediate danger, but Yato could sense that he'd curled up into a ball somewhere, clutching his precious omamori and crying bitterly to himself. His heart ached so badly, felt so heavy with fear and betrayal, Yato could barely stand upright.

"Fuck... Yukine, I'm so sorry," he breathed as he reluctantly sunk onto the bench outside the store, feeling every sharp prick of Yukine's despair dig deeper into his flesh. He groaned and buried his face in his hands, trying to sense something, anything that might give him a lead on his guidepost's location. "I never meant... I should've realized how much this would hurt you, kid..."

He must feel so alone... I'm supposed to be his dad, I'm supposed to be the guy who's always there for him, and I just... I did something that scared the hell out of him, and I never bothered to think how he might feel about it, as my guidepost, but also as my kid.

The anger is all Yukine, but... what's left of Tajima Haruki is remembering he can't trust father figures, that we're all selfish, manipulative bastards who would toss him aside without a second thought. He's gotta be questioning every promise I've ever made him... he's probably angry for allowing himself to feel safe with me for even a second...

He pressed his palms against his eyes as hard as he could handle, letting the pain and bright afterimages refocus his attention.

Think, Yato, think. If you were Yukine, where would you go?

Not home. Not by himself. He'd be too ashamed to face Hiyori after snapping at her the way he had, assuming he wasn't still upset with her. He wouldn't go to the Iki's place either; as much as Hiyori's parents adored him, Yukine didn't feel particularly comfortable around them, especially on his own.

A friend's place? Yato had already checked Tenjin's, and since the Lion Skank was out and about, Kazuma and the others wouldn't be home to let him through the gate.

The plot in Heaven? It was technically safe, but getting there would require Yato's shrine, which was at Hiyori's house, and there was a good chance it was dark up in Heaven too, despite all the time-misalignment. Darker than the city, even, since there weren't any lamps or even a proper structure to shelter in. It was just too small a space to comfortably occupy; Yato hadn't even been able to pitch a decent tent within the border.

He'd be somewhere well lit, somewhere relatively safe, somewhere Yato would take a while to figure out-

"Nora's place," he realized. But no, not her place, exactly, she wasn't particularly happy with her room in Ookuninushi's estate, so she often wandered the Near Shore at night, looking for-

Water.

There was a pond not far from Ookuninushi's closest shrine. Nora spent a lot of time there, being her usual grumpy self. It was protected by a few wards, set up by superstitious locals, and Yato was sure he'd heard Yukine mention that he sometimes hung out with Nora there-

He shot to his feet and ran, hoping he could remember the exact spot without GPS to point him in the right direction.

"Hang in there, Yukine," he groaned in pain. "Dad's comin' for you."

He never noticed that the source of his aching heart had more than one origin.

---

Yasumi groaned, her head spinning painfully as she returned to consciousness with a mighty spiritual effort.

Where...? she thought vaguely. There was a ringing in her ears, a high-pitched wail of a sound, and her body ached as though she'd been lying on the cold ground for a fair amount of time. Her eyes blinked open slowly to find herself exactly where she thought she was, her cheek resting on concrete and the brisk night air sending a shiver down her spine.

She lay there stupidly for a second, trying to remember what was happening, when a loud cry of pain echoed nearby.

"Where IS SHE?!" someone was snarling angrily, an almost inhuman growl reverberating under the words. There was a strangled gasp and the sound of someone struggling. "TELL ME!"

"I- I can't-!" a second voice wheezed, clearly in terrible pain.

"GIVE HER BACK! SHE'S MINE! RETURN HER TO ME!"

Yasumi forced herself up on her hands.

The first thing she recognized was the steep staircase cut into the side of the hill, a staircase Yasumi had climbed countless times in her youth. The Iki shrine was in a less busy part of the city, but it was still an unusually large estate for a modern shrine; apparently Yasumi's ancestors had bought out the land around the original house and returned it to a natural wooded state over the years, resulting in a fairly wide swath of greenery that cut the area off from urban life. None of the buildings were therefore visible from the entrance, surrounded as they were by trees and a low wall further in. Nonetheless, the place was unmistakable, even without the metal plaque bearing the family name at the gate.

Instinctively, Yasumi flinched. Her mother had grown up in this estate, and she had been brought to visit more times than she could count, but her memories of the shrine weren't particularly pleasant. That the place had taken on new meaning with the knowledge of Ame-no-Mikoto's existence wasn't enough to completely wipe away the resentment and discomfort of seeing those familiar red torii gates bearing down over her, oppressive and unwelcoming.

But she didn't have time to dwell on it; following the sound of voices, she turned toward the wall on her left and froze, horrified.

She recognized her Aunt Kuriko, dressed as always in miko's attire, that same brown hair of Hana's spilling out of its tie and framing her pale face in panicked disarray. Her feet were raised above the ground, her body pinned by the throat as she thrashed violently with awful, choking gasps. Her fingers were bloodied, clawing at the... the thing keeping her aloft.

Kirine-san, Yasumi realized with shock.

The creature barely resembled the beautiful girl who had rescued her earlier. Her face was twisted, distorted, somewhere between human and beast. Fangs replaced teeth in a too-small mouth, dark patches of festering flesh marred her cheek and darkened one of her eyes, which was no longer clear and brown, but an unholy, enormous orb of monstrous hatred. Her ears were gone, replaced by elongated, pink-furred appendages that might have been a cat or a dog's ears, but the wrong shape, the wrong color, and what had once been soft, gentle hands were now thick, heavy claws, unnaturally sharp and deadly as one of them crushed her aunt's throat.

A vague nudge in the back of her mind told Yasumi that what she was seeing was something she had expected to find, but her mortal consciousness couldn't help but feel sick and terrified by the scene. Tears welled up, unbidden, and her heart ached with searing pain as she threw herself forward unthinkingly.

"Kirine-san!" she screamed, managing to grab the shinki's tattered robe. "Let her go! Please, it's my Aunt, let her go!"

Kirine didn't even turn to look.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" she snarled viciously at Kuriko, shaking the woman's body as if it were a rag doll. "WHERE IS SHE?! I KNOW SHE'S ALIVE, SHE HAS TO BE ALIVE! GIVE HER BACK OR I'LL RIP OUT YOUR THROAT!" Ice crawled down Yasumi's spine at the echoing, unnatural voice, laced with countless, inhuman others.

"Y-Yasu-mi-!" Kuriko coughed as she shakily noticed her niece.

"Auntie! Kirine-san, you're hurting her, you're killing her!" Yasumi sobbed, grabbing the girl by the waist. A hot, searing pain shot through her nerves and she abruptly let go with a shriek, her eyes drawn to the blackened skin on her own arms.

Yasumu... The thing they call blight, she realized. But she couldn't afford to worry about that now. If words weren't working, Yasumi had no choice but to try force.

Gritting her teeth, she hooked her arms under Kirine's and kicked out at her ankle to destabilize her stance, doing her best not to scream at the unbearable pain.

"Let- GO!" she cried, and somehow she managed to pull the shinki backward just enough for Kuriko to free herself and fall to the ground with a ragged gasp.

A hellish cry of fury tore through the air as Kirine shoved Yasumi back with inhuman speed, turning on her with crazed, murderous intent.

"Give her BACK!" she roared, raising a razor-sharp hand with the intent of slashing her attacker-

And then their eyes met.

Kirine froze, her one human iris widening in shock.

"Y-Yato?!" she gasped, scrambling back. "W-What- how- why are you-"

"What?" Yasumi asked shakily, falling weakly to her knees as the adrenaline drained out of her body.

"But you're- no, you're not-" Kirine clutched her head, groaning in pain as her eyes shut closed.

Yasumi suddenly noticed something curious, something altogether different from the grotesque, nightmarish transformation taking place.

Though Kirine's hands were almost completely bruised with corruption, one oddly bright patch of skin on the back of her left hand remained unblemished, a very unnatural shape, like a perfect line, or an object banded around her finger-

A ring.

But Kirine hadn't been wearing any jewelry before; Yasumi had studied her carefully on the train, and she was sure her hands had been completely bare.

A strained cough reminded her of her aunt and Yasumi scrambled onto her hands to reach her.

"Auntie! Are you okay?!"

Kuriko groaned and shook her head urgently.

"Don't worry... 'bout me," she coughed. "G-Go, h-hurry- Ame-sama needs-"

"KIRINE!"

Yasumi yelped, caught off guard by the loud voice, but when she turned she found a small girl she'd never seen before, her face and arms covered in nasty, blood red slashes. Her face was almost as pale as Yasumi's, though she was sure this was a case of blood loss rather than complexion.

"Kirine!" she shouted again, limping slightly as she hurried forward. "Kirine, stop! Don't do this!"

"THAT'S NOT MY NAME!" Kirine screamed. "STOP CALLING ME THAT! MY NAME IS-"

"STOP!" Yasumi screamed, though she startled herself just as much as everyone else when they turned to look at her in surprise. Oh boy, just let me die, she groaned inwardly, unable to prevent the embarrassment of calling attention to herself, even in this particularly dangerous situation. She wasn't entirely sure why she'd spoken up in the first place. "Uh... I-" she mumbled, red-faced.

"She's right," the girl insisted as she cut her off. "If you've remembered this much, you know exactly why you have to stop this right now!"

Kirine shook her head, scratching bloody grooves into her unnatural ears as she clung to them tightly.

"I- I don't... I just want... I-I... Where is s-she, Nora-chan?! She can't be g-gone, she c-can't-!" she cried, falling over onto her hands with gut-wrenching sobs.

The girl called Nora sighed with relief and knelt next to Kirine, patting her head with adult-like poise. "I'm sorry, I can't tell you that. I wish I could, even I would... But Yato is fighting with Yukine right now, and he can't protect himself or the rest of us if you keep blighting him. Don't you care about them too?"

"O-Of course I d-do," Kirine hiccuped, and Yasumi thought she might be imagining it, but at least from behind, Kirine looked less monstrous by the minute. She sighed with relief and returned her attention to her aunt while the two girls talked things out.

"You're sure you're okay, Auntie?" she asked quietly, ignoring Kuriko's entreaties that she leave her there and go.

"Y-Yes, my throat's just sore," Kuriko grimaced, eyeing the two dead girls with no small apprehension. "They need to leave, quickly," she added in an undertone, squeezing Yasumi's arm pointedly. "Especially Kirine-san."

"What? Why?" Yasumi asked, confused. Again, she felt that strange little nudge, a thought or memory she couldn't quite reach, but she was too preoccupied to really pay attention.

"Don't you have eyes, child?" Kuriko scolded, and Yasumi's mouth twitched slightly. Yep, that's Aunt Kuriko, back to snapping as normal.

"If you mean the Sight-"

"You already have that," Kuriko said simply, and Yasumi froze.

"I... I do?!"

"You see those two, don't you?"

She glanced over her shoulder, eyes wide. "Y-Yeah... Yeah I do!" she said, awed. They weren't blurry at all, and she didn't need to force herself to focus in order to pick them out. In fact, her headache and nausea had all but vanished. "I thought-"

"It's the barrier," her aunt explained. Kuriko had a habit of guessing what people were going to say next and often felt it was better not to waste time when she could skip over the unnecessary bits of a conversation. "Ame-no-Mikoto is preventing you from being overwhelmed by the Far Shore before you're ready to face it."

"B-But that didn't help when I was at home-"

"This is the original barrier. It's on an entirely different scale, even weakened as it is now," Kuriko sighed, glancing up as a flash of dry lightning went off somewhere nearby.

"W-Whoa! Was there a thunderstorm in the forecast?!" Yasumi asked, shocked.

"No. Only the Sighted can see that particular lightning," Kuriko said simply, but it was clear she didn't think it was necessary to elaborate. "Listen carefully, Yasumi," she said in a very low whisper. "Our lives depend on that little girl right now. As long as she can keep Kirine-san focused, Amagiri-no-Mikoto should be able to keep fighting... I hope."

"That gives me so much confidence," Yasumi scowled.

"It doesn't matter. They need to leave before Kirine-san is drawn back into dangerous topics, or she might kill her master, and then we're all as good as dead."

"What?! B-But why is being here-"

"Think, girl! Think! Where else have you seen Kirine's face?! Where else have you seen this particular hair color?!" she hissed, tugging her own hair over her shoulder. "She's an Iki!"

Yasumi stared, open-mouthed. Now that Kuriko mentioned it, all her mother's blood relatives did resemble Kirine. In fact, Yasumi was sure she'd seen a photo, somewhere, of a young woman that looked just like her at the main house, though she was sure that person was still alive. She couldn't remember who they'd told her it was, but that was definitely the reason Yasumi felt like she'd known Kirine before they met.

"Y-You mean, she's like... our ancestor?!"

"Close enough!" Kuriko said. "More accurately, she's our ancestor's younger sister. Something like your great-great-great-aunt. She's also incredibly important for our survival, and that means she can not be here, under any circumstances. And you can't say anything about this, to anyone, understood?!"

"B-But... what does any of that have to do with-!"

"Understood?!"

Yasumi flinched. "Y-Yes, Auntie."

"You have to go," Kuriko noted as another arc of lightning lit up the sky. "That lightning means things aren't going well. You have to get to Ame and start the ritual before Heaven breaches the barrier."

"Of course you knew it was me," Yasumi grimaced.

"No, actually," Kuriko sighed with bemused fondness. It surprised Yasumi, she wasn't used to her aunt showing anyone affection, much less her. "I may be the head priestess, but I know shockingly little about our gods and their affairs. I just pieced the truth together when Hana called me earlier and said the barrier around your house was gone."

"Mom's here?" Yasumi asked, perking up.

"Not yet, but she shouldn't be too much longer. I spoke to her just before you got here."

"Did she mention if she spoke to Yato?"

Kuriko gave her an incredulous look. "What? Where on earth did you hear that name, Yasumi?!"

"Other than the bunch of times everyone here mentioned it?" Yasumi asked drily. "I met him. He came to my school a few weeks ago."

"... That's strange," Kuriko muttered to herself. "He doesn't show himself to us very often... only ever at the rituals, in fact... Hmm," she pursed her lips, thinking before she seemed to remember they were in a bit of a hurry. "Never mind, you need to go, now, Yasumi. I'll handle the shinki, just go to the honden, an older man and Reiko-obasan will be waiting for you."

"Reiko-obasan will be there?" she asked, surprised. "I thought she might have forgotten by now-"

"GO!"

Yasumi yelped and scurried off, all her instincts reminding her that her aunt was not a good person to cross.

---

Hiyori waited until Kofuku and Daikoku thought she was asleep before quietly preparing to sneak out under the cover of the night.

Since she planned to leave Amane behind, Hiyori had reluctantly broken her feeding schedule to ensure the baby wouldn't start screaming for her mother too quickly after she left. Unfortunately, that also meant Hiyori was disheveled, in pain, and distinctly uncomfortable in her soaked bra and stained blouse by the time Amane was finished.

"Damn it," she cursed to herself as she surveyed the damage with a wince. "I'll have to change clothes," she mused under her breath as she gingerly treated the cracked skin and cleaned herself up, noting with dismay the pink stains that meant she was probably bleeding. Again.

I want a written apology from every childcare book author who used the words 'beautiful' and 'natural' to describe breastfeeding. And a refund, she thought bitterly.

Once she'd finished, she rummaged silently through the closet for something to wear, privately thankful that Yato didn't believe in things like personal boundaries and regularly "borrowed" her clothes. She always scolded him whenever she caught him at it, but lately his questionable habit had become a bit of a blessing in disguise. Chances were if Hiyori ran out of clothes while at Kofuku's, Yato had something she could change into that wasn't just a mischievous excuse to get her to wear his things. (She'd learned the hard way that giving in to that request meant she would be kept awake all night with hushed caresses and muffled gasps she couldn't quite bring herself to deny, even if Yukine were sleeping just a futon away. Yato seemed to think the Regalia was a deep enough sleeper to get away with at least half of what he promised he would when he whispered sultrily in her ear, and he never went far enough to earn a beating for being too licentious either.)

I have got to stop daydreaming about his stupid, infuriatingly skilled hands, she groaned inwardly as she stopped to shake herself of the memory. He's too good at making me forget things I shouldn't. Like consideration and respect for Yukine-kun's mental well-being! I can't imagine how horrified I'd feel if I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of my parents doing something that inappropriate right next to me! Never again am I sleeping in Yato's clothes... at least... not when Yukine-kun is around. Amane too... in a few years, anyway.

She found what she was looking for after a few minutes, dislodging a wicker box from under a pile of blankets as she turned her phone's flashlight on to read the label taped on the lid.

"'Top Secret - Stay Out,'" she read, her brow raised skeptically. Yato couldn't be more obvious if he tried, she thought, lifting the lid to expose what she was sure would be a shameless display of her lover's sticky fingers and a record of incriminating doujinshi he'd probably drawn himself.

Instead, what she found were several neat piles of what looked like perfectly normal clothing. She rifled through the first two, confused; yes, they were women's clothing, and yes, some of them she recognized as her own, but there was nothing particularly revealing or inappropriate about them. There were blouses and fashionable t-shirts, sweaters, jackets and regular-length shorts, a few pairs of jeans and slacks, even a couple of lovely, airy dresses like one Yato had made for her at the end of spring. They were all clean and pressed to perfection, stored away presumably for her future use.

Why so many? she wondered. She'd expected stolen underwear, maybe a few blouses he might've wanted for their lingering scent, but certainly not what looked like a small, practical wardrobe.

A third pile revealed several garments held together with pins, and the fourth turned out to be only three shirts on top of a second, smaller box.

"I knew it," she huffed, frowning as she put the clothes aside and pulled the box out of its niche. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if maybe she ought to leave some of her boyfriend's... interests in the shadows where she was blissfully unaware of them, but in the end, she still needed to find a replacement bra, and there hadn't been any underwear in the rest of the clothing items. "Please don't be adult... things... I'll never be able to look him in the face again," she muttered to herself, her cheeks burning as she opened the lid.

Thankfully, it wasn't that explicit.

There was a small stack of clearly dirty doujinshi tucked in one corner, but Hiyori's eye was drawn immediately to the cute, colorfully decorated soft-cover book at the top of the pile that she recognized as Yato's so-called "Father and Child Healthbook." When Masaomi had given Hiyori her official Mother and Child records soon after they'd found out she was pregnant, Yato had thrown one of his usual fits of outraged jealousy when he realized that there was no father-specific equivalent. He'd been so surly and moody about it that Hiyori had exasperatedly told him to just write a diary the way she did and leave her in peace; she hadn't expected him to take her so seriously that he began his own book and made a point to decorate it so lovingly that it made her government copy feel rather flimsy in comparison.

He'd been diligent about writing in it whenever she wrote in hers, so that they spent many quiet evenings sitting side by side or across the table while they worked in companionable silence, pausing only to check a detail here or share a soft, knowing smile there. Hiyori had offered him a look at her book, but Yato had refused and insisted neither of them should look at the others' work until both records were complete, presumably when Amane began attending primary school in a few years.

She smiled as she automatically picked it up and rifled through the pages, each one a beautiful record of her pregnancy jotted down in the same painstaking calligraphy she'd so admired every time she watched him write. There were also drawings and soft pencil sketches, carefully framed and preserved photos and sonograms, even a tiny lock of the baby's hair he must have saved when Hiyori evened it out the other day.

"Oh... Yato, this is beautiful," she whispered aloud, running her fingers over the dried ink of the most recent entry. She'd resisted reading the others, but she wanted to be able to read at least one.

My cute little Raindrop, Daddy had so much fun playing with you today! You really liked the new picture book, too. I know you're technically not old enough to appreciate that kinda thing, but you seem to like the colors and my voice when I read to you anyway. You couldn't stop laughing when we got to the part with the rainbow-colored beach balls, you'd never seen anything so bright! I was so happy to see you smile, you have no idea how pretty your laugh is, it's just like your mom's, I could listen to it forever. You're also really starting to get a hang of lifting yourself up on your arms when you're getting your tummy time! You're gonna be crawling in no time, and then there won't be anyone who can stop us going over every inch of this house, and the other one too! You and me, kid, someday we're gonna own this town. Oh, right! you actually asked me about how Mommy is doing today! I'm so proud of you; you're finally starting to understand empathy! What a relief, sometimes I admit I get just a tiny bit worried that you're the world's tiniest sociopath, but I know I'm being silly. Gods can't be sociopaths anyway. Or... I guess you could say we're all sociopaths until we get shinki and learn better, so you're fine? Probably? I'm sure you'll laugh at your stupid dad when you're old enough to read this. I know, I worry too much about everything and nothing. Not as much as Yuki-nii, but still a lot. But I really am proud of you for thinking about your Mama today. Usually you just want to know where she is so you can get your cuddles or your milk, you little glutton, but this is the first time I've heard you ask a question about her condition. Does that mean you're starting to see how tired she is? How you need to be a little kinder to her? I know you don't really understand yet, and I can't blame you since you're still a baby, but if you could give Hiyori just a little more of your attention, help her feel less hurt and self-conscious about the things she can't control... well, it'd really put Tou-chan at ease, little god. And I'm sure seeing Mommy happy will make you happy! Then again, you're always happy, baby. It's part of what makes you so dang adorable. Your dad loves you, kiddo. I'll get back to cuddling you now. Your one and only papa, Yatogami

"Oh, you idiot!" Hiyori cried in distress. "How could you put this, this precious, sweet love letter to our little girl in the same pile as a bunch of stupid porn, Yato?! Don't you have any shame?!" she groaned as she reluctantly returned the book to where she'd found it.

It was a rhetorical question. Of course he didn't.

That fact was reinforced a moment later by the discovery of a bit of dark purple fabric hastily stuffed into the lining behind the books; she tugged it free and flushed when she recognized her laciest, most provocative pair of panties, which she hadn't seen in quite some time. They'd been a joke gift from Yama some years ago, with a matching bra that Hiyori had never been able to bring herself to wear, considering it was practically see through and so thin it did nothing to hide or pad out the shape of her under it. She'd considered wearing it for Yato once or twice, before she gained too much weight to fit in it, but could never overcome the embarrassment to allow it. The panties she'd tried just once during the trickiest part of her pregnancy, out of the pure desperation to get Yato to notice and touch her again. He'd been so stubborn about abstaining that Hiyori had started to feel terribly undesirable and more unwanted by the day; when she started having crying fits about the thought that maybe Yato was tired of her and thinking of leaving her, she decided she wasn't going down without a fight.

She wanted to die every time she remembered the sheer mortification she'd subjected herself to in her clumsy, terrible attempts at seduction. She really had gone uncharacteristically too far, but not even making sure he got a good look at her in a slightly too-short camisole when she got out of the bath was enough for Yato to get the hint. Hiyori was far too upset by that point to work up the courage and just ask; she couldn't get over the disinterest in his expression when he didn't even seem to notice.

Except he did, because I never saw these again, she flushed. He's a much better actor than I give him credit for... And here I thought they got lost in the wash. Typical. I should've known he had them when he said he really liked seeing me in lace, even though most of my underwear isn't that elaborate...

She cleared her throat, her cheeks hot as she tucked the panties back in where she couldn't see them. Out of sight, out of mind, as they said; If she had no visual confirmation of them, she could pretend they didn't exist long enough to actually focus on her task.

She'd expected to find more pairs of pilfered underthings, but the rest of the items in the box were surprisingly docile. She found an open packet of compression socks, the same kind she'd used in the last months of her pregnancy and which Yato always seemed to pull out of thin air when they were needed, as well as a little tin box of homemade candy, which had been one of her most persistent cravings for a while. There was a small stack of cards and letters that she'd given him over the years, several photographs of her and Yukine, a couple of souvenirs and trinkets from particularly memorable outings, and a couple of her ugliest, most unflattering nursing bras.

That baffled her. Yato hated those, not just because he preferred the cute, patterned bras she sadly didn't fit in anymore, but also because she hated them, because they were a symbol of all the anguish and humiliation she had to suffer as an overfull, perpetually sore and lactating mother. Every time he'd helped her clean up or applied medicine to her open sores, he'd shot the damned things a look so hateful she wondered if he wasn't planning to cut them up with a pair of scissors the first chance he got. He always got them out of the way pretty quickly when he wanted her to himself too. Quickly, and with great prejudice.

Under those, she found a small, pocket notebook labelled "Alterations."

She picked it up and leafed through the pages, curious. Several diagrams and notes stared back up at her in the light of her phone. She recognized them as clothing patterns, though they were a bit too complicated for her to follow. Under the sketches Yato seemed to have added his thoughts and commentary on each design.

'For blouses,' the first page began, 'look for softer fabric, try not to buy or make anything with a lot of decorations or seams, they irritate her skin. Make sure to let out the sides so they're not too tight around her chest, she's been in a lot of pain. If you get her t-shirts, make sure they're cotton and oversized so they don't feel too constrictive. She might also prefer a kimono when it starts getting cold, since it's easy to tuck a baby in to feed under the sleeves; look into the best patterns for nursing mothers.'

'Dresses,' she continued. 'Loose and airy, they're more comfortable and she looks extra pretty in them too. Maybe if I make her a few she'll get some use out of them before summer ends. I do have that denim jacket I could alter into a sort of dress, I bet it would really suit her-' a few sketches showed off several angles of the proposed design, as well as one beautiful drawing of what she might look like wearing it. Hiyori blushed at the soft pencil strokes that caught her face in profile, smile wide and bright, eyes shining. Did Yato always see her like this? Even now that she was constantly in a bad mood?

She sighed wistfully and forced herself onward. There was more written under the drawings, but almost all of it was crossed out, with the exception of two lines scribbled at the bottom. 'Never mind, Yukine threw that jacket out last year. I was looking forward to it too...'

The rest of the notes alternated between instructions and what looked like bits of a journal entry, and Hiyori couldn't help but smile at the window into Yato's thoughts as she looked over each one. She wasn't used to seeing him contemplate things so thoroughly, and it made her feel curiously fuzzy and warm to know he'd been thinking so seriously about how best to help her. Before she knew it, she'd reached the last entry.

'Underwear,' it declared, and Hiyori felt her mouth twitch as she wondered if she should stop before whatever he had to say on the topic ruined what would have been a perfectly lovely gesture.

"W-Well, it's not like I don't already know the kind of things he'd say," she murmured, her cheeks burning at the memory of some of his dirtier, blunter observations whispered in the dark of night. In the end, her desire to know what he wrote won out over any trepidation about how embarrassing or inappropriate it might be.

Apparently, girls have an insane amount of options when it comes to bras. At least, they do if you go by the sections at a lingerie store. Except whoever came up with these 'options' is a fucking liar; I went to three different places to see if I could find something more comfortable than those expensive nursing bras her mom got her that she never uses, and I don't care what marketing says, there are no commercially available bras made with actual comfort in mind. Seriously, what idiot thought mass production was the solution to a garment that's supposed to fit the different body types of each unique girl? I'm so fucking annoyed and I'm not even the one who has to wear them! I'm actually just starting to question the whole concept of the damn things; I sorta just took 'em for granted when they started being sold in Japan, and I see the sex appeal fine, but what's so terrible about girls' bodies that they gotta hide themselves under what's practically a medieval torture device?! Nobody used to wear anything under kimono, and no one gave it a second thought until someone said otherwise! I kinda just wanna go home and tell Hiyori to burn all of hers, even if some of them are pretty ho- NOT the point, stupid!

Hiyori covered her mouth to stifle an unintentional snort of laughter. She could practically hear his voice as he reprimanded himself, and she wished she could have seen his expression while he wrote.

I've been trying to see if I can't design one that fits to Hiyori's needs, but I think I'm out of my depth on this one. It's not a difficult garment to sew, exactly, but I need her measurements and feedback to really do it justice, and asking her to model for it is just piling on to all the other shit she has to deal with. That, and she'll never believe I'm not just making excuses to sleep with her... Not that I'd say no if it came to that... ever... How the hell did I go a thousand years without this? How the fuck am I still able to wait several days in between? Fucking hell, she's driving me crazy, and she's not even here right no- OI, FOCUS, YATO, YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE WORKING ON HELPING HER, NOT FANTASIZING ABOUT HER- 'Okay, I stuck my head under the sink for a minute, I'm good, I'm fine, I'm a rational, normal person... sort of? Well, not an actual person, but whatever. Amane gave me a look when I got back from the bathroom, I think she sorta gets what I'm fighting here, even if she has no idea what the hell sex is... which is exactly how that's going to stay for the rest of forever if I have anything to say about it. Still, she probably senses what a trainwreck I am, she understands the dangerous pull of aramitama too, even if she hasn't had to suffer through it yet- Hell, I hope she never does. I'm so glad she doesn't take after me as a warrior god, I don't want her to ever feel like she needs to hurt, assault, or kill anyone. Especially not people she loves- This ain't a diary, damn it. I have seriously got to get my shit together, I'm getting sloppy. Rational. Normal. Semi-person. ... Anyway, bras. I'm gonna take the wires out of a few of Hiyori's and see if that helps. Otherwise I'm just gonna work at convincing her there's nothin' wrong with going au naturale. It's for her well-being, so it's not like it's just me being a perv...! ... Yeah, I wouldn't believe myself either. Still, I'll take any accusation if it means she feels even a little better in the long run. I hate seeing her in so much pain... Okay, seriously, not a diary! Wrap it up, before your wife finds this and murders you in your sleep-'

"Oh for- I'm not your wife!" Hiyori groaned to herself as she snapped the book shut. She fumed in self-conscious annoyance for a minute before she was overcome by a tight, painful ache in her chest.

"You really are such an idiot," she breathed, her lip trembling as she fought back tears. She shouldn't have been so moved by such blatant evidence of stolen underwear and his insatiable libido, but Hiyori couldn't help it; even when he was seriously invading her privacy, her idiot boyfriend somehow still managed to be unfairly and infuriatingly sweet.

The unbidden pull of affection reminded her what was at stake and hardened her resolve. This was not the time for sentimentality or hormone-induced tears; if she couldn't get herself together, she might never see Yato and Yukine again, and she'd be damned if this, sweet or otherwise, was the last thing she ever received from Yato.

She shook herself mentally as she picked out a blouse and one of the new brassieres and changed as quickly as she could without making too much noise. Once she was done, she returned to Amane's futon and knelt at the edge to give her daughter a reluctant goodbye cuddle.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, kissing the child's downy hair as she held her. "Mommy hates leaving you alone. I wish I didn't have to, but I don't have any choice."

Amane wriggled slightly in her mother's embrace, perhaps unsettled by Hiyori's pained tone of voice.

"I... I won't be too long, I promise. I just need to make sure Daddy and Onii-chan are okay... and then we'll all come home right away. Auntie Kofuku and Uncle Daikoku will come get you as soon as I'm far enough away to text them, I would never leave you completely unprotected."

She snuggled the baby one last time, intending to put her right to bed, but when she pulled away from the hug, Amane made such a shrill, high pitched whine and gave her such a resentful, wide-eyed look that Hiyori's heart broke clean in two.

"Oh god, no, not that look..." she groaned. "Stop that, sweetheart, don't give me your daddy's kicked-puppy eyes! Yato is bad enough, I can't take a second pair of impossibly blue eyes looking at me like that..."

Amane stared rigidly up into her mother's face, uncomfortably focused, her tiny mouth turned into a downward line. The sheer betrayal and hurt in her expression was just like Yato when Yukine said something particularly cruel about his master or Hiyori made a careless remark that made him doubt himself. Guilt curdled in Hiyori's stomach, wondering if she was reading too much into her daughter's likeness to her father.

"I should have known I was in trouble the second I met Yato's stupid, fathomless eyes on the street all those years ago," she muttered, talking to herself as she cradled the baby carefully in her arms. "I can't resist your daddy when he gives me that look either," she sighed. Amane gave a little huff and dug her fists into Hiyori's blouse as if to insist she would not be left behind. "I know you don't understand me the way you understand Otou-chan, but you do understand me when it's most inconvenient for the rest of us, don't you?"

Amane made a small burble of what Hiyori imagined was smug confirmation. She sighed again, rubbing the child's back gently.

"I don't want to leave you either," she murmured. "And I know we're both safest here, under Kofuku-san's protection, but..."

She closed her eyes, trying to chase away the awful images of Yato and Yukine lying dead somewhere in the city. Too many hours had passed without a word, and neither of them were answering their cellphones. Something must have happened to prevent them coming back.

"I have to go, little princess," she said, intending to pry the baby off her even if Amane made a loud fuss. "Your Daddy and your brother need me."

She reached to unfurl Amane's little fingers, but was stopped dead by a bizarre, feather-like sensation reaching into her thoughts and brushing against her consciousness.

Hiyori froze, her skin crawling at the invasive, sudden contact.

"What the hell was that?!" she gasped, frightened. She turned to check the room over for anything out of place, but she and Amane were completely alone.

Had she imagined it? She was stressed enough for her nerves to be playing tricks on her, and she couldn't smell anything from the Far Shore nearby... nothing other than the small god in her arms, anyway-

Her heart caught in her throat as Hiyori whipped her head toward the baby. The moment their eyes met, a wave of dread and unbridled terror threatened to pull Hiyori under as a sickening metallic taste settled over her tongue. When she regained her senses, Amane was trembling like a kitten caught in the rain, undeniably confused and frightened.

"A-Amane?!" she exclaimed, shocked. "Are... is this feeling yours?!"

Hiyori wasn't sure what response she expected from her three-month-old infant, exactly, but it was still disappointing when the child just stared up at her blankly, tears forming in her terrified eyes.

Except... there was something off about the way she was staring. Amane was an uncanny child, but not so inhuman she could focus like that for more than a minute. And... the baby's expression was far too stricken to be normal. She looked so frightened, so paralyzed, she seemed to have forgotten how to cry. And if Amane knew anything it was how to use her lungs to their maximum capacity. Worse, now that Hiyori looked closer, her icy blue eyes seemed to be frozen in place, staring at some point right off to Hiyori's right, and not even waving an apprehensive hand in front of Amane's face seemed to be able to distract her from whatever it was she was so focused on. Her eyes didn't even flicker in recognition.

Hiyori frowned, uncertain. "A-Amane...?"

Still the baby remained as rigid and still as if she were a doll rather than a living child.

A dizzying list of medical conditions and a memorized table of infant mortality rates threatened to drag Hiyori under.

No. No!

"Amane?! Amane, can you hear me?! Amane!"

She quickly laid the baby back down onto the futon but while her eyes fluttered closed for a brief moment, she lay unnaturally still, her head lolling to one side, her gaze still fixed on nothing at all.

"No, no, baby, you can't, please!" Hiyori sobbed, fighting the terrible urge to shake her daughter, even though she knew that would cause more harm than good. She forced herself to go through the basic motions, checked for a fever, listened for a pulse, tried Amane's reflexes, tried to find proof of breath issuing from her mouth, and while all the basic signs of life were present, Amane didn't seem to be asleep or otherwise conscious.

"Y-Yato! Yukine-kun, somebody!" she cried, forgetting they were currently missing. There was a commotion downstairs as Daikoku and Kofuku heard her shouting and hurried to respond, but by the time they got to the loft, Hiyori had already taken the baby and gone, leaving her physical body slumped against the floor and her phone forgotten in her pocket.

Nothing else mattered. No one else mattered. As Hiyori hurtled half-blindly through the streets of Tokyo, she could only think of one place, one person she trusted to save her baby, if she could just get there in time...!

She ran and ran, ignoring the stitches in her side, ignoring the little voice that was telling her she was too late, ignoring even the stairs she tripped over near the station or the painful twist her body had to execute in a split second to make sure Amane didn't get hurt. She landed so hard on her side her ribs felt like they'd cracked, but still she got up and kept running, tears blurring her vision, choking sobs threatening to suffocate her as she clutched that tiny, listless body and prayed with every fiber of her being that she would make it, that she would be able to keep her daughter, Yato's beloved child, alive.

She didn't care about anything else, she didn't even notice the little band of light gleaming on the ring finger of her left hand, didn't even notice the scent of the figure that paused to watch her run past and quickly turned to follow from the rooftops above with suspicious curiosity.

If Amane died, Hiyori would never forgive herself. It would be all her fault, and she would be every bit the failure of a mother she'd always feared she might be somewhere in the deepest, most secret corner of her heart. She was, after all, only a useless, stupid, human girl who had deluded herself into thinking that just because she was in love with a god, everything would be alright.

Even when it clearly wasn't.

---

Carrying a man almost double his height over his shoulder was far more difficult than Yukine could have guessed. He grit his teeth and dragged his master along as quickly as he could, but Yato kept slipping off his back or hitting things with his uselessly long limbs. Every time there was another ominous little thunk behind them, Yukine winced and hoped he wasn't unconsciously contributing to Yato's blight.

"Al-most... there!" he grunted, even though he knew they were still at least a couple of blocks from the edge of the barrier. He'd applied a few wards to himself to stay as inconspicuous as possible, but shinki spells didn't work on gods, so Yato was still a dead giveaway for any of their enemies, if they got distracted enough from all the fighting to notice the weirdness of a half-dead god dragged along like a rag doll.

Was it Nora who called all the reinforcements? Yukine wondered as he glanced upward at what he knew was pretty much every god they'd ever brought to their side and Amaterasu's mindless henchmen fighting it out, even though all he could really see were blurred shadows darting around like dragonflies.

And lightning. Takemikazuchi was definitely having a blast, even after he sent up the emergency signal for their last few allies to come help when Yato got hurt. His obnoxious laughter kept echoing everywhere, and Yukine, not for the first time, realized he wasn't serving the most annoying god in Takamagahara. The poor sap that had to do that was Kiun.

Yato was just second-most annoying. Most of the time.

"Right now you're tied though," he told Yato mutinously. "This was never in the job description, you know. I'm gonna sue the shit out of you, Yato."

He was shocked to hear a tiny, almost inaudible chuckle against his ear.

"Can't... sue someone... with nothin'... to take..." Yato murmured.

"YATO!" Yukine cried, unceremoniously dropping the god to the floor. "IF YOU WERE AWAKE WHY DIDN'T YOU-"

"Ow... wasn't..." Yato grimaced, rolling over in obvious pain. "I-I think she... I think she's calmer... s-something happened..." he said with great difficulty, clutching his chest the way he always did when talking about his shinki's pain. "S'not a solution, but... bought us some- ugh... some time..."

"Can you walk?" Yukine asked as he bent down to try and help him up. "We're close to the barrier, we shouldn't stay out here when you're wounded, Bishamon and the others are here to back us up."

"Oh, the skank... made it, huh?" Yato noted drily, a small bubble of blood forming at the corner of his mouth as he let Yukine prop him back up and they started the slow but much less difficult limp to a safe location. "Thought she was s'posed... to be... last resort," he groaned.

"She is, stupid," Yukine scowled. "You've never gone down like that before-"

"It wasn't... that bad," Yato said defensively. "Kirine is the reason... I collapsed- ow!"

"Sorry," Yukine mumbled sheepishly.

"You're fine, kiddo," Yato grunted, sloppily patting his Regalia's hair. "Still, that fucking... what is his fucking deal?!"

"What, that red god or whatever?"

"I thought it was... urf... dawn god or some shit like that. Wasn't it Akatsuki-something?"

"The hell should I know?!"

"Whatever his name is," Yato said flippantly. "He keeps talking about fucking... ow... vengeance, but I'm the one with a bone to... to pick-"

"I don't know why you never kill him, like the fucker deserves," Yukine grumbled darkly. "You always hesistate."

"Do I?" Yato muttered.

"Yeah, you do."

Yato mulled that over for a moment.

"I guess... I already consider my debt paid, as much as it can be paid, anyway..." he said quietly. "You've rubbed off on me, Yukine. A long time ago, I would've gone to any lengths to kill him and his whole household. But now... I guess revenge just isn't important to me, not as important as Hiyori... as Kirine is, anyway... And technically I already did even the score... so any more is pointless."

Yukine huffed. "You've gone soft, Dad."

Yato gave a small, tired smile. "Yeah, I know, kid. I know."

They walked quietly for a few minutes before Yukine spoke up again. "Hey, Yato...?"

"Mm?"

"D-Do you think... Kirine might be okay...? If she does figure out her whole name...?"

"... I... I don't know. I don't... don't wanna think about it," he admitted slowly. "It's really rare, you know... What you, Kazuma, and Nana did."

"Y-Yeah. Maybe 'cause we're all hafuri..."

"Maybe..."

"S-Sorry," Yukine apologized. "I know this is really painful for you..."

"I'm not the only one suffering, stupid," Yato clicked his tongue. "She's your mom, and your best friend. That's just as important as being my shinki or my wife."

"Wow, haven't heard you call her that in ages," Yukine noted, unable to hold back a smirk.

"Doesn't mean it's not true," Yato grumbled.

"You think she'd still be annoyed to hear you say so? If she remembered?"

"She's the one who made it official!"

"Uh huh," Yukine said, glad Yato sounded much better now.

Hold in there, Hiyori. As soon as we're done with this job, we'll do whatever we can to help you get back to normal, okay? he thought, feeling much more optimistic than he had all night.

For about half a minute, anyway.

"So you're still alive. What are you, a fucking cockroach?!"

"S-SEKKI!" Yato shouted so quickly Yukine barely had time to think before he was back in his vessel form and held in each of Yato's hands.

"What's going on?! Who-?!" Yukine suddenly hissed as he recognized the very same god they'd just thought they'd escaped from. "You, you fucking asshole! Get the hell away from us!"

"How dare you speak to my master in such a crude form, boy?!" came the feminine reply, so angry and authoritative that even Yukine faltered.

No, don't you give in to her, you're the better shinki, you're above her!

"When are you just gonna give up?!" Yato groaned, moving slowly back to try and get as much space between himself and his opponent as he could manage in his injured state. "I'm sick of being stalked by all these sore losers-"

"SORE LOSER?!" the other god shouted furiously. "YOU MURDERED MY HARUNA! YOU SLEW HER IN COLD BLOOD!"

"THERE WAS NOTHING COLD ABOUT IT," Yato snarled. "YOU AND YOUR GIRL KILLED MINE! I WAS PISSED! I WOULD HAVE KILLED ALL OF YOU IF YUKINE HADN'T STOPPED ME-"

"And I fucking regret it too!" Yukine called bitterly.

"YOUR WOMAN WAS NOT A SHINKI! SHE WASN'T EVEN A PURE SOUL! SHE WAS JUST A LOWLY, CORRUPT LITTLE WH-"

Yukine had no idea when Yato moved but he was extremely annoyed when his blade stopped just short of the other god's neck.

Oh for fuck's sake, just take him out! We're justified in this!

"What did you just say?" Yato asked, almost flatly. Only Yukine recognized the danger in his tone.

"Your whore," the god snarled, catching Sekki with his own blade and using the momentum to get out of harm's reach. "That's what she is, that's what she always has been, it's all she's ever going to be! So I'll do you a favor and kill her a second time, and maybe then you'll appreciate- ugh!" A nick appeared on the god's cheek, a small bead of blood forming over it.

"Say that again and I will disembowel you," Yato warned, his voice so low and cold that Yukine felt a shiver of trepidation pass the length of both his blades.

"Oh you're fucked now," Yukine taunted, hot fury and reckless pride making him sound more childish than he meant to. "You're the stupidest god I know, we killed your shinki for this once already, you really think we wouldn't do it again?!"

"Stay your tongue, foolish child!" the other sword snapped. "Your master may be Amagiri-no-Mikoto, but my master is no novice either! Akakiha-no-Kami is as great a combat god, if not better!"

"Oh, that's what his name was!" both Yato and Yukine said together, momentarily distracted.

The tanto came so close that it cut some of Yato's hair as he only just managed to duck, and Yukine immediately sobered up, remembering that they might be the better team, but Yato was still grievously wounded and blighted.

We have to focus, we can't lose here, he told himself, watching as Akakiha raised his sword with a crazed look in those unnerving, scarlet eyes.

"Die!"

Notes: Akakihagami/Akakiha-no-kami (紅き刃神/紅き刃の神) - Roughly translates to "God of Crimson Blade." He's not a real deity, I did try to find a suitable one when I came up with the character ages ago, but since he's supposed to be a relatively minor god and no one fit the bill, I made up my own. All of Akakiha's shinki end in the clan name (儺) "na", which is an archaic word for an exorcism. His shinki also share the trait of being named for the seasons, with ends up with their names being variations of "*seasonal* exorcism/purification". Only three of the four are alive in the second timeline, with Haruna (春儺) being the one Yato killed in the first timeline. The others are Natsuna (夏儺), formerly Yasumi's older brother, Akina (秋儺), formerly Yasumi's older sister, and Fuyuna (冬儺), Akakiha's lifelong guidepost and a little-known survivor of accidentally learning her past. The two child Regalia survived by virtue of being mizuko. Fuyuna is the only one who would have been around when Haruna was killed. OK I KNOW IT WAS A REALLY LONG HIATUS BUT I'VE BEEN WORKING ON IT THE WHOLE TIME I SWEAR Honestly I've scrapped and rewritten this like six times. Just now I cut out a portion longer than the actual chapter feiowhfieohf I hope people are still interested in this story, it's almost finished now too! I haven't decided on the final count but it's only 3 or 4 more chapters at most, I think. As usual, I'd love to hear from you, and never apologize for walls of texts, they make my day. 3 And yes, I know. Today is gonna be a rough day, fam. Sorry for adding to the angst oTL