Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Are you listening, Yato-san?"

The young carpenter, barely old enough to be considered a man, gave a small, annoyed grunt as he sat cross-legged on the earthen floor of his dingy old workshop, a huge wooden pillar settled at his feet. His thin, calloused hands were preoccupied with a small hammer and a sharp, hooked chisel, slowly working through the delicate pattern of flowers and symbols that, when finished, would cover the beam from head to foot. 

"I asked you a question, Yato-san. Were you taught no manners at all?"

Yato wanted dearly to bite at the provocation, to use one of the filthiest curse words his late master had left him and see the priest's stupid, personable face go slack-jawed with shock. His guest had no appreciation for the concentration and artistry required in Yato's trade, and he had long overstayed his welcome. Saying so, however, wasn't worth the long, preachy lecture it would inevitably trigger.

Yato reluctantly bit back a retort and hit the chisel with a bit more force than necessary.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm listening," he muttered, rubbing his wrist gingerly. "Please, Kouto-sama, by all means, continue."

The man, satisfied with the reply, cleared his throat, regarding Yato with his haughty mahogany-colored eyes. He was only a year or two older than the young carpenter, but a full season had passed since Kouto had inherited the position of village head priest following the death of his aged predecessor. Compared to the mild, conservative old priest, Kouto was infamously ambitious and more zealously devout than anyone else in the village. He was certainly more self-righteous than anyone else in the priesthood, at least.

"As I was saying," Kouto said. straightening up as if to prove how important he really was. "In the age before myths, when the gods walked the earth..."

Yato groaned aloud, blowing his messy, black bangs out of his face with barely-disguised irritation.

"Not this old story again, I've heard it plenty of times from my master, thanks," he scoffed, picking wood shavings out of the chiseled grooves before him. Kouto narrowed his eyes, clearly displeased.

"This is exactly your problem, Yato-san," he scolded. "If you showed even a little respect toward the gods-"

"I respect the gods just fine!" Yato snapped, pointing his chisel at the priest. "But if it's all the same to you, milord, I have work to do, and I don't have the time to sit around listening to old tales!" He ran his fingers over the half-finished carving, trying to gauge what still needed refining. "I barely get any jobs as it is, and I can't afford to keep Natsume-san waiting on this when he was nice enough to commission me in the first place."

Kouto clicked his tongue.

"That you even have clients is a stroke of divine favor, foolish boy! You should be on your knees, thanking the gods for their magnanimity towards you! You of all people-"

Yato felt a vein twitch in his temple and began hammering loudly to distract himself from the urge to break something, anything.

Breathe, focus, a warm, graveled voice echoed in the depths of his memories. Destruction's the bosom friend of chaos, his master used to say. Our work's the enemy of chaos. Bringing somethin' to life with your own two hands is a sacred thing, 'cause creation's the realm of the divine. Just focus your energy on makin', don't ya worry 'bout anything else... and for the love of the War God's knickers, kid, you're gonna go bloody cross-eyed if you're always scowlin' like that! You don't hafta focus that hard!!

A small smile tugged at Yato's lips at the memory. The scolding was usually accompanied by a good-natured flick to the forehead or an exaggerated imitation of the boy's expression, meant to elicit a laugh from his oft-sullen apprentice. Master Kuraha had been a rough, strict old bastard, but Yato dearly missed the good-natured banter and the old man's roaring fits of laughter now that he was gone.

"I am speaking to you, Yato-san!" Kouto said angrily, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Yato could feel his patience slipping away by the second. The old man and Kouto had one thing in common, at least; they both never stopped talking.

"Look, whatever you've got to say, I've already heard it!" Yato said, fuming. "Why do you think I spend all my time holed up in this workshop by myself?! It ain't a choice, you know! I'm seventeen years old now, a full grown-man! I'm supposed to be in the prime of my life, searching for a wife, starting my own family, working the fields and hunting with the others before winter comes, just like everyone else. I don't do this cause I like to!"

Kouto tutted in that infuriating, obnoxious manner of his.

"Now, now, Yato-san, the elders forbade you from taking a wife for a very good reason. The last thing you'd have wanted was to see your poor bride afflicted by some terrible misfortune-"

"I know that!" Yato said bitterly. "It doesn't mean I have to be bloody happy about it. Did you just come to pour salt in the wound or something?! I haven't bothered anyone, there hasn't been an incident in weeks!"

The high priest glared at him, an unspoken reprimand, daring him to challenge his authority. Yato didn't make a habit of speaking to other people very often, but he recognized the look instantly. Hatred, anger, fear, resentment... A silent accusation, demanding a reason for his unwelcome presence in their lives. He'd spent a lifetime averting his gaze from that look, guilt knotting in the pit of his stomach whenever he accidentally met with someone else's eyes.

He tried to stand his ground against the priest, but shame inevitably forced him to lower his head in submission. Kouto made a satisfied sort of sound with his tongue and Yato decided, with more conviction than he was used to feeling about anything, that he really didn't like this new priest much at all.

"I'm not here for anyone's sake except your own, Yato-san," Kouto said patronizingly. "My predecessor may have believed that the best that could be done for you was to keep you away from the rest of the village, but I can sense that the gods want more of you than that. They want you to repent, to devote yourself to them and prove that you can still be saved-"

"I am devoted!" Yato insisted, and in his indignation and distraction, he missed the chisel by a wide mark, hammering his own thumb with a hiss of pain. He shook his hand loosely, glaring resentfully at Kouto's smug expression. "I've always observed rites and left offerings. I pray three times a day, every single day, what more could the gods even want from me?!"

Kouto sighed, an exaggerated, dramatic sort of gesture. "Humility, for one," he said drily. "Pride is the sin which damned us all-"

"Like I said, I know the bloody story," Yato interrupted, inspecting the damage to his hand. Nothing was bleeding or broken, so he filed the pain away and kept working. "People thought they didn't need gods, the gods abandoned our dumb asses to prove us wrong, the whole world basically fucked itself over and went up in war and flames. Believe me, I get the damned message."

The priest rolled his eyes. "Crass as ever, Yato-san."

"But accurate," the carpenter huffed, returning to his work. "I've spent my whole life paying for my mother's sins, and I'm not about to add my own to the list. You don't need to tell me that disavowing the gods is a bad idea."

"And yet you forgot the most important part of the tale."

Yato carefully angled the chisel around a corner, smoothing the edges of a carved petal with his fingers, and blew away the shavings, gently, like a lover might. Yato hadn't used any references, but a perfect blossom stared back up at him nonetheless, as though a real morning glory had somehow been trapped into the soft wood, eternally in bloom. Yato could imagine his master's satisfied nod, almost feel the old man's rough fingers tousling through Yato's soft, dark hair with pride.

"That's the way, boy, put your soul into somethin' and it'll answer honestly. Carpentry ain't sorcery, but magic's in everything if ya look hard enough."

Yato regarded his work for only a moment before he moved on to the next flower.

"I haven't forgotten anything," Yato said, calmer now that he'd slipped into his usual rhythm. "I'm not such an idiot that I don't know our clan's history. And I'm not gonna recite it all to prove it to you either," he added sharply as Kouto opened his mouth to do just that. "If what you're trying to get me to say is that it's all thanks to the War God's sacrifice that we can live in peace, then you don't have to treat me like a five-year-old kid."

Kouto raised an eyebrow.

"Very well," he said, with that same smirk he'd been flashing all morning. "I apologize for making you feel... dimwitted, Yato-san."

Yato scowled. Didn't the Head Priest have better things to do than waste his time and look down his stupid, thin nose at him?

"Still, you are correct. That is the point I am trying to impress on you," the young man continued.

"What, that human beings are ungrateful little shits that can't even stop killing each other when a god comes down to save them from themselves?"

The side of Kouto's mouth twitched, and Yato couldn't help a triumphant surge of satisfaction. His Lordship the Head Priest may have been the holiest man in the land, but even he still found a dumb wisecrack as amusing as the rest of them.

"No," the priest said, feigning annoyance. "That it is only by the mercy of the gods that we insignificant mortals are allowed to exist."

"Funny," Yato said, holding up a corkscrewed wood shaving to the morning sunlight, giddy with his own success. "And here I thought what the story was saying was that even gods need help from insignificant humans sometimes." Too late, he realized he'd carelessly crossed a line; Kouto's eyes went wide with terror and alarm, his skin nearly as pale as Yato's own.

Fuck, he cursed inwardly, knowing he had about five seconds to fix his blunder before Kouto raised the alarm and brought the entire village guard down on him.

"No, I mean- that was just my stupid mouth running, I don't really think that-!" he said, holding his hands up as a bead of ice-cold sweat trickled down the side of his neck. "I swear on my mo- on my father's grave," he corrected hastily as the priest went another shade of white. "I'm loyal to the gods and would never presume to think myself above the will of the divine. I'd sign a blood oath proclaiming my faith, if you needed me to-"

At the mention of the contract spell, the priest relaxed somewhat, though his eyes remained wary as they looked him over for any signs of dishonesty.

"Arrogance, the same as your thrice damned mother," he finally spat angrily. "This is exactly why I'm here, to ensure that you beg for the gods to save your accursed soul before you're led to repeat her mistakes. Don't you realize what a plague you are on this village, Yato-san? You risk all our lives just by existing, just look at poor Ryou-"

"I told you that wasn't me!!" Yato cried indignantly. "You know I can barely use magic!! I've got to be the most incompetent sorcerer this village has ever produced; as if I, of all people, had the power to set Ryou's house on fire, even without meaning to!"

"Even so!" Kouto said loudly, in a tone that promised retribution if Yato kept talking. "Ryou is not the only victim. We have seventeen years worth of misfortune that proves that wherever you tread, calamity follows, Yato-san. Your own injuries and struggles are more than enough proof. Isn't that the very reason you've kept your isolation even after your parents and the old carpenter died?"

As if I had a choice, Yato thought moodily. As much as he wished he could argue, Kouto was absolutely right; Yato did suffer from abysmal luck. He broke bones like they were made of glass, caught ill from the smallest exposure to the elements, and was routinely bitten by every snake, cat, and flea-ridden mongrel within five miles of the village. If he went out into the forest, chances were he would fall down a ravine, get attacked by a bear, or caught out in a blizzard and forced to shelter in a cave for two weeks (that one had been particularly nasty, because not only did Yato nearly starve and freeze to death, but he was attacked by two different bears and it was only them noticing each other and fighting over his scrawny, underfed body that gave him the opportunity he needed to get to safety). He somehow always managed to escape his bouts of misfortune with his life, but only by some strange twist of fate or by the skin of his teeth. It was a long proven fact that anyone who came near him risked the same dangers.

Actually, his job was the only thing Yato could do without setting off a chain of bad luck. Nothing he ever built or carved was affected by his curse, and as long as he was actively working on something, neither he nor the people around him seemed to fall prey to his unlucky aura.

That was the only reason Kouto hadn't made Yato put down his tools during their conversation, though it was considered plenty rude not to drop everything when as esteemed a guest as the High Priest came to visit. Yato was pretty sure that Kouto wouldn't have left anything up to chance, though; the older boy almost certainly had some spelled talismans or amulets hidden in his robes, just in case.

Not that magic actually helped, not when Yato's bad luck really wanted a piece of someone. Frankly, if Kouto wanted to risk food poisoning or a broken toe (never mind the case of gangrene the village healer caught when he cut himself on an old nail, trying to treat a nasty wound on Yato's forearm), it wasn't Yato's place to comment on it.

"The truth is, you owe this village, Yato-san," Kouto continued, unaware of the slightly macabre (and mildly amused) direction of Yato's thoughts. "We could have banished you, but we let you stay and live among us, even when it put our lives and livelihood in danger. The least you could do is try to remain in the gods' good graces." Kouto said, sighing with the air of a parent trying to teach a disobedient child.

Yato said nothing, choosing a sharp, thin tool and etching small details into the flower petals one tiny line at a time.

"Yato-san," the priest said sharply.

"I'm listening," Yato muttered. "But I don't know what you want from me... sir," he added, remembering his manners. "Like I've been saying all along, I've always venerated the gods and listened to everything the elders and priests have ever asked of me."

The priest's expression softened, a twinge of sympathy flickering in the depths of his dark eyes.

"What I want is to help, Yato-san," he said earnestly. "Not just the village, but you as well. You may not feel welcome here, but the truth is that you're a member of this clan too. Your blood carries our magic, our history, and that makes you one of the War God's chosen, just like the rest of us. Whatever your mother did, I truly believe you can be redeemed."

Yato blinked, taken aback. No one had ever mentioned him in the same breath as his mother and not blamed him for her transgressions. Before he could say anything, however, the High Priest took Yato's shoulder, clasping it firmly under his hand. Yato flinched and automatically tried to pull away; it had been years since anyone had dared touch him, not since his master had died.

"I-It's not like the elders haven't tried to break my curse before!" Yato insisted, his palms sweating nervously from the stress of the unfamiliar contact. Kouto merely gripped his shoulder tighter, as if trying to impress his resolve through sheer pressure. "Nothing they ever tried worked-"

"But that's where I think they went wrong," Kouto explained seriously. "The elders and the former High Priest, they all tried to use magic to change your disposition. Sorcery is a mortal art, it has limitations, and it is usually impossible to undo the natural state of things. But the gods, the gods have no such limitations!"

Yato gave him an exhausted look. "Kouto-sama, you should know better than any of us that the gods don't interfere in the affairs of mortals anymore."

"Most gods don't, but the War God is different, sworn to protect the surviving children of man. She alone is a merciful deity; she wouldn't abandon a true believer who devoted themselves fully to her."

The War God also single-handedly wiped out most of humanity in three days, Yato thought, but he had a feeling Kouto would probably rake him over the coals if he pointed that unfortunate little detail out.

"If you say so," he said, finally dislodging the priest's hand with no small sense of relief. "What do you want me to do exactly?"

"Don't you worry about the details, Yato-san," the priest said confidently. "All I ask is that you have faith in the War God. I'll handle the rest."

"...Fine, I'll try."

Kouto nodded with satisfaction.

"Good, good. But one last thing before I go," he said, reaching into the folds of his kimono. "I think it would be best if you sealed your intention to devote yourself in blood; that way, the gods will see your resolution all the more clearly." He tugged a small scroll free and unrolled it at Yato's feet.

"A blood oath? For this?" Yato asked, a little unnerved. Promises sealed by magic had... unfortunate consequences for those who tried to break them, and they were easy to trace in case someone tried to spell their way out. He eyed the hand-written script apprehensively, wishing his master had thought to teach him how to read and write before he'd passed away. Then again, Yato had the suspicion that Master Kuraha had been every bit as illiterate as himself.

"It would give anything we try more weight with the gods," the priest explained earnestly. "Spoken words are like leaves on the wind, but an oath sworn in blood is tangible."

"Well..."

"Just think about it, Yato-san. If you prove you truly mean to serve the Protector, then even if we can't completely remove your curse, she may at least deign to lessen its severity. If that were to happen, the elders might be persuaded to ease the restrictions on your isolation..."

Yato ran a hand through his unkempt hair, trying to think.

What did he really have to lose? His existence was depressing enough: short of losing a limb or coming down with some terrible chronic illness, his life couldn't really get much worse. He was poor, eternally living on the brink of starvation, and he was unbearably, achingly lonely. He'd gotten through the last few years with the small, faint hope that there might, just maybe, be a girl in the village somewhere who wouldn't despise the idea of marrying him too much, but that hope had been dashed the minute he came of age and the elders forbade him from starting a family of his own. These days, he had nothing to look forward to, nothing in his future but wood, nails, and more silence.

If Kouto really could help him weaken the curse, what was the harm in spending a little more time and effort praying every day?

"...Alright, fine," he sighed. "If you really think it'll help..."

"I truly believe it will, Yato-san," Kouto said firmly. "I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to help you."

Yato still couldn't bring himself to like the young priest, but as he bit his thumb and let three drops of blood fall onto the scroll with a murmured incantation, the spell taking with a faint, scarlet glow on the parchment, he thought Kouto might not be so bad after all. Annoying, yes, self-important, definitely. But he seemed to at least take his job to protect the village seriously, even if it meant dealing with Yato and all his ominous, unnerving qualities.

It was past sunset when Yato finished his commission, his wrists and palms aching from all the precise movements and awkward angles. He yawned and fell back onto the dirt floor, sleepily blinking up at the ceiling and thinking longingly of how nice it would be to have a drink.

Not that I could afford one, he sighed inwardly, letting his eyes droop closed as he listened to the chirping of cicadas outside his open window. Most people found the sound irritating, but Yato found he rather liked the sound of their screeching chatter more than he liked talking to actual people. After all, cicadas didn't think he was cursed or ominous, and they could care less if his eyes were a cold, unnatural shade of blue or if his skin was so pale that the veins were clearly visible over his wiry frame. To them, Yato was just another human being, indistinguishable from the rest of the secluded villagers living deep within the forest. Cicadas had no reason to avoid or be afraid of him, or to consider him a child of death.

Besides, their cries made him feel less alienated from the world. With each shrill, staccato note, Yato let himself hum along, superimposing the words of an old rhyme all village children knew by heart. The lines formed on his lips, familiar and comforting in their quiet, cryptic meter.

Soft treads the wolf that won't bend the knee,

Bitter and hateful, howls lost to the sea,

The sky sheds her tears, earth scarred verily,

Her mantle worn crimson by cruel destiny,

He waits for her words to come set him free,

'Remember thine oath, do not forget me.'

"Do not forget me."

Children liked to repeat that line as part of their games, but Yato sometimes wondered whether he was the only person lonely enough to take the words to heart. He was fairly sure that he'd learned the rhyme at his mother's knee, and some romantic, poetic part of himself couldn't help attributing that line to the woman who had brought him into the world, a woman he barely remembered at all.

In truth, his memories of both parents were very faint; his mother had been tall and willowy, he knew, with dark brown eyes and tan-colored hair, her face kind and perpetually smiling no matter how poor or how hungry they all went. His father was even less distinct, a sturdy but mild-mannered sort of man, and Yato had a strong impression of a ticklish brown beard and sun-baked skin crinkling gently around his beetle-black eyes. Over the years, those vague recollections faded so much that he couldn't even remember what they had sounded like, or what life had been like under their care.

He thought he must have been a relatively happy child, though; he had the suspicion that he would have remembered more detail if he'd been mistreated or neglected. Contentment, even in the face of perpetual starvation and poverty, had a way of smoothing out the past, blurring the days together into a series of fond emotions rather than concrete memories.

But not misery, he sighed to himself, staring up at the thatched roof, shadows flickering in the light of the fire in the hearth. Misery is hard to forget.

Yato's awareness of time really only started when he was five years old, right after his parents caught ill and died. He could recall with startling clarity the ashen paleness of his mother's hand as it went limp in his grasp, the empty, frightening look in his father's eyes boring through Yato's soul.

That was the first time Yato really understood what everyone meant when they said he was a child of death. There was something deeply terrifying about a dead person, the inherent wrongness of their blank eyes and stiff, bloodless limbs a painfully inadequate echo of what they once had been. Yato wasn't dead, of course, but it was only when his own parents passed away that he could finally see a resemblance between them and his own unusual appearance, so maligned by the rest of the village. He wondered if every person who had ever looked at him saw the same imitation of life, the same soulless eyes that betrayed nothing in their fathomless depths...

"Ugh, I really need a drink," he groaned aloud, determined not to go down that particular line of thought. "It's bad enough everyone else says you're cursed, no reason to make yourself miserable too," he added, just to hear his own voice fill the emptiness of the workshop. The words reverberated in the air for a moment, and he let himself pretend for just a second that someone else was speaking, and that any moment now his mother or father, or maybe even his master, with his gruff, scarred visage would stand over him and say, with a hint of amusement, 'What'cha doin' down there, Yato-kun? Don't ya know you have to go outside if ya wanna have a look at the stars?'

He lay there a moment longer before he sat up with a weary sigh. Seventeen years old, and already Yato felt like he'd been alive a long, jaded century. He rubbed his wrists absently, wondering what day it was. One of the drawbacks to living by himself, isolated from everyone else, was that his sense of time was completely skewed. He kept no record of the days or years, and it was only from other people and the quiet turning of the seasons that he ever confirmed his own age. What was the point of keeping track, when every day was as lonely and empty as the next?

"Ugh, quit being such a miserable sack, Yato," he told himself firmly, determined to cheer up. If he let himself wallow in his misery, he'd never get out of bed again, and that was such a pathetic prospect that he refused to let it come true. "You couldn't wait for Kouto to leave this morning, right? It's nice and peaceful now, so get up and enjoy the night air for a little bit." He nodded in response to his own assertion and got to his feet, nudging his tools out of the way with his bare toes as he loosened and adjusted the obi of his shabby, threadbare yukata. He raised his arms over his head and stretched, running a mental tally of his supplies and what he could manage for supper.

A few vegetables had survived the last boar attack on the little garden outside the workshop, and he'd managed to trade a few small decorative carvings for a rather forlorn bag of stale rice earlier in the week. Better fare than usual, really, so Yato stepped over the finished pillar and onto the elevated, rough tatami that marked the separation between his workspace and his living quarters, making a plan.

"What do you guys think, rice and vegetables? Or vegetables and rice?" he asked the cicadas in the tree outside as he leaned out the window to pull the shutter closed. There was a tiny pause as the insects were startled by his voice, and Yato took that as a sign. "Yeah, vegetables and rice is better," he agreed.

He rolled up his sleeves and set to preparing his meal around the hearth, peeling and slicing his meager rations into thick chunks as he added them to the rice steaming over the fire. Twice he cut himself, but he barely noticed. A few nicks were normal, barely unlucky at all. He sucked at the wounds for a second before returning to his task, humming absentmindedly.

There was a sudden, loud knock on the wall outside, and Yato gave a start, the knife slipping in his grip and slicing through his palm. He hissed, dropping the knife and a half-peeled, somewhat despondent looking radish to the ground, watching blood well up from the jagged line.

"Yato-san, are you there?" called an unfamiliar voice. Even through the pain of his injury, Yato registered the strangeness of a second guest so soon after the first. His interactions with the villagers were usually very sparse.

"Y-yeah, just a minute," he called, searching around him for a spare bit of cloth he could use to staunch the bleeding. He reached for an old cleaning rag and tore a strip from it with his teeth, awkwardly wrapping it around his palm with one hand. He flexed his fingers, wincing at the sharp ache, and hurried to the reed curtain that served as his door, brushing it aside with the back of his arm. "Sorry, I was just-"

He stopped, confused. A group of people were gathered outside his workshop, bearing torches and unreadable expressions. He recognized a few of them as villagers he'd had interactions with in the past, and a few of them he knew as part of the village guard, if only by sight. The tallest of them, a large, heavy man whose name might've been Sato or Sousuke or something along those lines stood at the front, bearing a long coil of thick rope and a suspiciously familiar scroll in his right hand.

"W-What's going on?" Yato asked, his voice betraying his unease. Had Kouto turned him in for his thoughtless comment after all?! His eyes scanned the crowd frantically but he saw no sign of the priest's sandy hair among them.

The large man (Yato decided to call him Sato in his head until proven otherwise) cleared his throat, pointedly unrolling the scroll.

"Yato the carpenter, correct?" he asked, as though anyone in the village didn't know exactly who Yato was.

Yato frowned, irked by the man's standoffishness.

"You know any other damned carpenters this side of the forest?" he challenged before he could stop himself. He cursed inwardly at his lack of impulse control, wondering what he should do if they attacked him. He could probably fight a couple of them off in an altercation; carpentry required at least a little muscle, and he was pretty quick on his feet when he had to be. But if it came down to magic...

Well, at best, he might be able to bluff his way out of trouble, provided they were scared enough of him to ignore common sense. His lack of magical ability wasn't exactly a secret.

Thankfully, Sato ignored the provocation entirely. He held the scroll up to someone's lit torch, letting the corner of the thin paper smoulder just the tiniest bit, and Yato suddenly hissed, clapping his uninjured hand to his upper arm as his skin flashed hot.

"Ow! What the hell-?!" he exclaimed, but everyone else suddenly seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and relax, and someone at the back of the crowd actually cheered.

"No mistake, it's him all right!" Sato-or-whatever-his-name-was said with a small grin, rolling the scroll up once more and tucking it into his yukata. "What a relief, and just in the nick of time too," he said, good-naturedly. "Well come on then, Yato-san, everyone's waiting at the shrine."

"Waiting?" Yato repeated blankly, completely lost. "Waiting for what?" he asked, still rubbing his arm.

The-man-who-might've-been-Sato regarded him with surprise and a hint of suspicion, his brow furrowing.

"Is he being serious, Shinsuke?" someone whispered from behind the large man (damn, it was Shin... oh well, close enough). "I can't tell-"

Yato would have rolled his eyes, if he weren't so preoccupied with trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

"It's the new moon," Shin said slowly, as though that were a real answer. "You're needed at the shrine, of course."

"What's the moon got anything to do with..."

Yato glanced up at the dark sky, recalling some of his lessons in the basics of sorcery. It was customary for certain powerful rituals to draw from the power of the phases of the moon, particularly when it came to venerating the gods. Throughout the year, the village habitually held several ceremonies and festivals of that sort, but never on the new moon, which was considered a door into death-

"Oh. Oh," he realized with dawning horror.

There was just one exception to that rule, one particular ceremony observed once every fifteen years, during the first new moon of the summer season. The last one had taken place when he was a small child, and in his careless perception of time, Yato had completely forgotten all about it.

If they were here to bring him to the shrine, that could only mean one thing, and though Yato's life was hardly enviable, he was not about to let them sacrifice him in the name of the War God, guardian deity or not.

"Oh, FUCK NO!!" he exclaimed, turning back to the crowd so quickly that his neck cracked painfully in protest. He backed up against the wall of his workshop, wishing he hadn't dropped his knife in his rush to see who was outside. "You can't do this, you're not allowed to pick an unwilling sacrifice! If you try, the gods will curse us all-!" he argued, his mind racing as he tried to find some way to get himself out of his predicament.

"But we haven't picked an unwilling sacrifice," Shinsuke interrupted, shrugging as though it didn't concern him at all. "You felt the burn just a minute ago; that's your blood seal on the oath, isn't it?"

Yato gaped at him in terror, clutching at his arm so tightly his fingernails dug into his flesh.

"No! I never made a blood oath about this!!" he cried, torn between bewilderment, fear, and anger. "I didn't volunteer, I swear it!"

"The oath says otherwise, Yato-san," a young, raven-haired woman stepped forward, speaking with a reasonable, even tone. Yato recognized her as Mayu, the village orator. "I read it myself, it's a clear declaration of intent to take the High Priest's place as this year's offering."

"The High...?" he repeated stupidly, unable to concentrate and grasp the enormity of what she was saying. "But I didn't- I just spoke to him-"

It hit him all at once, disbelief and fury coursing through his veins like he'd never felt before. The fucking weasel!! Kouto had tricked him!!

He remembered now, an old rumor he'd heard from his master when Yato was young and asking about the details of their faith. In times when a willing sacrifice refused to come forth from the villagers, it was the duty of the High Priest to fulfill the role and appease the War God with his own life. As far as Yato was aware, the High Priests tended to get sacrificed with alarming regularity, but they were usually much older, experienced men than Kouto currently was, and they often had successors lined up to replace them. Kouto, having just ascended to the position, didn't even have an apprentice yet.

"That fucking, slimy little snake!!" Yato snarled, startling several of the crowd with his ferocity. More than one took several steps back, clutching amulets to their chests. "I should have known he was up to something with his thrice-damned concerned act!! He lied to me, he got me to apply the seal under false pretenses, you have to believe me! I didn't choose this!!"

Mayu and Shinsuke exchanged a look.

"Even if that were true, Yato-san-"

"It is true!!" he swore, making a fist over his heart in the gesture that everyone recognized as a solemn promise. "Kouto pretended he wanted to help me break my curse, when all along he was just scheming to find a replacement to take the fall for him!"

Mayu shook her head, an almost pitying frown on her ruby red lips, and with a cold sensation of foreboding, Yato realized that she knew. She, and everyone else there... they were all complicit, desperate to spare their only trained priest even if it meant losing their only trained carpenter.

"It doesn't matter, Yato-san," she said, almost gently. "The moment you swore the oath, the gods recognized you as theirs. If you try to escape your fate now, your heart will stop, rendering you useless as a living sacrifice, and the entire village will face the War God's wrath for failing to keep the pact."

"No! It's not right, it's against everything the ritual stands for!" Yato insisted, his throat dry as Shinsuke and several other men drew closer, one step at a time. "The sacrifice has to be willing, there's no point if the blood isn't freely given! Besides, you need me, who else is gonna build your damned houses and fix your stupid furnitu- GET AWAY FROM ME!!"

Someone grabbed his arm and Yato lashed out instinctively with his fist, landing a blow on his assailant's jaw. There was a mangled cry and a moment of shocked silence in which even Yato stared at the injured man incomprehensibly, and then they were on him, a pack of rabid dogs, fighting tooth and nail to force him to the ground. Yato had never fought anyone properly before, but he found he was stronger than he'd even dared to hope, his desperation to break free more than making up for the difference in experience and stamina. He fought dirty, kicking and screaming, more than willing to bite or swipe at someone's eyes with his nails when he couldn't manage a proper blow. But there were far too many of them, and there was only so much he could do by himself unarmed. He knew it, just as he knew he would die before the night was out, but he refused to go down without proving just how unwilling a sacrifice he really was.

"Stop- fighting-!" someone grunted as they pinned him to the dirt with an arm held painfully behind his back, still struggling furiously as they tied his wrists together. "You should be glad to do this, this way your curse can be broken too!"

By 'broken' you mean it won't affect any of you anymore, cause I'll be dead!!" Yato snarled furiously.

"Not dead, sacrificed! There's a difference."

"IS THERE?!"

"There is to the gods," Mayu said, standing over him with that same, affronted look Yato knew all too well.

"You fucking bitch, you and that slimy bastard of a priest, I'll curse you both!!" Yato shrieked, losing his head in his righteous fury. "I'll fucking curse every single one of you if it's the last thing I do! Just you fucking wait, you think you've seen bad luck?! I'll summon demons to tear the skin from your fucking limbs, I'll have them suck the marrow from your bones, I swear it on my mother's grave, they'll rip the throats from your children like rag dolls- LET GO, LET ME FUCKING GO RIGHT THIS SECO-!!!"

A heavy blow hit him across the back of the skull with a sickening thwack and Yato slumped forward, knocked out cold.

The first thing he noticed when he came to some unspecified amount of time later was how much his head hurt.

Of all the different types of injuries and illnesses Yato had experienced in the past, it was always the headaches he hated most. It wasn't the pain he hated, exactly; he'd felt far worse than that, what with all the accidental stab wounds, the blistering burns, and an unforgettable broken femur snapped cleanly in two, as well as its equally excruciating magical treatment. Even then, headaches, particularly the ones that made it impossible to sleep or get any meaningful rest, those were a torture of a different caliber altogether. There was something specifically horrible about not even being able to retreat into his own thoughts for comfort and distraction, the constant pounding against the inside of his skull a blinding, repetitive form of weaponized anticipation.

Catatonic, he slowly regained control over his senses, his tongue running over his uncomfortably fuzzy teeth, his half-lidded eyes blinking dully in the flickering light. There was a smoky residue tickling the inside of his nose, and his fingers ached with numbness, but it took him a long while to realize that the excruciating sound in his ears was more than just his own heartbeat thudding angrily in his chest.

Taiko drums, the answer came after what felt like a very long mental inquiry.

Normally he would have found their steadiness reassuring, but all he could feel was a cold sense of dread growing stronger with each measured strike-

All of a sudden, everything came rushing back in a nauseating wave, and Yato hissed, snapping his eyes open and forcing himself to focus on his surroundings.

They were in the forest, that much was obvious. Even with the torches and the ritual bonfire in front of him, it was much darker under the densely packed trees than it was in the open spaces of the village proper. Despite that, a clearing had been cut into the woods around him, maintained carefully over generations, a perfect circle open to a dark patch of starless sky above.

Anyone from the village would recognize the place, even if they, like Yato, mostly kept to themselves. A quick glance to his right proved his suspicions without a doubt; an old, weather-beaten shrine stood beneath the boughs of a majestic elm tree, the raised altar before it bearing a single cup made of something that looked suspiciously like carved, smoothed bone. Around the cup were a series of lit candles, spaced at even intervals. A strange, unidentifiable instrument lay over the mouth of the cup, flat and impossible to see well from Yato's position.

In front of the shrine stood a bright red torii gate, and across the clearing, hidden in the shadows, Yato could just make out the form of another, larger gate, marking the path from the village that led to this particular sacred space. Most people normally avoided crossing that gate, but today was clearly an exception. Everyone seemed to be assembled in the clearing facing the shrine, murmuring quietly amongst themselves as they avoided looking at him, tied to a post sunk into the ground with his arms bent behind his back.

That, more than anything, pissed him off. Not a single person had raised any objection at his treatment, though the fact that he was tied up was as obvious a sign of his reluctance as anything he could have possibly said in his defense.

"Fucking cowards!" he shouted, tugging desperately at the ropes binding his hands. Whoever had tied him up had done a cruelly thorough job, though, and his efforts merely tore the skin at his wrists. "Bloody dastards! You'd sacrifice an unwilling innocent to save your own fucking skins, but not a single one of you even has the balls to look me in the fucking eye, do you?!"

The murmuring grew louder, and several people coughed uncomfortably. Yato spotted Natsume, one of his very few customers, staring pointedly at the shrine behind Yato as though the carpenter were invisible.

"Be quiet," someone said sharply from somewhere to Yato's left, and he turned to find Shinsuke standing guard nearby, holding a long, ceremonial spear. "The sacrifice is to reflect in silence before the priests arrive."

Yato would have laughed derisively, except he was too terrified and angry for laughter.

"Let me go, damn it!! Don't make me curse you into a shriveled husk!!"

Shin prodded him with the blunt end of his naginata.

"Don't bother, Yato-san. It's too late, you made a blood oath. Curses won't change your fate now."

"Maybe not, but I'll be damned satisfied at least," Yato snapped.

"Even if you could use such magic, and I know you can't, it wouldn't work," said an unpleasant voice, and Yato whipped his head around to find Kouto standing at the front of the crowd, dressed in a white, ceremonial kariginu with a smug sort of look in his eyes. "It was in the oath, you see," he continued, holding out his hands as one of the elders approached him with the bone cup and the thin instrument from the shrine, which Yato now recognized with a chill as a very long, very sharp ritual knife. "You cannot curse me or anyone else present without breaking the terms of the agreement. I made sure of that when I wrote it."

"YOU!" Yato snarled, straining against his bindings in a panic. "You tricked me! You planned this all along!"

"It was necessary, I'm afraid," Kouto said, holding the blade up to the torchlight, inspecting it for defects. "As you know, if no one in the village volunteers to sacrifice themselves, the High Priest must do so. My predecessor was aging, but we all expected him to live long enough to stand for us this year, after which I would take his place as his student." He returned the blade to the elder and turned his attention to the cup next. "Unfortunately, he died of illness this spring, forcing me to take up his role before my time."

"So what, you decided to trick someone else so you could save your own stupid skin?!" Yato argued. "You're supposed to be the holiest person in this village, the most selfless and devoted of us all!! It's your fucking job to dedicate your life to the gods in the first place!"

"Yes, you're right, and this is no act of self-preservation on my part, I assure you," Kouto replied smoothly as he ran his fingers over the rim of the cup, muttering a spell or two before he was satisfied. "But it's an old law, you know, that says the duties and knowledge of the High Priest can only be passed down orally, from teacher to pupil, once a generation. I'm the only one in the clan who now carries that knowledge, and it will take me years to pass it on to whoever becomes my successor. If I die tonight, righteous a death as it may be, my craft will be lost with me. That must not happen, for the village's sake. I take no pleasure in this necessary act of deception."

"Oh sure, you're not at all glad you get to keep your head," Yato said sarcastically. "You never fucking cared about helping anyone but yourself, snake."

"No, no, you have it all wrong," Kouto said innocently, as though they were having a normal, friendly conversation over tea. "I truly believe this is in your best interest, Yato-san. Only the gods can intervene on your behalf, to save your soul from the curse that ails you. But you must be willing to serve the gods to the best of your ability before you can be forgiven, and a curse like yours is too strong to be dispelled without a blood price. You may die here, but the War God will surely see your sacrifice as worthy of forgiveness and let your soul rest in peace at last."

"EXCEPT I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING!!" Yato shouted. "All I've ever done is live! I don't know if my bad luck is really a curse or not, but that doesn't mean I want to die! I've stayed away from the villagers even when I needed help, and I've prayed and worked for the good of everyone even though you've all hated me my entire life!" Angry tears formed at the corners of his eyes as he spoke. It was just so unfair; whatever anyone else said about him and his origins, Yato wanted to live just as desperately as anyone else. He had that right, miserable as he might be, didn't he? "I trusted you, Kouto! When I said I'd devote myself to the village, this is NOT what I meant!! I don't need forgiveness!!" He wrenched his arm forward, trying to get loose, only to succeed in tearing his shoulder painfully from its socket.

The crowd waited patiently for his colorful stream of curses and screams to die down.

"We'll need to tie them more securely to prevent this in the future," Kouto noted casually at Shinsuke as Yato spent several minutes detailing the exact nature of Kouto's mangled, decaying privates.

"Yes, sir, we'll keep this in mind for the next one. It's such a pity to cause the sacrifices undue distress."

"THIS ENTIRE SITUATION IS A CAUSE OF UNDUE DISTRESS!!" Yato cried through gritted teeth.

Kouto gave him a small, exasperated sort of smile as he stepped forward to address the villagers gathered around them.

"In the age before myths, the gods walked the earth," he began, and everyone fell silent as he began telling the story. "And for a time, they lived among us-"

"Oh for fuck's sake!" Yato interrupted loudly. "If I have to die here, at least fucking spare me this damned story one last- HRRF!!" He was cut off by Shinsuke's large hand, firmly clapped over his mouth.

"Be quiet, fool!" Shinsuke hissed as Kouto glared in their direction. "This is part of the ritual, the spell! It must not be broken!"

Yato would have gladly made a fuss out of pure spite, but the more he tried to make himself heard over Shinsuke's hand, the tighter the man held on until he could barely breathe. Dazed from lack of air, he fell quiet, and Kouto started his recitation over, his voice echoing in Yato's head strangely. He couldn't make sense of the words anymore, and he found he really didn't care either.

I don't want to die.

He knew the story well enough. A tribal leader became incensed at the gods' rule over every aspect of human life and raised a rebellion, insisting that humans no longer needed to be protected by deities after they'd learned so much and come so far. Furious, the gods decried him and his ilk, and named all mortals unworthy of their protection and trust. They abandoned humanity for good and returned to the Celestial Plain in the heavens, never to return.

The villagers were supposed to hate the rebel leader in the story on principle. The man had been a proud fool, believing humans to be better than they actually were. Nature and the respect for life were forgotten alarmingly quickly, all because of the rebel's hubris.

Yato had always thought so too, but now...

What right did a god have to take someone's life against their will? The War God was not the source of life, or even one of the major creation deities. She was worshipped as the Protector of Mankind because she had taken pity on the humans and returned from Heaven with the intention of quelling the hatred and fighting. She was corrupted by bloodlust, though, and in the end she killed far more people than she managed to save in her fury. The elders said willing sacrifices were the only way to keep her appeased, to ensure she would continue protecting the mortal realm, but now that Yato saw with his own eyes how easily the village manipulated the idea of voluntary sacrifices, he had to wonder; just how many others had been killed under false pretenses? Why had the War God let this happen, when she was supposed to protect the people who spent their lives venerating her?

I don't want to die.

Maybe the rebel had also seen the injustice of the gods' ways. Maybe all he'd really wanted was the ability to speak for himself, to choose his own way in life.

Maybe Yato's mother had as well, when she ventured into the depths of the forest all those years ago, holding the remains of her stillborn son, and returned with a healthy, living babe. A child with hair dark as night and eyes of icy death, so unlike her own. Whatever she'd done, why was it so wrong of her to want her son to live the life stolen from him before he even tasted it?

For that matter, why was Yato born without a right to live? Why did the gods have the right to take what little he had left? The boy had no one. Not a single living relative, no friends. Since the death of his master, no one liked him or cared if he lived or died. He had nothing to believe in, nothing to look forward to, but he had never once thought his meager existence wasn't worth living. Surely there was more meaning to his life than these seventeen years of loneliness?

I just want to live... and know what it's like to be happy, he thought, so hurt and betrayed that he felt oddly empty inside, the faith he'd so carefully tended for so long lying broken at the bottom of his soul. Why am I not allowed to have even that, Lady War?

He never noticed that the speech had ended until Kouto was standing right in front of him, the knife held expectantly in his right hand.

"Try to relax, Yato-san, it'll hurt less," Kouto said, a detached sort of pity in his eyes.

"How the fuck would you know?" Yato asked, too tired to fight now. "You've never been dead."

"Well, no," the priest admitted, looking thoughtful. "But they say you have, so I'm sure it can't be too bad."

"Go to hell, Kouto."

Kouto shook his head disapprovingly, brandishing the knife under Yato's throat.

"Humility, remember? This is for the village's sake as well as your own, Yato-san. So don't worry, I'm sure the gods will spare you any suffering."

They most certainly did not.

It was a quick slash, over before Yato could even prepare for it, but the pain was excruciating, fire across his skin, and suddenly he couldn't breathe, he couldn't keep air in his lungs. He tried to scream, writhing against the ropes as he choked on his own blood, but nothing would come out except a horrible wheezing sound from some abstract nightmare. In seconds, Yato's vision darkened, and his eyes fell closed. For some reason he thought of the flowers he'd carved that afternoon, wondering if he'd ever actually seen morning glories with his own eyes when he had the chance.

As his life bled away, Yato heard the faint echo of a cheer and several voices speaking indistinctly around him, and over it all, drowning out their voices, the drums beat fiercely to a chorus of cicadas, a long-forgotten verse sung from Yato's namesake, the night itself.

'Wait,' cries the sparrow from high in its tree,

And watches the young ones take wing and flee,

Bereft and abandoned, clipped wings plain to see,

Its song long forgotten to ancient decree,

'Remember,' winds whisper, an old, silent plea,

'Remember thy wings, and fly back to me.'

Chapter Text

Far from the darkness of those midnight woods, beneath a canopy of heavenly stars, a young dark-haired woman suddenly turned her head, certain she had been called. Her bright, strangely colored eyes, a rosy, warm brown, narrowed in confusion, trying to understand what she'd sensed.

She had only a half-second to think before a vicious blow came hurtling at her from the side. With speed born of pure instinct, the woman raised her arm protectively over her face. There was a sickening sort of thud and a dull pain exploded across her jaw, her mouth filling with the metallic taste of blood; she had successfully blocked the strike, but the force of it had knocked her own arm against her face with all the weight of a proper punch.

"Ouch, that looks like it really hurt!!" a bright, chirpy sort of voice echoed loudly overhead. "It's not every day the reigning champion receives a kick to the face like that one... maybe someone should send in a medic?"

The woman scowled, wiping the blood from her mouth with the back of her arm as she retreated a safe distance from her opponent, trying to regain her focus. She gingerly felt for the damage to her jaw, satisfied that it wasn't broken. None of her teeth had been knocked out either; she'd most likely bitten the inside of her cheek at the moment of impact.

Damn, it's not like me to lose focus in the middle of a fight, she thought, eyeing the much taller woman standing across from her, a woman whose beauty seemed to glow in the light of the stars above. A veritable curtain of golden hair swayed in the cool night air behind her, a pair of glowering, sharp amethyst eyes focused entirely on her enemy. There wasn't a hint of weakness to be found in her bearing; her graceful, lithe movements were those of a predator, promising swift retribution to any who dared take her lightly.

The dark-haired woman took a deep breath, letting her mind clear itself of unnecessary thoughts or information. This was no time to worry about anything outside the arena; it might look like a lighthearted match to the spectators sitting in the raised wooden stands, but for the competitors, this was a battle fought with more than glory on the line. She settled her weight onto her toes, preparing to strike-

"Ooh, looks like Mamorin is back in form; watch out Bisha!"

-and promptly lost her temper.

"For the last time, Kofuku-dono, my name isn't Mamorin!!" she cried angrily, whipping around to face the stands.

Her opponent turned to voice her own objection. "I've asked you not to call me Bisha more than once already, Kofuku-dono!"

A cute, bubbly female god waved down at them casually from the front row of spectators, where she leaned over the edge of the laquered wooden railing, wearing the formal midnight-blue kimono and cap of the tournament Arbiter. Her obscenely pink hair and childish demeanor clashed terribly with the dark solemnity of the outfit and role, but then again, she was only filling in.

"Aw, but both Bishamonten and Mamorigami are such a mouthful," she pouted, her voice echoing unnaturally overhead. As the Arbiter, a spell had been applied to make sure everyone in the audience could hear her decisions and commentary.

"Then just use my actual name, if you don't mind!" the shorter woman insisted.

"That's even longer," Kofuku complained, "how am I supposed to say 'Hiyori-no-Kami landed a kick to Bishamonten's backside' fast enough to keep up with what happens next?!"

"Excuse me?! I have never received a kick to my backside in my life!" Bishamonten snarled.

"Okay, okay, I just meant it's a pain in my backside, I can't speak that fast! I can barely even tell what's going on to start with!"

"Even so," Bishamon snapped. "Please, take your role more seriously, Kofuku-dono! I know you're only replacing Takemikazuchi-dono because he got knocked unconscious in the last round-"

"So cold, Bisha; you're the one who knocked him out! Besides, I commentated that match too, and it was fine! I thought I did a really good job, don't you think so, Ama-chan?"

The entire arena burst into nervous whispers as everyone glanced fearfully across the stands to the other side, where a small, silver-haired girl sat on a raised platform, flanked by several serious-faced attendants. She seemed to be a child, but she sat perfectly still, straight-backed and regal, a blank expression on her otherwise pleasing face. The girl held a long, luxurious sleeve to her mouth, her eyes betraying nothing as she spoke, her voice clear and measured. It needed no spell to carry, each word as audible as though she were standing next to each listener's ear.

"We admit that we have enjoyed the God of Poverty's... unusual handling of the Arbiter's position in Lord Takemikazuchi's absence. It is... refreshing. Nevertheless, we must remind Kofuku-dono that the night shall end before the match is won at this rate," she said. "We must ask that the fight resumes at once, Lady Poverty."

An almost palpable sigh of relief swept through the spectators and Kofuku beamed, hands clasped behind her back in a lazy attempt at formality.

"Yes, Ama-chan, Your Ladyship, ma'am!" she said, and several people around her groaned, including a grizzled older man standing behind her, who quite literally buried his face in his hands in a gesture of despair. "You heard her, Mamorin, Bisha, come on, get back to it already!" she said as she frowned down at them, as though they'd been the ones to prolong the delay.

Hiyori and Bishamon both sighed with exasperation.

"The nerve," Bishamonten muttered, just loud enough for Hiyori to hear. "Only Lady Kofuku could get away with something as brazen as calling Her Majesty Amaterasu Omikami by a nickname."

Hiyori said nothing.

They turned toward one another and bowed in a sign of respect. As soon as she straightened up, Hiyori raised her arms defensively and took several measured steps to the left, her opponent cautiously mirroring her movements as they circled each other.

She's got a second wind now, Hiyori noted, frowning slightly. Right up until she'd gotten distracted, Hiyori had been pressing her advantage well, but now that the match had been interrupted, whatever momentum she had managed was all but gone.

In sharp contrast, Bishamonten seemed to be in her element, an assured smile on her bright red lips as the wind whipped her hair over her shoulder. Hiyori grimaced, annoyed. Every instinct in Hiyori's body was insisting she take advantage of what should have been an obvious weakness and yank those pretty golden tresses to the ground. Had Bishamon been anything but a god, she would have done just that; such things were fair game in fights of this kind, if a little uncouth. Unfortunately, being a war god meant that Bishamon's hair could not be touched against her will or used against her in battle; even if Hiyori tried to grab it, it would always find itself mysteriously out of reach.

Knowing that didn't make the temptation go away though, so most combat gods tied their hair back, like Hiyori had, out of respect for their opponents and to keep distractions in tournaments to a minimum. Bishamonten, however, always let her hair fly loose, and it was frustratingly easy to be distracted by that golden banner streaming in the wind. Another god might have been reprimanded for the lack of etiquette, but Bishamon was one of the higher ranked members of Amaterasu's court; trying to grab her hair would probably land Hiyori in a lot more trouble than Bishamon would ever face for leaving it loose in the first place.

Focus, Hiyori. She's just taunting you, she told herself. She took another slow, deep breath, eyes lowered, and the noise around her faded, the only sound her own heart beating steadily in her ears. It welcomed her like a war drum, one beat at a time, reminding her of who she was.

What she was.

When she looked up a second later, her eyes met with Bishamon's, and there was no longer an audience, no commentator or stray thoughts to distract her. There was only her own body, blood hot under her skin, fingers twitching with anticipation, and the form of her opponent ahead.

A fierce, unbridled joy spread from her core and through her veins, honing her instincts to a sharp point as the tension broke and Bishamon lunged forward. Hiyori effortlessly blocked the attempt to break her stance, and the two women exchanged a series of furious blows, almost too fast for the eye to follow. None of them landed, but Hiyori wasn't worried. The opportunity always came to strike, as long as she remained patient.

A low, sweeping kick came from the left, and Hiyori leapt to avoid it, using Bishamon's shoulders as leverage to lift herself up and overhead, landing unharmed just behind her. Bishamon spun around immediately, only partially blocking a jab aimed at her side. Hiyori felt ribs against her forearm and knew she'd broken at least one when Bishamon let out a pained cry half a second later.

Some merciful part of her winced in sympathy, but it was drowned out by the overwhelming satisfaction of a well-timed attack. She was grinning, she knew, a hungry, dangerous, and slightly unhinged sort of smile, but Hiyori didn't care.

This, this was everything. With every movement of her body, every heavy thud of bone against bone, Hiyori felt more alive than she ever did worrying about rules and the complicated politics at court. Here in this arena, she could let go and truly enjoy the pure bliss that came from action, from strength and physical domination. She could be as reckless and violent as she liked, and no one could say anything about it. If she hurt her opponent, well, that was the point, wasn't it? Bishamon wasn't holding back her killing intent either.

A harsh, mad sort of laugh escaped her lips as she dropped to her feet to avoid a fast punch, jumping back before Bishamon could find any purchase. Hiyori could see the frustration forming on the other woman's brow, an irritated quirk here, a narrowing of her eyes there...

"Come on, Bishamonten, you can do better than that!" Hiyori called as she dodged a second kick, moving so lightly on the wooden floor of the arena that she could almost be flying.

"Coward," Bishamon shot back, trying to catch Hiyori's arm for a throw and missing by a mile. "All you do is flit around like a cat, stand and fight like a proper combat god, Hiyori-no-Kami!"

Hiyori merely smiled as she caught Bishamon mid-strike, slamming her elbow down on her overextended arm as she passed.

"No need for insults," she said coolly as Bishamon hissed with pain. "I always fight fair."

"Hmph," Bishamon said curtly, and in that second Hiyori saw her chance, time seemingly slowing down in the moment of realization; a slight shift in the other woman's weight, her ankle overextended in just such a way that she could be easily toppled...

Hiyori ducked down as another blow came from the right, meaning to swipe with her foot and throw Bishamon back with her own momentum-

"Traitor!"

A deep growl of a voice suddenly exploded in her ears, followed by a deafening, rushing roar, like water. Her vision flickered for a moment, images flashing confusingly in her mind's eye, a deluge of emotion and fear accompanying each one.

Flames, tearing through the land like wounds cut by a sword.

Anger, disbelief, grief, the furious cries of revenge.

A gentle whisper, fragile as ice, warm as sunlight, so easily silenced.

Promises lost to the emptiness of the night, overwhelming hatred rending the sky...

Next thing she knew, Hiyori was splayed out on the ground, the wind knocked from her lungs and her body aching as though she'd been beaten within an inch of her life. She blinked, uncomprehending, and suddenly the cheering of a crowd came crashing over her like a wave.

"And she's done it!! For the first time in twelve hundred years, Bishamonten has defeated Hiyori-no-Kami in the martial arts tournament!! What a fight, poor Mamorin looks like she can't even understand what just happened!" Kofuku's voice rang out.

I... What?!

A beautiful, familiar face came into view, frowning down at her even as its owner offered an arm to pull Hiyori up.

"You alright, Mamorigami? You seem... distracted, somehow," Bishamonten said.

Hiyori stared up at her stupidly, lost.

"I... I don't know," she said slowly, reluctantly accepting the arm and wincing as she sat up.

Bishamon regarded her warily, as if she were choosing her words carefully. "... There's something on your face," she finally said as she turned away to greet her well-wishers, coming down from the stands to congratulate her.

Hiyori watched her go, feeling strangely untethered from reality. Slowly, she raised her hand to her cheek and felt something warm and wet, but her thoughts were elsewhere, muddled.

I... I lost, she thought, and with the words came a hot pit of shame that opened up in the depths of her stomach. Hiyori didn't lose to anyone when it came to hand-to-hand combat. It was her specialty, what she was known for. Bishamon could best her in an armed match, sometimes, but Hiyori was supposed to be the strongest of all the war gods when it came to brute strength and agility. Losing was impossible. Unheard of.

Unacceptable.

She glanced up at the stands, where a few of the higher ranked gods stood watching the commotion below. No one seemed to be looking at her, they only had eyes for their victor, their favorite-

No, someone was looking at her, gazing down imperiously from behind a raised, silk sleeve...

Hiyori immediately averted her eyes and bowed, feeling those dawn-grey irises boring holes in the back of her bent head. She swallowed a knot of fear, the reality of her defeat hitting her at full force now.

She waited a few minutes out of respect before she straightened up. Amaterasu and her retinue were gone, but Hiyori had no doubt that she would be summoned to the Palace sooner than later. She bit her lip, hoping she hadn't just made things a lot worse for herself and her household than they already were.

It was only after she'd slipped quietly from the arena a few minutes later that Hiyori realized that her cheek was still wet. She raised an open palm to her face, expecting to find a smear of blood from an open wound. Instead, her hand came away clean, clear liquid shimmering in the starlight.

She stared at the tears on her skin, shocked, but no matter how hard she tried, Hiyori couldn't remember what had caused her to cry in the first place, or why there was a sharp, painful ache now forming deep within her chest.

It was light out when Yato suddenly woke with a loud, agonized gasp, his hands immediately going to his neck as he bolted upright, his lungs heaving desperately for air.

Son of a bloody whore!! he thought, falling forward onto his hands, fighting the intense urge to be sick as he tried to catch his breath. A lifetime of injury couldn't have prepared him for that excruciating slash, and Yato could still see that accursed knife, glinting in the firelight with his own blood as Kouto held the cup to the wound...

It took him a moment to calm down enough to realize that that was a strange thing to remember. He blinked, staring down at the stone beneath his palms, confused.

I... wasn't I killed? he thought, slowly raising a hand and turning it over to inspect his fingers. They were completely clean, not covered in gore at all. Gingerly, Yato touched the wound at his throat, only to find perfectly smooth, if sore, skin, and no traces of blood or scarring of any kind.

"What... was it just a dream?" he wondered aloud, his voice hoarse. He ran his hand over his shoulders and chest for good measure, and it was only once he was satisfied that there were no injuries that he sighed with relief and sat up, turning his attention to his surroundings for the first time.

There were trees all around him, so his first instinct was to assume he was somewhere in the forest. But on closer inspection, Yato frowned, uncertain; everyone in the village knew the woods like the back of their hand, every path, every grove and stream, even the composition of which trees grew in which areas was common knowledge. As a carpenter, Yato was intimately familiar with the trees of the forest, but... he was sure he had never seen pines quite this tall or oaks so resplendent. He'd never seen a paved clearing before either, but here he was, sitting on a delicate pattern of stones set in a perfect circle around him. A cool breeze rustled through the branches overhead, and it suddenly struck him that it was oddly quiet for a forest in the middle of the day; there were no birds singing, no insects chirping loudly, no boars crashing through the undergrowth.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he shivered slightly, apprehensive. There was something unnatural about the place, and Yato felt certain that he was not meant to be there. His head was aching terribly, and he still had no idea what had happened or why he had ended up in this strange part of the woods, but every instinct told him those were questions best asked later, once he had put good distance between himself and whatever magic dwelt there.

He quickly found a small, hidden path at the edge of the clearing and followed it through the trees, unnerved. No matter where he looked, nothing else seemed to exist around him but foliage. It was strangely oppressive somehow, as though Yato were the only being left in the whole world, lost and forgotten by nature itself.

He walked on for what felt like hours, eyeing the immaculate path beneath his sandals. No matter how far he went, the flat stones stretched onward, perfectly smooth and unblemished, each one bearing a peculiar carved symbol that Yato would not have been able to read even if he weren't illiterate. There were no signs of wear on any of the stones either, and even the grass seemed to have refused growing through the cracks. Whoever had paved this path had put a significant amount of magic into their work, more magic than Yato could fathom ever using in a single lifetime.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn't see the bridge until the ground suddenly ran out a few feet away. Startled, he glanced up and had to blink several times to make sure he wasn't imagining what he saw.

A huge chasm opened up before him, not dark and foreboding as he thought such a thing might be, but a bright, beautiful space that seemed to fall right into the open sky. Clouds passed lazily below, and when Yato worked up the courage to peer over the edge, he saw nothing but endless blue, no signs of land or water in the distance. Even more astounding was the island on the other side of the handsome wooden bridge he now faced, an island unlike anything Yato had ever seen or thought possible.

It was an enormous crag, floating serenely as though buoyed by the clouds themselves. High walls ran around its perimeter, obscuring a magnificent palace unlike anything Yato had ever seen, a towering marvel of a building that would have taken an extraordinary amount of time and labor to build. Far in the distance, he thought he could make out hundreds of other such islands, drifting in the sea of clouds.

He stared, open-mouthed with shock and confusion.

"Where the hell am I?!" he managed, his voice strangled. He whipped around, trying to see if there was anything familiar, some landmark he might have missed in the woods, but to his astonishment there was nothing behind him but a small garden with a paved courtyard. The towering trees were gone, replaced by spindly willows and stalks of bamboo artfully arranged around the edges of a modest rockery. The only thing that he recognized was the pattern on the stones, which led right up to the edge of the bridge and continued uninterrupted, carved in wood instead.

Yato swayed, overwhelmed. His head was pounding angrily, and he felt nauseous and dizzy. None of this made sense. He'd just been in the forest, hadn't he? The people of the hidden village weren't allowed to leave the woods, but part of that was because the entire forest was nestled in a valley surrounded by forbiddingly tall mountains. There were no canyons or ravines that could rival this massive opening into the sky, much less floating chunks of land with grand palaces on them.

Wherever he was, Yato was at least clear that such things could not possibly belong in the world of the living. He touched his neck again with a sense of dread.

What if it wasn't just a dream? he asked himself, noting the lingering soreness on his skin. Could he really have been killed, murdered by the Head Priest in the name of the War God?

Surely not, he thought with a hysterical, weak laugh. The realm of the dead was supposed to be dark and full of shadows, not a land of beauty and nature. Besides, Yato could feel his heart beating under the skin. His blood would have been offered to the altar if he'd really been sacrificed, and there was no way he could still be standing after bleeding that much. Never mind the fact that his heart would have stopped; Yato was alive, he was sure of it.

... Or not. He just couldn't get the image of his own blood on that godawful knife out of his head. It was too vivid to just be a dream, wasn't it?

He shook his head, dazed. If he was alive, he had no idea where this place might be. If he were dead... well, he'd have much more pressing problems to worry about.

You won't figure anything out just standing here and gaping like an idiot, he told himself, trying to take some semblance of control over the mess he'd found himself in. There was no going back the way he came, obviously, so his only choice was to continue across the bridge and see what waited for him on the other side.

He placed a hesitant hand on the rail, marveling at the craftsmanship as he walked. It was perfectly sanded and lacquered, painted in bright red and gold, and the wood on the underside was strangely smooth to the touch, almost soft like the fuzz on a flower petal. The planks made no sound under his feet either, and there was not a speck of dust or dirt in sight.

A bridge so fine should have been impossible to keep in such good condition, and it traversed such a huge distance that he couldn't begin to fathom the method by which it had been constructed. Yato would have dearly loved to know how it had been designed and built, or where he might find wood that luxurious to use in his own projects. Whoever had designed it was a master of his craft, and a deft sorcerer too, if the faint tug of magic was anything to go by.

"Halt! Who dares approach my Lady's palace?!"

It had been so quiet that the voice startled Yato and he gave a loud, high pitched scream as he stumbled backwards, clutching the railing for support.

"What the- Who?!" he gasped, one hand over his heart (he was mildly reassured by the frenzied pounding of the blood in his veins, though he didn't have time to really think about it too much).

Two short figures were standing at the end of the bridge, wrapped in mist and holding long, decorated spears. They were a pair of children, a boy and a girl, both wearing the kosode and hakama of shrine attendants, their hair cut short and pulled back into ornamental half-ties. The one on the left, the girl, had black hair and blank, coal-colored eyes. She betrayed nothing in her expression, and if she had not moved, Yato might have thought her dead. The other was a boy with strange yellow hair and bright golden eyes, but where his companion was impossible to read, this one was regarding Yato with distaste and suspicion, eyes narrowed.

"You, whose retinue do you belong to?!" the boy ordered loudly, tapping the butt of his spear against the wooden planks of the bridge impatiently. "What shocking disrespect, crossing into someone else's household without permission or invitation! I'll have words for your master, whoever they are. Name yourself!"

Yato looked around and seeing no one else, pointed at himself.

"M-Me?" he asked nervously.

The boy's expression grew angry. "Do you see anyone else, fool? You slander my master with your mockery! Speak now, or you shall be run through!" To illustrate his point, he raised his spear in one swift, practiced motion, the blade pointed directly at Yato.

"W-wait, I don't know where I am!" Yato said, holding up his hands frantically. "My name is Yato, I just woke up in the woods and next thing I knew I saw this bridge, and the trees were all gone-"

The girl blinked at him.

"The... woods?" she said in a soft, carrying voice. "What woods?"

Yato shook his head. "I don't know, I thought it was the forest around the village at first-"

"Did... did you just say village?!" the boy cut in, looking as though he'd been slapped. The girl frowned just the tiniest bit, almost imperceptibly, and turned to her companion.

"Yukine, you don't think..."

"No!" he insisted, glaring at Yato with undisguised hatred. "That's not possible, our master sealed the path off long ago. He has to be a shinki, probably a spy-"

"What?" Yato asked, bewildered. "I have no idea what you're talking about, I really am just lost, I swear-"

Without warning, the girl suddenly hurried forward, her spear held expertly to the side despite it being so much taller than her. She was fast, much faster than Yato expected a child to be, and he gave a small yelp as she approached. She circled around him once and stopped in front of him, cocking her head as though he were a mildly curious plant.

"You smell of blood and trees," she said simply. Yato thought he might be imagining the slight narrowing of her eyes, but it was hard to tell. 

The boy followed slowly, spear held aloft. He prodded Yato's clothes with the blade as though he were something disgusting he didn't want to touch. He sniffed the air cautiously.

"He does," he agreed slowly, wrinkling his nose. "But that doesn't make any sense. He can't possibly be..."

"There is an easier way to check, you know," the girl said. She turned to Yato, gesturing at him with her spear. "You," she said. "Are you a mortal, or a shinki?"

"I... I don't know what a shinki is," Yato admitted nervously, holding his hands up as the boy looked him over. "But I think I'm human... or was, at least?"

The girl raised one thin black eyebrow so high it seemed to disappear under her fringe as the boy, Yukine, rolled his eyes and muttered, "Oh, yes, so very enlightening, Hiiro..."

"You're not very bright, are you?" she asked Yato flatly, but he could sense that she was mocking him. Clearly she wasn't nearly as expressionless as she looked.

"Well, the thing is... I think... well, I probably sound insane, but... I think I might be dead," he said slowly, choosing to overlook the insult.

"No, you think?" Yukine scoffed. Yato chose to ignore his attitude for the moment, preoccupied by the horrible thought that he really had been killed.

"B-But... the land of the dead is supposed to be... depressing, isn't it?" he asked desperately, looking from one child to the other.

"Depressing?" the boy repeated, his face so incredulous he seemed to have reached completely new heights of disdain. "That would be a miserable understatement, fool. Don't you know anything about the land of the dead? It's ruled by the goddess Izanami, a world of darkness and decay. No light or spark of nature can exist there."

Yato sighed with relief, but it was short lived.

"But then... this doesn't make sense," he frowned, more confused than ever. "If I'm not dead, then where is this? How did I get here? And why do I remember the villagers trying to kill me...?"

The boy paled.

"You can't be serious," he said, glancing at the girl with a panicked glint in his golden eyes. "He's gotta be lying, there's just no way that's true, right, Hiiro?!" he asked, dropping the formal language in his fear.

The girl studied Yato quietly. Yato noticed that her bottom lip seemed to be pulled in slightly at the corner, as though she were biting on it, deep in thought.

"You... you said your name was Yato, correct?" she finally said, ignoring the boy's question.

"Y-yes, with the character for 'night', I'm told," Yato said, wishing the boy would lower his spear. He'd had enough of people pointing sharp weapons at him for a lifetime. "I'm a carpenter, and I swear on the gods I didn't come here on purpose, or with any ill intentions," he added.

The girl watched him, her eyes wary. "You don't seem to be lying."

"He has to be!" the boy insisted, his voice a bit higher than before. "We sent them a messenger, and Lady Hiyori went through hell to seal the way through-"

Hiiro held a hand up to silence him.

"Yato, you said your village tried to kill you. By any chance, were you a sacrifice for the gods?"

Yato nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think so, it's just, I don't remember all the details... I think they might've knocked me out, my head is killing me-"

He was interrupted by a battle cry as the boy lifted the blade of his spear to Yato's throat, his eyes burning alarmingly with crazed fury. "Enough! I don't care who you are or what you were sent here for! If you're human, you're not welcome here! I won't allow this, you won't get anywhere near my master if it's the last thing I do! This is the War God's domain, and trespassers shall be slain where they stand!"

"T-The War GOD?!" Yato cried, just as Hiiro threw a hand over the hilt of the boy's naginata and shouted, "Yukine! You mustn't!"

Yato swallowed, eyeing the blade as it pricked his throat in the exact same spot as Kouto had cut him. It was incredibly hard to focus on information as important as the presence of divinity when he was staring death in the face for the second time in far too short a time period.

What did I ever do to deserve all this, for gods' sake?! I just wanna go home and build myself a good, sturdy, door! And maybe a moat or pit to go with it, with lots of bamboo spears at the bottom...

"Hiiro! Get out of the way!" the boy growled, trying to shake her off. "I don't know how this lowlife managed to get here, but humans are all corrupt scum! We can't let him go anywhere near Hiyori-sama!"

"I know, but we can't kill him!" the girl insisted firmly. "If he's here, then it means-"

"I know what it means, and I don't care!!" the boy shouted angrily. "I refuse to accept this!"

"What you want doesn't matter!" Hiiro snapped, throwing the spear back with such force that her companion was knocked off balance. "There is nothing anyone can do at this point. You know this, you've seen it a thousand times! Don't pretend like you don't know that his fate has been irreversibly tied to our master's for the rest of his life. For better or worse, this person is-"

"No! Don't say it!!" the boy cried, covering his ears childishly.

"-Lady Hiyori's consort!"

Deep within the palace on the island, a large, outdoor pool sat in a secluded courtyard, shielded from view by high walls and towering stalks of bamboo. The water was clear as crystal, lapping gently against the rocks that made up the edge, disturbed only by the countless water lilies growing in the cool shade. It was a beautiful, tranquil space, quiet but for the soft sound of water trickling in the background.

In the middle of this peaceful scene, the god known as Hiyori, the very same War God in question, floated on her back, watching the clouds dissipate in the sky overhead. She held her arms out, submerged in the water up to her ears, completely ignorant of the commotion outside the palace walls. She was currently mulling over her predicament, wondering what steps she should take to offset the loss in the arena. Though she'd been bathing for what must have been hours, however, she was no closer to a solution than when she'd first returned at daybreak.

"I'm so screwed," she groaned aloud, covering her face with the back of a particularly bruised arm. Her voice echoed in the emptiness, returning the words back to her in a mocking, watery chant. Hiyori's reputation as the most powerful combat god in the heavenly court was her one real bartering chip, the only reason she was allowed what freedoms she'd won for herself over the years. Without it, the upper echelons were sure to look for new ways to knock her down a peg or two, and Hiyori wasn't made for the nuances of politics and intrigue.

She sighed, raising her arm up to the sky as though she meant to block out the sun. She'd been a weather god originally, but the clouds no longer answered her call; it was one of the conditions she'd been forced to agree to, all those years ago on her return from the mortal realm.

She bit the inside of her cheek, angry. "How much longer am I supposed to be punished for something I barely even remember?"

Hiyori let her arm fall back into the water with a loud splash, resentment bubbling to the surface. It didn't matter how much time passed, how many centuries or millenia; Heaven would never forget what she'd done, even if the corruption had distorted her own memories beyond recognition. Old betrayals ran deep in the seams of the firmament, and forgiveness was not in the nature of most gods to begin with. Hiyori was the odd exception there.

Not that it's ever done me any good, she thought, closing her eyes irritably. Sometimes she truly regretted her choice to champion humanity after everything it had cost her, everything it was still costing her... but Hiyori was an old god, one of the very first, present almost from the Beginning, and she remembered too well what it had been like when mortals and the divine walked the earth hand in hand. She couldn't turn her back on people after having lived among them for so long.

At least, that's how she felt about it now. The truth was that Hiyori simply couldn't remember anything concrete about that point in time, just flashes of her own twisted emotions and bloodlust. Every time she tried to force herself to recall why she'd gone back, she hit a mental wall that refused to let her past. It was probably for the best; what she did remember was nightmarish, and she still woke in a cold terror sometimes, trembling with raw feelings she had no name for.

She turned over listlessly in the water, swimming slowly in a wide circle.

There's no point in thinking about this again, she scolded herself. You can't change what happened then, and you can't change what happened last night either. All you can do is keep moving forward.

She closed her eyes, exhausted in more ways than she could count. All she really wanted was to make it all stop, to be free of her burdens and responsibilities and be allowed to rest, like mortals were. After all, humans could pray to gods for guidance when they felt trapped or lost, but who exactly was a god supposed to pray to when they'd had enough heartache for a thousand lifetimes?

Yato blinked, sure he had misheard or misunderstood the conversation between the two attendants.

"Er, sorry, I'm the what of whom now?!" he asked, but neither of the two children were listening to him at all; the girl had dropped her spear and all but wrestled the boy to the ground, fighting to pull his hands away from his ears.

"Ugh! Quit acting like a child!!" she snarled, showing her full emotions for the first time. "Stop that!!"

"NO!" the boy insisted, clearly able to hear despite the fact that he was fighting so hard to pretend otherwise. "You can't make me!! You're not the boss of me, Hiiro!!"

"I'm still your elder, stupid brat!! Just because you don't like it doesn't mean I'm not right! LET GO!!"

"Hey!" Yato snatched the girl up and off the boy before she could really hurt him. She struggled viciously to free herself, kicking and scratching, but Yato was so much larger than her that he was able to hold her far enough away to avoid serious injury. "Ow! Stop! Aren't you guys supposed to be gods or whatever?! Why are you fighting?!"

Yukine, seeing his companion in trouble, picked up his discarded naginata and pointed it at Yato furiously. "You put her down now, filthy human!! How dare you touch a servant of the gods?!"

"I'm trying to help you, damn it!" Yato cried as the girl bit down on his hand, hard, and he dropped her with a pained hiss. "And what are you, a cat?!" he asked the girl accusingly, nursing the bite. She wasted no time in grabbing her own spear and joining Yukine, their quarrel already forgotten.

"What is wrong with your hands?!" she asked angrily, shivering visibly with disgust. She spat and rubbed her sleeve against her mouth forcefully. "They're all wet, it's disgusting!! Are you a pervert or something?! Do you get off on holding up little girls?!"

"What?! No!! It's just a bit of sweat-" Yato tried to explain, but they weren't listening.

"You sick bastard!" the boy growled with rage. "What did you do to Hiiro, creep?!"

"I didn't do anything!!" Yato cried, raising his admittedly moist hands up in a gesture of surrender, sweating more now in his panic as he backed away from them. "I just thought I needed to stop you from fighting before someone got hurt-"

"Whether we fight or not is none of your business, human!" the girl said. "Don't you ever touch me or Yukine again, understood?!"

She brandished the spear so that it was pressed against his jugular and the hair on the back of Yato's neck stood up at once.

"Y-yeah, I'm sorry, I won't do that again," he said in a strangely high pitched voice.

"You see, Hiiro?! We should kill him," Yukine insisted. "You get it now right? We can't let this degenerate anywhere near our god!"

"Hey!!"

"Nobody asked you, pervert," Hiiro scowled. She turned toward Yukine and sighed, her expression softening. "You know we can't. We're honor-bound to bring him to her."

The boy made a small whine of a noise, somewhere between annoyance and desperation.

"C'mon, no one will notice if we drop him off the bridge..." he suggested.

"And blight your master, stupid?!" she scolded fiercely.

"I won't if it's the right thing to do!! Hiyori-sama doesn't need any human, much less this pathetic, disgusting leech of a husband-"

"Sorry, did you just say husband?!" Yato interrupted, suddenly feeling very sick to his stomach. "To the War God?! The same deity that killed most of humankind after they betrayed her?!"

Both children glared at him.

"Shut up, you!" Yukine snarled. "Hiyori-sama is a strong, righteous god, and I won't have anyone slander her in my presence, especially not you!"

"B-but, wait, what?!" Yato yelped, losing his head. "What do you mean by husband?! I'm not married, I'm not allowed!! It's dangerous, the village elders forbade it! And- And you're saying I'm supposed to be wedded to the War God?! That doesn't make any sense!!"

The girl huffed, but she seemed to have regained control over her emotions and her face was inscrutable once more.

"Yukine, knock him out. He talks way too much."

The boy grinned menacingly. "With pleasure, Hiiro."

"W-wait, what are-"

For the third time in less than a day, Yato's world abruptly went dark.

When he woke, his head hurting worse than ever from all the repeated blows, Yato found himself lying alone on a tatami floor in a beautiful but unfamiliar room. He felt sick, and more than a little concussed, but with a mighty effort, he managed to sit up, staring blearily at the elaborate shoji walls without really seeing them.

He groaned, pressing his palms to his eyes. If Yato hadn't known any better, he would have assumed he was hung over; he was certainly thirsty enough to be drunk, but unfortunately he could remember everything this time, and that was more than enough to clear his aching head of its haze.

I'm supposed to be dead, he thought, his heart sinking. Dead, and somehow, in the realm of the gods, where two angry kids think I'm married to the War God, for some unfathomable reason.

Yato increased the pressure on his hands, letting the pain in his eyes ground him against the sheer absurdity of the situation. What the hell had he gotten himself into?! Was this some sick joke Kouto was playing on him? It seemed unnecessarily cruel to taunt him with marriage, considering how much Yato had been hoping to find a wife. Was the priest about to throw the door open and scold him for allowing himself to imagine, even for just a moment, that he of all people could possibly be worthy of becoming the husband to a god?

Learn your place, fool. Yato could almost hear that haunting, sneering voice echoing in the room around him.

He pulled his hands away from his face to make sure he really was imagining it (after the last few hours, Yato was not about to take anything for granted) and sighed with relief when he found himself as alone as ever. It was short-lived, and he felt his stomach knot at the alternative a moment later.

If this wasn't a joke, and the two kids who had found him were telling the truth, then he was married. To. The. War. God.

There was no way in hell that was a good thing, not with Yato's track record. The War God might be the patron guardian of humankind, and the most important deity in his clan's faith, but she wasn't purely benevolent. Whether she meant to or not, she was directly responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of human lives, and she was still accepting his people's blood when they sacrificed to her. Whatever death he'd been through already, Yato didn't relish the idea of his current existence being offered to a god who would probably tear him limb from limb and feast on his still-beating heart-

Well, okay, maybe he was being just a little dramatic now. She might be a killer, but there were no stories that said the War God was a man-eater too.

Though... there aren't any that say she isn't either, he gulped.

Feeling slightly more alert now that he'd scared himself out of his stupor, he looked around the room, relying on the mercurial nature of his curse to offer him some last-ditch, unpleasant option out of this nightmare.

Unfortunately, the place was mostly empty. The walls were all paper, covered in delicate seasonal motifs of plants and stylized clouds that seemed terribly opulent to someone who'd lived in poverty their whole life. The only piece of furniture was a low wooden cabinet next to the sliding door, bearing a single white, ceramic jug. When he got to his feet to have a look, he found that it was empty too.

He licked his parched lips, thinking. There didn't seem to be anyone nearby; a quick peek into the hall outside (this place was unbelievable, and the dark wooden floors, polished to perfection, stretched for such an unimaginable distance that he felt like it went on forever) confirmed that he wasn't under guard. He stood in the doorway uncertainly, deliberating.

Someone was bound to come looking for him sooner or later, and Yato didn't think it was in his best interest to wait for that to happen. He wasn't inclined to trust other people just now, not after what Kouto, Mayu, and the rest of the village had done to him. Gods hardly seemed better than humans either; that Yukine kid would've killed him if Hiiro wasn't around to stop him, and he had been sacrificed in the name of the very god he was now supposedly married to. Yato was many things, but he wasn't a total idiot; loneliness was rough, but far preferable to getting murdered multiple times in a row.

He had to tell himself not to think too hard about how that was even possible as he made up his mind and decided to risk an escape.

"Don't fail me now, Mother," he muttered to himself as he closed the screen door behind him and darted down the hallway, straining his ears for any sounds.

He tried to keep track of where he'd been and where he'd come from, but it wasn't long before Yato realized he was completely and utterly lost. The place was a labyrinth of rooms and hallways, and Yato could have sworn that sometimes when he left a room by the same way he went in, the doorway sent him someplace else entirely.

He was starting to get desperate when at last, he heard the sound of water trickling nearby. Thinking he'd found a way outside, he followed it through an open corridor and as he turned the corner, there, in the warm light of the sun, he found a large, picturesque pool surrounded on all sides by high walls.

It was undoubtedly a lovely place, but Yato could only stare at it in despair; there was no way he could climb over walls that high, and while there were plenty of bamboo stalks he could use to make a ladder, he didn't exactly have the time and luxury to put his carpentry skills to work.

There has to be a way out, somewhere, he thought, turning on his heel and hurrying back the way (he thought) he came. But when he turned the corner, he slammed into something solid, and with a loud cry he tumbled off the wooden platform onto the grass below, taking whatever he'd hit with him.

"Ow!" he hissed, his palms scraped open from where he'd managed to break his fall. "Typical, right on the knife wound too-" he began, but he stopped dead as soon as he opened his eyes.

He was on his hands and knees, leaning over the thing he'd run into, except it wasn't a thing at all, but a person. The most captivating person Yato had ever seen, a young woman with a handsome, capable sort of face, beautiful in it's gentle intelligence, though he thought there might be a hint of something else hidden under her strange, roseate eyes, too clear and sharp to be entirely innocent. She was staring up at him with shock, her small mouth parted slightly in surprise, her bottom lip slightly swollen and bloodied. Her hands were held up against his chest as though she'd automatically tried to protect herself from being crushed in the moment of impact. Long brown hair fell in messy tangles around soft, slight shoulders, the tanned skin covered in bruises and scars, and though something about that observation raised an urgent alarm in Yato's head, he just couldn't focus. He couldn't move, or look away, or even think. All he could do was stare at the woman under him, his heart beating loudly in his ears.

It slowly dawned on him that she was so close that he could feel her warm breath against his lips, and for the first time in his extremely isolated life, Yato was struck utterly numb, his breath catching in his lungs, as an unfamiliar ache spread through him, an exhilarating, terrifying want that seeped into his bones and made his blood run hotter than he'd ever felt it. For a wild, stupid second, he was drawn into the thought of what it might be like to kiss her, his imagination kicking into overdrive as it wondered what she might taste like, or if her lips felt as soft as he thought they must be. In the same moment, he suddenly realized what his brain had been trying to tell him all along: the reason he could see the injuries on her shoulders and upper arms was that she was completely naked and dripping wet, her body pinned beneath him.

With a strangled yelp, he stumbled back and away from her, blushing furiously and averting his eyes. 

"I-I'm so s-sorry, I swear, I h-had no idea someone was t-there-!" he cried desperately as she gave a furious shriek and scrambled to her knees, tugging a robe over her shoulders. Yato hadn't noticed the garment at all, but now it seemed obvious that she'd just gotten out of the bath, and had probably been drying herself off when he so rudely ran into her. He'd likely knocked her change of clothes out of her hands then as well. "I d-didn't mean to l-look, I really didn't-"

"How dare you!!" she shouted angrily as she got to her feet, eyes blazing with fury. She was shorter than him, of middling height at most, but though she looked thin and seemed about the same age as himself, something told Yato that he shouldn't judge her by looks alone. There was a wild grace about her, a fierce nobility that told him her slight physique was not an accurate assessment of her strength. Altogether, the effect was striking, and she seemed more beautiful to him in her drawn up, fearsome contempt than before, though perhaps not in the same sense that girls in the village were considered beautiful.

Yato had very little experience with the opposite sex, but like the other boys in the village, he'd been raised to think girls were pretty because they were delicate and weak. But this woman was nothing if not powerful, and he could make out even more wounds on her legs and arms now that it was (mostly) safe to look in her direction. Any village girl would have been embarrassed of those scars and gone to great lengths to hide them, but there was no shame or self-pity in the woman's bearing. She bore her wounds with innate pride, as though daring anyone to mistake the fullness of her breasts or the inviting curve of her hips (which, while now covered, Yato could still make out under the thin robe, and he immediately looked away again, guilt-stricken) for anything but the well-toned body of a warrior.

But none of those things seemed like the flaws they were supposed to be at all. Maybe it was because Yato had spent a lifetime getting himself cut up just trying to survive, but it seemed to him that anyone with that many scars who wasn't afraid to show them was someone who had struggled and earned them on their own terms, and he wished he had even a sliver of that confidence. How could anyone look at such an awe-inspiring person and think her unbecoming just because her skin wasn't perfectly unblemished or her gaze wasn't demurely lowered? As far as Yato was concerned, the villagers could take their stupid opinions and get stuffed for all he cared. They'd killed him after all, he didn't owe them shit.

"How dare you sneak into someone else's home a-and spy on them?!" she cried, bringing him back to reality with a jolt. His mouth ran dry, torn between fear, nerves, and the utterly stupid desire to ask her name.

"I-I wasn't!! I swear it, I didn't come here on purpose, I would never-!" he yelped, his voice strangled. She glared at him, her nose flaring with rage.

"I'm not interested in your excuses, corrupt god!!" she seethed, snapping a stalk of bamboo in half with her bare hands and raising it above her head in a high arc. "Whoever you are, I'll rip your lecherous eyes out!!"

Chapter Text

What... what beautiful blue eyes...

Hiyori had been so preoccupied with her thoughts that she had no idea what had happened, or how she'd found herself knocked down and pinned to the ground by a complete stranger. One moment she'd been absentmindedly wringing her hair, holding her folded robe to her chest, and the next she was winded, on her back, practically straddled by this young, wide-eyed man who looked every bit as shocked to find her beneath him as she felt staring up at him. The world seemed to have stopped in the space of a breath, Hiyori's thoughts curiously blank, too surprised to register anything but the otherworldly, ephemeral glint of his gaze.

She had never seen eyes like those before, eyes that seemed to shift in hue from midnight blue to azure ice, eyes that could only belong to the darkness of the unknown, steeped in magic so ancient even Hiyori couldn't recognize it. They pulled her in, primal and desperate in their undisguised longing, and her heart ached as though she had been wounded, cut to the quick by a profound loneliness that seemed to come from within and from outside herself all at once.

So horribly, terribly, beautiful... and so unbearably sad.

How had Hiyori never noticed eyes like those before? No one should have been able to look into this boy's face and forgotten it, and not just because of his irises, though Hiyori felt strangely drunk when she finally forced herself to acknowledge the rest of him. Despite having a distinctly undernourished look to him (he was alarmingly thin and pale, and his messy ink-black hair and the gaunt shadows under his eyes only added stark contrast to his alabaster complexion), there was a sensual touch to his features, a delicate, boyish roguishness that was undeniably attractive. With his full lips, sharp jawline, and the natural coquettish look caused by his lidded, almond-shaped eyelids, Hiyori had no doubt that a few meals and a bit more sun would be all he needed to be considered one of the most attractive gods in the entire court.

Which again begged the question, why in the world didn't she recognize him? Such a good-looking god should have at least been as well-known as Bishamonten, regardless of his standing. Even Hiyori was infamous, after all.

She was wondering just that when the unnatural paleness of his face gave way to a deep red flush and he suddenly pulled away from her with an animalistic sort of cry. He fell back against the porch in his haste, frantically turning his head. Hiyori blinked, the spell broken, and the loss of his body heat on her bare skin reminded her that she was fresh out of the bath, still wet and fully nude, and that he'd been so close that the only thing preventing him from touching her had been her own hands, raised instinctively to keep his weight off her.

She shrieked with mortification as she lunged for her robe and hastily tugged it on, far too self-conscious of his lingering warmth still burning on her open palms.

"How dare you!!" she cried, so upset and embarrassed by her own delayed reaction that she couldn't think straight in her desperation to undo the damage. What was wrong with her today?! "How dare you sneak into someone else's home a-and spy on them?!"

The man, for his part, seemed much younger now that she was standing over him, much less mysterious. His eyes were still unnatural, and his face was still handsome, but the blatant desire lurking in his expression was gone now, replaced by wild-eyed fear and shame. Somehow, that made Hiyori's indignation all the more potent.

Playing innocent now, are we?! she thought furiously as he stammered out an apology.

"I-I wasn't!! I swear it, I didn't come here on purpose, I would never-!"

Hiyori gaped at him. Did he really think she was that stupid?! After the way he'd looked at her?!

"I'm not interested in your excuses, corrupt god!!" she snarled, and she reached for the nearest weapon she had on hand, which happened to be a stalk of bamboo. Gods could only be properly harmed by transformed Regalia, but they still felt pain and discomfort from other sources, and until her own shinki heard the commotion and came to help, she'd take whatever weapon she could. She broke the stalk effortlessly, holding it over her head like a rod, preparing to beat him (and her own shame) within an inch of his life. "Whoever you are, I'll rip your lecherous eyes out!!"

He shut his eyes tightly, cowering against the wooden porch, and Hiyori felt a savage rush of satisfaction as she swung to strike him.

"Milady!! Please, wait!!"

They both froze, the bamboo inches away from his face, and turned to find Hiiro and Yukine standing white-faced in the open corridor above. Hiyori sighed with obvious relief, holding her hand out to her attendants.

"Thank goodness, come, Hikki!" she commanded, expecting Hiiro to reply to her summons as promptly as ever.

But the small girl did no such thing. Her eyes widened slightly, and then she suddenly fell to her knees, pressing her forehead to the floor.

"Hiiro?!" Hiyori asked, bewildered. Hiiro was her oldest retainer, and her most trusted. Yukine was arguably more loyal in his passionate zeal, but Hiiro was the one who always came through when everything else fell apart. She had never, not once, in thousands of years of service, refused a summons.

"I apologize, Lady Hiyori, I know I'm disobeying you!" Hiiro said. "But before you mete out this boy's punishment, you should be aware-"

"No!" Yukine suddenly interrupted, gathering his senses. "The fucking creep was obviously trying to peek on her bath, Hiiro!! She's within her rights-!"

"Yukine, shut up!!" Hiiro hissed angrily, raising her head. "You know what's at stake here!!" Yukine blanched and stepped back.

"B-But-!" His protests were silenced by an icy, murderous glare.

"Hiiro, Yukine, what are you-" Hiyori began, feeling more lost than ever. Hiiro turned back toward her and bowed again.

"I know I'm being rude, Lady Hiyori, It's... it's just that he... this boy can't be tried by the laws of heavenly conduct-"

"Why not?!" Hiyori demanded, angry. "I have a right to punish trespassers regardless of their status. God or shinki is irrelevant-!"

"But he's neither!!" Hiiro cried, looking so upset that even Hiyori was taken aback. "He's... Please, Hiyori-sama, for your own sake, I beg you to spare him! As much as he probably deserves it, as much as I hate to admit it..." She shut her eyes tightly, trying to calm herself. "As much as I wish I were mistaken, this person... he's alive, Lady Hiyori. By all the laws of Heaven, the moment he stepped foot in your realm, he fulfilled the conditions of the covenant... and is now your rightful husband and lord consort. If he's tried as an outsider and killed..."

There was a cold, heavy silence as Hiyori tried to process this information.

"T-That's not possible," she said, her voice strained and oddly quiet. "It must be a mistake-"

"No, milady, I... I thought so as well, but-"

"It's not POSSIBLE!!" Hiyori cried furiously, channeling all her fear and frustration into her anger. But though she knew she'd taken all the measures to prevent it, though she could still sense the spell she'd risked so much to seal off the path to the human realm, somewhere deep in her subconsciousness, Hiyori knew that Hiiro was telling the truth.

Because as much as she wanted it to be a lie, as much as she wished she could have killed him while she was still ignorant, consequences be damned, some traitorous, soft-hearted part of her had already claimed him as her own.

Yato was having a truly bad day, and that was saying something.

You always know just how to take a bad situation and make it even worse, don't you Mother? he groaned inwardly, wishing with all his might he'd just fallen down some stairs and broken his neck instead. He probably should have realized from the moment he locked eyes with her that the girl he'd walked in on was a god. She was just too beautiful, too imposing to be human. And the fact that she was a god should have told Yato that there was a very good chance that he was face to face with the very War God he'd been warned about, even if she didn't look anything like what he was expecting. The legends always emphasized her beauty, but they said it was a terrible, frightening thing to behold, cold and unfeeling, not at all like this vibrant, tempestuous woman, so flustered that the very tips of her ears seemed to have turned red...

What am I fucking DOING?! thought Yato, panicking. What the hell is wrong with you, Yato?! She's a god, THE War God; stop staring at her, stop thinking about her!! Are you a fucking idiot?!

He swallowed loudly, still uncomfortably hot under his yukata. He wasn't really listening to the conversation between the two children and the god; he could barely keep up as it was, and he couldn't concentrate on anything but his own misery and how much this achingly beautiful girl must hate him now. His head still hurt, and he dearly wanted a drink of water, but still Yato's eyes were involuntarily drawn to the woman's face as she spoke, to her unusual clear eyes and soft lips...

His heart felt like it wanted to jump out of his chest.

Why did I have to stare at her?! he asked himself, lifting a hand to his face to physically stop himself from studying her. He might not have noticed until the last minute, but he'd still gotten a good, long look at her form splayed out under him, held captive by the plump softness of her curves, the heaving of her breast as she tried to catch her breath. His whole body burned at the memory, aware that whether he'd meant to or not, he'd done something unforgivable. Even if she didn't kill him (and Yato doubted very much he'd be allowed to live after so brazenly letting his eyes wander), he'd made the worst first impression possible on someone he so desperately wanted to like him.

As if she would, he reminded himself, the adrenaline of their meeting wearing off as the inevitable truth stared him in the face. No girl would ever want anything to do with me, much less a goddess-

He blinked, remembering suddenly what Hiiro and Yukine had said. It had temporarily been forgotten in all the chaos, but to his horror, he realized that if he was supposed to be married to the War God, and this girl was that very same deity, then he'd just met his own wife in the most offensive way possible.

Oh dear gods, no! he thought, feeling as though someone had dumped a bucket of icy water over his head. He couldn't deal with this, he just couldn't. Accepting that he was dead was hard enough, how was he supposed to come to terms with a marriage he never consented to, or how badly he'd messed up when meeting the girl who completely destroyed even his most indulgent daydreams of the woman he might marry?

Can't I just have one fucking hour where I can't screw anything up?! Kouto was fucking right, I am a goddamned plague, even when I'm dead.

His little party of self-loathing was interrupted without warning as a shadow fell over him and he instinctively looked up to find the War God standing over him, looking every bit as angry as she had the right to be.

"You, boy," she said coldly, her eyes narrowing at him as she nudged his knee with her foot. "Sit up, I need to check something."

"W-What?" he asked blankly. She scowled at him, and knelt at his feet, his heart quickening involuntarily as she drew near.

"Sit up straight!" she told him, and though she was clearly upset, Yato thought he heard a slight note of desperation in her voice. He gulped and scrambled to obey.

"Y-yes, I'm sorry! F-For everything, I mean," he stammered as he sat on his knees and bowed his head slightly. The War God made a small hmph sound but didn't reply.

Yato didn't know what he'd been expecting, but when she took his chin in her hand and jerked his face up so that they were eye to eye, he made a pathetic whimpering sort of noise, and he felt his nose and cheeks burn in shame.

Ugh, please just kill me and get it over with, he begged her silently, shutting his eyes tightly to avoid looking at her. He didn't trust himself not to do more damage otherwise.

Thankfully, the girl wasn't paying much attention to his reactions. She wasn't even looking at his face; what she'd wanted was to get a good look at his neck, and she placed her forefinger and middle finger on the exact spot where the High Priest had cut his throat.

"Resound," she said, her voice clear and steady. For a moment nothing happened, and Yato opened one eye as he felt her grip relax, but then a sharp pain burned across his neck and the War God echoed his pained cry as she clutched at her heart, wincing.

She went pale and fell back from him, her eyes wide with fear. For a moment she said nothing, and then with a shaky hand, she pushed her hair away from her face, so obviously full of despair that it hurt Yato to look at her.

He reached toward her without thinking, desperate to comfort her in some way, but he'd barely moved when she began to curse so fiercely that even Master Kuraha would have been shocked to hear the obscenities crossing her lips.

"Whore's blood!! Half-begotten son of a bitch's rotten teat!!" she swore violently, falling forward onto her hands, her fingers digging into the dirt. Yato stared, caught off-guard by the sudden shift in her demeanor and language. Both children looked equally startled as they watched in silence. "Bloody flaming maggots of hell!" she added, half crying with pure frustration. "Fuck me, not this again!!"

She ran through several more colorful expressions, each filthier and louder than the last, until she finally seemed to run out of words. Panting heavily, her chest heaving from the effort of shouting herself hoarse, she looked up and glared directly at Yato.

"You. Name," she snapped.

"Uhm... Yato," he said in a small voice, inwardly relieved he hadn't actually acted on his idiotic impulse. "With the character for 'night' and the katakana 'to'. I think."

"You think?!"

"I- uhm, can't..." he muttered, aware that he was blushing even worse now. He felt small and terribly stupid admitting it out loud, especially in front of this fierce beauty. "I never... It's just I can't... read. Or write," he choked out.

She frowned but seemed to decide there were more pressing matters at hand. "Very well. Yato-san, then. Did you come here knowing this was my private bath?" she asked sharply.

Yato immediately shook his head. "N-no, I swear it, I had no idea! I never would have come in if I'd known, I only wanted to find a way out-"

"Out?"

He gulped nervously.

"Y-yes, M-My Lady," he said, desperate to prove he wasn't a total yokel. "I don't... I don't know what's going on, I just remember being dragged from my workshop and sacrificed-"

The god blanched in alarm. "They forced you?!"

Yato nodded grimly, rubbing his throat. "I'm... I'm just a carpenter, I live alone at the edge of the forest, I didn't even know the ceremony was this year... But the High Priest tricked me into signing a blood oath, and I can't read, so..." he muttered, ashamed. "When I woke up here, and those kids said I was dead, I just... I wanted to go home, My Lady."

He could feel her watching him, studying him, as he respectfully kept his eyes lowered.

"W-Why did you think you could?" she asked, her brow furrowed. Yato shook his head.

"I didn't, not really. Even if I could somehow get out of this place, I don't think the villagers would let me go back to my normal life. But... I don't have anywhere else to go," he said miserably. "I don't have any friends or family. Just my workshop."

He lowered his eyes, wondering what would happen to him once she was done interrogating him. Was dying a second time less painful? He didn't think he could stomach another death as awful as choking on his own blood.

"You... you promise you weren't trying to peek?" she asked after a moment of silence, her voice much softer now. He blinked, surprised at her change in tone.

"Y-yes, on my mo- father's grave!" he said, fist over his heart. Was... did she actually believe him?!

Her face reddened slightly and she tugged her robe tighter around herself as she nodded, not quite catching his eye.

"I'll believe you, just this once," she said, and Yato gaped at her, dizzy with confusion and relief.  "But next time I won't be so lenient," she added sharply.

"Y-yes, my Lady!" he replied immediately. He had no idea how, but... Yato would have been a fool if he didn't take every scrap of good fortune he could manage without complaint.

The War God sighed, clearly unhappy.

"I'm sorry to say that as much as I wish I could send you home, it's impossible, Yato-san. From the moment you arrived here, you were adopted into my household as an official member of my family, thanks to an ancient law passed down by Amaterasu-Omikami herself. Until one of us dies, our fates can't be pulled apart. You have no say in it. I have no choice in it."

Yato bit his lip. "T-Then... it's true...? What that girl, Hiiro, said? I'm really your..."

The god gave him a forced grimace, glancing briefly at Hiiro, whose expression was more guarded and carefully blank than ever. "Unfortunately for everyone involved, but especially me," (she muttered that last part, scowling at the ground), "yes, Hiiro is correct... so I suppose a proper introduction is in order..."

She placed her hands in her lap and made a formal, though very subtle, bow in his direction.

"Welcome to Takamagahara, Yato-san. I am Hiyori-no-Kami, god of war and guardian to the children of man. Though humans often refer to me as the War God, other gods call me Mamorigami, the Guardian Deity, or Jinrui no Hogosha, the Protector of Mankind.

"Because you were sacrificed in my name, even against your will, and you have fulfilled all the conditions of Amaterasu's covenant, I am also now your wife, Yato-san. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say you're my husband." She sighed a second time, rubbing her temples tiredly. "Which means you're now an official member of my household, and thus the Lord Consort of this house, with all the rights and duties thus attached. Yukine," she said, addressing her attendants. The boy straightened up, looking uneasy.

"Y-Yes, My Lady?"

"From now on, you'll be responsible for this man and seeing to his needs. Please prepare a set of rooms and clothing for him, and bring a change of robes back here when you're done- And no, Yukine," she added shrewdly as the boy's face purpled with outrage. "You are expressly forbidden from killing, maiming, or hurting him in any way." She sighed again. "I know you don't like him, and you don't want him here, but none of us have any choice. Please just do as I ask."

"Milady," Hiiro interrupted, glancing at her companion warily. "Perhaps I should-"

"Yukine can do it, I trust him," Hiyori-no-Kami said firmly, and though the boy gave Yato a look of deepest loathing, he swallowed his anger and resigned himself into a bow.

"Yes, of course, Hiyori-sama. Anything you ask." he said dully. He got to his feet slowly and backed down the corridor. "If you'll excuse me, My Lady. Milord," he added through gritted teeth as he turned and stomped away.

"You may want to rethink this appointment, Hiyori-sama," Hiiro said as his footsteps faded.

The god shook her head. "He's a clever child, he'll keep Yato-san safe."

Hiiro bowed. "As long as we don't need to keep him safe from Yukine," she muttered, getting to her feet. "I suppose you'll want to turn in shortly, Hiyori-sama?"

"Yes, it's been a long day."

"Very well, I will prepare your room. Milady, My lord." She bowed one last time and followed after Yukine, leaving Hiyori and Yato alone.

The god relaxed slightly, the tension going out of her shoulders, and cast him an appraising look. Yato straightened up, so nervous he thought his heart might stop.

"I'm sorry, you must be so confused," she said with a small, forlorn smile. "It can't be easy, having all of this forced on you..." she trailed off, her eyes drawn to where the wound on his neck should have been. Her sharp gaze softened, and Yato could have sworn she looked almost sad, as though she wished she could undo the harm done to him.

She's kind, he realized, and somehow that made him feel worse about everything. She was unhappy, but she was still thinking of his well-being despite his unwelcome presence in her life. Very few people had ever shown Yato even a small measure of kindness, and certainly not after blundering his way into trouble. Hot shame filled the pit of his stomach, and he wished he could go back in time and kick himself into the water for even thinking of her in such a disrespectful way.

"I have to apologize," she said, reaching her fingers gently to the side of his throat, not quite touching him, but close enough to make him almost forget how to breathe. "They were never supposed to force anyone, and the spell shouldn't have accepted an unwilling sacrifice to begin with. I never imagined the use of a blood oath, signed under false pretenses, might bypass that condition..." She let her fingers fall into her lap, her eyes pained. "I'm so sorry, Yato-san, this should never have happened to you."

Yato immediately shook his head, disturbed that she would blame herself. "N-no, it's absolutely not your fault!! It was that bastard of a High Priest-" Alarmed, he caught himself too late and covered his mouth with his hands. "S-sorry, I didn't mean..."

To his shock, she laughed, and Yato could feel what was left of his rationality jumping ship at the lovely sound of her voice.

"Please, don't worry about swearing in front of me," she grinned, and he thought there was a glimmer of mischief reflected in her rosy irises. "I've lived a very long time, and I've picked up quite a few expressions over the years. Which... I suppose you might have noticed," she coughed, slightly abashed. "I might be a god, but I like people who speak their minds. If we're going to live together from now on, I don't want you to feel restricted by politeness. Just say what you want to say, however you want to say it."

"Oh... okay," he said, flushing. "I'll... try to remember that, My Lady."

She made a face.

"That also means you don't have to call me with honorifics while we're in private, or if it's just the shinki around. I'd much rather be called by name when we're alone. But in front of other gods or members of other households, you do have to be more careful," she warned. "As my consort, you adopt my rank at court, but the fact that you're still human means you must use an honorific or title when addressing gods, even me."

"B-But I don't really know anything about formal speech or customs!" Yato said, aghast. "Like I said, I can't even read-"

"Yes, that's a problem," Hiyori admitted, biting the inside of her cheek. "We'll have to teach you so you don't offend anyone. And I'm sure you have a lot of questions you'll want answered-" she paused as he fought to stifle a yawn. "But it can wait," she smiled kindly. "I understand that you've had a difficult and frightening day, so we can deal with all of that later, after you've had a proper rest," she said softly, taking his hand for a moment.

Yato practically swooned. Her hand was so soft and warm, and her voice was so pretty... He'd never heard a voice so soothing before.

"O-okay, t-thank you," he managed, and immediately regretted it. There was so much else he could have said, so many better ways to say it! Was he really this stupid?! Had he just been so isolated that he'd never noticed?! "Um, I'm sorry, Hiyori...san. For the trouble," he added lamely as she pulled away, hoping that was an appropriate form of address.

She gave him a slightly exasperated smile. "Just Hiyori is okay. I tell Yukine and Hiiro to drop the formal language all the time, but they're stubborn. It's exhausting, being a god every minute of every day. Please don't worry about formality while you call this place home. And as much as I hate this situation, you don't have to apologize for being here. I don't blame you; you didn't ask for this any more than I did."

She paused, looking slightly abashed.

"Er, that said, I do have a bit of a temper, so I can't promise I won't snap at you sometimes. Or hit you. Or throw things. I throw things a lot. Sorry." She waved her hands sheepishly in a cute, very informal gesture, as though she were trying to reassure him it wasn't that bad. "But I swear it's usually not personal... If it is, trust me, you'll know."

Yato would have laughed if it weren't such a terrifying statement.

"Anyway, since we're now husband and wife, let's try to get along," Hiyori said with finality. "Yukine will come fetch you and show you to your room as soon as it's ready. In the meantime, you're free to take a bath here if you like, you probably want to clean up after a day like this one."

"A-Alright."

"If you need anything, please don't hesitate to ask him or Hiiro for assistance. I'll be retiring for the night. Rest well, Yato-san."

"O-okay," Yato agreed, too tired to think of anything better to say. Hiyori stood up and bowed politely, holding her robe tightly closed, her hair still dripping. She climbed the low stairs onto the platform and slid open a screen door in the corridor and Yato suddenly worked up the courage to call after her.

"Er, just Yato is fine too," he said, his voice an octave higher than usual. "I-If you want, H-Hiyori."

She paused surprised, and gave him an irresistibly sensual smile over her shoulder, her slightly unnerving eyes glinting with amusement. Yato swallowed hard, his face hot.

"Very well. I look forward to getting to know you, Yato. I'll be in your care from now on."

She stepped into the house, closing the door halfway, and suddenly looked up as though she'd forgotten something.

"Oh, but seriously," she said firmly. "If you ever come in here without my permission while I'm bathing again, I'll string you from the ceiling by your unspeakables. I can't kill my consorts but I still have a right to punish them domestically."

"That's domestic?!"

She blinked at him innocently, a small, mischievous grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Why, of course. I am a war god, after all." Her eyes sparkled with laughter as she slid the door closed behind her.

Yato stared at the door long after she'd left, his face beet red, unable to rid himself of the strangely light sensation in his stomach even as a chill traveled down his spine.

As soon as she was alone in her bedroom, Hiyori let herself fall face first onto her bedding and groaned with one, long unbroken note. It had been centuries since she'd last been bound by this particular spell, so she hadn't recognized the signs when they started during the tournament.

The distraction, the pain in her heart... she'd felt it all hundreds of times before, though she couldn't remember ever feeling quite as disoriented by it in the past. She'd never relived her memories either, but perhaps the effect was just stronger this time because it had been so long since the last one.

And here I thought I would never have to do this again, she thought bitterly, covering her eyes with the back of her arm. She still had no idea how it had happened, or why; as far as she could tell, the barrier was still functional as ever, the spell intact. No mortal soul should have been able to overcome it, and yet, here she was again, her thread of fate bound for the first time in over five hundred years to this singularly bizarre human boy.

She bit her lip, remembering the effect he'd had on her. If she hadn't checked for herself, she never would have guessed he was a mortal. No human should have had eyes like those, so reminiscent of the animalistic sharpness that symbolized the raw nature of a god. But, despite their similarity, Hiyori could tell they weren't quite right for divinity either. They were too easy to read, too frank. Not unlike the boy himself.

"Yato," she said aloud, letting the name linger on her tongue, unfamiliar and mysterious. It was a good name, a name that tasted faintly of that same old magic she'd sensed before. A blessing, she thought, though she couldn't be sure. Old magic was mercurial, difficult to control and understand, and if Hiyori wasn't mistaken, whatever lurked in this boy was older than even the oldest living gods.

How that's possible, I have no idea, she thought, sighing. She knew even less of what it might mean. All Hiyori knew was that the boy was special, different. And there was more to him than just magic she didn't understand.

Frankly, Hiyori wasn't sure what to make of him. She felt a stab of irritation at the memory of his expression as he'd hovered over her. It had taken him too long to avert his gaze, and his inappropriate thoughts had been painfully obvious to anyone with eyes. But... he'd also done his best not to sneak a second look, and he had apologized multiple times. One second he had been shameless, and the next he'd been an almost endearing, nervous mess.

As much as she hated to admit it, Hiyori rather liked that frankness. She despised being treated with reverence the way the court insisted all gods should be. She had always been a simple deity, and she could still remember being carried on the shoulders of kind farmers when they found her wandering the fields as a child, or invited in for a meal when they saw her playing in the rain. They'd known what she was, and they treated her with gentleness and welcome, not fear and distance.

But that had been a long time ago, and there was good reason to fear her now. Even Yato had been frightened of her once he realized who she was... though even then, the way he looked at her, even when he thought she wasn't looking, it was markedly different from the way anyone else had ever looked at her, especially after seeing her unhealed wounds and scars after a fight.

Hiyori had learned centuries ago that humans considered cuts and bruises unseemly. She was never ashamed of them herself, but she'd always hated the pity in her previous consorts' eyes when they saw blemishes on her skin. They'd bemoaned the loss of her beauty (Why did humans equate the lack of blemishes with beauty? What was so beautiful about a creature that had never struggled, never lived with all their might?), treated her as though she were a pathetic wounded animal, or even recoiled from her in disgust, from the implication that she'd allowed anything to tarnish her dignity as a divine being. They saw flaws where Hiyori saw determination and strength, and she couldn't help feeling hurt by their reactions, even if she didn't agree with them. She eventually started to avoid showing skin after tournaments, the human shame forcing her to hide like a coward. Nevertheless, Hiyori had taken care not to reveal her injuries before they inevitably faded away, as long as her consorts were kept in the dark.

But Yato was different.

No one else had ever looked at her like that, like they were looking through her somehow and seeing more than just her appearance. He saw her scars and not once did his eyes reflect pity, fear, or disdain, as so many others, particularly the men, had. He'd been impressed, awestruck, not just at her body (though he'd certainly gotten a good, long look at that), but also at the story those bruises and cuts told. He'd seen not an object of beauty, some untouchable, lofty celestial being, but a woman of pride and power, someone who had earned every single one of those scars. For the first time in centuries, millennia even, Hiyori felt properly seen, not as a god, but a person... if only for about three seconds before he was distracted by the rest of her.

Hiyori flushed despite herself. She'd seen human desire before, but never quite so... visceral. There'd always been an element of shyness, of reverence, and while Yato had definitely shown that once he came back to his senses, he'd so obviously wanted her that his hunger had shocked her, frozen her like prey caught between the claws of a predator. But it was more than that, more than just physical attraction that overpowered her. He'd looked at her as though he'd been looking for her his entire life, as though he'd been missing something important and only just found it in her visage. She could tell, just by looking at him, that he'd given up his heart before he even knew her name, and he'd never be able to take it back, even if he wanted to.

She covered her mouth, her face hot as she remembered the look in his eyes. How could someone have such a blatantly lewd expression on his face and still look so vulnerable at the same time?!

She shut her eyes, her heart pounding at the memory. He'd been so close, she'd been almost certain that he was going to kiss her... and she'd wanted it, if only for one insane moment...

Heat pooled in her belly, and she shook herself furiously. No, no matter how lonely she'd been, she couldn't let this boy get under her skin. She couldn't be charmed by his earnestness or his looks, and she refused to be swayed by the fact that he was obviously attracted to her.

Stop it, stop that right now, Hiyori! she thought, rolling over and hiding her face in a pillow. She didn't care who he was, or how he felt about her; it didn't change the fact that they had been forced together by circumstances beyond their control, and that no matter how she felt about him, she had no say in whether or not she wanted him there. To allow herself to forget that would be a disaster for everyone involved.

That was the burden of her curse, and she would have to pay it regardless. Yato, for better or worse, was now hers. Her responsibility, her problem, her punishment.

Her other half, until death took him too, just like all the others.

Her heart ached painfully, reminding her of what was at stake.

She set her teeth, determined. Tomorrow, once they had the time, she would speak with him and explain what she could about his situation. He needed to understand how dangerous his new role was, and how few allies he would have at court. But most importantly, Hiyori had to make sure that he knew, down to the marrow of his bones, that no matter how he felt about her, no matter how well they got along, she would absolutely, under no circumstances, ever allow herself to fall in love with him.

Never again.

Chapter Text

Yato remembered little of that first afternoon in the Celestial Plain. He was sure he'd bathed and been given something to eat, and that Yukine had shown him to his rooms (though not without complaints and attitude, and more than one brazen insult that Yato could barely comprehend in his exhaustion), but the details were fuzzy, and he was asleep within minutes of crawling into the absurdly soft bedding of the bedroom he'd been given. He was too tired even to worry about the fact that he'd been murdered, or that he had somehow gone from cursed village scourge to the actual lord (nope, he wasn't even going to touch that particular detail until he'd gotten a good few days to wrap his head around the whole dead thing first) husband of his clan's guardian deity. All he cared about after nearly twenty four hours of constant confusion and fear was the blessed release of dreamless sleep.

He slept right through to the next morning, and probably would have slept longer if he hadn't woken up to find someone literally kicking him awake, not quite hard enough to cause actual harm despite the obvious violent intent behind it.

"Hurry and get up already, you useless moron! My Lady's been waiting for ten minutes already, get UP!!"

"Ugh, ow..." Yato complained as he sluggishly rolled over and sat up. He recognized the scorn in those pretty golden eyes long before he remembered the boy's actual name, but Yukine could have cared less for Yato's disorientation.

"Shut up."

"You don't have to kick me," Yato muttered, rubbing his back churlishly.

"I don't care," Yukine scoffed, glaring down at Yato with disdain. He pushed a (surprisingly neat and elegant) tray of food at him and tossed a bundle of (carefully) folded clothing at Yato's feet. "Eat up and get dressed already, Lady Hiyori has asked for your presence in the garden."

Yato felt a little more alert after the small but hearty breakfast, but he was still a little dizzy and uncoordinated as he tried to put the strange outfit together. He'd never seen anything quite like it. It resembled shrine wear, but unlike the robes of a priest, these were far too vibrant and decorative: a soft, dark blue haori embroidered with intricate green and gold leaf motifs over silky white kimono layers and a pair of light gray hakama underneath. It was all much finer than any clothes he'd ever seen, and the cloth seemed to flow through his hands like water. There was also a snug-looking midnight blue cap and some sort of simple silver hairpin, though Yato had no idea how he was supposed to wear it; his hair was way too short for anything fancy.

When he was finished, Yukine returned and immediately forced him to disrobe again so he could fix all of Yato's mistakes. Muttering curses under his breath the whole time, the young attendant carefully arranged each layer until he was satisfied, and last he made Yato kneel down so he could tie up his hair in a very short tuft and stick the hairpin roughly through it, scratching Yato's scalp on purpose.

"Your hair is too fucking ugly for this ornament," Yukine noted flatly as he adjusted the cap on the crown of Yato's head. "But since milady asked for it specifically... look like an idiot for all I care."

"Er, thanks," Yato said, feeling every bit as stupid as Yukine said. He'd never worn anything half this elaborate, and he was sure it only made his already unnatural appearance worse. He had no time to complain, however, as Yukine promptly shoved him toward the door and down the hall.

Even if he hadn't been fighting off a headache, Yato doubted that he would have remembered the numerous twists and turns they made through the corridors to reach the garden. The place was a labyrinth that made no sense to him; several times they went down a set of stairs only to go back up a few turns later, and Yato had the sneaking suspicion that Yukine might be taking him around in circles on purpose. The boy certainly looked to be in a better mood when they finally arrived in a huge room with an enormous long table in the center and passed through it into the courtyard outside.

A beautiful, lush garden waited for them, though Yato couldn't decide if it was carefully planned or wildly overgrown. Flowers in every color burst forward from the vibrant undergrowth, huge trees twisting above carefully lain stone paths. Yato recognized that same curious pattern on the stones here that he'd seen in the woods and on the bridge the day before, though he had no idea why someone would have gone to all the trouble of carving it all over the place.

Over it all, the high, sweet sound of birdsong echoed through the gently swaying branches, dappled sunlight glittering through the gaps.

"Wow," Yato said aloud without thinking. Yukine glanced back at him, annoyed.

"What, you've never seen a garden before?" he snapped.

"Never one this beautiful, or this grand," Yato admitted, thinking of the tiny little vegetable and herb gardens some of the village folk kept outside their homes.

"Hmph," Yukine said in reply, but Yato thought he saw a hint of pride hidden under his displeasure.

The attendant led Yato down a raised corridor along the edge of the garden, just like the one that had led to the pool the day before. They found Hiyori seated on the edge of the wooden porch by a small pool full of koi, her hair tied loosely over her shoulder. She was wearing an exquisite patterned kimono, in deepest lilac and bright gold, with a colorful burst of flowers on the sleeves as if to match the leaves on his own haori. It was spread around her almost carelessly, and one bare, slender leg dangled into the water from under the layers of fabric, the scars and bruises from the day before still clearly visible, though Yato thought they looked a little faded somehow. Behind her ear sparkled an identical silver hairpin, and when she looked up and smiled at them, Yato felt dazed and breathless.

Gods, is this really okay?! Can I really be this person's husband?! Me?!

"Thank you, Yukine," she told her attendant, who bowed low and turned back toward the house. Hiiro, who had been kneeling quietly in the shadows behind her mistress, shuffled forward with a small tray and set it down next to Hiyori.

"Will that be all, milady?" she asked.

"Yes, thank you as well, Hiiro," Hiyori said. "I'm sure you know what needs to be prepared."

"Of course, Lady Hiyori, Lord Consort." The small girl shot Yato a slightly amused look as she got to her feet and left.

Yato stood awkwardly apart from where Hiyori sat, unsure where he should look. He was certain that if he didn't force himself to avoid it, his eyes would focus far too easily on the thin sliver of skin visible on the inside of her thigh. After everything that had happened the day before, he was not about to fall into so obvious a trap... but it was horribly tempting.

"Good morning, Yato. Please, have a seat," Hiyori said, oblivious to the war waging in his head as she gestured at the empty space to her right. Yato gulped and nervously sat a good, respectful distance away from her on the platform, pointedly turned toward the pond.

"G-Good morning," he managed, wishing he knew how to stop himself from blushing as he quickly lowered his gaze to watch the fish swimming gracefully below. Even without any inappropriate thoughts, Hiyori was much too pretty. It wasn't fair to ambush him like that so early in the morning.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Y-yeah- er, I mean, yes-"

"Good. You do look better this morning. And that color suits you perfectly," she noted with a warm smile. Yato blushed right up to his ears.

"D-Does it?"

"Mhm, I'm glad I chose it. It's not standard wedding attire, but I like it much better myself," Hiyori said, reclining back onto her arms.

"W-wedding?" he asked, more confused than ever. "I thought we were already...?"

"Married? We are," she said simply, as though it didn't really concern her. "But there's a bit of ritual involved when a god takes a consort. The heavenly court is full of rituals, you'll find," she sighed.

"That seems... tedious," he said carefully.

Hiyori grimaced.

"You have no idea. I can get away with a little mischief, seeing as I'm already considered a problematic existence, but even I still have to toe the line for the most part."

"Problematic?" Yato asked.

"... Her Majesty Amaterasu Omikami would rather eat dirt than let me do as I please," Hiyori said frankly. "Humans are generally despised here in the gods' realm, so most gods consider my role as their guardian the mark of a traitor. They even tried to execute me once; it went very badly. For them," she added, slightly more cheerfully.

"Oh, I see..." Yato muttered, his voice a little higher than usual. He could very easily imagine her fighting her way through a horde with nothing but her bare hands, which was curious. Her physical appearance certainly didn't immediately suggest strength or ruthlessness, but he could sense it nonetheless.

"Still, they can make life miserable in plenty of other ways," she was saying, "and if I want to live in peace, I have to abide by the rules. That means we must hold at least a basic wedding ritual with a contract spell of some sort that can serve as a 'witness', and then the two of us will have to seek an audience with Her Majesty later this afternoon to announce the union. And no," she added grimly, noting his alarmed expression. "I'm afraid there's no way out of it. Amaterasu Omikami will already know you're here whether we tell her or not. It'll be worse for us both in the long run if we don't observe all the formalities."

"B-but what does a dirt-poor, illiterate carpenter even say to Her Highness the Sun God?!" Yato asked nervously, his stomach aching at the prospect.

"Thankfully not much," Hiyori assured him, humoring him with a tiny smile that didn't quite convince him everything would work out fine. "It's a very short meeting. Her Majesty has more important things to worry about than the affairs of a relatively minor war god. I'll teach you the formal greetings before we leave, and I'll deal with the rest."

Yato rubbed his temples, feeling distinctly nauseous. "Um... Hiyori?"

"Yes?"

"Before any of that, is it... okay if I ask you something?"

"Of course, ask anything at all."

Yato paused, biting the inside of his cheek. "I'm really dead, right?"

Hiyori sighed, her eyes sad. "I'm afraid so."

"But... yesterday you said we were uh... bound together," (he couldn't help the blush creeping up the side of his neck as he stared at the water below), "until one of us dies... But you're a god, and I'm dead, so I don't... really understand what you meant."

"Oh, that," Hiyori said, kicking her foot with a little more force. "Let's see, do you know what a soul is, Yato?"

His natural snarkiness automatically replied without thinking. "Obviously! I'm not a total idiot for fuck's sa-" He slapped a hand over his mouth in alarm, but Hiyori giggled into her sleeve.

"Relax, Yato, I'm not going to eat you, you know," she said brightly, and Yato briefly panicked, wondering if she'd read his mind the day before. "I meant it, say what you want to say and don't worry about being polite. If you're going to live here, the first thing you should know about me is that I hate formality for formality's sake."

"B-But you're a god-"

"And I'm telling you I hate being treated like one," she said firmly. "Think me a regular girl, like someone from your village, if it helps."

As if I could, he thought to himself. There were no villagers who could even begin to compare to her, and I was never on good terms with any of them regardless.

"... It's really okay?" he asked again hesitantly, just to be extra sure. "I'm not like... an orator or a lord or anything... You won't mind if I say something stupid?"

"I'm your wife, not your master," she said with a raised brow. "What's a marriage without bickering over the occasional careless remark?"

"I'm allowed to bicker with you?" he asked, surprised. She outright laughed.

"Yato, you might be a human and I might be a god, but we're not that different. Of course we're going to fight about something at some point, it's just how it is when two people live together. Besides, who wants to be married to an orator?" she asked with a look of distaste.

Yato thought of Mayu's husband and fought a laugh. "That's... a surprisingly fair point. But being married to a carpenter can't be that much more interesting," he said, fidgeting with his sleeve.

"I don't think that's true at all," she said seriously. "Speaking with you is easy, I'm having fun." She smiled at him again and Yato's stomach made a dive.

Oh god she's so nice, and so pretty, I can't take this!

"In any case, about your question," she continued. "As far as gods and shinki go-"

"Shinki?"

"Oh, did I forget to explain about Regalia?" she said thoughtfully. "Shinki are the servants of gods, just like Hiiro and Yukine are for me. They're dead, like you, but... not quite like you," she said cryptically.

"I don't... what?" Yato asked, cocking his head in confusion.

Hiyori's face pinked slightly. "Er... Sorry, I don't really talk with other people very much, I guess I'm out of practice getting my thoughts across..."

Yato perked up, ecstatic to have something in common with her. "That's okay, I never got to talk with anyone either."

"Why not?" she asked, and Yato thought she looked mildly surprised to hear it. His mouth went slightly dry; he hadn't actually considered this particular problem. Hiyori seemed like a friendly enough god, at least on the surface, but would she still feel the same if she knew he was a walking disaster? He supposed she might be alright, being divine and all, and there was that thing Kouto said, about gods being able to break curses sorcerers couldn't, but...

Would she think he was taking advantage of her, using her, if he asked her to help him break the curse? It seemed like a terribly selfish request, especially considering the fact that he hadn't even willingly put himself forward for sacrifice. Despite that, she was still offering her own home to him and graciously treating him like a guest, though she'd so obviously hated finding herself caught in the marriage against her will. She'd even brushed off everything that had happened the day before; what could Yato possibly offer that would even begin to pay back all that kindness?

"Yato?"

But if he didn't tell her, and if for some reason she wasn't immune to its effects, it would be all his fault if something happened to her or her attendants. She would definitely hate him then, just like the villagers. The thought of that awful look on her face hurt so much that Yato unconsciously hugged himself around the middle, feeling dirty and more unworthy than ever.

"Yato, are you okay?"

Rose brown eyes blinked up at him with genuine worry, her face much too close as she leaned in to check on him. The faint scent of jasmine filled his lungs, and something else too, like the sensation of clouds drifting across the summer sky, except it was somehow the fragrance of her skin at the same time. It was intoxicating, and for one wild moment Yato could visualize himself reaching over, his fingers twining in her soft hair, her eyelashes fluttering closed as their lips met...

He blushed so furiously that he actually felt his heart stop and had to gasp to catch his breath. Hiyori pulled away, startled.

"Yato?!"

"S-Sorry, too... too close, scared me-" he wheezed, his thoughts so disorganized they were basically just one, long, frenzied shriek.

She blinked and a moment later she seemed to realize that he was right, and her cheeks and nose reddened too.

"O-Oh, I didn't mean to startle you," she said, averting her eyes. "You looked like you weren't feeling well all of a sudden, I didn't think-"

He shook his head frantically, trying to regain his senses before he said or did something he couldn't take back. "I'm just not... used to... this," he said, wincing at his lack of eloquence. "Marriage. Or gods. Or being dead."

"Well... that's only to be expected, I suppose," Hiyori admitted, rubbing her arm shyly. "It's been a long time since I've had to do this, I forgot it's especially hard on humans."

Something pricked in Yato's chest at her words, some faint sense of foreboding, but he didn't really have the clarity of mind to pursue it just now.

Thankfully, Hiyori cleared her throat and seemed to decide the conversation had been derailed long enough.

"I was trying to explain about shinki, I believe?" she asked, clearly trying to steer the topic back to something less uncomfortable.

Yato nodded, grateful for the lifeline.

The god folded her hands neatly in her lap, a decidedly polite gesture that struck Yato as curious considering her casual, almost carefree behavior thus far. 

"Well, it's true that shinki are souls of the dead," she began, kicking her foot in a slow, gentle rhythm beneath the water. "But unlike you, those that serve the gods are the restless spirits of those who are unable to pass on. Though they were originally human, they've been touched by Yomi, the land of the dead, and become stranded somewhere in between both worlds. Time stops for them at the moment they've died, and they will not age or die of natural causes, though they can be killed, if wounded badly enough. They're also prone to the corruption of the human heart."

"That sounds... dangerous," Yato said slowly.

"It can be," Hiyori admitted. "But Regalia are also a god's servants and protection. By binding the dead with a posthumous name, their souls can be used as vessels for weaponry, armor, even tools with special properties. Every shinki manifests differently for every master they serve, depending on their personality and the god's nature. In my case, for example, I'm a combat god, so both Yukine and Hiiro are weapons in my hands."

Yato considered this for a moment, trying to wrap his head around the concept of people as weapons.

"Hold on, if shinki are the souls of dead people," he said, frowning to himself. "And most gods hate humans... wouldn't that mean they don't trust Regalia either?"

Hiyori grimaced.

"Some don't," she admitted. "There are gods who treat their Regalia as nothing more than tools. But most gods tend to regard shinki as exceptions to the rules, mostly because every single Regalia currently in existence, except for one, is someone who lived before gods left the human realm."

"One?"

"Yes, one of mine, actually... Yukine. He's actually the last Regalia ever named," Hiyori said, turning her head away from him, her mouth set in a thin line. "I named him when... when I went back."

Yato gulped. If the legends were true, then Hiyori going 'back' could only mean her return to the human realm, when she became a vengeful spirit and slaughtered anything that crossed her path. It was frightening to think this charming young god was capable of such cruelty, and Yato had to remind himself that the reason he was supposed to be there in the first place was to prevent her from reverting into madness.

"Since most shinki died before we left, they're generally considered free of the taint of human sin, but... Yukine lived during the war, so..."

She didn't elaborate, but Yato thought he understood what she was getting at. If Yukine was a weapon she'd named after she'd gone mad... then she must have used him during the cull. Which means... he has to have a hell of a lot of blood on his hands, even if he didn't ask for it.

For the first time, Yato felt a pang of sympathy for the young boy. He'd died very young indeed, only to be picked up by a rampaging god who could only be kept docile by the ritual spilling of blood. Despite that, he genuinely seemed to care about his master, and though Yato had only spoken with him a few times, he had no doubt that Yukine's loyalty was unquestionable.

I guess I probably look like an incredibly suspicious interloper to a kid like that, don't I? Hiyori must be very important to him.

There was an awkward silence.

"...Uhm, Hiyori...?" Yato ventured, still desperate for information.

"Hmm?"

"You said I'm not a shinki, even though I'm dead. What's the difference?"

Hiyori watched a particularly large koi circle around her ankle, her brow furrowed as if she were considering the best way to explain.

"Well... I asked if you knew what a soul was earlier because most mortals don't really understand what it means to have a spiritual and physical self," she began, tucking a strand of flyaway hair behind her ear. "A soul is the essence of life, you could say it is life, the true core of all living things. But in order to exist in and inhabit the mortal realm, a soul requires a vessel. That's what the body is, a soul's tether to the land of the living.

"Normally, when a human being dies, the tether linking body and soul is severed, and the soul can no longer exist in the physical world. If there are strong enough emotional ties to the living realm, a dead soul can linger in the in-between for some time, but the call of Yomi will eventually claim them too, unless the soul is found and named by a god, of course.

"There's one other exception to this rule," Hiyori said, glancing at Yato over her shoulder. "If a living being is killed in a particular ritual, and their soul is magically bound to something capable of sustaining them, then that soul can continue to exist as though it remained in its own vessel, even though the body has been killed. In other words, your soul can live without a body because it's tethered to something else. It will live out its normal lifespan, and retains the qualities of a mortal being, though you'll find you can do things you couldn't before. Jump higher, run longer and faster, things that a living body couldn't handle. That being said, you can still get sick or injured, and your soul will sustain any damage that your body used to take in its stead."

Hiyori held out a hand toward him, and Yato stared at it for a good minute, nonplussed.

"Your hand, Yato," she said with a small smile.

"O-Oh, right," he blushed, and he was all too aware of how sweaty his hands were as he nervously let his fingers rest against her palm. Hiyori didn't seem to notice as she raised her other hand to her lips and bit down on her little finger. A spurt of blood flashed on her white teeth.

"You'll continue to age like a normal mortal," she continued. "And you can be killed. But if you die from anything other than natural causes, your soul won't go to Yomi as it should, or be reborn. It will just cease to exist, erased, like a god or a shinki."

As Yato watched, entranced, she touched the bloodied finger to the same digit on Yato's hand and murmured a spell he didn't recognize. When she pulled away, a deep red thread was tied around his finger and he could see the other end around hers, the skin smooth as though she hadn't been bleeding at all.

"Mm, the color is good," she noted, turning his hand to get a better look. "It took well." She let his hand go and he raised it up to examine the thread with curiosity.

"What is it?" he asked.

"A marriage spell," she explained, reaching behind her for the tray Hiiro had left. It bore a small jug of what looked like sake and a single shallow cup. "Or more accurately, I guess you could call it a soul-binding spell. The darker the color, the more binding the contract. Since we're already bound, it's only natural for it to be particularly dark."

He watched as she filled the cup, careful not to spill even a single drop.

"It seems unnecessary if we're already supposed to be married," he said as she lifted the cup to her lips with both hands and took a drink.

"The court is fussy about things like this," she said dully, handing the cup over to him. He blinked down at it stupidly, wondering what he was supposed to do with it.

"Drink," she said helpfully. Yato flushed and did as she asked. It only occurred after he'd passed it back to her and she refilled it that he'd just shared an indirect kiss with her. His whole body seemed to tingle with warmth and nerves at the thought.

They passed the cup back and forth a few times until the pitcher was empty, and Yato felt distinctly lightheaded when Hiyori finally set it back down on the tray and sighed.

"Well, that's that taken care of," she said, and blew on the back of her finger, where the thread was tied. It shimmered for a moment, then vanished, leaving behind only a faint red mark on her skin. Yato looked down at his hand to find an identical mark on his own. "We'll have to finish the rest of this conversation later; Hiiro will come get us for our audience with Amaterasu Omikami soon," Hiyori said grudgingly, letting her other leg fall into the water so that both of her feet kicked listlessly, forming small waves. "If it were up to me, we'd just stay here and get to know each other a bit; share a few more drinks, perhaps."

Yato shook his head slightly, feeling as though there were water in his head. He'd always been an incredible lightweight, but whatever Hiyori drank seemed to be much stronger than any sake he'd ever had back home.

"I'm not good with alcohol," he managed, his tongue strangely heavy in his mouth. Hiyori raised an eyebrow at him and smiled, clearly amused.

"I'm not either, but this isn't a problem with your tolerance. Heaven's sake is a little much when you're not used to it, especially for mortals. Don't worry, it'll wear off soon. Any last questions before we go?"

Yato frowned, thinking hard. He felt like he was mentally wading through syrup.

"Uhm... what am I tethered to?" he asked, thinking back to her explanation.

"Sorry?"

"My soul... if my body's dead but I'm still alive. What's it tethered to?"

Hiyori's smile immediately faded.

"... Only the person who cast the spell would know," she said, but Yato thought she wouldn't quite look him in the eye after that.

Hiyori had been through so many marriage ceremonies that she sometimes felt she could do them in her sleep. It honestly felt like Amaterasu insisted on them just to torture her with the dull tedium of it all, though she knew there was an actual reason for it.

Her Majesty has such a cruel sense of humor sometimes, she thought grimly as she and Yato left the house with the shinki in tow half an hour later, kimonos adjusted and hair fixed for their appointment. And he's sharper than I thought, too, this boy, she mused as she listened to Hiiro explain basic etiquette to a very nervous-looking Yato. I hope he won't insist on asking again when I explain everything else later.

"You must always walk three steps behind Hiyori-sama, and keep your eyes lowered at all times," Hiiro was saying, prodding him in the back with her spear in admonishment of his bad posture. "And if she speaks to you in front of others, you have to address her as 'My Lady Protector,' or 'Mamorigami-hime'. 'Lady Hiyori' is considered intimate, for use only in front of close friends-"

"Hiiro-san, I can't keep up, slow down a little!" Yato complained as she ran through her list of mental notes at top speed. Hiiro huffed but resumed her lecture at a slower pace.

"As if it wasn't bad enough he's a pervert, he's an idiot too," Yukine scowled as he marched grumpily across the Realm Bridge, naginata over his shoulder in the vanguard position. "Can't even fucking read, I ask you..."

"Yukine," Hiyori scolded.

"... Well, it's true," he muttered.

Hiyori sighed and turned back toward the other two. Yato looked hurt and embarrassed by Yukine's comment, and Hiyori felt her heart give a small twinge at his sad expression.

Stop that, she told herself before she could reach out to take his hand in a comforting gesture. No matter how pitiful or pathetic he looks, you can't fall for it, Hiyori.

"Yato, no one expects you to know all of this after just one day of living here," she told him, pushing her guilt as far down as it would go. "If you can only remember one honorific, just use that one."

"It's not that I can't remember it all," he said, scratching his cheek sheepishly. "It's just... trying to keep all the proper uses straight..." He glanced up at her and offered her a small, shy smile. "Sorry, I know I'm not very smart, Hiyori."

Hiyori felt her face grow warm.

D-Don't look at me like that, for heaven's sake!! she panicked, turning away abruptly. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been so affected by one of her consorts; usually she was very self-assured around them, and though Yato was hardly the first to be so obviously attracted to her, she'd never felt so undone by something as simple as a smile or a glance.

"Y-You're fine," she replied quietly, and he seemed to think that was a dismissal because he resumed his conversation with Hiiro.

"Then... which honorific should I use for Amaterasu Omikami, Hiiro-san?" he asked.

"'Your Majesty Amaterasu Omikami-sama,'" Hiiro replied. "There are a few others but you'll only have to speak with her once, most likely. And for the last time, you don't need to use '-san' with Regalia, Lord Yato; it shows bad breeding."

"But it feels rude," Yato said, looking uncomfortable. "I'm just a human anyway, you guys shouldn't have to call me 'Lord' anything to begin with-"

"You're our master's husband, so you're the Lord Consort, that's all there is to it," Hiiro said with finality.

The little party reached the garden at the end of the bridge, and Yato made a noise of recognition, distracted from his conversation.

"Oh, this is- I came out of the woods here, somehow... I think," he said.

"You did, the path is here," Hiyori explained, smiling at his confusion. He reminded her of a lost cat, wary but no less curious for his new surroundings; it was strangely endearing. "So is the way to Her Majesty's palace, or to anywhere else in the Celestial Plain you might wish to visit."

She made her way around the rockery until she was standing in front of a gnarled old plum tree in the back. She waited until the other three had followed and pressed a palm to its rough bark.

"Hiyori-no-Kami and her Lord Consort, Yato-dono, request passage to Her Majesty's domain," she said.

A shiver passed over the tree and the branches began to sway gently despite the lack of a breeze. A single, small blossom floated down and Hiyori reached up to receive it.

"Thank you, Tsuyu-dono," she said with a deep bow. She straightened up and plucked two petals from it. "Hiiro, Yukine," she said, and both children accepted a petal before she turned to Yato. "Here, you have to eat this," she explained, holding the rest out to him.

"What?" he asked, bewildered.

"It's just a plum blossom," she giggled. "The different realms of Takamagahara are all connected by tree spirits. Once you've eaten that, they'll always recognize you. I gave Hiiro and Yukine petals so that the trees know they're your attendants when they accompany you."

Yato glanced at Hiiro, who had already ingested her own petal, and at Yukine, who was glaring down at the one in his hands with a look of disgust.

"Eat it," Hiiro said flatly, and Hiyori noted the sharp nudge she gave Yukine with her spear.

"I'm fucking going already!" he grumbled, and with a deep breath he threw it into his mouth and gnashed his teeth, staring daggers at Yato the whole time.

"The magic here is something else," Yato said, impressed. He cupped the blossom between his palms and lifted it to his lips in a curious, old-fashioned gesture, as though he meant to drink it. It reminded Hiyori of something, though she couldn't quite place it. He took a moment to chew through it with small frown. "Mm, bitter," he noted, wrinkling his nose in a good-natured sort of way.

"Just a little," Hiyori said, unable to hide her smile. "To travel, you need only request permission first. Then you can follow the path."

"Path?"

"At your feet, stupid," Yukine said, rolling his eyes. He stepped forward and just like that vanished into thin air.

"GAH!!"

"Ow, you don't have to scream," Hiiro complained, dropping her cool demeanor as she winced. "It's just instantaneous movement, you don't feel anything." She took a step toward the tree and disappeared.

"She's right, it's very easy," Hiyori assured him. Yato looked rather green.

"What if I end up somewhere I shouldn't?"

"The trees know where to send you, that's why you ask for permission."

"I won't... forget a limb or a few fingers behind or something?"

Hiyori stared at him in alarm. "Why in the world would you worry about something like that?!"

Yato grimaced. "No real reason... Just, you know, wondering what could go... wrong."

"As far as I know, nothing," Hiyori said, shaking her head. What a strange, morbid person.

He didn't seem at all convinced by her words.

"I don't suppose I could just... walk there?" he asked hopefully.

"...We're on an island, Yato."

"It was worth a try," he muttered, biting his lip. Hiyori sighed in exasperation.

"Here, I'll lead the way," she said, offering her hand. She noticed the blush on his cheeks and told herself this was simply the fastest way to show him how easy it was.

He hesitated for the space of a breath and then she felt his fingers grasp hers loosely.

"S-sorry, I have sweaty hands," he apologized, turning his face away, the tip of his nose burning.

Before she could think better of it, Hiyori adjusted her grip so his hand was secure in her palm.

"Your hands are fine," she said firmly, and stepped forward into nothingness, tugging him along with her.

Yato should have probably paid more attention to the Imperial Palace that afternoon, if only because it was a marvel of construction, a huge, sprawling complex that spanned several connected islands, towering high with sweeping roofs and ornate windows. It was so opulent that it made the veritable castle Hiyori lived in look more humble by the second, so that by the time they crossed another magnificent bridge and found themselves standing outside the gates, Yato understood why Hiyori and the two attendants just called her own realm 'the house.'

But although he noticed the grandiosity of it all, Yato couldn't really focus on the details as an attendant led them through the palace gates and across the courtyard. In the first place, he was dreading this audience; no matter what Hiyori and Hiiro said, he had no idea how he was supposed to speak to the highest-ranking god of his faith, and he was terrified that something would go wrong and land him (or worse, land Hiyori) in trouble, because, of course, something always went wrong. He was still trying to come to terms with everything that had happened so far, and he didn't think sticking him in fancy clothes he could barely walk in and throwing him in front of royal divinity was going to do anyone any good.

"Don't slouch," Yukine scolded irritably as the four of them were escorted through the main hall, an enormous corridor lined with cabinets full of all sorts of treasures Yato couldn't begin to imagine the price of. "And quit looking around like some backwoods tourist, for fuck's sake."

"R-Right," Yato replied, throwing his shoulders back and trying to focus on the way forward. His eyes landed on the back of Hiyori's head, her silver hair pin glittering behind her ear, and he couldn't help feeling happy at the thought that it was exactly the same as the one Yukine had made him wear. A matching pair.

And... now that he paid more attention to it, Hiyori's kimono was very much a complimentary design to his own. Flowers embroidered to match the leaves, a shade of lilac to perfectly suit navy blue, the same golden thread on the details... It was beautiful, though Yato thought it might've suited her better when it was haphazardly thrown around her. She looked a little stiff now that it was arranged with attention to neatness. It made him feel a little sad to see her so uncomfortably restricted, like watching a bird trapped behind a cage.

He was startled as everyone came to a halt in front of an ornate door and the attendant told them to wait. Yato felt another wave of dizziness as he stood nervously to the side, still feeling a little lightheaded from the sake despite Hiyori's assurance it would wear off. He rubbed his arm under his folded sleeves, and was reminded of how soft and warm Hiyori's skin had felt against his fingers earlier. She'd let go as soon as they'd arrived in the Palace, of course, but Yato really wasn't used to people touching him these days. His master had been affectionate, but the man had died almost five years ago, and everyone else treated him like he had some kind of contagious illness, or, like Hiiro, hated the nervous sheen of sweat that tended to form on his palms. But Hiyori had taken his hand more than once already, and hadn't minded the clamminess or the roughness of a lifetime's worth of callouses on his fingers. He knew he couldn't completely blame the weightless, drunk giddiness still swirling in his chest on the alcohol.

I'm acting like an idiot, he scolded himself, trying to look serious. I'm not a kid, I can't be falling apart every time Hiyori so much as smiles at me.

"Move!"

Something hard smacked him in the ankle and he realized Yukine was hissing at him. To his alarm, Hiyori was already being led through the door by two new attendants, and Yato stumbled slightly as he hurried to catch up.

"Smooth, dumbass," Yukine muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

"S...sorry."

The shinki threw him a look of deep loathing. "Just keep your eyes down and shut the fuck up unless you're spoken to."

Yato grimaced and did as he was told, arms folded under his sleeves as he followed behind Hiyori, his eyes firmly fixed on the hem of her kimono. When she came to a stop and gracefully sunk to her knees, Yato mimicked her as best as he could and lowered his head to the floor in a bow, his heart pounding in his ears.

"Your Majesty," he heard Hiyori say, her voice unnaturally constrained compared to the gentle lilt of her usual tone. "I apologize for visiting on such short notice, but I've come to seek your blessing."

Yato kept his eyes lowered and listened as he slowly sat up a moment after he heard Hiyori do the same. There was a murmuring sound, countless whispers echoing in the vast chamber around them, but Yato couldn't see anyone without looking up and he didn't dare disobey Yukine and Hiiro's command while he could feel their eyes boring holes in his back.

A soft voice, high and clear, filled the space as though whoever was speaking was right next to him. Yato was grateful for Hiyori and Hiiro warning him in advance; he would have jumped otherwise. Amaterasu Omikami, the Ruler of Heaven.

"We welcome you to our realm, Mamorigami-dono. We see that you have brought a stranger with you." She sounded young, the Sun God. He'd always imagined a regal, imposing woman, somehow. Yato wondered if the gods chose such disarming appearances on purpose.

"Yes, Your Majesty," Hiyori said. "This man is my Lord Consort, sent to me this day past in accordance with the old covenant."

"Consort, you say?" There was a rustling sound, and Yato saw the hem of a silk kimono come to a stop just in front of him. "Why, Mamorigami-dono, we were under the impression that you were no longer in good standing with the living. How is it that you've received a new consort now after all these years?"

Don't look up, don't look up, Yato repeated, fighting the urge to look into the face of the speaker.

"I could not say, my Lady," Hiyori said, though Yato thought he could hear a new edge in her tone. "Perhaps there has been a renewal in their faith. But no mistake has been made; he is one of mine, bound and promised, and thus under my protection."

"Your protection, hmm."

A claw-like hand shot out and grabbed Yato by the hair, forcing his head back without warning. He gave a small cry of pain as a small, silver-haired girl gazed down at him coldly, her eyes the exact color of a grey dawn and glinting with hate. It was the beautiful face of a child, but Yato was overwhelmed by fear, his heart beating so fast he could barely breathe in his terror.

"Filth," she spat. "You dare look us in the eye after what your bretheren have done?!" She tightened her grip on his hair and his already aching head seemed to split in half as tears of agony formed in the corner of his eyes.

"Your Majesty!!" Hiyori cried out, but Yato couldn't tear his eyes away from Amaterasu, and in that moment a strange dizziness overcame him, and his vision flickered slightly as a strange, roaring voice echoed in his ears with a vicious snarl.

You!! I'll rip your fucking throat out!!

Yato had no idea who had spoken, or why. He could barely even think beyond the white spots still dancing in his vision.

"Please, my Lady, he has done nothing wrong-!" Hiyori shouted, and Yato thought he heard other people yelling, though he couldn't really focus on what they were saying.

"You... You carry old magic," Amaterasu said, her nostrils flaring as she glared down at him. Somewhere in the background came the sounds of a scuffle, but Yato was frozen, held captive by this girl's eyes and chilling voice. "Something foul. Who are you?"

His tongue seemed to find purchase somehow, but the words that came from his mouth felt wrong, as though he had something more important to say.

"M-My name is Yato, Y-Your Majesty, I'm a c-carpenter-"

The god's eyes narrowed and Yato cried out as she half-lifted him from his seat by the roots of his hair. "We did not ask for your name, worm! We ask again, who are you?!"

"Hikki!!"

There was a flash and Amaterasu suddenly dropped him. Yato fell forward, only barely catching himself before he slammed face first into the floor.

I thought I was gonna die... again, he gasped.

"You dare raise a weapon against us, Hiyori-no-Kami?!" Amaterasu shouted furiously.

Yato raised his eyes as far as he dared to find Hiyori standing in front of him, a warrior's staff held defensively in her hands. She looked pale but determined, facing down Amaterasu and three tall guards wielding spears. Yukine stood to Yato's other side, his own spear held aloft as a drop of sweat trailed down the side of his face. Hiiro, on the other hand, seemed to have disappeared.

"I beg your pardon, Your Majesty," Hiyori said slowly, her eyes flashing even as she lowered the staff. "I did not mean any disrespect."

"Explain yourself!"

"I merely wanted to reprimand my consort for his poor conduct," she said. She turned to Yato, a strange look in her eye, and suddenly struck him across the face with the end of the staff. "I told you to keep your eyes lowered," she barked as Yato clapped a hand to his throbbing cheek, eyes wide with shock.

"Reply, idiot!! Hurry!!"

He wasn't sure why he heard Hiiro's voice when she wasn't anywhere near him, but it was enough to snap him out of his stupor.

"Y-yes, Mamorigami-hime, please forgive me!" he begged, forehead to the floor. He had no idea what was going on, but he had a feeling that he should listen if he wanted to keep whatever was left of his life.

"Hmph," Hiyori said. "Revert, Hiiro."

Another flash, and Yato heard someone very small fall to her knees next to him.

"Say nothing, do whatever Hiyori-sama says," Hiiro breathed. He gave a very small nod.

"I cannot apologize enough for my Consort's mortifying behavior, Your Majesty. Please, I entreat you, have mercy on him," Hiyori was saying. "The magic is harmless, just remnants of something done to him in his youth, a healing spell, perhaps-"

"That is no healing spell," Amaterasu said, her voice cold as ice. "Those are the eyes of a beast. The boy has been touched by something truly ancient."

"B-Be that as it may, my Lady, he poses no threat, and as my consort-"

There was a loud thud of wood striking the floor and Hiyori fell silent.

"Enough, we are aware of the laws, as we set down many of them ourselves. Take this tainted child of man and get out of our sight, Mamorigami. You may rest assured that we have recognized the bonds of your marriage, and none may touch him again. He is your burden now."

There was the sound of people moving around, and Hiyori thanking Amaterasu for her mercy, and then, blessedly, nothing.

Hiiro let out a sigh of relief, but before she could speak, Hiyori hurried over and knelt in front of them.

"Yato, I'm so sorry, I didn't have any choice-" she said, helping him sit up. "I had to justify summoning Hiiro-" She hissed at the bruise forming on his jaw. "Oh gods, I can't apologize enough-"

Yato felt his cheek gingerly and grimaced, but shook his head. "It's 'kay, I'm used to things goin' to hell."

"Still, I never meant to hurt you," Hiyori insisted, distressed. "Not when you didn't deserve it-"

"Now I'm afraid what it'll look like when I do deserve it," he winced, dizziness intensifying.

Hiyori laughed, a high, nervous sound.

"Oh, no, I'm sorry, I just-" she apologized, covering her mouth.

Yato offered her what he hoped was a smile, his head pounding worse than ever as everything swayed around him. "Y'know... you have... a super pretty laugh, Hiyori. Like... like petals fallin' from the sky. Or somethin'."

She blinked at him, the blood draining from her face.

"Oh gods, I broke him," she panicked, turning to her attendants desperately. "He hasn't even been with me a full day and I already broke him! Hiiro, what do I do?!"

"No, Hiyori-sama, you haven't broken him," Hiiro assured her. "He's just an idiot. And concussed," she scoffed, leaning in to get a better look at his eyes. "He's probably about to- Yep, there he goes," she sighed as Yato abruptly fell against her, out cold. "He'll be fine after some rest."

Hiyori sighed with relief. "Thank goodness, I thought for a second I'd really hurt the poor boy."

"Bah," Yukine said with distaste as he helped Hiiro pull the unconscious human up. "Who cares about him anyway, no one asked him to come here."

"Yukine..."

"Just sayin'," he grumbled. "I mean, really, who wants to be married to a carpenter?"

Chapter Text

The chains around her wrists and ankles are spelled, made from the bones of the moon and the blood of the sun, and thus anathema to all but the creation deities and powerful elemental entities. They drain her strength, dull her already altered wits, leave her nothing but the meanest, most feeble ghost, no more divine than the weakest mortal.

She has been bound to the oldest, most powerful tree in Heaven, her arms pulled over her head and her feet chained to the twisted roots, an awkward, uncomfortable angle that leaves her half-hanging, pulled forward by her own weight. Her shoulders are screaming in pain from the unnatural arch of her back. Her bare toes can barely find any purchase on the uneven ground below, but if she stops trying for even a moment, she fears her arms will be snapped clean off. She has no idea how long she's been there, can barely remember how she even found herself in chains.

No, more than that. Years' worth of dizzying, lost memory. She barely remembers her own name, or what she's been doing all this time. Voices are whispering in her head, hundreds of voices, maddening and confusing, threatening to pull her under at any moment.

But she feels as though it's bearable, for some reason. Instead of a river rushing over her, it's the gentle murmuring of a faraway brook, and over it all there's a clear bell ringing in her ears, keeping her anchored to the present. It's a warm sound, somehow, though she's vaguely aware it isn't real. Almost like the feeling of someone gently cradling her in their arms, reminding her that hate can only form when there's love under it. It makes hot tears burn across her cheekbones, makes her chest ache with so much grief and pain she feels as though she might drown in it.

"Hiyori-no-Kami," a high, cold voice dictates. "God of fair weather and clear skies, you stand accused of treason to your fellow deities, to the order of all things. Do you deny the charge?"

She hears the words but cares nothing for them. She's tired, so tired... all she wants is sleep, anything to stop the gnawing hunger and unbearable loneliness in her soul.

She stares down at the ground blankly, wondering why she feels so empty.

"Hiyori-no-Kami!"

Her eyes wander toward the voice. She recognizes Amaterasu and some of the other gods that stand around her in judgement of her sins. But the Amaterasu she remembers is a kind, thoughtful child. Nothing like this girl with eyes like burning dawn.

"I don't know," she manages, her voice cracked and graveled. "I don't... don't remember..."

Amaterasu's eyes flash with indignant fury.

"You dare claim ignorance after disobeying direct orders and returning to the Near Shore? After you slaughtered so many of your own kin when they were sent to retrieve you?!"

She shakes her head slowly, her lank, wild hair falling over her shoulders and face in a tangle of dirty knots.

"I don't know."

A heavy slap turns her head, blood filling the inside of her mouth. She runs her tongue over her teeth, mildly surprised to find that her canines have sharpened into points somehow. The corruption has done more than drive her to madness, it seems.

"You killed so many of us, your own brothers and sisters!!" Amaterasu shrieks, shaking with anger. "They can never come back!! You betrayed us, and for WHAT, Hiyori?! Because you pitied mortals?! After everything they did?!"

The question is a fair one, but Hiyori has no answer. There is truth in Her Majesty's words. Fear and false pride makes human beings such detestable, selfish creatures. They tear down the very things that sustain and protect them, they blame and hurt to make themselves feel better. Anything to hide from their own ugly scars.

So why, why does she want so badly to return, to share in the wounds they cause themselves? Why can't she forget the laughter and the gentleness, even after they've destroyed it with their own hands? Why does the thought of that tiny, helpless, yellow-haired child, so forsaken and broken that he barely resembled a living person by the time she stumbled on his dying body, not make her despise the very air they breathe? Why does she still want to save them after all that?

And why can't she put a name or a face to the grief she feels so heavily in her heart?

"I DON'T KNOW!!" she screams. At the very least, the boy still needs her. She can distinguish his voice from the others, hear his fear echoing in her heart. She has to go to him, has to find him before it's too late. "I DON'T KNOW, I DON'T KNOW!!!!" She tugs viciously at her bindings, struggling to free herself. "Please, just Yukine and Hiiro, you promised... you swore...!!"

"I DON'T CARE!" Amaterasu cries, her cheeks wet with her own pain. "We loved you, we trusted you. And you lied to us, you turned against us, all for THEM. You allowed them to corrupt you beyond recognition, and what did the humans even do for you in return?!" The sun god grabs her by the chin, forcing her to look up. "They hate you, you know. They're terrified of you. They think you're nothing but a bloodthirsty demon, sent to punish them. They don't want your protection, and they only send up prayers in the hopes that you'll spare them. They're selfish, cowardly filth, and not a single one of them cares about anything but themselves. Is that what you wanted so badly to protect?!"

Amaterasu is right. But Hiyori also knows that they're not irredeemable. Humans have the ability to change, to grow. They can weather anything; isn't the fact that human magic was able to stop her when even the gods were helpless proof enough?

"Yes. They are more than we'll ever be," Hiyori says, and she means it.

There is a harsh, furious silence.

"So be it. There is no forgiveness for this, Hiyori-no-Kami. You've cast your lot, and you'll pay the price." Amaterasu lets go, her fingernails gouging into Hiyori's skin as Hiyori struggles feebly to escape. She's not afraid of death, but Yukine must be saved. If she can just get him to Hiiro, her guidepost will know how to keep them both alive... "In the name of Amaterasu Omikami, we hereby sentence you-"

"Stop!"

Voices burst forward into a titter of nervous inquiries as a single tall, dark-haired god strides forward proudly, one hand around the hilt of a longsword. Hiyori doesn't recognize him, but she supposes he must be one of the last gods, the ones born from the chaos of the war in the mortal realm right before they abandoned it. She wonders who he is, and what he wants so badly that he would interrupt the Ruler of Heaven-

With a gasp, Hiyori sat up in her bedding, her heart thudding desperately in her chest. She clutched the fabric of her robe, the details of the dream- no, the memory, one that Hiyori had long thought lost to time- already fading fast into obscurity.

She sunk back onto her futon, staring up at the wooden ceiling of her bedroom, trying to hold on to scraps of forgotten time, but one by one they evaded her and her eyes fluttered closed against her will.

It was on the morning of the third day after the disastrous audience with Amaterasu that Hiyori found herself deep in thought at the head of her dining table, swirling her chopsticks aimlessly through a fragrant bowl of hot soup. She watched a piece of seaweed sway around elegantly, thinking of the dream she'd woken from in the early hours.

Why can't I remember things when they're actually important? she pondered moodily, resting her cheek on her open palm. I don't get vivid dreams like that unless they mean something, but I can't do an augury without the details... what if it's important for Yato's recovery?

She glanced at the empty seat to her left, sighing with guilt. She hadn't spoken with her new consort since he'd fallen unconscious at the Imperial Palace, though it wasn't for lack of trying. The exhaustion and stress, coupled with all the repeated injuries to his soul so soon after it had been severed from his body, had left him comatose as his life force struggled to regain its strength. Hiyori had done her best to apply whatever healing spells he needed to repair the damage, but it was taking a long time to stabilize him. In the meantime, Hiyori had had to reacquaint herself with the long, stifling periods of loneliness that once again settled over the house as he slept.

It was hard for Hiyori to admit that she could miss a person that she barely knew. Consort or not, Yato was still very much a stranger in her life, and under normal circumstances, she might not have noticed his absence very much. But Hiyori had been alone for centuries with no one but her shinki to converse with; as much as she loved them, the truth was that Hiiro and Yukine went out of their way to remind their master that they were her retainers, not her friends. They probably insisted on it for her own safety; it would probably get Hiyori in quite a bit of trouble with the upper ranks if she went around telling shinki that they didn't have to treat gods with respect.

It was much more difficult to get used to the solitude after having it lifted for even a little while.

I feel like a child, she sighed again, dragging the seaweed through several thoughtless patterns. I should be used to feeling alone by now. We haven't even had much of a chance to talk yet... not nearly enough time to miss him.

Another nudge of guilt. She had no business feeling lonely without him, not when she still had to tell him their marriage would be a loveless one. She was sure that would hurt him, even if she'd misread his feelings toward her. No one wanted to hear that they were trapped in a relationship with someone who was doing their best not to love them.

But if she was going to do this, she had to resolve to do it without wavering. It would only hurt worse if she led him on.

Soon. As soon as he wakes up. Even if he looks at you with those beautiful, heartrendingly sad eyes... you have to do it, Hiyori.

"Milady... you're spilling your broth."

Hiyori snapped out of her thoughts. Hiiro was watching her with a concerned look from her seat on the right side of the table, chopsticks paused halfway to her mouth. Hiyori looked down and found that her Regalia was right; she'd been stirring the soup so violently that it was spilling onto the table.

"Oh, damn it," she groaned, glancing around for something to clean the mess with. Hiiro conjured a clean cloth seemingly from thin air and got to her feet to take care of it.

"Something on your mind, Hiyori-sama?" the girl asked. Her tone gave nothing away, but Hiyori was sure she saw a glint in the corner of her eye as she wiped the table.

"No, just tired," she lied, reaching for the basket of steamed rice. Hiiro tried to take it from her but Hiyori tugged it out of reach. "I can serve myself, Hiiro!" she complained. The shinki frowned petulantly but nevertheless returned to her seat.

"Did you visit Lord Yato this morning, milady?" she asked a few minutes later. Hiyori winced; nothing ever got past her guidepost.

"... Mm, I checked the spells before breakfast," Hiyori said, trying to sound disaffected. "His condition hasn't changed."

"I'm not surprised," Hiiro said casually, picking at her food. "He's had quite the rough treatment."

Hiyori sighed and gave up. It was pointless to keep up a facade when Hiiro was intent on breaking it down. The girl had been with Hiyori since the earliest days; it was no exaggeration to say she had raised the god with her own two hands, acting as teacher, protector, and sibling all at once. Her lack of delicacy could be grating, but Hiyori could always trust her guidepost to listen anyway, even if her advice was always blunt and to the point.

"I never meant to hurt him," she said softly, lowering her voice so they couldn't be overheard. "I just... It completely slipped my mind after all those years..."

"That Her Majesty detests sorcerers?"

Hiyori pushed her food away, feeling nauseous. "I feel awful about it... I've never been that careless before, Hiiro. How could I forget something that important? He could've been killed and I wouldn't have been able to do a thing about it."

"You did do something, Lady Hiyori," Hiiro said firmly. "You saved his life."

"By almost killing him," Hiyori said miserably. "What if he never wakes up? It'll be all my fault, I misjudged the situation so badly I didn't even stop to think that Her Majesty would see him as a threat. I didn't even tell him not to use magic at court!"

"But he didn't use magic," Hiiro reminded her. "He did everything right. He was just... unlucky."

"That wasn't bad luck, that was carelessness," Hiyori said, rubbing her wrist anxiously. "If I'd been thinking straight, I would have at least done something to disguise the obvious traces of magic in him. I should've realized how dangerous it would be for me of all gods to show up at Amaterasu Omikami's palace with a powerful sorcerer for a consort in tow. It's my own fault that I had to resort to brute force in the first place."

"It wasn't your fault, milady. Even Yukine and I forgot all about it, it couldn't be helped that the details would be fuzzy after half a millennium. There's no need to blame yourself."

"Of course there is," Hiyori groaned, crossing her arms and sinking forward onto them in a childish gesture. "He was killed against his will for my sake to begin with, and I almost took his life a second time when we met-"

"In fairness, he probably deserved that one," Hiiro muttered under her breath. Hiyori blushed.

"It was an accident... I think," she murmured into her sleeve. "He doesn't strike me as a bad person..."

"He doesn't have to be a bad person to be a pervert," Hiiro scoffed.

"Hiiro!"

"I'm just saying! His eyes were all over you, milady."

Well, yes... but then what does that make me...? Hiyori thought, hiding her face so Hiiro wouldn't see the obvious shame in it. She'd caught herself staring at Yato's sleeping face more than once already during her visits, just to admire the line of his nose or the way his eyelashes turned up at the corners. She'd let her hand linger a few times when she brushed the soft hair from his brow, only just stopping herself before she could run her fingers through it. Hiyori knew she was taking advantage of him, watching him so intently when he couldn't fend for himself, but no matter how many times she swore it was the last, she couldn't help coming back for another look.

"I-I'm giving him the benefit of a doubt," Hiyori managed, just loud enough for Hiiro to hear. "Just this once."

Hiiro sighed. "If you say so, Lady Hiyori."

There was a long silence as Hiyori listened to the clacking of wood on lacquered bowls.

"Hiiro..."

"Yes, milady?"

Hiyori peeked over the edge of her sleeve, her chest aching.

"I... I'm scared," she whispered.

Hiiro slowly put her chopsticks down.

"Hiyori-sama..."

"I know," Hiyori said, digging her fingernails into her arms. "And I know it's too early to be afraid... but..."

Hiiro looked down into her lap, her hands clenched into fists. "I don't want you to suffer anymore, Lady Hiyori. Neither does Yukine. We've seen the pain it causes you to play this awful game. If we had the power to do anything about it, we would do it in a heartbeat. But we can't... all we can do is watch, and hope."

Hiyori offered her a small, sad smile.

"That you still have hope at all makes it a little more bearable," she admitted. "Truthfully... I lost mine a long, long time ago."

"... He could still be the one."

"It never is, Hiiro."

"Lord Yato is different from the others. Maybe..."

"Don't," Hiyori begged. "Please. I don't want to hurt him any more than I already have to."

Hiiro said nothing for a good minute, nodding sadly.

"Yes, of course. I apologize-"

She was interrupted by the sound of Yukine's voice echoing from the kitchens.

"Hey! Careful with that, you guys could get hurt!"

There was a loud crash, and then the sound of Yukine cursing.

"Yukine?" Hiyori called, slightly concerned as she sat up. All gods had sprites in their households, little voiceless elemental creatures that took the wispy shapes of very small children and handled the tedious tasks of basic housekeeping. But perhaps because Hiyori was in such low standing, the sprites she'd been assigned on her return to Heaven lacked more intelligence than most. They were prone to toppling things and burning food if Yukine or Hiiro weren't around to supervise them, and even then they often caused all sorts of accidents and trouble.

"I'm fine!" Yukine replied loudly. "One of 'em got pinned under a shelf though, can you give me a hand, Hii-?" His bright yellow hair flashed in the sunlight as he looked around the corner of the doorway. He noticed Hiiro sitting next to Hiyori and scowled. "Ugh, again?! You know we're not supposed to eat with our master, Hiiro!"

"Oh do loosen up, Yukine, you say that every morning," she said, rolling her eyes as she rose to her feet irritably. "We have got to get smarter sprites one of these days," she grumbled.

"Good luck convincing the court to give us any," Yukine scoffed. "Oh, there's a letter for you, by the way, Lady Hiyori," he added as Hiiro marched past him and started yelling out orders. "I left it on the tea tray in the garden."

"A letter? Who on earth from?" Hiyori asked, surprised. She rarely received correspondence.

"Takemikazuchi-sama."

Hiyori opened her mouth to say she hadn't heard from him in a long time, but then she remembered her dream and immediately flushed red. It was a small mercy that Yukine's attention had been drawn back to the chaotic noises coming from the kitchens and didn't notice.

"Th-Thank you, Yukine." she muttered, making a show of getting up to go outside so he wouldn't notice her expression.

"Of course, milady," he said without paying her any mind as he hurried back into the kitchens to help Hiiro.

Hiyori let her hand linger against the screen door for a moment before she slid it open.

I'm such an idiot, of course that dream wasn't about Yato! she thought, embarrassed at her own one-track mind. Even if I can't remember all the details, I know what happened that day; why in the world did I just assume it had something to do with him?!

She bit her lip, hating how easily she'd let him get under her skin. How was she supposed to tell her consort she would never fall in love with him when she kept acting like she already had?

Something is watching him sleep.

He feels it like a weight on his chest, heavy and oppressive, but Yato can neither move or cry out, or even open his eyes to see what it is.

Mother, help! he thinks, hoping in his childish innocence that she will sense his discomfort and wake up to save him. But she takes no notice, and his father is gone for another week on a hunting expedition with the other men in the village.

His heart is fluttering wildly in his chest, a tiny bird desperate to break free, but even at the age of four, Yato already understands that even though bad things happen to him, he can always find some way to face them.

Taking deep, shuddering breaths, he strains his ears, listening for foreign sounds in his family's hut as he thinks hard to the few spells he's been taught. None of them seem particularly useful; Yato's mother is a sorceress of rare talent, but he himself can barely even levitate a pebble. The other kids dance circles around him and his clumsy attempts at basic spells.

Still, he's scared enough to try. Verbal spells are more effective, but he knows mental recitations can sometimes work too, so he thinks back to the way his mother pronounces the name of the will-o-the-wisp and focuses hard on the sounds.

Nothing happens.

He tries again, straining hard in his immobility.

This time, something does happen, but not the welcome flash of a wisp come to illuminate the darkness of the room. A harsh growl reverberates in the silence, terrifying Yato senseless. Whatever it is that watches him has come so close that Yato can sense it hovering over him, face to face, hot, rancid breath against his cheek.

The boy wants to scream, wants to force his eyes open and fight the horror off him. All he can do is lie frozen stiff and wait for death.

"Enough."

No one has spoken, but Yato feels the word settle over him regardless, gruff, but not unkind. The sensation lessens some of the fear, confuses his senses.

Something wet touches his forehead.

"Do not call for the Far Shore. You are too close to it already."

Slowly, the presence disappears, and soon Yato finds that he can open his eyes just a sliver.

There is nothing there, and when he regains the feeling in his limbs and rubs his hand against his forehead, he finds that it's as dry as ever.

The last thing he thinks before he inevitably drifts back to sleep is how warm his bedding suddenly feels. It's been a hard winter, but Yato almost feels like someone has wrapped him in thick, fluffy furs.

In later years, he will forget the wraith, and think it was just his father returning home from the hunt and pressing a kiss to his brow as he slept.

Yato was getting very tired of waking up by himself in unfamiliar surroundings. The thrill had worn off at least two concussions ago, and at this point, all he really wanted out of life was the autonomy to choose when, where, and how he knocked out, on his own terms.

At least my head doesn't hurt this time, he thought, slowly raising himself from his bedding. It took a minute for him to recall that the room was unfamiliar not because it was new, but because he just wasn't used to it yet; it was nicer than the first room he'd been left in when he'd arrived at the house, a wide, cavernous space much too large for a single person to inhabit. There were a few chests and shelves lined up along the paper walls, and a cabinet with a water jug in the corner. There were other rooms connected to this one, he knew; a small parlor with a table for private meals, a storage room full of all sorts of strange objects and instruments that Yato had no name or purpose for, and a little study with books, scrolls, and all the tools of a sorcerer's formal trade. He also had direct access to his own bath, a much smaller pool than the one he'd met Hiyori in, an indoor space with heated water that he had yet to find the source for. It was all far too luxurious and opulent for his comfort, and he doubted it would feel like home any time soon.

But at least he could recognize it, and that was a small relief.

How long have I been asleep? he wondered as he gingerly stretched his stiff limbs. His bedroom had no windows or balconies, and the light glowing faintly through the shoji in the direction of the parlor was impossible to judge. For all he knew, it wasn't even sunlight; the shinki might've lit a lamp or set up a spark to light the room.

"Yukine? Hiiro-san?" he called tentatively. "Hi-Hiyori?" There was no reply.

He got out of bed, folding up the futon neatly and tucking it into its designated corner before anything else. Once that was settled, he poured some water into a basin, had a drink, and set to washing his face. He may have been poor his whole life, but Yato had always been fastidious about cleanliness, and that wasn't about to change just because he was dead.

He rummaged through one of the trunks full of insanely luxurious fabrics and ornaments until he found the simplest yukata he could, but even that was so ornate he couldn't begin to count the different colors of thread that had gone into it. The fabric was light and airy too, probably meant for sleeping in, but Yato didn't have much of a choice considering he still didn't know how to arrange anything fancier than a basic obi. Everything else he'd been given was too complicated to figure out without help.

Once he was as clean and dressed as he could manage, he slid open the door to the parlor and was greeted by early afternoon sunlight streaming through the open balcony. Warm, fresh air blew in with the wind, and Yato instinctively took a deep breath, savoring the scent of summer.

"Yukine?" he called again, tugging the door to the hall open. The corridor was deserted, but after his last misadventure, he thought it might be best to stay put and wait for someone to come to him, rather than risk finding trouble.

His stomach grumbled, but he was too used to hunger to mind. Instead, he wandered over to the balcony, wondering what the view was like; he hadn't had time to really explore his apartments before the audience with Amaterasu, though he'd been assured everything in his rooms now belonged to him and he could do whatever he liked there.

To his delight, his apartments overlooked the gardens. The trees rose up past his balcony on one side, casting shade over him and granting him a spectacular view onto the paths and flowers below. Yato could feel his spirits rise as he listened to the familiar, soothing sound of the wind rustling through the leaves and the cheerful twittering of birds hiding in the canopy. As unwelcome as he'd felt in the village, Yato was every bit as much a child of the forest as anyone else there, and if he closed his eyes, he was easily transported back to afternoons lying against the rough bark of a tree, watching the branches sway in their familiar, complicated dance.

He hummed to himself, all his unresolved unease melting away in the presence of nature. He'd been trying not to think about Amaterasu as much as possible, but now he found he didn't really care what Her Majesty thought about him, or about how frightening and confusing it had been to stand before her. She'd backed away in the end, and they'd all gotten out of it alive and relatively unscathed, hadn't they? It was a relief to know that even in heaven, Yato's curse was as reliably mercurial as ever...

Some of his good mood evaporated, replaced by a gnawing sense of guilt. He hadn't been able to muster up the courage to tell Hiyori about his condition in the end, and it had landed them in so much trouble that she'd had to raise a weapon to the Sun God herself. They'd found a way out, yes, but hadn't Hiyori said she was already in low standing at court? It would all be Yato's fault if her reputation suffered and she had to answer for the transgressions.

"Today. I'll explain and apologize today," he swore aloud as his heart ached painfully. Even if Hiyori blamed him and grew to hate him, it just wasn't right to hide something that important from her. They couldn't start a marriage with a secret like that between them, and he'd rather be hated now than given false hope, only to have it crumble around his ears when the truth inevitably came out.

He leaned over onto the railing, resting his cheek listlessly against his forearm. He was an idiot, getting cheered up by something as inconsequential as a garden. Things were never that simple for Yato, and he couldn't afford to lower his guard just because he'd found himself married to a fierce, amazing god. He remembered all too well how stunning she'd been with her staff in hand, her stance tense and her kimono slipping down one bruised shoulder as she shielded him with her own life on the line. A complicated swirl of emotion settled in his stomach; he had definitely fallen a little bit in love with her dashing figure and her firm determination, but he felt awfully selfish thinking that when Hiyori was willing to fight the most powerful god in heaven just to keep her vow to him.

Hiyori doesn't deserve to deal with all my garbage, he thought bitterly. Damn it, Mother, why couldn't you just let me stay dead like a normal person?

His eyes wandered the landscape below, pausing when he recognized the koi pond from the other day. His face grew warm as he remembered the marriage ceremony, momentarily distracted by that familiar swooping sensation in his chest that he'd started to feel every time he remembered he was now a married man. He just couldn't stay depressed when his most ardent wish had somehow, miraculously come true.

I have a wife, he thought, unable to hold back a stupid grin. A partner to spend the rest of my life with, just like I always dreamed...

He glanced at the red mark around his little finger, holding it up to the dappled light as he buried his cheek nervously in his arm. "Husband to the esteemed War God," he murmured, the words muffled by his sleeve. "Kouto would be so pissed if he knew," he chuckled quietly, feeling vindicated. As angry as he was about what the priest had done, Yato had to admit that if he'd known what awaited him on the other side of death, he'd probably have volunteered to be sacrificed in the first place. At least then he could have said he'd done it out of his own volition, with the intention to serve and help Hiyori as it should have been.

He blinked, flexing his fingers slightly. That was it. There wasn't anything he could do about his curse, and he couldn't change how Hiyori would feel about it, but at the very least, Yato could do the right thing and do his best to be a proper consort to support her. Whatever she needed of him, he would do it, he decided. It was the least he could do after everything she'd already done for him. She'd let him stay, been nothing but gentle and friendly, and had already proven more than once that she took her vows and their bond seriously. Even when face to face with Amaterasu, her language had been firm and unambiguous, leaving no doubt as to her intentions. Yato was her husband, her consort, and he was under her protection. Heat flushed through Yato's veins at the thought of her possessive words, and he hid his face in both arms even though no one was around to see him.

I belong somewhere. To someone. I finally have a family, another person, to belong to.

He wondered if it would ever be okay for him to say she belonged to him too, but a moment later he caught himself and winced out of reflex. Even Yato felt that was an unbelievably presumptuous thing to think, let alone say.

A sound in the garden below startled him, a high, warm laugh.

Yato straightened up, blushing at Hiyori's voice, and immediately looked over the railing in search of her. It took him a moment to find her crouched near a bed of irises, speaking with someone hidden by the leaves and trunk of a nearby magnolia tree.

"Don't be so dramatic!" Hiyori was saying, but she was laughing, obviously enjoying herself, and Yato swallowed back the ferocious longing rising in his throat at the loveliness of her smile.

Someone replied to her in a low voice he couldn't make out, and he saw her scoff playfully as she snapped several flowers from their stems and gathered them into a small bunch.

"Well, these are not for you," she scolded loudly as someone reached a hand toward her, as if to accept the flowers. Yato frowned slightly. Yukine and Hiiro were both far too tiny to have hands that large.

The voice said something else, and to Yato's horror, he saw Hiyori's face soften as a blush spread over her cheeks. He missed what she said next thanks to the blood pounding in his ears, but he saw very clearly as a handsome, dark-haired man came into view, laughing loudly.

"I thought you'd keep me waiting forever, Hiyori!" he said boisterously, and without warning he bent down to pull Hiyori into an embrace and whirled her around once.

Yato suddenly felt very sick, his hands tightening around the rail so hard that his fingers ached.

I see your cruel sense of humor is still alive and well, Mother, he thought bitterly.

He watched the man and Hiyori converse in low tones for a minute. They looked good together, a pair of attractive gods out of an old tale, wearing their hair up in similar styles and laughing carelessly at their shared banter. Hiyori seemed to know him well; perhaps she'd been in a relationship with him before Yato so rudely barged into her life. The more he watched, the more likely it seemed, until Yato felt dirty with the unbridled jealousy bubbling in the pit of his stomach.

The man suddenly offered Hiyori his arm and Yato decided he'd had enough.

"Well, fuck you too, asshole," he grumbled under his breath as he let go of the railing with the intention of going back indoors and burrowing under his blankets for the foreseeable future. He'd half-turned away from the sight of Hiyori reaching out to accept when she suddenly looked up and noticed him.

Her lovely eyes widened with surprise as she froze, her lips parted with a small gasp.

"Y-Yato?!"

Hiyori couldn't believe that no one had come to notify her the moment that Yato had woken up. She should have been summoned immediately, and she was momentarily furious with her shinki before she remembered that they were both still busy helping the sprites in the kitchens.

No one's been tending to him all morning! she realized, horrified that she could have been so distracted.

"Y-Yato, wait!!" she called as he backed away, startled at her cry, and disappeared into the depths of his apartments.

Takemikazuchi huffed, arms on his hips as he stared up at the balcony. "Well, that's just my luck; the little bugger ran away before I could get a good look at him, damn it."

Hiyori glared at her old friend. "Yato is off limits, Take! And I'll thank you to stop sending letters of challenge every time I get married."

The lightning god scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I don't care about wimpy little mortals anyway, you're the one I wanna fight. I just know you'll reply faster if I say I wanna fight your consorts instead. But..." he added slowly. "I admit that this time I was a bit curious to see what kinda human could make the strongest combat god in Heaven blush like an innocent young maiden," he teased with a smirk.

"I did not look like that!!"

"You absolutely did when you were picking those flowers for him," he shrugged. "I've seen you in love before, Hiyori, but never this... sickeningly. You barely even know the man."

"I'm not in love!" she snapped, furious. "I'm just worried about him, I worry about all my consorts!"

Take rolled his eyes, waving her anger away. "Whatever, I don't care. As long as you keep your promise to fight me, you can sit at his bedside, seduce him, eat him for dinner, not my problem. He's your human, not mine."

Hiyori scoffed derisively, privately thinking that she would relish crushing him into the ground later; Takemikazuchi was her only real ally in Heaven, but he only ever bothered to remember she existed when too much time passed between his constant challenges to fight her to the death. He wasn't quite a rival; he'd stepped in to stop Amaterasu from executing Hiyori and demanded she be afforded a trial by combat in accordance with her divine rights as a war god, but she'd later discovered that he'd only done so because he wanted to be the one to kill her himself.

At the time, Takemikazuchi had been well-regarded at court for his dislike of humans and his callousness when it came to warring with them, so he'd been the natural choice to lead the force sent to subdue and retrieve Hiyori when she ran away. She'd easily devastated and killed most of her pursuers, and Take's guidepost was severely injured in the battle, but Hiyori had apparently impressed Take so much that he'd become obsessed with the idea of fighting her in a proper duel.

He was even willing to instigate rebellion if it meant keeping her alive long enough to have the honor, and he'd argued that an execution without trial could set a dangerous precedent for Amaterasu to arbitrarily deny gods their rights. When that failed, he'd simply cut Hiyori free using his lightning, forcing Her Majesty to cooperate or risk a truly dangerous fight against two of the strongest combat gods in Heaven.

Having secured his duel, Hiyori proceeded to humiliate him and win her freedom, but even that wasn't enough of a deterrent to his newfound obsession. Once they'd both been punished for their insubordination (and Hiyori had been forced to comply with Amaterasu's stipulations and the terms of her new role as the so-called Guardian Deity), Take made it his mission in life to show up out of nowhere and challenge Hiyori to various contests of strength with their lives as collateral. Hiyori was always fine with that arrangement; she enjoyed being able to cut loose every once in a while, and though she never dealt the finishing blow (her excuse was always that since Take had saved her life, she couldn't claim a right to his), she had never once lost to him. As long as she kept winning, she could always count on him to come to her aid against other gods.

Take just liked trying to kill her far too much to allow anyone else to have the honor.

It was a relationship that no one else in Heaven seemed to understand, but it was as good a way to keep an ally as any, especially when Hiyori had so few options to choose from. Besides, she enjoyed having him around, for the most part. They had very little in common, but no one other than another combat god could understand the pure, instinctual freedom that came from the resolve of putting one's life on the line.

Unfortunately, war and the occasional bouts of almost-playful bickering were really the only things they could bond over. Takemikazuchi was violent and brash, and he held no love for humans or Regalia other than his own. He supported Hiyori because he liked fighting her, and that was it. They couldn't even hold a conversation for more than a few airy pleasantries before they either ended up in fisticuffs or in long, painfully awkward silences.

"You needn't worry about your bloody promise," Hiyori groused, annoyed. "But only after I've checked in on Yato first." She briefly considered simply leaping up onto the balcony instead of going to the trouble of going back indoors, but decided against it. It might be her house, but Yato's rooms were his own private space, and he might not like having people bursting in through the windows uninvited.

"Fine, just show me where the snacks and tea are," Take yawned, following after her as she marched off toward the house. "I haven't seen head or tail of your Regalia all day."

If he could find a spade, Yato would have happily dug a hole for himself to lie in.

He felt so stupid, running from Hiyori when she called for him. Like he'd been caught doing something wrong instead of just standing at his own balcony. Yes, he'd been eavesdropping a little bit, but he felt mildly entitled to it considering he was sure he'd accidentally walked in on an adulterous conversation.

I shouldn't be the one hiding! he groaned as he sat crouched against the wall in his parlor with his head in his hands. I'm not the one cheating on my spouse!

He let the vicious spite roll over him for a moment, just to feel anger at someone else for a little while. Yato was sick of wallowing in self-pity, and he didn't want to think about how Hiyori must have had attachments to other people before she was saddled with him for a consort. All he wanted was to be mad for a while, even if he knew deep down he really didn't have a right to.

"Stupid, tall, dark, and handsome bastard," he scowled, hugging his knees. Girls loved that type, didn't they? That's what they said in the village, anyway. Cool, chiseled guys who could obviously handle themselves in a fight, guys who wore fine clothes and stood proud no matter what they were doing. Yato couldn't possibly compete with a good-looking guy like that, not with his sickly complexion and girly face. Hiyori was probably just indulging him when she said all that nice stuff about him...

"ARGH! ENOUGH WITH THE FUCKING INFERIORITY COMPLEX!" he cried aloud, ruffling his own hair in frustration. "This is exactly why people can't stand you, idiot," he muttered to himself.

He thought back to the sweet sound of her laughter and the pretty, soft blush that had crept up her neck and face, and he realized that what he was really jealous of wasn't the other man at all. Yato simply wanted to be the one to make Hiyori look that happy.

It struck him then, what he'd been quietly trying not to notice since the moment he'd locked eyes with her that day in the bath. Heat pooled in his chest and belly, his nose and ears burning with the words he'd refused to say, even in the safety of his own mind.

"Am I... Do I love her?" he whispered to himself, and immediately felt like an idiot. Only fools believed in silly old wives tales like love at first sight. Master Kuraha had told him as much when he was still alive, and Yato had never really doubted the veracity of the old man's words. It seemed infinitely ridiculous to think one look was all it took to decide to love someone, even if that someone was a stunning war god who happened to be his wife. It had certainly never happened to him before, even when he'd been so lonely that he would have quite honestly taken anyone who would accept his proposal.

But maybe because Yato was so inexperienced, he had no way to judge whether he really loved Hiyori or not. Still, he could admit he at least liked her, and he very much wanted to continue being her husband, even if she really did have feelings for someone else.

He remembered his earlier promise to himself, to be a worthy consort of Hiyori even if she hated him, and took a deep breath, thinking that he shouldn't be selfish or possessive toward a woman who had been nothing but kind to him.

It wasn't like Hiyori owed him anything anyway, not even in a marriage. His feelings were irrelevant, especially since Yato hadn't done anything to show her how he felt, or even had enough time to really get to know her. Master Kuraha would have hit him over the head with considerable force if he'd known Yato had tried to rationalize his jealousy for even a second.

"You're about the age for this now, so I'll ask ya plain an' simple, kid. You like someone yet?"

"What?! No!!" Yato had exclaimed, mortified as his master went off on one of his seemingly random lectures around the time Yato was eleven years old. The grizzled old carpenter had chuckled at the boy's reaction, pausing in the middle of chopping wood.

"Well good. Love's too difficult for a little snot-rag like you yet. But it'll happen sooner n' later, mark my words. And when it does, you gotta remember that just 'cause you like somebody, it doesn't mean you get some kinda right or claim over that person. No one ever owes you their feelings. Period. And you don't owe nobody yours either. You can't go around thinking cause you love someone, and you do nice things to stay on their good side, that you own them or can control how they feel about you."

"You can't? Then how do you make someone like you back?"

"Y'don't," Kuraha said gruffly. "The only person in the word you can own and control is yourself, Yato-kun. That's true for every damned one of us, and it'll be true for whatever lad or lass catches your eye in the future too. Loving someone ain't about winning their heart, though plenty of idiots will try to tell you it is. Don't you listen to that bullshit. Love's about caring for people and doing what's best for 'em, even if it means sacrificing your own feelings in the process."

"Sacrifice? Like the thing we do for the War God?"

"Well... in a way," Kuraha admitted, stroking his beard. "There's different kinds of sacrifices, not just giving up your life. But yeah, I s'pose that ritual's a form o' love too."

"To show her we love her?"

"That, but also to show we love each other. The clan, and all people as a whole. Don't look like that, shrimp," his master scoffed. "I know you don't like the villagers, but you don't want bad things to happen to them either, right?"

"I guess not," Yato admitted, taking the axe to a decent sized piece of wood.

"That's the real magic of the ritual, see," Kuraha continued, watching the boy clumsily hack at the chopping block. "The reason the War God was subdued was because by choosing to die, our ancestor proved they were capable of love for others. It let the War God know that there were still people left who were worthy of being saved. The sacrifice died, lost everything and got nothing in return except the knowledge that his actions helped protect the people he cared about. That's what love is, and why you shouldn't be an entitled, selfish little bastard even when someone breaks your heart."

"I don't get it," Yato had frowned, confused. "You said you liked the blacksmith, but you were plenty mean when she broke up with you."

"Yeah well, don't listen to me when I'm in a bad mood and in my cups," Kuraha coughed nervously. "Listen when I'm bein' frank with you, this is important. Don't you ever be a piece o' garbage and force your feelings on someone else, no matter how much you think you love them. You can be mad and upset all you like, sure, but never think you're owed anything just because you're hurt. You listen to me and be a decent man when you grow up, y'hear?"

"It'd be a lot easier if I had some examples to work off of, Master Kuraha," Yato complained, glaring up at the parlor ceiling. If he was going to be a good husband, he'd have to learn how to be a decent partner first, and he didn't know how to do that without putting his own feelings and interests first. Courting seemed like exactly the wrong thing to do by his master's standards, and it wasn't like Yato had any experience with that anyway. He had no idea how to even begin showing a girl that he was interested in her, much less making her feel safe and comfortable in a relationship with him, even if it meant he had to accept that she had a lover on the side.

He didn't get a chance to dwell on the matter much further, because the door was suddenly thrown open and he looked up, shocked, to find Hiyori standing in the hall, her face red with exertion.

"Yato!! You're really awake!" she cried and rushed forward to kneel at his feet. She wasted no time in pressing a hand to his forehead and taking his face in her hands so she could get a good look at him.

He blushed, thrown off by her clean, flowery scent and obvious worry, his conflicted feelings temporarily forgotten.

"Oh. Uhm, hi," he said nervously in a tiny, cracked voice. "D-Did something happen?"

She frowned at him as she let him go and settled back onto the floor. "You've been asleep for three days, idiot. I've been worried sick about you; I wasn't sure if the healing spells were working or not-"

"Three days?!"

Hiyori nodded, her brow furrowed. "I've been checking in on you every couple of hours, but I had a guest and Hiiro and Yukine are having a bit of trouble in the kitchens-"

Yato winced at the casual mention of the other man, pettiness rising like bile in his throat.

"Yeah, well, I'm fine," he muttered, avoiding her eyes. "Don't worry 'bout me, Just... you can go back, I don't wanna get in the way-"

"In the way?"

He fidgeted, uncomfortable with the topic. "You know... you didn't just... choose to marry me, so... and I mean, I got no right to be upset if..."

She gave him a perplexed look. "Yato, I have no idea what you're trying to say. Are you sure you're alright?"

He grit his teeth, deciding to just get it over with.

"I'm saying that even if we're married, I have no right to get between you and your lover, okay?! Just go be with him already!"

Hiyori gaped at him, and to his horror she suddenly burst into loud, wild laughter.

"My WHAT?!" she cried, crying tears of mirth. She hiccuped violently, nearly hysterical.

"Y-You don't have to make fun of me, Hiyori!" Yato insisted, so embarrassed and hurt by her laughter that he couldn't help digging in his heels. "I'm just tryin' to be understanding-"

She doubled over, laughing, if possible, even harder as she clutched her stomach.

"Oh, no, I'm so- AHAHA- sorry! B-But what in the world gave you the idea that I have a-a lover?!" she wheezed after a few desperate gulps of air.

Yato flushed, petulant at being forced to say it aloud. "I saw you in the garden with him," he muttered, avoiding her gaze.

Hiyori had to cover her mouth with her hands to avoid bursting into a new fit of mad giggles.

"You... y-ou're talking about Take?! Takemikazuchi, the Lightning God, my guest?!"

"I saw how you looked at him!" Yato groaned, feeling stupider by the second "You... You were so happy, and blushing, a-and..."

Hiyori took his hands to reassure him, but it took her a while to catch her breath enough to hold a proper conversation again.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to laugh at you," she said once she'd sobered up. "It's just... honestly, Yato, you couldn't have picked a worse person to have this kind of misunderstanding over."

"What, why?"

"I would rather die than be in a relationship with Takemikazuchi," she said flatly, holding his fingers gently. "He's an old friend of mine, he saved me from a difficult situation a long time ago, and we have duels sometimes. He tries to kill me, I enjoy thwarting him. That's it."

She paused, giving the words time to sink in, and Yato perked up, not daring to believe what he thought she was saying.

"So then... he's not-"

"I've never had a lover in my life," she said with a small smile. But then a sad sort of look crossed her face and she hesitated slightly. "That being said... Yato, you..." she began, biting her lip.

"W-What is it?" he asked, unnerved by her sudden change in tone.

She shook her head resolutely and squeezed his hands. "No. it's not important, but..."

Her voice was so resigned that Yato felt a horrible sense of foreboding settle over him.

"Hiyori...?"

"There's... There's something we need to talk about, Yato," she said, releasing his hands and clasping them over her lap. "Something... something I can't put off any longer."

Chapter Text

It was so much harder to focus when he was sitting across from her, those storm-tossed eyes so close that Hiyori could feel her resolve wavering as he focused on her like she was the only other person in his world.

She felt exposed under that gaze, that same sensation of someone frankly looking past all her defenses and right into her soul.

Please, stop staring at me like that, she thought, trying to gather her nerves. She could feel her face growing warmer by the second, her thoughts naturally drawn back to the last time he'd looked at her with that intensity.

"Hiyori?"

She gave a tiny start at the sound of her name, and realized she'd completely spaced out for a minute, her heart thudding at the memory of her hands against his chest, of that feeling just before she thought he would kiss her...

Yato seemed worried, his mouth quirked into a small, concerned frown. It only made Hiyori feel worse about the fact that she was about to break his painfully young heart.

"O-Oh, I'm okay," she murmured, clearing her throat. "I'm... sorry, I'm just not quite sure where to begin," she admitted.

"Start wherever you want, I'll ask if I don't understand something," he assured her earnestly.

She sighed. It had to be done.

"It's a complicated story," she said quietly, staring down at her interlaced fingers to avoid looking at him directly. "And I should have told you about this before, on the day of the ceremony-"

"It's fine, I was a little busy being knocked out cold," he said with a rueful smile. "It's not your fault."

But it IS, she thought sadly.

"Yato... Do you understand why you're here?" she asked slowly, glancing up as her fingernails pressed a series of nervous half-moons into the back of her hands.

He cocked his head, confused. "I thought these were my rooms?"

Hiyori couldn't help smiling at him. "Yes, they are. That's not what I meant."

"Oh, you meant here, here," he said sheepishly. "Of course you did, I'm an idiot," he added under his breath. "I'm here... uhm, here to be your... y'know," he muttered, his face reddening as he avoided her gaze. "Partner, or whatever."

What a cute reaction, she thought warmly, pushing down the desire to tease him for his innocent bashfulness.

"Yes, you're here to be my consort, bound to me by Imperial decree," she said, clearing her throat. "I told you before, that here in the Celestial Plain, I'm held in very low regard. I also told you that most gods despise humans."

"Y-Yeah, you did."

"Doesn't it strike you as strange that you're here to marry me, then?"

He blinked, his brow furrowing.

"Well... now that I think about it," he admitted. "Why is there a law that says gods have to marry humans who arrive in the Celestial Plain if humans are hated here?"

Hiyori gave him a pained grimace.

"There is no such law," she said.

Yato stared at her. "But... you said-"

"There's no law that says gods have to marry humans," she continued. "But there is a law that says I, personally, cannot refuse a human consort when one is sent to me."

"What? Why?!"

"Because, I'm-"

But Hiyori never got any further as a drawling voice echoed in the hallway, cutting her short.

"Oyy, Hiyori, you done up here yet?" There was a loud, drawn out yawn and Takemikazuchi appeared around the door, looking bored. Yato jumped at his interruption, falling back against the wall with a strangled cry as he clutched his chest with clawed fingers. "You said you were gonna check on him, not spend all day chatting," the god noted, examining his own fingernails lazily.

Hiyori felt her temper spike at his condescending expression. Take had no use for anyone who couldn't pose a challenge for his strength, and he'd always been a bit of an ass when Hiyori showed more interest in humans than in fighting him. She never minded his bad manners when it was just her, but her spouses sometimes minded quite a lot; Hiyori didn't know Yato well enough to know his opinion, but she didn't think he'd enjoy being put down by someone he didn't even know yet. Frankly, she didn't like the idea of Take putting Yato down either, not after he'd already proven he had rather low self-esteem.

"Take, who the hell do you think you are, wandering around in my house and coming into my consort's rooms without permission?!" she scolded angrily.

"Does it matter?" Take scoffed. "It's not like I was interrupting anything good, you wouldn't leave the door open if you were-" For the first time he seemed to notice Yato and he raised an eyebrow so high it was almost comical. "Well," he noted, interested. "I definitely get it now." Without so much as an invitation he came right in and leaned down to take Yato's face in his hand, ignoring the boy's frozen shock at the newcomer's rudeness. "I've never seen one like this before," Take whistled, turning Yato's chin toward the light from the balcony. "Since when do they make them this pretty? And those eyes, they're-" he paused, frowning, and leaned in to sniff Yato's hair as though it were perfectly normal. Hiyori sputtered behind him, paralyzed by her indignant fury as he manhandled her consort.

"Take!!"

"Is that... Have you smelled this, Hiyori?!" Take exclaimed, completely oblivious to her anger. Hiyori saw Yato's face burn with shame and pained discomfort as Take roughly pulled him toward her by the front of his robes as if to offer her a sniff. "He's got a fucking aura, a god-quelling scent! Are they always like this?!"

Hiyori lunged forward, wrenching his wrists away from Yato. The poor, helpless human was practically screaming for help with his wide, confused eyes. "Unhand him, right now!" she snarled, putting all her strength into her fingers so that even Take had to hiss in pain as he let go.

"Tch," he said, holding his hands up with an irritated sort of look. "I wasn't gonna kill him or anything, yeesh, Hiyori, lighten up."

"I don't care, you have no right going around inappropriately touching another god's consort-"

Take's nose wrinkled in disgust.

"You really are losing it," he spat. "I wouldn't 'touch' filth like that if you paid me, you're the one who gets all wet for weak little insects-"

"H-Hey, you don't talk to her like that!" Yato finally managed, eyes flashing with anger as he gathered his wits. He got to his feet and threw an arm between Take and Hiyori, seemingly forgetting that he was up against a god. Hiyori blinked up at the back of his shoulders, thrown by his sudden ferocity. "Apologize!" he demanded.

"Oh, so he talks too," Take sneered coldly, towering over them both. Yato stood firm, and Hiyori groaned at his exasperating (and mildly offensive) bravado.

I'm not the one who needs to be shielded here, fool, she thought irritably, but before she could get a word in edgewise, Yato poked a finger provokingly into Takemikazuchi's chest, all humility and fear forgotten in his anger.

"That's right, I do," Yato snarled in return. Something about the tone of his voice made the hair on the back of Hiyori's neck stand on end, something unnatural and grating. It was very unlike him, she thought, but very fitting at the same time. "Say whatever the fuck you want about me, but don't you dare insult Hiyori!"

She stared, her mouth open in total shock at his change in demeanor. The Yato she'd known so far had been a relatively shy person, quick to apologize and lower his head. She'd never seen him show such confidence or voice such powerful anger, much less threaten someone who could quite easily snap his neck in two.

What the hell are you doing, you idiot?! she tried to say, but the words were stuck in her throat, her alarm so pronounced that she seemed to be reacting in painfully slow motion.

Take grinned, a murderous, cold smile.

"You really don't know your place, do you, worm?" he jeered, almost as though he were enjoying himself. He easily slapped Yato's hand away and narrowed his eyes at the shorter man. "Don't you know what a disgrace you're making of your god, not even using an honorific for her name?"

"What?" Yato asked, taken aback.

"It's not you who looks bad when you don't follow court etiquette," Take said with a derisive snort. "It's Hiyori who loses face when her human thinks himself high enough to address her so familiarly. You might be her consort, but that doesn't mean you're her equal. And picking a fight with a combat deity..." The air around him crackled with electricity as he spoke. "You're either very powerful, or very, very stupid, boy. Hiyori might not be allowed to kill you, but I sure as hell can."

Hiyori snapped into action, ducking under Yato's arm and slamming her elbow powerfully into Take's stomach. He doubled over and Hiyori took the opportunity to yank Yato behind her by the scruff of his yukata, ignoring his yelp of complaint.

"That's it, get out of my house," she said fiercely, doing her best to keep Yato out of view as she crossed her arms and glared at her guest. "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times: my consorts aren't your bloody playthings, Takemikazuchi."

His eyes flashed with excitement at the violence promised in her tone. "Fight me, then. I ain't leaving until you're dead or you've kicked me out yourself."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Fine. You asked for it."

Yato never got a chance to protest the idea of two gods fighting in his rooms. He barely even had time to process what they'd said before Hiyori suddenly struck forward, her foot connecting with Takemikazuchi's shoulder with such speed and ruthlessness that the visitor was knocked unceremoniously through the open parlor window and into the balcony. The wooden rail splintered as the god slammed into it, and he coughed, spitting out a mouthful of blood.

He wiped it off with the back of his hand and an unhinged, bloodthirsty smile spread over his handsome face.

"Finally," he said, his eyes bright as Hiyori glared down at him, her expression so twisted and enraged that Yato could barely believe she was the same girl who had looked so sad and hurt during their earlier conversation. Her eyes, normally so soft and warm, seemed to be burning red with anger, and as she gave Take a cruel, derisive sneer, Yato could have sworn he noticed an abnormally sharpened canine peeking over her lip.

"Don't complain when I tear the limbs from your corpse," she said, her tone so icy that Yato instinctively stepped back, unnerved by the sudden change.

He blinked once, but when his eyes opened a breath of a second later, they were both gone. He rushed toward the balcony, panicked, and saw them fighting viciously in the garden below, so fast he felt dizzy trying to watch.

"Hi-Hiyori!" he cried out, worried, as Take hit her in the stomach and smashed her back against a tree with brutal force. She gasped in pain for only a moment before she pushed off from the trunk to avoid a lightning-strike in the palm of Take's outstretched hand.

"Stand still, damn it!" he growled as she leapt onto a branch above.

"What are you, an idiot?" Hiyori taunted, seemingly uninjured. "You need your opponents to take pity on you now? No wonder Bishamonten wiped the floor with you!"

Yato watched, mesmerized, as she dodged several of his blows with all the grace of a lithe cat, a wild grin on her lips. She definitely seemed to be enjoying herself as she landed several blows without mercy, laughing with mad abandon as Takemikazuchi grew increasingly frustrated. Yato yelped as she suddenly stumbled on a root and Take managed to twist her arm behind her back for a moment, but she easily used his own momentum against him and threw him over her head as though he didn't weigh a thing.

It was like nothing Yato had ever seen before; it wasn't just their speed and strength, or even the strange elegance of their movements as they played out their deadly dance across the garden grounds. There was something ruthless and primitive about their lack of fear, their complete focus on tearing each other apart as though they were a pair of rabid dogs aiming for the other's throat. There was not a shred of restraint in their blows, and though Take was definitely at a disadvantage, Hiyori took her fair share of injuries as the fight wore on. Yato had no doubt now where those bruises and scars from the other day had come from.

"Oh for fuck's sake, not again!!"

Yato nearly jumped out of his skin as Yukine's voice shouted from inside his parlor. He whirled around to find the young shinki scowling at the damaged balcony.

"Every goddamned time!" he complained, putting a tray down on the table with obvious force as he stomped forward. Ignoring Yato entirely, he leaned over the ruined railing and bellowed at the gods below. "OI!! QUIT DESTROYING MY FUCKING GARDEN, TAKEMIKAZUCHI-SAMA!!"

Neither god seemed to hear his shout.

"In fairness, I think Hiyori is the one destroying most of it," Yato noted, wincing slightly as Hiyori slammed Take face-first into the churned, muddied mess of what had moments ago been immaculate flowerbeds. Yukine glanced at the sound of his voice and did a double-take when he realized his master's husband was awake.

"When the hell did you wake up?!" Yukine demanded, furious. "And why are you just standing there, gawking like a fucking idiot?!"

"What exactly are you expecting me to do?!" Yato asked, incredulous. "I'm just a human, remember?!"

Yukine muttered under his breath, but it was too low for Yato to make out.

"S-Should I be doing something to try and calm her?" he asked awkwardly, remembering that he'd been killed specifically to keep Hiyori from rampaging.

"No, dumbass," Yukine said, rolling his eyes as a tree fell with a thunderous crash. "It doesn't work like that, and it'll be over soon enough." He suddenly but calmly forced Yato down by the shoulder as an arc of lightning lashed against the palace wall, spraying debris over them. "Only thing you can do is get inside and try not to get yourself killed."

Footsteps echoed behind them and Hiiro appeared in the hall, trailed by a tall stranger with snow-white hair and a scar across his nose.

"Oh, you're awake," Hiiro said, surprised to see Yato up and about. "I came up to move you out of harm's way, I didn't know you'd recovered-"

"Oi, Kiun, tell your master to stop fucking up my garden!" Yukine interrupted angrily, addressing the stranger. "Do you have any idea how many years of work I've put into it?!"

The man (or shinki, Yato corrected himself) hesitated, as though he were wondering whether Yukine required an actual answer or not.

"This century, please!!" the boy snarled.

Kiun swept forward, but stopped as he noticed Yato standing there and offered him a small bow.

"Apologies for intruding on your private quarters, Lord Consort," he said quickly, but before Yato could tell him it was fine, and that he wasn't worth the trouble of bowing, the man hurried out to have a look at the fight still playing out below.

"Takemikazuchi-sama!" he shouted sternly. "If you do not cease your destruction of Yukine-kun's garden, I will be forced to enact a ban of your favorite sweets in the kitchens!!"

Take froze for a moment as he looked up at the familiar voice, giving Hiyori the opening she needed to finish things. With a sickening thud, she punched him across the face, knocking him off his feet and to the ground, dazed.

"Hmph," she huffed, eyeing her opponent with distaste as she dusted off her hands. "Just because I also lost to Bishamonten in the last tournament doesn't mean you're anywhere near ready to kill me, Takemikazuchi-dono."

Take groaned. "Damn it all, Kiun, you bastard!!"

"Is it over?" Yato asked Yukine, uncertain.

"Yup," Yukine sighed. "And now I gotta start repairing everything they destroyed."

"I can help," Yato offered as Kiun hopped down from the balcony to retrieve his master. Yukine cast him a dubious glance but Yato merely rolled up his sleeves. "I was a carpenter, remember? Fixing a busted railing is child's play. No offense," he added hastily. Both Yukine and Hiiro scowled at him.

"Whatever, just don't fuck anything else up," Yukine warned, snapping his fingers and magicking a rolled up pouch of tools from thin air. "Hiiro-"

"Yeah, already on it," she replied, following after Kiun so she could tend to her own mistress.

Hiyori was almost surprised at how easily her bloodlust faded after the thrashing she'd given Take. She'd been coping without a consort for long enough that she'd half-forgotten the ease with which their mere proximity soothed away the anger and violence once there was nothing left to focus it on.

Just like that, back to normal, she thought, eyeing her scraped palms with mild interest. Hiiro sighed, bandaging up several nasty cuts on the back of her arm.

"Just once, milady, would it kill you and Takemikazuchi-dono to just enjoy a cup of tea in peace?"

"I didn't start it," Hiyori complained. "He was looking for a fight!"

"And it didn't occur to you that we have an arena for training in before you destroyed half the gardens?"

Hiyori flushed, annoyed at herself for having forgotten that in her wrath. "Wasn't any time," she mumbled.

"Mhm," Hiiro said flatly. She dipped her fingers into a thick medicinal paste sitting on the table and dabbed it on her master's shoulder.

"Hiyori-sama, we'll be taking our leave now." Kiun appeared at the door to the downstairs parlor, bowing respectfully. "I apologize sincerely for all the trouble my master is always causing you."

Hiyori glanced up at him, slightly weary.

"I don't mind fighting him, or even just having him visit," she admitted. "Just tell him to stop going after my consorts like that. I owe Takemikazuchi a life debt, but that doesn't mean he has any right to think he owns my time and attention, or to treat members of my household without respect. Next time he tries to hurt Yato, I'll throw him off the Realm Bridge," she warned.

"Yes, Milady," Kiun said, bowing low. "I will be sure to keep a better eye on him in the future."

"Good."

The Regalia excused himself, and Hiyori sighed as Hiiro moved on to another wound.

"Did the sprites get sorted out in the kitchens?" she asked, remembering the earlier commotion.

"Yes, though they managed to destroy a good portion of tonight's dinner preparations," Hiiro grumbled. "We're going to have to spend all afternoon cooking."

"Poor things," Hiyori mused, flexing her bandaged arm. "They're trying so hard, they're just..."

"Unfathomably stupid," Hiiro finished for her.

"Well... yes," Hiyori said, wincing. "But they're loyal and they always get so depressed after they mess up..."

"Pitiful is the word you're looking for, Lady Hiyori," Hiiro scoffed. "You always did have a soft spot for the weak and helpless," she added pointedly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Hiyori sniffed, insulted. Yukine chose that moment to come downstairs with Yato in tow, and Hiyori unconsciously met his eyes with a small, slightly abashed smile.

"Right," Hiiro said drily under her breath. "It's not relevant at all."

Hiyori pretended she hadn't heard anything.

"How did the repairs go?" she asked Yukine. Her shinki gave her a mildly resentful frown.

"The gardens will take weeks to recover," he said irritably.

Hiyori blushed. "I'm sorry, I never meant to ruin all your hard work."

Yukine sighed.

"S'fine," he muttered. "I can fix it. I at least don't have to worry about the repairs to the house, cause his lordship over here," he noted, rudely pointing over his shoulder at Yato, "fixed the rail up faster than I thought possible. Just the walls left now. We'll tackle them tomorrow."

"You fixed it?" Hiyori asked Yato, surprised. He fidgeted slightly, all shyness and awe once more.

"It was just a quick fix, I'll still need to lacquer the wood and smooth down the edges later," he mumbled, his face pink.

"He wasn't lying about being a carpenter, at least," Yukine scoffed. "A pretty talented one too. For a human."

Everyone stared at him, shocked.

"What?!" Yukine asked, bristling. "Just because he's good at something doesn't mean I don't hate him!!"

Hiyori and Hiiro both burst into laughter, and even Yato managed a grin. Once Hiiro had regained control, she coughed politely into her fist and began to put the extra bandages and medicines away.

"You'll be wanting afternoon tea, I suppose, Milady?" she asked.

"If you'd be so kind, Hiiro. You can have a seat, Yato," Hiyori noted as the human shuffled uncomfortably on his feet, clearly uncertain as to what he was expected to do. Both Regalia excused themselves, leaving the couple alone for the second time that day.

"Thanks," Yato said, sitting stiffly across from her once Yukine left the room with a glare in his direction. "Uhm... you okay, Hiyori?" he asked nervously. He kept his eyes down, but Hiyori instinctively pulled her sleeve over her arm to keep the bruises and cuts out of sight.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine," she said, self-conscious. Even though Yato had already seen her with scars, she couldn't help feeling a little uncomfortable at the thought that he'd seen her in one of her violent rages. What if he's scared of me now?

"I'm sorry you got into a fight because of me," he winced.

"Don't be, it wasn't your fault," Hiyori said, frowning. Instead of looking relieved, however, Yato seemed to sink in on himself in shame.

"It kinda was," he said in a small voice. "I completely forgot what you said, about having to address you with honorifics in front of other gods. I insulted you, that's not okay."

"It's fine," she said, sighing. "It would have been a problem with any other god, but Take is hardly a paragon of gentility. Don't worry about him."

"It's not about him," Yato insisted, shaking his head. "It's about me screwing things up even though you just taught me about this the other day..."

He placed his hands listlessly on the table, scratching at the calluses on the sides of his fingers without really paying attention to what he was doing.

"I hate being so stupid," he said in a small, barely audible voice. "I wanted to be useful and help, and I just made things way worse. I'm sorry, Hiyori."

Hiyori hesitated, then reached across the table to touch his hand.

"You're not stupid," she said. "You're uneducated. That's not the same thing," she said firmly.

"It isn't?" he asked, surprised.

"No, it's not. I know I said you would need to learn a great deal to live here, but you've been unconscious for days; you haven't had any opportunities to learn things yet. It can't be helped if you forgot something we told you over three days ago. It's partly my fault anyway, since I've been insisting you call me by name all this time." Hiyori offered him a smile, hoping to ease his mood. "We'll start your studies tomorrow, if you're feeling well enough, so don't blame yourself so much, Yato."

His cheeks flushed slightly, but Hiyori was surprised when he tugged his hand out of her grip.

"T-Thanks," he said, avoiding her eyes. "Sorry, I didn't mean to complain or anything-"

"It's fine, you really don't have to feel responsible or guilty," she said, a little hurt as she let her hands fall into her lap. She'd been touching him since they'd met, but this was the first time he'd pulled away from her, and it stung more than she wanted to admit. An awkward silence fell between them, and it was only broken when Hiiro appeared with a tray a few minutes later.

"You would not believe how upset Yukine is about his ruined vegetables right now," she said frankly as she unloaded the teapot and poured them both, completely oblivious to the strange mood in the room. "I don't think I've ever seen him so close to actual tears before."

She shook her head as if replying to herself and left without waiting for a response.

Yato spent the rest of the day upstairs in his room. He felt exhausted despite not having done much more than a few repairs, and it was still light out when he crawled into his bedding and began to doze off again.

He was glad that Hiyori had assumed he was still recovering and told him to get some rest; he'd meant to come clean and explain about his curse, but when he'd found himself face to face with her, her beautiful eyes piercing through his soul, he just couldn't bring himself to say it. He couldn't bear the thought of her anger and hatred if she knew he was the reason she'd gotten hurt in her fight (no matter what she said, he couldn't shake the feeling that it would never have come to blows if he hadn't been so dense and useless).

I know I have to tell her. I know it, he thought, squeezing his eyes shut. But I don't want this to end... not yet. Just a little longer...

He turned over, his stomach aching with guilt. It would be too late if something happened to Hiyori or her retainers. Yato wasn't a fool, he understood that too well. A few more days, that's all he wanted. A few days to let himself dream, to pretend he could be happy. It was a small enough wish that he hoped it wasn't asking for too much.

It never occurred to him that Hiyori hadn't been able to finish her important discussion from that morning. As he fell into an uneasy sleep, Yato could only dream of the soft warmth of her hands, and how much he'd wanted to kiss her palms.

Chapter Text

Snow crunches loudly beneath his feet, each step a crack of thunder echoing through the lifeless forest. Not even birds call out in the eerie silence, nor does the wind rustle through the trees as the sun sets behind the peak of a mountain. A blanket of darkness, quilted with stars, falls slowly across the sky, beautiful and unfathomable in it's lethal chill.

He shivers violently in his undercoat as he comes to rest beneath a gnarled old tree. This is not how his life was supposed to go; he'd been crossing the mountain pass, on his way to earn the last of the savings required for the dowry he'd need to find a wife in the coming year. He'd worked as a field hand before, and had thought nothing of the journey from his village to the next town over. Until the cliff side gave way beneath his little cart of possessions, his only concern had been the fact that he still hadn't set his heart on any girl in particular.

"At least that means there won't be anyone who will have to mourn me," he says to himself. It's actually a much more comforting thought than he expected it to be; his indecision has at least spared a poor girl from the heartbreak of losing her betrothed.

He sighs, debating whether it's worth using what little strength he has left to work a spell against the cold. It won't work for very long, and it won't keep predators from attacking him, but it would at least comfort him for a little while.

The old language feels heavy on his frostbitten tongue, but he manages enough to bring a small, cat-like form into being. It's made entirely of flame, but safe to touch, and it radiates gentle warmth as it curls up in his lap, purring. He smiles at it tiredly, running his stiff fingers through its strange, not-quite corporeal fur. Magic is his most prized talent; plenty of people can tap into the natural energy of the world, but few have the skill and imagination to manipulate it the way he can. It's a shame he won't be able to pass his skills on to his own children someday.

Exhaustion settles in his bones as the cat-flame melts away the cold. His dark eyes droop closed, his head lolling against the rough bark of the tree, and he thinks it's not such a terrible way to die after all. He'll let the flame sap his remaining strength until he falls asleep, and when it can't feed off his life force any longer, it will disappear and the cold will take him. He won't feel a thing.

But death won't come for him tonight. Instead, he wakes to the sensation of soft, warm hands shaking him vigorously by the shoulders.

"Wake up! Can you hear me?! Please wake up!"

He groans, his consciousness returning with the painful aching of his limbs. It takes some time to blink the frost out of his eyes, but when at last he does, he finds himself face to face with a pair of cat-like eyes, almost like the ones he'd given his flame summoning. But these are not the smoldering eyes of a fire spirit; they're the wide, clear eyes of the wilderness itself.

He cannot reply, but the stranger's voice seems pleased enough by his return to consciousness.

"You're alright," it says, and something thick and warm is thrown around his shoulders. "I was afraid you were dead."

He can say or do nothing as his savior leans in to press their forehead to his, a spell murmured into the air between them, and then warmth flows around them, a current of air like liquid honey, and he recognizes the magic for what it is almost immediately.

"Th-thank y-you, k-kami-sama," he croaks with great difficulty. The god offers him a small, relieved smile, and just like that, the curse of fate repeats itself for the rest of eternity, over and over again.

Yato was woken, not by Yukine, but by the bizarre sound of someone tapping on the tatami next to his head. He groaned, annoyed, and rolled over in his bedding to find a distorted dark shadow looming over him, lit only by the backdrop of a candle burning in the parlor through the open door.

"AHHH!!" he screamed, backing away into the wall with a tremendous thud as he smashed the back of his head into the wood. His vision swam with pain as he whimpered, cradling his head, and hardly a couple of minutes later, there was the sound of feet thundering in the hall and Hiiro appeared in his apartments in her nightclothes, slamming the door open.

"Yato-sama, what-?!" she picked up the candle and looked into his bedroom, eyes wide with concern.

"Hiiro-san," he said hoarsely. "That- There's-" he pointed at the shadow, which seemed to have been so startled by his reaction that it had fallen back against the shoji. In the light of the flame, it remained indistinct and smoky, a swirl of darkness condensed into the vague shape of a small person.

Hiiro held up the candle and squinted into the darkness for a moment, then sighed. "That Yukine, for fuck's sake," she complained, clicking her tongue irritably. "It's fine, milord, it's not gonna hurt you," she said, regarding Yato with a mildly contemptuous look in her eyes. "Yukine probably sent it to wake you so he wouldn't have to do it himself. Come on, stop huddling like a child," she said, addressing the shadow impatiently. "At least pretend you know how to show respect in the presence of one of your masters."

Though it had no discernible face, Yato easily understood the creature's body language as it shuffled forward in obvious shame and bowed deeply at him. It straightened up and Yato thought he could sense an apologetic feeling emanating from it.

"It's sorry it scared you, I think," Hiiro confirmed. "Though, it's hard to tell with some of them."

"Oh... uhm, it's okay," Yato said awkwardly. He didn't really understand what the creature was or why it was little more than a shade, but he could certainly empathize with causing someone trouble without meaning to. "I was just startled, didn't mean to scream..."

The shadow cocked its head slightly, which Yato interpreted as reassurance of its own.

"Alright, you've done what you were ordered to do," Hiiro said with a yawn. "I can handle it from here, go back to the kitchens," she told it. The shade gave another bow and quietly left the room.

"What was that?" Yato asked as Hiiro put the candle down on the floor and pulled one of his chests open.

"A sprite," she answered, rummaging for clothes. "They're basically servants for gods."

"Like shinki?"

Hiiro shot him a glare. "No, shinki are more like retainers, we were people once. Sprites are natural manifestations, sort of condensed energy. They don't actually have souls."

"Huh?"

"Ever seen a gust of wind blow at just the right time to send a leaf swirling through the air? Or a short rain shower appear out of nowhere on a hot day in the summer?" she asked. "Little things like that, when nature seems to have a mind of its own, that's how sprites are born. They're usually formless, just wisps of light and shadow, but when taken under the wing of a god, they can hold a faint human shape and have enough will and intelligence to do things like cooking and cleaning. At least, they're supposed to," Hiiro sighed to herself. "Ours are pathetically stupid."

"Ours?" Yato asked.

"Mm, the ones the court assigned to our household," Hiiro said, choosing a dark green kimono and holding it up thoughtfully. "We have six, but we might as well have none, considering how much trouble they cause. Since milady is in such bad standing at court, we got all the weak, unwanted ones... most gods have dozens of them, but even just one is supposed to do a lot of housework by itself. Not ours though, Yukine and I end up picking up a lot of their slack."

"That's..."

"Depressing? Infuriating? Unfair?"

"I was going to say sad," Yato said, wincing. "It's not their fault they're weak..."

"Ugh, you sound just like milady," she tsked, handing over his clothes. "'Be patient with them, Hiiro, they're trying their best!' or 'Don't yell at them when they mess up, they'll be upset!' Upset, hah! I'm just trying to keep this place running, it's hard enough without things catching fire every other day!"

Yato barely heard her tirade; he was too busy reveling in the lovely, warm feeling forming in his chest at being told he had something in common with Hiyori. He hugged the clothes in his arms, wondering if it was too impertinent of him to feel so happy about something so small.

Thankfully Hiiro didn't seem to notice his momentary lapse into fantasy. Yato was starting to understand that as clever and observant as Hiiro was, she didn't have much interest in the emotional subtleties of others. She clearly had more important things to concern herself with.

"Anyway, don't worry about them too much," she assured him as she picked out an obi and a pair of sandals and set them down at the edge of his bedding. "They usually keep out of sight, and they're incapable of causing harm on purpose. Yukine isn't supposed to be using them to get out of his responsibilities," she scowled.

"It's okay," Yato said hastily. "I don't really mind, I just wasn't expecting to find someone next to my futon when I woke up."

"Whether you mind or not isn't the point," Hiiro snapped. "Yukine is your caretaker, so Yukine is the one who has to look after your needs. Now hurry up and get dressed, I still have to wake Hiyori-sama, so I can't help with the rest of your preparations, but I'll send Yukine to come get you for breakfast as soon as I get my hands on him. You don't know your way around yet."

She picked up the candle and stalked out of his room, stopping only to return the light to the table and slide the balcony door open. Cold air rushed into his apartments, but it was the welcome, crisp breeze of early morning, and Yato felt considerably more awake now that he could hear birds chirping in the gardens outside.

"Thank you, Hiiro-san," he called as she closed the door to the hall.

"Quit using honorifics with me!" she scolded, snapping it shut.

For the first time since he'd arrived in Takamagahara, Yato was escorted down to the main hall for a proper breakfast in his new home. The meals he'd had so far had mostly been informal, brought to his room or an extremely casual affair in a parlor or outside in the gardens. He felt strangely nervous as Yukine walked him downstairs, grudgingly explaining the etiquette expected of him as a god's consort.

"You sit on the right side of the table," he was saying in a flat, toneless voice. Yato had noted a mark on the Regalia's cheek that made him suspect Hiiro had had her say about his attempt to skive off that morning, and Yukine had definitely been in an even surlier mood than usual when he came to get his new master. "Never the head of the table, that's for her only. You're in the second seat of honor, facing whatever guest is seated in the first seat to milady's left. You're served first, as the Lord Consort, but you can't actually start eating until after Hiyori-sama and the guests do. You also never speak without being spoken to, or get up from the table until Lady Hiyori does. Got it?"

"I sit on Hiyori's right, I don't say anything and I wait for everyone else before I touch my plate," Yato recited, nervous.

"You also kneel when you eat, sitting cross-legged at the table is insanely rude," Yukine added, leading Yato down yet another seemingly endless hall.

"Okay. Anything else?"

"Don't knock anything over or drop food in your lap, don't choke or cough, or make any weird noises when you chew, and always give thanks for the food even if no one else does; you're human so you gotta be grateful. Just, try to be as unobtrusive and invisible as possible."

"That all?" Yato asked, raising a brow. "You don't want me to stop breathing too?"

"Ha ha," Yukine snapped. "If you could, I would. That kind of physiological reflex is instinctive, you can't stop it even if you don't need it. Unfortunately."

They reached the dining room, which was completely deserted. The long table was empty except for two cushions on the floor, one at the very head, in front of the open garden doors, and the other directly on the left side (Yato had to momentarily reassure himself it wasn't a trap, that the left side of the table was the right side in relation to Hiyori's place; he didn't trust Yukine not to spring a test on him out of nowhere). The shinki led Yato to that seat, and watched with a hawk's eye as the human nervously knelt down, back straight.

"Hmph. It'll do," he grumbled. "Milady will be in shortly, just wait there. Quietly."

He left before Yato could voice any complaints.

He sighed, rolling his shoulders slightly while he waited.

At least the doors are open, he thought, watching the branches of the trees in the gardens sway gently back and forth. The damage from the day before was thankfully on the other side of the building, so the area outside the dining room was as lush and vivid as ever, and Yato felt his nerves settle as he let nature lull him into a lazy, disjointed daydream.

I wonder if I could get some wood and a bit of a workshop going if I asked for it... he thought, thinking it would be nice to sit in the shade of a tree and whittle for a while. Yato wasn't used to sitting around in luxury, and he missed having his tools on hand to keep him busy.

His feet were starting to cramp a bit when Hiiro and Hiyori finally came downstairs about thirty minutes later, and their entrance snapped him back to reality.

"Good morning," he said immediately, bowing his head slightly as Yukine'd told him he should. Hiiro raised an eyebrow at him but said nothing as she followed behind her mistress.

"Mm, morning," Hiyori yawned. She was dressed as informally as ever, her pale green kimono thrown over her shoulders and loosely tied at the waist, but today she seemed even more carefree than usual. Her hair was still rumpled from sleep, and she kept smacking the brush in Hiiro's hands away with mild annoyance. Her feet were completely bare, and it was obvious that she wasn't fully awake yet. Anyone else probably would have seemed sloppy and rude for it, but there was a curious grace under it all, some charming quality that made Yato think of a drowsy, ruffled bird or a sleep-heavy cat grudgingly preparing to meet the day. It suited Hiyori so well that it was hard not to smile at the careless charm and endearing simplicity.

She stifled another yawn into her sleeve as she passed him and took her own seat.

"You look tired, Hiyori," he noted. Hiiro immediately stood behind her and began attacking her hair with the brush, and Hiyori only made a small groan of discomfort before giving in, her eyes drooping closed in the morning light. "Did you sleep enough?"

"Hmm?" she asked, turning to him. She stared at him blankly for a good minute and suddenly flushed so red it made Yato's heart pound recklessly in his ears. W-Wow, I didn't know she could look so cute... he thought, filing the image away for when he could think about it later. "Y-Yato?! How long have you been there?!" she asked, alarmed.

"He's been there this whole time, Lady Hiyori," Hiiro answered for him, obviously amused. "You exchanged greetings."

"Wh- but, I'm not even- s-stop looking!!" she panicked, tugging her robe closed over her juban as Yato tried and failed to hide his laughter.

"S-Sorry," he apologized, turning away with an unfortunately obvious snigger. "I know I shouldn't laugh, it's just-" he cleared his throat, trying to force some semblance of respect. "I wasn't expecting..."

Hiyori made a noise to let him know it was safe to look, and when he did, he found her looking much the same, though her obi had been fixed and her collar straightened into something more presentable, and her expression was alert now, if flustered.

"I-I forgot I don't live alone anymore," she said, nervously tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"It's okay," Yato said with a half-smile. "I've been out cold for most of the time I've been here, so it's fine, I understand. Don't worry about it."

Hiiro made a sound in the back of her throat but wisely kept her thoughts to herself as she gathered Hiyori's hair into a loose bunch and secured it with a piece of twine from her pocket.

"I'll be off to the kitchens then, to see how breakfast is coming along," she said a moment later. "Will you need anything else, milady? Or you, milord?"

"N-no, I'm fine," Hiyori muttered as Yato shook his head. Hiiro tossed the brush up into the air and it melted into nothingness without a trace.

"I'll be right back," she said, and vanished down the same hall Yukine had entered earlier. Hiyori fidgeted restlessly with her sleeves.

"Any chance you could forget this?" she asked, her cheeks still pink.

"Forget what?" Yato asked, unable to hold back a snarky remark. "The sleepiness or the state of undress? 'Cause I've already-"

Seen everything, he bit back just in time, a lump forming in his throat at the all-too sharp memory of her body in full view, her toned limbs and supple skin flush against his clothes-

Hiyori seemed to be thinking along the same lines because she suddenly went very quiet and her face reddened, and neither of them seemed willing to address the elephant in the room.

Well... this is painfully awkward, Yato gulped, wishing he hadn't said anything at all.

The silence stretched on for several minutes, and Yato was starting to panic a little when Hiyori finally cleared her throat.

"A-Are you feeling better?" she asked, clearly trying to change the subject.

"Huh?"

"Your health," she clarified. "You still seemed very tired yesterday."

"O-Oh, yeah, I am. Feeling better," he finished lamely.

"I'm glad to hear it," said Hiyori, looking relieved. "There's a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it, I'm afraid."

"You mean my studies?" Yato asked nervously.

Hiyori nodded. "Yes. Normally I would encourage you to take your time and learn at your own pace, but that's unfortunately not an option for us."

"Why not?"

She grimaced. "We'll be expected to attend social functions together very soon."

Yato went white.

"What?! H-How soon?!" he asked, his voice unnaturally high.

"A few weeks," she sighed. "This close to Otsukimi, there are a lot of rituals and gatherings I have to go to. There's always a party during the last few days as well."

"Otsukimi? The moon-viewing festival?" Yato asked, surprised. He'd never been invited to the village celebrations, but for the few years that he had lived with Master Kuraha, the pair had held their own private festivities throughout the year. "I thought that was a human festival, for honoring the harvest?"

Hiyori's eyes brightened, clearly pleased by his knowledge and curiosity. His heart started thudding loudly against his rib cage.

"Is that how they see it now? The truth is that humans took to celebrating it after observing us," she explained. "But I very much doubt they really understood the reason we did it. It's not an agricultural festival at all; we celebrate Otsukimi to commemorate the very first full moon, the night Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto first met face-to-face with his sister, Amaterasu-Omikami." She noticed the rather blank look on his face and stifled a chuckle in her sleeve. "The Sun and Moon deities don't actually get along very well, you see," she told him, "so they have always tried to avoid one another despite being siblings. But once in a while, Tsukuyomi-dono will turn to look and catch Amaterasu-sama's eye, and the moon is fully illuminated in her divine gaze. It's an auspicious occasion, and Otsukimi is our way of commemorating that first glance and every one since."

"And here I always thought moon-viewing was just an excuse to get drunk," Yato muttered, thinking of his master and his drunken singing under the stars.

"Well... You're not completely wrong," Hiyori admitted. "We hold a banquet that lasts for three days, and every one of them is spent drinking. I'm not entirely surprised to hear that's all the humans remember, since we did used to drink ourselves into oblivion. I'm sure they felt it much more keenly than us."

"But you don't anymore?"

"Oh no, we do. Thankfully, that's to our advantage," she said as the shinki returned from the kitchens, carrying trays laden with food and bowls. "It's a chaotic enough occasion that as long as you mind your behavior on the first night, before we start getting properly drunk, it won't really matter if you can't keep up with conversations or remember every bit of etiquette later. That being said," she paused as Hiiro ladled hot soup into her bowl. "You still need to learn the proper behavior expected of a consort for the first night, and I don't think it would hurt to start you on the syllabary now either."

"Today?" Yato asked, feeling queasy. Yukine took the opportunity to shoot him a look of pure disdain as he set down the rice basket.

"If you're feeling up to it," Hiyori assured him.

"If this festival is happening that soon, I don't think I have a choice," Yato mumbled into his tea.

"Such is life, milord," Hiiro said flatly as she handed him a pair of chopsticks. "Or death, in your case. Just remind me to teach you tea etiquette as well; you drink like a savage."

Yukine gave a snort but hastily fell quiet as Hiiro shot him a poisonous glare.

Once breakfast was put away and the shinki cleared the dishes from the table, Hiyori had Yukine fetch ink and paper before producing a beautiful lacquered box from thin air.

"This is a suzuri bako, a writing box," she said as she gently laid it on the table and took the flowery maki-e lid off. Just as she remembered, her old inkstone and calligraphy brushes were neatly stored in their place, and she was pleased to see her younger self had remembered to clean and return the tosu knife she'd once used as an impromptu weapon during one of Take's unannounced visits and subsequent attacks. "This is one I used several hundred years ago, so it's a little aged, but it should be just right for a beginner," she explained as she offered it to him. "The brushes have been broken in, but not overused."

"Wow, it's gorgeous," Yato breathed as he tentatively reached a finger out to touch the smooth side of the box.

Hiyori couldn't help warmth flush through her skin at the compliment. He's talking about the box, not you, idiot, she reminded herself as the hair on the back of her neck tingled at the thought of those gentle, deft fingers slipping snugly into her palms. Another intrusive wave of physical discomfort followed when she recalled how he had pulled away from her the night before.

Yato was thankfully too engrossed in examining the box to notice.

"I think I've made one of these before," he said, gently prying one of the tools loose of its indentation and turning the decorated handle up against the light. "Well... helped make," he corrected himself a second later. "I didn't really know what it was, but my master asked me to make the lid and brush handles. I think it was a commission for the priests' apprentice." He paused, frowning. "Ugh, I bet that snake still uses it too," he added with great distaste. "Probably wrote that fucking blood oath with my own damned brushes-" he muttered to himself, but Hiyori didn't get to ask him to clarify before his expression softened and he gave a small, satisfied sort of sigh. "These are way more beautiful and valuable than anything we ever made, though... are you sure I can have them, Hiyori?"

"As long as you promise to take care of it, it's all yours," she said, warmed by the artistic admiration in his eyes. "But you'll need a couple of other things, a water dropper and something to hold inksticks, I think I lost the original ones." She waved her hand again, focusing hard on the memory of the items in question, and perfect copies appeared on the table before her just as Yukine arrived with the paper and ink.

"Why didn't you just use magic for the ink and stuff too?" Yato asked, surprised. Yukine spluttered indignantly as he set down several rolls of paper.

"Just how stupid are you?" the boy asked incredulously. "You think gods are omnipotent or something?! You wanna get killed messing around with shit you don't understa-"

"Yukine!" Hiyori warned. "Don't speak to him like that, he is still your master." 

Her retainer grudgingly shut up.

"Apologies, milady," he muttered and excused himself quickly before she could force him to include Yato in his apology.

Hiyori sighed. What is it about Yato in particular that Yukine hates so much? He was never this openly belligerent with any of the others...

"Never mind him," she assured her noticeably uncomfortable husband. "Yukine lacks a filter sometimes, and he can be very rude without meaning to. Please don't take it personally."

Yato grimaced but said nothing, and Hiyori thought it was best not to pry.

"In answer to your question, some things are easier to form from nothing," she explained instead. "Ink and paper are less solid in shape and essence than, say, a writing knife, since they can take the form of many different things depending on the user's intent. And because you can't reuse spilt ink or marked paper, it's possible to invite unwanted and dangerous energy into their construction, the kind that can't be removed. It's best to avoid creating such materials with divine magic."

Yato seemed satisfied enough with that, so Hiyori began to teach him how to prepare the ink and smooth out the paper using the wooden weights. He was a quick learner, she was pleased to find, though he had considerably more trouble remembering what each character sounded like than he did in learning how to draw them.

"Ha, hi, hu-"

"Fu," she corrected for what felt like the thirtieth time as she instructed him to write the line again. He frowned to himself, repeating the sounds under his breath, his dark hair falling over his eyes. Hiyori found herself staring at it, wanting to brush it aside for him, but she managed to keep her impulse in check as he wrote.

"Fu, he, ho," he recited once he had drawn the characters and submitted them for her approval.

"Your recognition and memory need a little work, but there's nothing I can find to correct in your brushwork. I really can't believe you've never done any calligraphy before," she said, in awe of the smooth, beautiful strokes and his steady hand. "These are practically art."

Yato shrugged, a little red around the nose and cheeks. "I wouldn't say they're that nice," he said, scratching his temple bashfully. "Carpenters just do a lot of detail work. And I have used brushes before, just not calligraphy ones. I can't read and write, but I was taught how to design things on paper as an apprentice. I don't need to do it anymore, but-"

"Anymore?" Hiyori asked, curious.

"You don't really need it once you learn sou," he said simply, as though that explained everything.

"Sou?" she asked when he didn't elaborate.

He blinked at her.

"Uhm... Souzou no Geijutsu? The art of creation?" he asked after a moment. "My master sometimes just called it 'creation magic' or 'sou,' it's supposed to be a divinely inspired skill, so I thought..."

"Human magic is completely different from divine magic," she said, shaking her head. "Gods have no real knowledge of what you can do, especially since we've been living in different worlds for so long."

"Oh," he said, embarrassed. "Uh, then I guess I should explain it," he muttered, mostly to himself. Hiyori couldn't help a small smile; she also had a little bit of a problem with thinking out loud, and it was strangely nice to see they had something habitual in common. "I-It's kind of complicated," he warned. "And I probably can't explain it the way my Master did-"

"Try anyway," she encouraged.

"O-okay, well..." he paused to take a breath and gather his thoughts. "Sou isn't actually magic, not the way most people use it, anyway. It's not based on spells or even a real will to use magic... I don't even know if anyone else in the village could do it. I sometimes got the impression my master was extremely surprised I could, especially since I was... not great... at most magic," he winced, avoiding her eye.

"But what is it?" she asked, brow furrowed.

"It's... almost like a prayer," he said slowly. He ran his finger over the wooden table, never once looking down as he carefully sketched out a series of lines. "You ask the world around you to guide you, to use you as a vessel. You let energy flow into you and through you, let nature work beauty with your hands. You never command magic directly, you just... create, and the magic shapes itself on its own. See?" he said, lifting his hand from the table so she could see the faint etching of a lily in perfect bloom magically carved into the wood.

Hiyori couldn't breathe. She couldn't even think. It was like the world had died as soon as that lily came into view, a violent, screeching halt that reverberated like a physical blow deep in Hiyori's very soul. Excruciating pain exploded behind her eyes, blurring her vision and senses until she could make no sense of the fractured bits of memory flooding through her.

A small... something. Pressed into her palm, smooth and perfect.

"-made for you, so you can always-"

Shadows dappled through trees, voices whispering like water in a creek.

"-Could never-"

"-back to-"

Warmth, contentment... No, it was unbearable grief and remorse.

"-forget me."

"Hiyori?! Hiyori!! Are you okay!!??"

She gasps, desperate for air despite the fact that she doesn't require it. She's drowning, she's fading, she's going to be devoured. Sharp teeth scrape across her throat, hot, frenzied breath condenses on her skin, hunger and bitter resentment are reflected back at her in the bottomless, azure depths-

"Hiiro! Yukine!! Help, Hiyori is-!"

She stands before the court, she cares nothing for her own fate. All she wants is to protect her own, even at the cost of her existence.

No... she hopes they kill her. She wants them to kill her. She doesn't want to stay in this ugly, horrible world any longer. Not one more second than it takes to see her shinki's safety assured-

"Milady?! Lady Hiyori, can you hear me?! Hiyori!!"

"Remember," a voice echoes from the past as she holds a divine blade to her throat in the confines of the beautiful house she has been imprisoned in.

"I can't," she sobs, her hands shaking. "I can't do this, it's cruel, it's horrible, I don't want to do this!"

"Remember," it repeats, and when her eyes close she can almost feel hands cupping her face, almost feel a sad sigh against her eyelids. The blade clatters to the ground, and her heart tears a little more with each sharp metallic clang-

The world came back into sharp focus out of nowhere, and Hiyori felt tears streaming down her cheeks and a horrible headache pulsing against the inside of her skull. She felt like she'd been gone for eons, but it must have only been a few moments because she found herself leaning against the dining room wall, confused and disoriented. Her retainers sighed with relief in one joined breath, and wasted no time in reassuring the young human panicking next to her that it would be alright, that their mistress sometimes was overcome with migraines so powerful they completely incapacitated her.

"It's a side effect of the corruption," she heard Hiiro say in an undertone as Hiyori tried to focus on her surroundings. "They don't happen that often, but when they do, they can be triggered by anything. It wasn't your fault, milord."

"I-Is she gonna be okay?" Yato asked, clearly frightened.

"Mm, given a bit of peace and quiet, she'll be fine," Hiiro assured him. "Hiyori-sama," she called softly, patting her god's shoulder. "We're going to carry you to your room so you can get some rest."

"You mean you're gonna make me carry her," Yukine grumbled.

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"Exactly what I said. You're not gonna do it, you always make me do all the difficult stuff! Not like you could do it anyway; you're freaking tiny-"

"Excuse me?! How dare you say that?! You're barely taller than me, you stupid little shrimp!!" Hiiro snarled furiously.

"But I am bigger than you, at least! Act as high and mighty as you like, but you're still just a little flea of a shinki-"

"I am going to kill-!"

"Both of you, please, shut up!" Yato snapped suddenly, and Hiyori blinked painfully to find him wearing a similar expression to the one he'd worn when confronting Take. Both shinki seemed so startled by the ferocity of it that they gaped at him in silent shock. "Hiyori needs us, this isn't the time to bicker! Are you her retainers or not?!"

"Of course-!" Yukine began, but Yato cut him off with all the authority of an adult talking down to a child.

"Then bloody act like it! Hell, I'll carry her, just show me the goddamned way through this maze of a house before I end up somewhere I shouldn't!"

Without waiting for a reply, he gently pulled Hiyori into his arms and tucked her in carefully against his chest.

"Sorry," he said softly as she groaned at the sudden movement. "Just bear with me for a minute, Hiyori, you can punish me later, okay?"

Hiyori heard his voice, but found she couldn't reply as she slowly slipped into unconsciousness again, lulled by the strange and seductive scent pressed against her nose. He really did smell wonderful, she had to admit, though Take had been wrong to assume that was normal; Yato's scent was unique, more than just a spell worked to keep her calm. Hiyori wasn't even sure it was keeping her calm. She certainly felt weightless and safe as she let it settle into her lungs, but she also felt oddly restless, somehow unsettled. She breathed deeper, wanting him to stay with her, dreading the moment she'd be parted from the intoxicating scent, wishing she could just dive into it and never surface again.

She was almost asleep when she heard him say something to one of the retainers as he walked, but her ears could make no sense of the words. They melted and reformed, taking new shapes, echoing long-forgotten ancient whispers Hiyori still carried etched deep in the corners of her soul, where her mind couldn't find them.

"Remember thine oath..."

"And come back to me," she breathed into Yato's kimono, and slept.

The snow is fresh underfoot, cold and unfeeling. He knows this place, recognizes the trees and the mountains framing the heavens above. It surprises him, if only for a moment; he never intended to return, never really had a destination in mind, but some instinct has brought him back home, some longing in his flesh and bones wanting to find...

He's not entirely sure what he expected to find. None of it matters without... without the one thing that means everything. But that's gone, and he can't get it back no matter how many years he wanders the land. Whether it's in this valley or in the world beyond the forest, the only thing he ever wanted is forever lost to him.

He settles on the icy ground, resting his cheek to the snow, and prays... for mercy, for forgiveness. For death.

In the darkness of the moonless night, something answers.

Chapter Text

"So. You're the one Heaven is in an uproar over."

The voice whispers through the air, breathless, insidious.

It carries with all the liquid grace of a snake, caressing his skin with it's venomous curiosity. He is not afraid, but still, he cannot help a shiver of trepidation pass through his spine.

A deathly white smile flashes at him, teeth sharpened to needle-like points.

"Does this appearance unnerve you, child?" the voice asks, tone sultry and amused. A bony finger comes to rest against his clavicle, ice cold and sharp. He instinctively flinches away from it, prompting a high, cold laugh.

"I'm fine," he mutters defiantly. In truth, his skin is crawling, but he won't give any god the satisfaction of his discomfort.

"Poor, lost little boy," the voice croons, taking his face between it's awful, skeletal hands. "You gave everything you had, didn't you? And in the end, you were abandoned, forgotten... Foolish, pitiful child... even after that betrayal, your heart cannot lie, can it?"

Flesh blooms over the decaying remains as it speaks, soft and healthy. Lush hair falls in waves over a young, plump body, clad only in a loose, thin robe. Soft eyes blink up at him, bright pink lips parted as though drowning for lack of his touch.

For one horrible moment he almost forgets what's happened, almost allows himself to hope. She looks so real, her hands are so warm, and all he wants is to bury his face in her shoulder and cry tears of relief.

And then he remembers where he is.

"How dare you!" he snarls, shoving her away with all his strength. "I don't care who you are, you cruel, heartless bitch! How dare you use that face?!!"

The woman stumbles, wide eyed, and laughs.

"It's been some time since I met a mortal who resisted the pull of Yomi," she chuckles. "But you're mistaken, child, I do not choose the form I take in your eyes; I have neither control nor insight into what you see. It's only an illusion, to soothe my unfortunate, lost little guests." She steps forward and runs her fingers lightly over his cheek and lips. "But I suppose in this unique circumstance, I do have some idea of who you're seeing just now," she breathed. "Poor, poor, boy... How cruel fate has been to you."

"Don't touch me!" He insists, slapping her hand away.

"Now, now," the woman chides. "Your hatred is misplaced. I am not like the gods of the Celestial Plain; I have no interest in their affairs or quarrels, and I am not bound by their laws either. Though the Heavenly Court has demanded I hand down further judgement for your sins, I have no interest in doing so. You're quite fortunate that I find you rather interesting, and that Amaterasu holds no power over me. This is my realm, and I will do as I please."

She turns away and walks deeper into the dark cavern, her bare feet padding along with a soft, enticing sound on the rock underfoot.

He doesn't believe her for one second. Gods are liars, manipulators. Even when they don't mean to, they are selfish and untrustworthy. Humans are nothing to them.

Instinctively, he glances around, wondering if he might find some way through the darkness and away from this awful creature.

"Well?" she asks, looking at him over her shoulder when he doesn't follow, one eyebrow quirked up in amusement. "Are you not coming? You can stay here in the darkness for the rest of eternity if you wish, but I think you, of all souls, may just be interested in what I have to say..."

He didn't have time to think about it until after Yukine had all but dragged him out of Hiyori's rooms, but now that he was alone in his own apartments, Yato couldn't help feeling a little dazed by everything that had happened that morning.

She was so soft... so small, he thought blankly, his head leaning back against the frame of the open balcony. It struck him as odd almost as soon as he'd picked her up. True, Yato wasn't weak; whatever his deceptively thin build and pale coloring suggested, he was still a laborer by trade, and he was no stranger to heavy lifting. But since he'd always been a pariah, he'd also never had any cause to carry another person before. For some reason, he'd always thought living people must be very heavy and ungainly, and more difficult to lift than an inert wooden beam or a sack of rice.

But carrying Hiyori had been so easy. Effortless, even. Her weight settled wholly in the curve of his arms as soon as he held her, and she naturally turned inward so that her cheek was pressed to his shoulder as if she belonged there, had always belonged there. Vulnerable, but safe with him. A perfect fit.

It bothered him.

He'd seen Hiyori at her most dangerous, her most powerful, and he knew that slight and pretty as she might look at a glance, his wife was fully capable of ripping his head off with no more effort than it would take her to tear a piece of paper. It was wrong, seeing her so white and drained, her brow furrowed with pain as she trembled and groaned in his arms. It scared him; how could such a deadly god be reduced to such a small, helpless wreck that a mere human could so easily carry her where he willed?

Yato shivered, the hair standing on the back of his neck. Hiiro had been rather vague about her mistress' condition, but Yato had felt the wrongness of it all just the same. There was something terrible and dark plaguing Hiyori-no-Kami, something ancient, raw. Even with his pathetic magical sensibilities, Yato could tell that much.

"What could do that to a god, though?" he wondered aloud, thinking back to the stories he'd been raised on. They all seemed rather vague and untrustworthy on this side of the celestial schism, now that he could actually put a face to the fearsome deity of legend. Mortal betrayal seemed like such a small, petty thing, something even a seemingly kind god like Hiyori shouldn't care much about; it seemed unfathomable to Yato that it could still cause her grief even thousands of years later.

He sighed, his eyes fluttering closed with exhaustion. He hadn't wanted to say anything in front of the shinki, but his head was also pounding now that the excitement had died down. Hiiro had told him not to worry, that Hiyori's condition wasn't his fault, but Yato wasn't sure that was entirely true. Something about the bit of magic he'd used, or perhaps the words he'd said... some detail of their conversation had affected the War God, he was sure of it.

As to what part, or why, Yato couldn't even begin to understand.

"Just one thing, please... swear you won't-"

The words repeated themselves in the depths of Hiyori's subconscious, empty and foreboding. But no matter how many times she fought with the haze of tainted memory, she couldn't remember anything but those words, disembodied, lost to time. Who had spoken them? What had she sworn? When?

Hundreds of names threatened to flood and overwhelm her senses, a dizzying tally of each painfully brief memory. There were so many of them, but she never forgot a single one, their lives forever woven into the thread of her fate.

Suzuki. Yuna. Kenjou. Saki. Hinami.

(No, those were others. They came later, much later.)

Haruno? Koizumi? Perhaps Fubuki?

(No, not them, they never-)

Tomoki trembles in awe whenever she passes him in the garden, his lips mouthing deep-rooted prayer even when she asks him to forget formality. But his bright, honeyed eyes sparkle when he thinks she isn't watching, absorbed as he is in yet another tome from the library, and how lonely it makes her feel that he won't even so much as look at her with even a fraction of that interest for fear of her divinity-

Beautiful Komari, so delicate, so soft-spoken... Laughter and music echoes in the halls whenever the fancy takes her. The lazy, content afternoons in which they lay in each other's laps and speak about nothing of consequence are some of Hiyori's dearest memories-

A brash, irritating voice is Akito's worst trait, which is saying something, all things considered. He lacks both wit and empathy, insisting on human traditions when it comes to their very inhuman marriage, but even he has qualities worth praising. His pursuit of her affections, while misplaced, is still earnest in its determination to make sense of their situation-

(No, those are wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.)

How she loves Misaki's seemingly carefree smiles, always at the ready, even up until the moment Hiyori finds her standing on the railing of the realm bridge and she turns to give the god one last, achingly sweet smile before she steps forward into the void-

Then there's Eisuke, an old priest who minds his manners and does his very best to treat her with detached, formal fondness, refusing even the smallest intimate gesture on the grounds that he is much too old for her, a stubborn belief that won't change no matter how many times she reminds him of her immeasurable age-

(But the voice in her dream doesn't belong to Eisuke, nor is it Aiko's, or Nami's, or even Jirou's-)

The grass tickles her cheek as gentle fingers run through her hair, her eyes drifting closed with each soft caress.

Someone is speaking, she can feel the vibrations in the air around her as words trickle like running water into the atmosphere, displacing her elemental aura. But whoever it is is behind her, and she can't hear anything but her own aching heart pounding painfully in her chest.

"Who are you?" she tries to ask, but her voice won't reach her lips.

She wants to turn and look up at her companion's face, but she can't move, can't do anything but lie helplessly at their feet. Panic fuels her increasing frustration.

"Who are you?" she wants to demand, trying to find some control over the situation.

Nothing.

No, that's not quite true. There's a sound now, but it's not words.

Soft, ethereal... like wind whispering against her skin, like sunlight dappled on her face...

Something casts a shadow over her and then a flower is held out in front of her eyes, an unnaturally white-blue lily that she knows doesn't grow anywhere in these hills.

"For you," comes the faint, voiceless whisper. "It won't last long, but I like this better than the wildflowers."

Tenderly, the lily is tucked behind her ear.

"It's strange, but the color of the sky suits you so perfectly," the voice says, brushing a stray strand of her hair out of her face. "It shouldn't, with your coloring, but it does."

For some reason, the words strike fear into her heart and her throat is suddenly very tight.

Stop, she wants to cry. Don't look at me, don't touch me. I'm not what you think I am.

She's not even sure what she is. Not anymore. She was once the manifestation of something beautiful and mysterious, but now... Now she can't even call the wind, or feel the ever-changing currents of heat and air swirling around her. All she is now is a force of destruction, a base, ugly, aberration, driven by the worst, most primitive instincts-

Blazing white pain returned her to a nothingness darker than anything she'd ever known. Here there was no sky, no grass, no warmth from someone's presence. Oblivion pressed in on her, stealing away every thought and half-surfaced memory, so that by the time she finally woke in her own bedding a few hours later, the only thing left of Hiyori's stolen past was a faint, half-forgotten snippet of an old melody lingering in the back of her exhausted mind.

She waits until she is alone, after most of the blood has been cleaned up and broken condolences have been pressed to her collarbone. She has said nothing, so they think she must be in shock. Her suffering has been prolonged enough, so they don't force her to let go when they step out to let her rest. She is grateful for this consideration; it makes her resolve all the stronger.

Quietly, though her body aches almost more than she can bear, though she can barely muffle a pained wince as she moves, she edges herself out of bed. With only one hand, she manages to pull on a thick fur cloak and a pair of leather boots, but she can't manage to secure the straps around her calves, so she leaves them behind. She grabs the woolen blanket off the bedding as an afterthought, stopping only long enough to loop it over and under her shoulder as best as she can, careful to tuck her preoccupied arm in under the layers of warm fabric.

No one notices her slip out the door and into the shadows.

Snow is falling softly in the darkness, muffling the sound of her sore footsteps as she circles back into the woods, away from the subdued gathering drinking solemnly in the light of a fire outside.

She reaches the treeline and grimaces, stopping against the trunk of an old elm to grit her teeth against the debilitating pain still pulsing through her marrow. She can't submit to it, not when she still has so far to go, so she somehow forces herself onward through the pitch darkness by memory and sheer willpower alone.

When she is far enough from the house, she stops again, frozen sweat melting uncomfortably into the creases of her cloak, and fumbles with a small piece of weathered paper folded away into a small pocket. She allows herself a small, triumphant smile, vindicated at last for all the years of ridicule she's endured in the name of preparation and safety. She doubts her husband even remembers all the secret creases she's sown into his clothes, but she knew it would come in useful, someday.

"Who worries too much now?" she murmurs, and places the square of rice paper on her tongue.

The name of the Seeker forms in her throat as the ink and paper dissolve into nothingness, and she feels a keen sense of relief that she correctly remembers which invocations she's pocketed in which places.

She opens her mouth and a language she can't speak issues from her lips as fluidly as though she has known it all her life. The sounds hang for a moment in the dead silence of the bitter air, but then they become solid darkness, twisting and writhing until a small, disembodied light blinks to life in front of her, and an unspoken voice chimes inside her thoughts.

"You Seek that which you cannot find?" it asks without preamble.

"I do," she affirms aloud.

"And the price?"

"Paid in blood, mixed in the ink of the seal, as you well know," she reminds it firmly.

"... Very well. We shall lead the way," the voiceless light says, clearly somewhat disappointed that it's failed to take more than it's due.

They walk deeper into the woods, the light keeping pace with her increasingly staggered footsteps. It offers no encouragement, asks no questions, simply floats in the direction she needs to go. She is grateful for that too; she needs every shred of strength she can muster just to continue putting one foot in front of the other.

She never knows how long she trudges through the piling snow, only that the night never seems to end. On and on, the light leads her into unknown darkness, where not even a lifetime of experience can find a single recognizable landmark.

At last, they arrive in a clearing deep in the woods, ringed with towering trees and open to a perfect circular view of the night stars above.

"Have we completed our contract?" the light asks as it comes to an eerie, hovering stop. "Or will you pay the price for the return trip as well?"

"If you've led me true, I will contract you on the way back," she promises. "Wait for me here."

"It will cost more," it calls as she steps forward gingerly, toward the shadows of the pines.

"You will be paid," she replies. "Greedy little miser," she adds viciously under her breath. As though blood were a limitless commodity she could afford to waste now!

The light says nothing more, and if it heard her, she doesn't know. Instead she takes another unsteady step through the snow, and another, and then-

"Take one more step and I'll rip your throat out, human!"

Two viciously bright eyes glare out from the darkness, reflecting the light from the clearing back at her as a low growl thunders through the air.

She shivers despite herself, the vibrations of that terrible, unearthly voice crawling over her skin unpleasantly. Slowly, so as not to startle the speaker, she lowers herself onto the snow until she is kneeling in reverence, her bundled blankets settled on the ground before her.

"Please, my lord," she begs, bowing her head to the snow. "I do not wish to offend you. I have brought an offering, in the hopes that I might receive your guidance."

Slowly, she takes an offering of rice and venison, bundled in herb leaves, from another pocket and holds it up, cupped between her hands expectantly.

At first nothing happens, but slowly the shadows around the eyes distort and grow pronounced until a great black wolf, monstrous in size, materializes from within the forest, sniffing the air suspiciously as it approaches.

"What exactly is it you want, woman?" it asks, fixing her with those enormous, lupine eyes.

"Help, my lord," she replies, gently lowering her offering so she can unwrap the blankets and show the wolf its contents.

It stares for some time, inscrutable.

"How long?" it asks.

"A few hours. I came as soon as I could, but I can't be certain of the exact time."

The wolf leans in to sniff at the bundle, and she has to fight the natural instinct to snatch it back to safety. Its snout pushes the rest of the blankets, still bloody, away from the contents and studies it in silence.

"Hmm," it finally says, apparently satisfied. "And what exactly is it you think I can do for you, woman?" Its eyes pierce her soul, a blue so cold and deadly she can't help trembling under its gaze.

She swallows her fear and takes a deep breath.

"I... I would like to speak with Lady Izanami, my lord."

"Yato-sama? Are you awake?"

Yato sat up with a start as Hiiro's voice echoed just outside the door to his apartments. He hastily blinked the uneasy sleep from his eyes and wiped the corner of his mouth, trying not to look as though he'd dozed off against the balcony door like a manner-less peasant... which of course, he had.

"Uh, y-yes, I'm here," he called, trying to smooth the creases out of his clothes. Hiiro slid the door open, her short hair tied back with a white cloth as she peeked in and found him sitting on the floor.

"You can just go to bed if you're not feeling well," she told him flatly as she eyed his disheveled hair with a pointed scoff.

"It's still daytime," Yato argued, fighting the urge to yawn. "And I'm tired of sleeping so much."

Hiiro gave a small shrug, clearly uninterested in the details. "I thought you might like to know that although Lady Hiyori is still resting, she is faring somewhat better. She will likely be present at dinner."

Yato immediately straightened up. "So soon?" he asked, concerned.

"It's been four hours, Yato-sama," Hiiro snorted. "Gods recover quickly from the few ailments they are subject to, especially while in Heaven. They aren't weak little sponges for disease and malaise like some of us."

Yato grimaced. "You'd think being dead would cure that particular aspect of human suffering," he said.

"It would, if you were properly dead," Hiiro said without so much as a hint of sympathy. "But as you've managed to get yourself murdered in a very particular way, you'll have to put up with mortal annoyances a while longer. Feel free to rest until dinner is ready." She turned to leave, but Yato managed to speak up before she could excuse herself.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he blurted, a bit ruder than he meant to sound. "Hiyori, I mean."

He thought he might have imagined it, but Hiiro seemed to go slightly rigid for a moment before she addressed him again.

"Why?" she asked cautiously, her brow furrowed with suspicion. "I already told you it wasn't your fault."

"M-maybe so, but I can't just ignore that she's suffering," he insisted. "What kind of person would I be if I didn't do anything?"

"A human one," Hiiro shrugged, shooing him nonchalantly away from the door as she snapped her fingers and a broom materialized into her open palm. "It's not about whether you care or not, it's just that there's nothing to do. Not even another god can help Milady, so there's no reason to worry yourself about her health; she's immortal, remember?"

"That doesn't mean her pain is inconsequential," Yato frowned as the broom came dangerously close to smacking his ankles.

"Of course not," she said simply.

"Isn't it my duty as her hus... I mean, her consort to worry about and tend to her?" he asked, hiding a small flustered cough in his sleeve.

"Is it?" she asked flatly. Yato watched her sweep as he sorted out his thoughts.

"Maybe it isn't," he admitted slowly. "It's not like I know anything about court life or marriage. But I do care, and I want to do something, even if it's just bringing her a cup of tea. Isn't that enough?"

Hiiro gave him a tiny, half-hearted imitation of a rather complicated smile.

"Enough for whom, milord?" she asked him, but he had no answer to give and Hiiro didn't seem to mind. She probably never expected an answer to begin with.

To her shock, the wolf suddenly tilts its head back and gives a harsh, mocking laugh, its awful fangs bared for all to see. After a minute, it seems to calm down, and with a few harsh snorts (a wolf's approximation of an amused chuckle, she imagines), it lays upon the snow, paws crossed and ears twitching, looking remarkably dog-like, all things considered.

"You are either the bravest soul in these woods or the stupidest," it says flatly. "What makes you think a mere human can demand an audience with the ruler of Death herself?"

"I don't demand anything," she says truthfully. "I merely ask for advice, my lord."

"Advice, she says!" it scoffs. "Why would I have any advice for you, human? What have I to do with Izanami or the underworld?"

"T-They say... the stories..."

The wolf's eyes glint with increased suspicion.

"Stories are just that. Stories."

She hesitates, wondering if she should stop now, before she truly upsets it.

"I... I do not think they are," she says very quietly, reminding herself that she would rather die than fail here. The wolf growls.

"Who are you to question my word?" it asks angrily.

"No one," she bites her lip, hoping this is the right thing to say. "It's only..." she takes a deep breath and forces herself to look the creature directly in its terrible eyes, allowing her senses to drift between the material and the world she was not meant to know. Some sorcerers in the village are sensitive to such things, but it is an exceedingly rare gift, almost unheard of for generations. As far as she knows, she's the only living descendant left with the ability, possibly because magic has always come so easily to her.

"...Only that I can See it," she breathes.

The wolf's eyes narrow.

"See what?"

If ever there is a time for recklessness, she supposes all her efforts would be a waste if she starts treading lightly now.

"You, milord... And every twisted, tainted thread of fate that keeps you bound between the Shores and in the form you're made to wear."

The wolf stares back unblinkingly for what feels like eternity, and she can feel what's left of her nerve deserting her by the second. She's pushed her luck as far as it will go, all that's left is judgement.

Silently, the wolf rises to its feet and closes the distance between them until she can feel its hot, fetid breath against her face. She wavers and has to shut her eyes, too drained to force herself to stand firm.

"Who are you?" it asks, and for the first time she hears not the gruff growls of a beast, but the clear, articulate voice of another person.

A very striking person, she knows, because if she focuses as she is now, she can see his shape overlapped in the otherworldly aura of the wolf. Handsome, dark, but as pale and weary as death herself, and that same, flickering ice gazing back at her, a magic she knows is so old and so arcane there can only be one possible source.

She swallows and licks her painfully dry lips.

"Tamanone," she whispers. "My name... is Tamanone."

A soft knock at her door startled Hiyori in the middle of her evening repast. She felt considerably better and less disoriented now that she'd had some rest, though she couldn't remember what had triggered her migraine in the first place. That in itself wasn't unusual; the effects of her corruption were permanent, and no power existed that could reverse it completely. Hiyori had long stopped trying to force herself to overcome its maddening pull; the past was in the past, and even if she could salvage the tatters of her once unblemished self, it wouldn't change anything now.

"Yes?" she called, setting her teacup down at her table.

"Hiyori? Can I come in?"

She blinked, surprised.

"Yato?" she asked, incredulous. Surely Yukine would never have brought him to her rooms, and Hiyori couldn't imagine that Yato was familiar enough with the house yet to know where she took her tea in private.

"Uh, y-yeah, it's me," he said awkwardly, and though she couldn't see him, she could easily imagine the sheepish, nervous look on his face. "I have... there's something important I need to... talk with you about... if that's ok."

"Oh, uhm, y-yes, of course, come in," she said, feeling strangely conscious of the fact that she hadn't changed out of her yukata yet, or that her hair was probably still a mess after sleeping for so long. Such things had never really bothered her before; it wasn't as though her attire was entirely inappropriate for receiving visitors or anything. It was really very unlike her to even notice such unnecessary little details in the first place.

Yato slid open the door, his eyes cast down onto the tatami beneath his feet.

"S-Sorry to bother you, I asked Hiiro if she could show me the way here..."

"It's alright," Hiyori assured him, a little more at ease now that he wasn't hiding behind a wall. "You don't have to be nervous, you can sit down," she said when he made no move to do so. He hesitated but in the end he strode forward and sat politely across from her little parlor table.

"I didn't really think Hiiro would bring me over," he admitted, watching her hands as she poured him a customary cup of tea. "I thought she'd tell me to stay in my own apartments and just wait for dinner to see you."

Hiyori smiled despite herself, placing the cup in front of him. "Hiiro and Yukine are very different shinki," she said, reading the unspoken comparison in his carefully worded statement. "Hiiro follows the rules, but the rules never said you were forbidden from coming to my apartments."

"I'm not?" he asked, surprised.

"Of course not," she said, though her cheeks grew slightly warm as she explained. "You're my husband, so... technically these are your rooms too... sort of. A-As long as you knock first," she added quickly with a small cough. She expected him to be even more flustered than she felt, but to her surprise, he didn't seem to catch the implications of what she'd said at all. Perhaps if he'd been aware that a consort's rooms were traditionally connected to the lord's, or that they were considered part of the same marital space...

At least that means he hasn't found the secret passageway in his room yet, she told herself with just a tiny drop of relief as he nodded automatically, his lip caught between his teeth. 

"Right. Well I figured it was worth a try, anyway," he said slowly. "This is really important."

Hiyori watched him with concern. Not once since he'd entered had he looked her in the eye, and he looked paler than usual, if that was even possible. Could he have really been that worried? Hiiro had mentioned it when she came to check on Hiyori earlier, but Hiyori wasn't really sure whether her guidepost was exaggerating or not.

"Does this have anything to do with what happened during lessons?" she asked carefully, meaning to reassure him that he didn't need to be upset.

Yato took a deep, slow breath and swallowed audibly before he replied.

"Yes... and no," he said. "But before that, I have to apologize to you, Hiyori."

"Whatever for?" she asked, confused. "It wasn't your fault-"

"Everyone keeps saying that, but you're wrong. It was my fault," he said firmly. "Everything has been my fault all along."

Hiyori had no idea what he was on about, but he shook his head when she opened her mouth to argue.

"Just, let me tell you the truth before you say anything," he said softly. "All of it."

In his later years, he still remembers the moment everything fell apart, though he knows now that it's a far more insidious event than he could have ever imagined at the time.

How stupid, how naive had he been? Why had he let his guard down when all the signs were there? Because it had always been that way? Because no one ever thought to question it?

It must have happened before, to plenty of others. He couldn't be the exception. It was just that he had the power to do something about it, the fury and hatred to fuel an effort that no one had ever considered before.

Rebel, they call him. Sorcerer, blasphemer, savior.

None of them realize that under it all is just a grieving boy, a boy who foolishly gave his heart away to something inhuman, a boy who can never go back to the innocence of the days before he discarded his simple existence.

How he hates that boy now, and how he hates the ache that still burns in his breast for the things he will never get back.

"This is a tale everyone in my village knows. It's supposed to be a true story, but I have no way to verify how much of it's been changed or forgotten. I only know the stories I was told, or the rumors I heard when I was a kid," he began.

"Most of them are probably lies, but it's not like I know which ones, or what was embellished over the years. I don't even think it matters that much; sometimes a lie is far more powerful than the truth, as long as enough people believe it.

"All I really know is that they all start seventeen years ago, on a bitter winter night, in a small hut on the outskirts of an isolated mountain village," Yato said, rubbing the inside of his palm as he fell into the natural, detached cadence of an old story he'd heard many times before.

"That evening, a woman from the village went into labor. The midwife and the woman's husband attended to her with all the skill and magic available to them, but for a while it seemed it was inevitable that she would die in childbirth. The father resigned himself to the loss, but when his wife miraculously lived and successfully bore the child after hours of torture, no one was more devastated than him.

"N-not that he wasn't relieved his wife didn't die," he added, suddenly feeling defensive. "I'm sure he loved her enough to be grateful she was still alive. She was definitely happy to live with him, at least... I think," he tacked on awkwardly.

Hiyori gave him a bemused sort of smile but didn't interrupt.

"Anyway," Yato hurried, blushing slightly at his clumsy delivery. "T-The baby was born, but whatever relief his parents felt in that moment must've vanished almost instantly. The boy wouldn't cry, and he never once opened his eyes. The midwife tried everything, but the truth was that he was probably gone long before he arrived. When he was finally placed in his mother's arms, it was only as a tiny helpless corpse, a pale imitation of the blessing she'd prayed so hard for," he said with a small, morbid flourish, imitating Mayu's particular gift for lurid details. Her version was a favorite of most of the old drunkards, including his not-so-reputable Master.

The thought of Master Kuraha made him pause as he caught himself a moment later.

"Er, sorry, I'm not supposed to tell it like this, but... actually, I don't think I ever have told it," he realized as he spoke. "I never had to, I only ever heard other's interpretation of it," he said thoughtfully.

"Oh," Hiyori said softly, taking a sharp intake of breath as a glint of understanding finally took root. "This... this is your story, isn't it?"

Yato grimaced, uncomfortable. "Well, it's a story... like I said, whether it's the truth is debatable. I definitely never felt like I'd died before that stupid priest slit my throat last week; I feel like I'd remember that agony even if I was just a baby."

"That's also debatable, Yato," Hiyori noted with a slight tease in her voice. "As is whether or not you're truly dead now."

"So I keep being told," Yato grinned despite himself. It was impossible not to fall into an easy banter when she hung on to his every word like that; until now, no one ever really listened when Yato spoke, and they usually didn't have much to comment on unless it was some kind of lecture. The heaviness on his heart that had only a few minutes ago threatened to drown him in fear and anxiety felt much less dire now, and though the topic was still as grim as ever, he sensed that Hiyori was nevertheless enjoying his company...

Or at the very least, she wasn't in any hurry to end it any time soon, if her relaxed, easy grace was anything to go on.

"So you were thought stillborn...?" she asked as she reached for her tea tray and began peeling a mandarin orange with her fingernails. "That must have been awful for your parents."

"Mm," Yato agreed, watching her hands work with an artists' eye for detail. "My master once said he'd seen babes breathe so shallowly in the first few minutes after birth that everyone thought they were dead at first; it's possible people changed the story later to suit their own prejudices. I do think it's true that I was sick, though, probably seriously enough that I would have died very soon."

"What happened then?" she asked, carefully segmenting the orange into several pieces and placing it on the tray where they could both reach it. He spent a moment too long watching her raise a piece to her mouth before he remembered to look away and hide the inappropriate direction of his thoughts.

"Oh, uh," he stalled blankly as he reached for a slice, still visualizing the captivating contrast of bright orange flesh against the pink, wet glimmer of her parted lips. "Uhm, well... t-they say my father was so grieved he drank himself into a stupor and didn't even notice when my mother went missing," he continued once he'd gathered his wits again.

"She went missing?!"

"Not missing, exactly. But she refused to accept I couldn't be saved. She was a very stubborn woman, my mother; a kind, passionately devoted woman, one who always found beauty in even the smallest things, but stubborn as stone. So that very same night, as soon as my father was out, she dressed herself for the cold and took me deep into the woods with her."

Hiyori looked stunned. "What?! Right after a difficult birth?!"

Yato nodded, a little proud on his mother's practically heroic behalf.

"Every version of the story agrees on that part, and my father once admitted it was true when I got old enough to ask. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure he thought she'd committed suicide, though of course he didn't tell me that; he just said he panicked and spent the entire night searching the forest in the middle of a snowstorm.

"Of course, he was drunk, so there's that.

"Nobody knows what happened or where she went between her disappearance and her safe return the next morning. The only person who ever knew the truth was my mother, and she refused to tell anyone, even my father. All anyone knew was that both the midwife and my father swore the stillborn child they'd delivered that night had the same brown hair as both my parents, but the healthy child my mother brought back was unnaturally pale and his hair was deepest black, And his eyes... my eyes- were... were d-different," Yato's stomach gave an unpleasant dive as he realized he was about to tread into the truly dangerous part of the story.

"Y-you see... In my village, there's another old tale," he said after a moment, his voice frayed and thick with barely suppressed fear. "Long ago, only a couple of generations after the gods abandoned us, a demon came to our land.

"At first, he appeared as a man, and he said he came to warn us, to remind us that we came from a proud line of sorcerers who weren't cowed by the sheer terror and majesty of the gods, who knew better than to grovel and beg for mercy they would never be granted.

"He... he told us... He said we ought to abandon the War God, that she hated us as much as any god, that we were fools for believing her change of heart had anything to do with their selfish eagerness to offer up a sacrifice who could die in their steads. He s-said..." Yato's lip started to tremble and he had to stop a moment to force himself onward.

"He said that even... Even if the War God... Even if you forgave us, we shouldn't so readily return that forgiveness. He reminded us of the terrible cost of that war, that while the rebels were in the wrong to antagonize a force we couldn't hope to defeat, the gods were not devoid of blame... Especially not..."

Not you, he bit back, looking anywhere but at the woman he was currently slandering to her face. But as hard as it was to keep speaking badly of her, it was far more preferable to what he still hadn't said.

"W-we didn't listen, of course," he said, hoping he could get away without repeating the exact, sacrilegious charges Mayu always listed in a scandalous tone, the Orator working her audience up with their own indignant fury. "He tried again, and again, until he grew so impatient and furious with our refusal to take him seriously that his anger and hate finally revealed him for what he really was. His human glamour fell away as he transformed into a great, terrible monster and attacked us. Many lost their lives that day, but eventually the priests were able to drive him back, and some say he was given obeisance, that his aramitama was tamed and he became a nameless, invisible guardian of the woods, forever on the prowl for anyone foolish enough... t-to venture into forbidden territory..."

Yato gasped slightly; he'd forgotten to breathe.

"Yato?" Her voice was worried, but he still couldn't face her, he'd lose his nerve if he let himself be swayed back into cowardice by her divine allure.

"T-There... There w-was one more... One more thing," he managed past the excruciating lump in his throat. "The demon, he... He had..."

Don't!

"His... He looked.."

Don't you dare!

"H-his eyes..."

No!

Some part of him was screaming at him, clawing desperately at his mind, drowning out anything but the pure, unadulterated terror of his own voice.

Stop, don't say anything more, stop it! She'll know you for what you really are, she'll hate every fiber of your being! She'll look at you and know you're just a disgusting, worthless monster, that you're tainting the very air she breathes just by sitting here like you think you're coming clean, like you really believe that you're protecting her!

But he couldn't stop. He had to try.

"They s-said he was sent from... From..."

STOP!! I don't want to look into her eyes and see my ugly, terrifying heart reflected back at me! I can't take it anymore, I don't want to live like this!! Please, please shut up, what's wrong with protecting yourself just ONCE in your stupid, cursed life?! Don't lie to yourself, don't pretend you really care about doing the right thing, don't act like a martyr and sacrifice your one chance at anything even RESEMBLING a normal life! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!

He swallowed hard and nearly choked with the effort of it.

"I-Iza... na... mi," he managed in a tiny, strangled whisper. 

NO!! 

"You're a blight on this village!"

He's five years old at most, and all he wants is to return the doll another child dropped. He never gets to give it to her because suddenly a woman screams and he's knocked violently away as the girl's mother rushes to scoop her up and away from his outstretched hand.

"Get away from her!" she shrieks as though he's holding a knife instead of a scruffy straw doll.

"I just wanted-!" he begins, terrified by her reaction.

"I don't care!! You're a monster, a demon! You should've stayed in hell where you belong!"

Hiyori was saying something, but he couldn't focus. He saw her lips move as though in slow motion and knew it was all over.

Why?

He knew it all along, that he would lose the one thing, the one person he would have done anything, given everything, willingly have died for, had he only known it was his choice to make.

He knew it was silly, to be so attached to a woman he knew for less than seven days... But why did that have to be any less precious than the seventeen years of misery he'd fought so hard for?

It was such a small, simple thing, to belong to someone, even if only in name... but it was everything. Wife, husband, parent, lover, friend... labels didn't really matter, as long as there was just one person somewhere who was okay with belonging alongside him. 

"Poor thing... All alone in the world, no one but this old fool to look after you. What a sad life, cursed to kill anyone who cares enough to get close, a tiny, helpless, innocent murderer, just trying to find his place... Well, don't worry 'bout me, kid, I'm well on my way to the other side even without your help, so I'll make myself useful, for Tama's sake."

He's not supposed to hear those words, spoken quietly at his bedside as a large, rough hand gently tousles his hair. He shuts his eyes tightly closed as he pretends to sleep, not wanting to listen, but desperate to understand the fear he's come to hear in so many other voices, though this is the first time he's heard it tinged with sadness...

He'd killed them all. He thought about it every day, the fact that he had led every person who tried to love him to their inevitable deaths without so much as lifting a finger. They didn't deserve that; he never wanted to hurt anybody.

But that didn't change the fact that it was his fault, or that he deserved it.

After all, he was a murderer, but he was also the victim: he was the little boy on his knees over his parents' grave, digging desperately with his bare hands, ignoring the bloody cuts and broken fingernails in the vain hope that if he could only reach them, he could curl up in their arms, close his eyes, and everything would be okay; he was the child that saved a kitten that someone tried to drown after they decided it was a runt, a kitten he then painstakingly nursed back to health behind his master's back, only to discover that a fox broke into the little enclosure he'd hidden in the woods one night, and all that was left was a bloody, unrecognizable mess; he was the boy who had to take over as carpenter at the tender age of fourteen, still grieving his master's death even as he feared he would starve for lack of anyone to contract him; he was the young man who had taught himself everything his parent figures never had a chance to, the one who worked long hours to make wistfully beautiful things no one wanted, just to make sure his skills were ready for the one or two emergencies he got every few months, when all anyone expected of him was to go in, fix a broken rafter or re-thatch a roof, take whatever measly payment they felt he deserved, and get the hell out before his curse caught.

It was a sin, wasn't it? To know he would be the death of his loved ones and still crave a family so badly that he couldn't help looking out his workshop window, praying every day that it would be the day that someone, anyone, would come, unafraid, smile at him and say, "Hi, I'm looking for the missing part of me, the one I've always needed to be whole. Might that be you?"

Wasn't it an even worse sin that the minute he found that missing part, a chance at the family he always wished for, the moment he finally understood the simple joy of waking up in the morning and finding someone else waiting for him, he was stupid enough, messed up enough, to choose to let it go?

"Let's just push him already. It isn't murder if he's already dead."

Rocks pelt his head as he cowers in fear of a group of boys older than him. They've chased him all the way to the ravine, and throwing projectiles are starting to bore them now that he's cornered.

"Not like anyone wants you around. The elders would probably even reward us for it," someone sniggers. The rocks stop and Yato looks up to see a looming shadow so close it can almost touch him-

Lightning strikes the tree next to them though there's not a cloud in sight. The boys scream in unison and no one bothers to stick around and see how Yato manages to put out the flames that have already caught on his clothes and are steadily licking their way up his arms. The sound of his agonized shrieks echo in the ravine below-

He never should have come here.

"This is for your sake as well, Yato-san."

Silver flashes in the firelight, agony is in his soul, and all he can hear are the cheers of a world that never wanted him, and the keening of the cicadas that never knew if he was actually worth mourning-

He never should have been born.

"Yato! Stop!"

Soft pressure suddenly snapped him back to reality with a jolt as Hiyori reached across the table and hastily reached to take his hand and unfurl his numb, bone-white fingers; he'd crushed a piece of fruit in his fist and hadn't noticed the juice leaking onto the table and down his wrist... or that it was tinged red with the blood from where he'd dug his fingernails into his flesh.

"Please, stop it!" she implored again, pale with obvious alarm.  "You don't have to tell me anything more-"

It's too late.

"Oh damn it, I have to get Hiiro to look at this," she was saying, fretting in the way someone who cared might, and yet-

She won't look at me.

Her eyes darted from his wound to the door and back.

"You'll be okay if I go get her, right?"

She wants to leave.

"It should only take a moment..."

Look at me, please!

"Yukine is better at tending to injuries, but Hiiro is less hostile-"

Please...

Dark rose irises flicked up toward his face.

Don't. Don't look.

Everything seemed to spin, and suddenly he couldn't stand it anymore. He scrambled back, away from her, frightened to think he might hurt her, might do something awful to her just from that thoughtless touch that still burned on his skin, still filled him with a reprehensible, selfish want, an animalistic need to reach out and take her, to claim her body and soul, to mark her with more than just one spell, to defile that untouchable holy aura, to break it apart with his bare hands until she was only a woman and he only a man, and just...

Just...

... just have one, quiet moment to be her equal, to gaze at her and stroke her hair and bask in her beautiful smile. Just a second to know what it was like to have something worth living for.

Before he knew it his vision was completely obscured by the tears he hadn't even realized he'd been holding back.

"I-I'm sorry, I-I didn't-" he hiccuped, and his self-hatred only grew with each wracked, childish sob stuck in his throat.

He couldn't see her, but he knew she was probably looking at him with the same disgust as Mayu, as Shinsuke and Kouto, the same fear and hatred as every person who had ever looked him in the eye. He was so convinced of it that he couldn't understand the weight suddenly thrown over him, or the soft murmurs of reassurance as an unfamiliar feeling ran down his back in comforting strokes.

"You're okay, shh. You're safe here, with me."

All thoughts faded as he gripped the back of Hiyori's yukata and buried his face to cry in the crook of her sweet-scented shoulder, thinking only of the mother he both resented and missed more than life itself.

"Why? Why would you go this far?"

He knows he's being rude, he knows she can hear the blatant suspicion and distrust in his voice.

She smiles sweetly at him from her seat at the head of the table and moves a plate of mealy, rotten food in his direction.

"Because I want to," she says airily, watching him wrinkle his nose in disgust. "Do I need any reason more than that?"

He watches her, thinking.

"So far I only see how this would help me. What do you stand to gain?" he asked carefully.

"Oh, it's nothing that devious, child. I simply want to see how things pan out... And if a bit of trouble is stirred outside my realm... well, I certainly won't object to entertainment when it's so kindly offered to me."

"You want to see Amaterasu squirm," he scoffs as all the pieces suddenly line up and make sense.

"Very much," she admits easily. "Don't you?"

"I don't really care one way or the other. She doesn't mean anything to me."

"Ah," she says, her eyes glinting like black pearls in the shadows. "I forgot. You never witnessed what she did to wrong you."

He frowns, lost.

"Wronged me?!" he asks, incredulous. "Why on earth would the ruler of Heaven ever bother with me?"

The smile she gives him is so wide he almost fears she'll swallow him whole.

I can't do it.

Hiyori shut her eyes, overwhelmed by the raw pain and emotion of the boy trembling in her arms. He was so young, so fragile. She'd always sensed his trepidation, knew he had been lonely and that he felt out of place. She'd wondered what had made him so wary and quick to expect the worst, but now, all her observations made perfect sense. How could they not, when what little he could divulge painted such a dark picture of the fate he'd been left to?

She was well versed in the human fear of the unknown; gods once reveled in the vanity of the fact that humans had little choice but to tremble in awe at their unfathomable power. It was that same vanity that turned the tides in the war, the mistaken belief that if the humans were frightened enough, they would forget their grievances and return to a placid, obedient state of being.

But Heaven sorely misunderstood, nor did they sense the danger in othering themselves, in insisting they were different, better than humans. They never suspected that a frightened herd of prey could easily work itself up into a blind, manic frenzy that easily tore an unsuspecting predator to shreds.

Even now, all gods were keenly aware that to be different was to be dangerous. Anyone could turn, anyone could rebel. One difference of opinion, one person who didn't quite fit in... If sweet, mercurial Hiyori-no-Kami, darling of the seas and of the harvest, always going where she pleased, always getting up to little bouts of mischief... if she could turn her gentle wind against her own people, could pick up and hone a blade so sharp and hateful that it bathed in the blood of rebels, innocents, and gods alike... if she could only be stopped by the sheer depths of her own madness and a twisted human spell that preyed on her corruption... if she was so lost to her spiraling grief that in the aftermath of that final slaughter, the remains of the Heavenly Army had to trudge through gales and torrents of freezing rain to take her into custody, all the while expecting to have to fight to the death in the effort, only to find her kneeling listlessly at the center of the storm, caked in mud and with her face raised blankly to the sky, her arms cradling a single drenched corpse to her breast, while that bedeviled shinki of hers lay discarded, pristine and white as snow, glimmering in a shallow pool of dark red water... If she could do all that, then what of every other god or shinki that didn't fit the mold of the most loyal at court?

If even those same haughty, mistrustful gods, already afraid of her wrath, were still more frightened by the unknown power they'd felt lurking inside Yato that Amaterasu had risked antagonizing her greatest threat... how terrifying must he have seemed to a village of people who had no explanation for his strangeness?

She sighed quietly into his hair, lost in her thoughts.

I know I can't fight it forever, not on my own. I thought this time, things would turn out differently, I hoped by breaking one small rule, I could protect you and stop the wheel of fate from turning. I knew it would cost me, and that I'd have to answer for it, but if telling you kept you safe, I would have hurt you as many times as it took, for your own sake.

But I just can't. Not after this.

Perhaps one day I'll be able to do it, to spare someone and put an end to this...

I'm just so, so sorry it can't be you.

She pulled away reluctantly and very carefully wiped his cheeks with her overlong sleeves as he sniffled, his face red with shame.

"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, Yato," she assured him softly. "I don't know the details, but I do know that this... this power you have, it affects you in more ways than either of us can really understand. But I can tell you this much: I don't know or care if you really were summoned back from the dead, and I know you're not a demon or a monster. Even if that were true, what would that make me, the fallen god who really has been a demon?" she asked with a tiny, wry smile.

"Still... it must have been hard," she admitted, her gaze falling to the jagged puncture marks of the rough, calloused hand held open between her thumbs. "I wish I could have done something to help you... but I'm afraid that even if I'd known what was happening, it would have been difficult, even without the barrier that prevents passage between realms..."

"Y-you d-don't... don't understand," he whispered, his voice strained and frightened. "It's my fault-"

Anger rose in her breast for a moment. Not at Yato, but at his circumstances, at the people who made him believe he was detestable just for existing.

"If you take anything from this conversation, please understand this," she insisted, squeezing his wrist with just a little more pressure than necessary. "You aren't at fault for what happened to you, and you're not at fault for whatever else you think you've done to me. Not then, not now, not ever."

He shook his head pitifully but she wasn't having it.

"My corruption is my own burden, I promise you. And I'm alright now, aren't I?" she asked, privately thankful of how masterful a liar she'd had to become.

"Y-yeah," he managed, clearing his throat as he vigorously wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. "I'm sorry, I- I dunno... I just... I couldn't..." His words failed him and he caught her eye, silently imploring her to stay, to prove he wasn't imagining this.

He really thinks I would abandon him... That I'd really hate him for something he has no control over, she thought, saddened and confused by the utter helplessness that so haunted his ephemeral blue eyes... Why would anyone ever blame him-

Something clicked into place.

Surely not, she told herself, focusing with renewed interest on his face, on the pallor of his skin and the inky darkness of his hair, so at odds with his eerie irises. A mortal would only see these surface details, would only take in his unnatural, willowy beauty and feel the presence of something beyond comprehension.

But Hiyori was certainly not a mortal, and she had long seen the signs that every god in Amaterasu's court must have noticed after just one glance at her seemingly unassuming companion.

In fact, she'd noticed it within seconds of him taking her down onto the ground with him in the bath that very first day.

It was impossible not to, she'd just never paid it any real mind.

"Yato..." she said slowly, feeling slightly foolish for asking something that probably should have been mentioned much earlier. He couldn't really think she didn't know... right?

"Were you... did you..." she paused, unsure how to phrase her suspicion. "This whole time... you... were you afraid I didn't know about your... affliction?" she asked cautiously, hoping she wasn't insulting his intelligence too badly.

He blinked at her with such a look of bewilderment that Hiyori almost laughed out of pure relief that she'd somehow guessed correctly.

"Oh... fuck," she breathed, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose. "I should've realized... I'm such a fucking idiot," she groaned into her hands. "Of course you've been worried about this! How could I be so bloody fucking blind?! I should know better! Fuuuck!" she cursed again, just to get the frustration out without hitting something.

Yato looked like he'd just had the ground pulled out from under his feet, the dazed confusion in his expression only growing more bewildered by the second. Hiyori cursed a few more times for good measure and took a few calming breaths, suddenly exhausted.

"I'm so sorry, Yato," she apologized in earnest. "I thought... I don't really know what I thought," she amended with a sigh. "It's been such a long time since I had to socialize with any humans, I forgot they don't always see the world the same way gods and shinki do. Not that that's an excuse for making you feel so unsettled in your own home..." she muttered as an afterthought. "I should have clarified things right away, but I assumed, correctly I think, that you've always been aware of it, so I didn't see any reason to point it out. I thought maybe you just didn't like to talk about it, or that you didn't think too much of it; not everyone does.

"Some people are just born with it, you know. An unfortunate attachment to the Far Shore, a tie left over from when a soul is still roaming the realm of the dead. It's a constant force, tugging them toward the Boundary, trying to entice them back over it; it manifests in strange ways. A little annoyance here, a small, frustrating accident there, just a prediliction for unluckiness in general. It's usually not even noticeable, but I suppose yours, at least in the eyes of a human, is certainly abnormal enough to cause regular concern...  But that's not true in Heaven. A god wouldn't worry themselves over a constitution like yours much at all, other than to maybe remark on how uncommonly strong it is."

She grimaced, wishing she could go back and slap some sense into herself. She'd been so preoccupied with her own problems, so worried about her secrets... It never occurred to her that something as banal as an affinity for Yomi wasn't quite as inconsequential for someone who could actually die from a terrible accident.

"I knew from the beginning," she admitted when he continued to stare blankly at her without a word. "Any god would notice it right away. I did think it was curious, but compared to your far more unusual aura, it wasn't that noteworthy. Even Amaterasu-Omikami ignored it, remember? She didn't even mention it.

"I didn't either, I knew it was there, and so did you, so I foolishly assumed that was the end of it. I couldn't figure out why you had that attachment, but I always knew what it meant, even before I witnessed it in action," she noted sheepishly. "Not that it was at all difficult to notice that the recent uptick in chaos around the house coincided with your arrival, if I'd been looking for evidence. But I wasn't, because the place has always been a little... well, chaotic. It happens when there's only three regular occupants in an enormous building saturated to the rafters in divine and elemental magic... and whose housekeepers are far better at setting fires than cooking with them." She flinched at the thought of the sprites, resolving to apologize later for saying something unkind behind their backs.

Figuratively speaking. They didn't, after all, have backs.

"I don't think Hiiro or Yukine even registered the difference, we're that used to things going awry at a moment's notice," she reluctantly added as an afterthought. "So, yes... I've always known, Yato. Bad things happen to you a lot, don't they?"

There was a moment of bewildered silence and then a strangled sound from somewhere in his throat.

"Y-You... you WHAT?!" he shouted, and suddenly it was just too much, it was too ridiculous a situation, and though at heart it wasn't at all a laughing matter, Hiyori just couldn't stop as a fit overcame her and she all but fell over onto the tatami, clutching a horrifically painful stitch in her side.

It was just so.... so stupid.

She was stupid.

With each laugh came a stab of guilt, a sympathetic ache for her husband's collective misfortune, for the terrible things he'd probably seen and heard every minute of his unfairly short life. How could she have recognized his aura for its sheer power and not realized that it was a warning sign that she should have heeded, not for herself, but for the sake of Yato's mental wellbeing?

How long had he been agonizing over the thought of having to come clean, of explaining the awful past he clearly didn't want to think about? How desperate had he been, alone and afraid in a strange realm, that he clung so tightly to the tiny thread of their newfound connection and dreaded the thought of having to return to his miserable life of solitude, surrounded by people who wished him dead from the minute he was born?

It was so painfully obvious to her now, how small and insecure he must have felt, how her obliviousness must have made his life a living hell over the last few days...

But... maybe hell wasn't quite right.

He'd always smiled at her readily, hadn't he? He'd laugh and talk and sometimes just sit quietly near her in cat-like contentment when she chose to sit in the garden and read in silence. He hadn't been miserable then, she supposed, nor was he right now as he let himself down to lie next to her with all the questioning nervousness of a child hoping he was allowed to stay.

Did he want to stay? Did he just not have any other place to go? Did it really make any difference?

Surely it had to count for something, she thought, that sometimes, when he thought she wasn't looking, she was sure she could feel those bewitching eyes boring holes through her elaborate kimonos, seeing past them to the memory of her gazing up at him with her hair tossed wildly on the ground, her skin bared to his touch, lost in an unbearably hot daze she still allowed herself to linger in whenever she thought he wasn't looking.

Would someone without a choice make an attraction like that so painfully obvious?

She thought it again, that forbidden little note she'd locked away for her own protection... that the way his eyes lit up when he saw her, and the nervous, almost clumsy way he tried so hard to hide his flustered reactions to things she did and said... that from the moment he first laid eyes on her, he had surrendered everything he had, given his heart, his soul, his very life, entrusted them into her hands and never once thought of taking them back... that he had all but declared he wanted her more than anything, that she had once, just once, gone through that passageway, intent on sitting at his bedside to check on his condition and think on what her next step might be, and had to stop dead right behind the hidden door because there was a sudden, drawn out, unmistakeably sensual sigh on the other side, followed immediately by her name murmured with such blatant desire, such utter tenderness, that she had to turn on her heel and flee before her stupid aramitama betrayed her to her baser self...

That he loved her, plain and simple. That he couldn't help but love her, not only because he was her husband, but because he chose her, because it was always written in his thread of fate that he would choose her, long before either of them ever felt its tug.

And... wasn't that enough? Did she really need anything else to sway the walls she'd built around herself? Hadn't she also, in that moment they'd met, already given him some part of herself, some unconscious acknowledgement that she was as captivated by him as he was by her? Wasn't she simply plugging her ears and shutting her eyes to a problem she had unknowingly already surrendered to?

He loves me, she told herself, letting the certainty of that thought settle pleasantly on her skin, in her bones and through her blood for one dangerous, reckless moment. He loves me, and all I want, more than anything in all of creation, is to love him back.

Her delirious laughter faded bitterly, her eyes fixed on his as her thoughts returned to reality, studying the shifting, unnatural blues that ought only belong to something divine... or perhaps, something beyond the divine.

She'd thought it before, but part of the reason she'd been so oblivious to his worries about his ties to the Far Shore was because Hiyori was far more concerned about what her eyes couldn't see, the true nature of that anomalous, inhuman thing reflecting itself back at her in the azure windows of his soul. What was truly unnerving about Yato wasn't that Yomi had such a powerful claim over him; it was the fact that despite that irresistible allure, something else, something unknowable and ancient, refused to let him go.

Who are you? she wondered, reaching out her hand to brush the hair from his brow without really thinking it through. I always knew, somewhere under my denial, that I would find my way to you whether I wanted to or not, but this is more, this is different. Why do you have this power over me? What is it about you that makes me want to forget thousands of years of heartache for just a taste, a fraction of a second where I don't have to struggle to free myself from your spell?

"Sorry," she said instead. "I wasn't laughing at you, I just..."

"Lost your head a minute," he said, voice low and serious as he tentatively reached up to press the fingertips of his uninjured hand against her palm. "I know. I'm pretty sure it was your turn anyway."

She grinned despite herself, strangely comforted by the innocence of his expression as she allowed the tiny, barely tangible show of intimacy against her better judgement.

"You... you really knew all along?" he asked, his voice and faint touch wavering slightly in his uncertainty.

"From the moment I saw you," she said.

"And you don't... you don't hate me?"

"No."

"Not even for thinking I was hiding it from you...?"

Hiyori interlaced her fingers into his, trying to reassure him in the least reckless way that her aramitama demanded she close the distance between them.

"Not even for a second."

How could I, when I can't even do the decent thing and push you away while you still have the tiniest hope of escape?

Silence fell over them for a long while, neither of them saying anything, just existing together, red finger marks pressed to one another as though the thread that bound them still had corporeal form, as though this moment was every bit as sacred and as terrifying as the implications of the actual marriage spell they'd already agreed to.

"Hiyori..."

"Hmm?"

"What do we do now?"

They both stared for just long enough to wander into what must have been eerily similar ventures into less innocuous interpretations of his question because almost at exactly the same moment they were both suddenly very interested in what Hiiro and Yukine were preparing for dinner and they hastily let go so they could go find out and get Yato's injury looked at.

"We live," Hiyori said a few minutes later as they set off down the corridor toward the kitchens, side by side but deliberately keeping a respectful distance from one another.

"Huh?"

"Your question. What we'll do from now on," she explained. "We'll live here, and we'll try not to cause too much trouble at court, and hopefully I don't have to kill anyone if they threaten to hurt you."

"That got violent very quickly," he noted, his mouth twitching slightly.

"You are the War God's consort, you know. Once in a while you'll have to put up with a severed arm or two."

"... As long as they're not my arms."

"We'll see," she teased, and she was pleased to see him chuckle, utterly oblivious to her purposeful misdirection.

I am a terrible person, Hiyori thought. It's so much crueler this way, knowing that it's my own selfishness, my own ego, that's decided I'd rather postpone a wound that will hurt far worse later, just so I can avoid inflicting it now.

But what choice do I really have, when our fate has been sealed from the moment you died for me? How many others have I already tried and failed to save? If it must happen, if I can't do anything to avoid it... I can't bear the thought of hurting you before I absolutely must, not when I already feel my own curse weaving itself into my heart.

I won't do it. I can't tell you the truth, that you were brought here on purpose to either love me or hate me, that I've never been able to choose how I feel about it, and that it's all part of a horrible, cruel game designed to punish me, torture me, for something you never had anything to do with, and which I've forgotten all about.

All I can do is try my best to resist and give you some time to be content, to feel wanted without the full, disastrous consequences of what my curse can do, will do, when I inevitably, completely, have no choice but to give in.

By then... I'll love you more than enough to do anything in my power and pay any price... so I'll make sure you won't suffer too much or for too long, Yato.

I promise.

Chapter Text

"Tamanone-san!"

Tamanone gives a start at the sound of her name, momentarily distracted from the flushed red skin and clammy sweat of her son's little face.

"Mama..." he croaks helplessly as she pulls her hand from his feverish forehead to see who's come to visit.

"Shh, it's okay Yato, I'm here," she soothes, brushing his hair back tenderly as a stocky, middle-aged man pulls the reed curtain aside without so much as a warning.

"Good, you're here," he scowls. "You were asked to join the council this morning, you know there's no excuse for ignoring a direct summons from the elders-"

"Get out!" Tamanone cries, furious. "My child is sick!! I sent my uncle to inform you, so you have no right to come into my home without an invitation!"

"Your... That thing is always sick," he scoffs. "I don't know why you refuse to let the cursed creature die-"

"OUT!!" she screams as Yato starts sniffling in terror. "GET OUT!!" She rises from the floor and shreds her own forearm with her fingernails, too angry to use a different summoning method. Thankfully the sight of a rather unhinged, bleeding woman staggering toward him with murder in her eyes is more than enough for the messenger to take several nervous steps back.

"N-Now, now, there's no need for demons or dark magics, or whatever else you intend-"

"Out. Of. My. Sight!" she warns, forming a seal with her hand. The older man blanches and runs for his life, leaving Tamanone breathing hard in the center of the room as the adrenaline slowly dissipates from her veins.

"Mommy," Yato is crying in his strained little voice, and Tamanone gasps as she remembers she's still tending to him.

"I-It's okay, they're gone now," she says, hurrying to his bedside. "You're going to get better soon, Kaa-chan promises..."

Fat, exhausted tears stream from his bleary eyes as he reaches his small hands up toward her, desperate for a mother's reassuring cuddle. She frets over him for several minutes before she remembers to apply ointment to her scratches and bandage them up.

"Oy, Tama, what'd you do to that Elder-?" came a familiar, gruff voice. Tamanone glances back at the curtain to find her uncle removing his shoes at the entrance. "Fool looked like he was about 'ta piss himself..." he looks up at his niece, surprised by the sight of her son's frightened, wary eyes gleaming in the relative darkness of the room. " O-Oh, whoops, sorry Tama, I thought he was asleep," the man apologizes, glancing at the sick, miserable child with guarded pity.

"It's fine, Uncle. Please, come in," she greets with a tired smile.

"I brought the herbs you asked for," he explains as he sets down a basket full of leafy plants and roots. "Took me a bit longer'n usual, almost got attacked by a bloody boar-"

Tamanone winces. "Are you alright?"

"Nothin' I couldn't handle," her uncle says with a proud huff. He strokes his beard, pleased with himself. "Dai probably could've managed in half the time though. When's he back again?"

"In a couple of days," she says wistfully. She never feels at ease when her husband is away for so long, even if it's only because he's trying to gather enough food to last them through the winter. "The hunting isn't very good this year."

"It isn't?" her uncle asks, surprised. "Coulda fooled me, Touya and ol' man Ritsu were just braggin' about all the game they caught last week."

She bites her lip and glances at her son. He's so small and malnourished, even for a toddler of almost three years. It's been a very long time since their family has been able to keep themselves properly fed, and Yato is clearly suffering for it. But no matter what Tamanone or Daiki try, bad luck hounds them at every turn, whether it's a poor harvest or an accident that stops them from foraging and hunting effectively.

"That's heartening," she says, just to be polite. "Perhaps Daiki will have more luck this time."

But she knows he won't.

"Poor kid," her uncle says, eyeing Yato's deathly complexion and the gaunt shadows under his striking blue eyes. "He always looks like he's just one tiny step from snuffin' it-" he stops himself abruptly at the fierce look in her face. "N-Not that I believe in the rumors, mind ya! I just meant-"

"Thank you for the herbs, Uncle," she says, getting to her feet so she can usher him back out. "Best stay away, in case it's contagious. You don't want to catch ill before you leave for the logging season," she adds for good measure when he tries to say something else.

"Eh? Oh, uhm- B-But didn't you need some of the rafters looked at?"

"We'll manage."

"I know Dai's handy but he's no carpenter-"

"We. Will. Manage, Uncle Kuraha," she snaps.

"... R-Right, s-sorry for intrudin', I'll be on my way, see you in a few months... Take care, Tama. Yato-kun too."

"Have a safe trip," she says pointedly once she's all but shoved him out the door.

Kuraha gives her a rather hurt look, but she ignores it, turning her back on him without a glance.

She waits quietly for his footsteps to fade before she lets out a deep sigh and straightens out her kimono. Kuraha isn't actually her uncle, though she's always considered him as good as one. He's her late mother's elder cousin, and has always been fond of Tamanone. His wife died very early in their marriage, but Kuraha refuses to remarry even decades after her death. He is a lonely, older man, so Tamanone rarely grudges his concern over her life. But while Kuraha is far less prejudiced about Yato than the rest of the village, Tamanone also knows that her uncle finds the child deeply unnerving. His Sight has never been particularly strong, but his magic is no less potent for it, and he's the only truly proficient wielder of Sou in the clan. Even if he cannot see the sinister aura and its tendrils snaking around her baby boy like swirls of darkness made corporeal, Kuraha likely senses something off in his own way.

Sometimes she wishes she can't see it either.

"Yato, please have a little gruel," she begs once she returns to his bedside and resumes her attempts to make him eat something, anything.

"No..." he whimpers, his beautiful blue eyes glazed with pain. "Hurts..."

She feels hot tears pricking at her eyes as she puts down the bowl and takes his little hands.

"My baby... I'm sorry," she cries, kissing his fingers with pained desperation. "I've tried everything to help, I've tried spells and potions and every medicine I ever learned how to make; I can't even break your fever, much less release you from this... condition, curse, I don't know what to call it... I knew you would have difficulties, I was warned, but... if I'd known..."

She can't say the awful words out loud. They are a lie, and she will not speak them. Yato is her most beloved treasure, her pride and joy, a sweet little child who smiles readily despite his sickly disposition and penchant for injury. She would do anything for him, would kill and die for him, and she cannot ever pretend she would have let him go.

"Kaa-chan, don't... cry..." he murmurs as his eyes blink reluctantly closed and his head lolls tiredly onto the bedding. For a horrible second, Tamanone's heart stops beating, terrified that her son has gone back at last, but the soft sound of his breathing continues, evened out but audible as he drifts back into a fitful, clammy sleep.

She shakily cups his soft cheek, thankful he is still with her and hating how helpless she is.

"Please don't hate me, Yato," she whispers. "I only wanted to hold you, to hear you cry and laugh, to see you grow into the beautiful, kind boy you are... I never meant to make you suffer. I'm so sorry. Mama is so, so sorry, my little one..."

Exhaustion takes hold of her as she gently lies down next to him and holds him close. She is nearly asleep when a familiar voice echoes in the depths of her subconsciousness.

"He will survive, take heart," it says with a deep, rumbling sort of sigh. "I will ensure he will not succumb."

She thanks it wordlessly, relieved by the certainty in the tone, and soon she is in sleep's embrace.

She dreams of the stranger again; a young man smiling with true warmth, his deep brown eyes full of mirth and curiosity, his dark hair falling over his attractive face. She follows his steps through the woods as he hikes through brush and nimbly hops over roots with all the assured grace of a forest-born deer. He is lovely to watch, and Tamanone wonders if this is what her Yato would have looked like if he'd lived as he was meant to. Surely her son would have been just as hale, just as handsome and happy? Surely he would have learned to hunt and work the land instead of waste through his meager life like a half-ghost?

She immediately feels guilty for thinking it. Yato is Yato, and no one else, and she will nurture and protect him the same as she might've done for any other child.

Still, she cannot help but feel a bitter longing for this stranger's vitality as he wanders into a clearing full of flowers and kneels down to gather a small bunch.

He hums to himself, voicing snippets of a melody Tamanone recognizes almost immediately. The words are different, but it is undoubtedly the same song, and she cannot help but listen to the gentle lilt of his pleasant voice as magic gathers around him and the stems of flowers he's begun weaving into a circlet.

Soft sings the robin from high above thee,

A trill and a whistle draws all eyes to see,

Its notes warble fondly of a love soon to be,

Of the nest that will shelter all hurts carefully,

"Remember," it sings, a song warm and free,

"Remember thine heart, and come home to me."

In the shadows of the room, wisps of smoke seem to gather together into the loose shape of a mid-sized four-legged beast, indistinct and hard to make out as it lies on the tatami next to Yato's futon, where mother and child are both fast asleep.

"Fight, child," the voice quietly insists. "I've defied too many of my orders, Izanami will not be pleased if you return now. Fight to live and avoid that fate as long as you're able, for your own sake, and your mother's."

The beast lays its head down on its paws, watching the boy tremble with fever. Its thoughts wander to ancient days, and the memory of another person keeping vigil over someone's bedside. After several minutes, it sighs.

"Nevertheless, I am sorry it has to be this way, child of Tamanone."

"Yato, would you tell me a story?"

Yato looked up from the scroll of calligraphy practice he'd been working on in surprise.

"Huh?" 

Hiyori offered him a drawn, exhausted sort of smile as she casually slumped forward on the table, her chin resting on the back of her crossed arms.

"A story," she repeated. "Will you tell me one?"

Yato blinked, confused. Ink dripped from his brush onto his automatically cupped hand as he tried to refocus his one-track attention.

It was early afternoon, a time usually reserved for Yato's lessons with Hiiro or Yukine, but the stifling heat of late summer had started settling over the Celestial Plain, and to Yato's surprise, there wasn't much non-weather gods could do about it. Ambient spells tended to distort themselves when used in places where there was too much magic in the air, and while it was possible to cool down a room or two, it required an enormous amount of constant energy that not even a deity could keep up forever.

That was why Hiyori's household had a specific ritual regarding the unbearable summer months; during the hottest part of the day, everyone took an early repast and gathered in one of the less formal parlors downstairs, where Hiyori would cast a cooling spell for a few hours and try to spend as little energy as possible. They'd tried to continue Yato's practical lessons as usual, but it turned out that Yukine, who was in charge of most of the indoor, academic subjects, could not stand to sit still and patient while he had to guide Yato through his studies, which of course led to Hiyori getting involved and stressed out each time she and Hiiro had to defuse the situation. In the end, official lessons were suspended in favor of quiet self-study, punctured only by the occasional one-or-two-line exchange between the god and the rest of her household.

Hiyori often dozed during these periods, though not on purpose; because of her particular history with weather magic, it was harder for her to access the spells she needed without complicated work-arounds that dangerously skirted around the limits of Amaterasu-Omikami's divine command. Even with the shinki supporting her spells, it was draining and thankless work, almost as bad as the heat itself.

Yato had opposed the practice the moment he realized what it cost her just to give them all a few hours' reprieve, but Hiyori was the first to tell him she would rather be stabbed through the heart (which she assured him was every bit as excruciating as he imagined, having experienced it more than a handful of times) than made to suffer through the sweltering, humid muck that passed for air.

"You don't understand," she'd told him with a firm shake of her head. "There is nothing worse for a weather god than the stale, heavy oppression of an immobile pressure system. We will take anything over that awful feeling; I would rather have teeth pulled than sit helplessly through summer heat, both humid and dry. This might make me lethargic and exhausted, but it's far better than the irritation and headaches of the alternative," she assured him.

He hadn't been entirely convinced, but in the end Yato had no choice but to accept her stubbornness and adapt to the steady routine of the next several weeks. Truthfully, he found he rather looked forward to gathering informally with his new family, and many lazy, pleasant afternoons wore on into companionable, often enjoyable evenings spent laughing and chatting, and not just with Hiyori herself.

After many scoldings and complaints about the overly polite formality that only got worse the more etiquette was shoved down his throat, Hiyori had finally forbidden Yato from actually using all his new skills, at least when in the privacy of his own home. Skeptical, Yato had grudgingly allowed himself to start voicing his naturally dry, slightly morbid commentary, only to discover that he was actually a fair conversationalist, with sarcastic wit and blunt observations catching the others off guard in a variety of fascinating ways. Apparently Hiyori and Hiiro both found him exceedingly amusing, and Hiyori never looked more pleased than when they exchanged mutual bouts of stupid, teasing banter as though they were grand old friends half-flirting in their familiar, mutual comfort.

Of course, he also put his foot in it quite a lot, but that seemed to amuse everyone too, especially Yukine, who still detested Yato but took any and all opportunities to tear the Lord Consort a new one with sadistic relish. Nothing seemed to make the small, golden wildcat of a boy more pleased than savaging his new master verbally at every chance. And savage he did; Yukine might be small, but he was incredibly clever and sharp with his tongue. Only Hiiro could truly rival the viciousness of his remarks, though Yato had long noticed the shinki only meant maybe half of the awful things they said to one another.

Leave it to the retainers of a war god to consider nasty, insulting comments a love language, he'd thought more than once, though truthfully the candid, informal atmosphere was growing on him by the day.

"What kind of story?" Yato asked slowly.

Hiyori mulled the question over lazily.

"Hmm... tell me about..." she trailed off, and Yato had the distinct impression that she was trying to think of something that wouldn't remind him too much of his difficult past. "Oh, what's the forest like near your village?" she asked.

"You've already asked me that," he said with a small chuckle.

"... I did...?"

"You did. You've asked just about every major detail of what it was like living there. Mostly."

The unspoken caveat settled heavily in the air between them.

"W-Well, what about... uhm..." she faltered, her brow furrowed in thought. Yato offered her a knowing smile.

"I told you, Hiyori, ask whatever you like," he said as he laid down his brush on the ink tray and wiped his hand. "I don't really have any memories that aren't upsetting, even the relatively nice incidents turn ugly if you think about them long enough. I'll be fine, ask."

"I can't ask after you put it that way!" she exclaimed guiltily. "I don't want you to be miserable!"

"I'm not miserable," he said truthfully. "I'm happy here. Though..."

"What is it?" she asked, tensing.

"N-no, it's nothing you or the shinki have done," he assured her immediately. "It's dumb, really..."

"Yato," she frowned.

"I-I just kind of miss having a workshop," he said quickly.

"A... workshop?" Hiyori asked. "Like the one you lived in...?"

"Mm, sorta. It's not like I need one up here, but carpentry was the only thing I was ever good at... I kind of miss having something to carve or whittle in the evenings. It always helped me settle my thoughts... not that they aren't settled," he added hastily. "I guess it's just my way of being a little homesick... in a sense."

Hiyori tapped her fingers against the table. "Well, there's no reason you can't have one, I suppose... the only real issue would be sourcing wood... if you're going to be using it for carpentry, it becomes dangerous to manipulate with magic, just like ink and paper..."

"Where do you usually get wood then?" he asked, curious.

"Tree spirits allow us to take some from their groves once in a while, as long as we give them something in return. I'm not sure they would appreciate someone taking it regularly, though... I suppose we could ask a favor from a god related to plants and trees, but as I've said before, I'm not in great standing with the court," she explained with a frown.

"Oh... in that case, forget I said anything," he said. "I don't want to cause you more trouble than I already have."

"You're not causing me trouble, fool," she huffed, reaching across the table for his hands. Yato felt his heart beat faster as it always did; ever since they'd talked about his curse, Hiyori had been touching him far more casually than he was used to, and whenever she held his hand he wanted to both run away and never let go at the same time.

Damn it, she's gonna notice my stupid sweaty fingers any minute now, he groaned inwardly, pleading with his body to calm down. Breathe, Yato... This is normal, this is the most basic, almost pathetically small expression of your marital obligations. You are a married man. Act like it.

"Y-You don't have to lie to make me feel better," he muttered, unable to hold her eye.

"I do not lie!" Hiyori bristled.

"N-No, I didn't mean-"

"Ugh, again? Please, get a room, milord, milady," Hiiro grumbled as she returned from a minor emergency in the east wing, her face and clothes dripping with sweat. She eyed both of her masters with exhausted distaste. "It's too hot to subject the rest of us to this painfully innocent, second-hand embarrassment-"

"What emba-" Yukine began, looking up from the book he'd huddled up with in the smallest, shadiest corner of the room, only to yelp in disgust and distress at their interlaced hands. "Ew, stop that!!" he scowled, throwing his book directly at Yato's head. "Quit feeling up my god, you sweaty creep!!"

"Feeli- WHAT?!" Yato yelped as he abruptly tore his fingers out of his wife's hands and rubbed the bruise he was sure to get on his skull. "I wasn't doing anything!!"

"Yukine!" Hiyori scolded at the same time, her face growing redder by the second. "I told you, you are not to hurt Yato in any way-!"

"Even so, it's still my job to protect you and your good name, milady!"

"What good name?" Hiiro snorted under her breath. Yukine gave her a look of utmost loathing.

"Hiiro!" Yato gasped, scandalized. Even for Hiiro, that seemed a step too far... but Hiyori didn't look bothered by her comment at all.

"I don't need you to start defending my honor too," Hiyori sighed at the look on his face. "Hiiro is right, I don't have a reputation worth protecting, I'm hardly some untouched, pure maiden-"

Something caught in Yato's throat, and he had the strangest, most unsettling sensation in his belly. No one seemed to notice his distress.

"But you're still a deity and you deserve every ounce of respect from those beneath you!" Yukine insisted.

"He's not beneath her!" Hiiro groaned, rolling her eyes. She paused for a moment, thinking. "...Or above her, not if the clean sheets in both apartments are anything to go by-"

"HIIRO!!"

The squabbling continued, but all Yato could hear was a rushing noise in his ears, along with a dread he'd been subconsciously suppressing since he'd arrived at the house.

I forgot, Yato thought, nausea rising in his throat. Hiyori has been married more times than I can imagine.

It wasn't just jealousy, though he was sure there was a little bit of that mixed in; If Hiyori had had other consorts, then she was certainly no stranger to intimacy and the natural relationship of a married couple. The sheer numbers alone suggested that she must have cared deeply for at least some of them, and considering her personality, Yato couldn't imagine that Hiyori would ever deem any consort sent to her as unworthy of at least the attempt to make their relationship work.

That also meant she knew a hell of a lot more about living and lying with another person than Yato had ever even dared to daydream about... and it meant she was fully aware of how pathetically childish his desperation to be near her really was.

Gods help me, she must think I'm incapable by now, he swallowed, horrified. S-Surely none of her other consorts would still be so tongue-tied around her after almost a month of marriage that they can only barely touch her hands...!

But what was he even supposed to do?! His knowledge on the topic was so basic and shallow that he barely knew what the act consisted of, and mostly because, like any forest dweller, he was taught to use animal mating seasons as reliable indicators of the seasons and weather. Whatever he knew of human relations came almost entirely from bawdy, drunken stories and songs he'd heard offhand, and his master had died too soon to give him any advice on the matter.

What he did know was that a husband and a wife were supposed to be bedded as soon as possible after a wedding... and that a failure to do so was often the man's fault... and a great disgrace.

Yato swallowed back a wave of nausea.

It wasn't that he didn't want her. Of course he did, he'd been dreaming of it from the moment they first locked eyes in the bath that day. He'd even allowed himself a few small, guilty fantasies here and there, as much as he hated how dirty they made him feel afterwards. It seemed so disrespectful to think of such a kind goddess that way, much less the woman he was supposed to serve and care for. The fact that she might be expecting such things had never even crossed his mind. 

But dreams weren't the same as reality, and Yato simply couldn't imagine that he could ever measure up, even if he could somehow overcome his apprehension.

I can't do it, it's impossible, he bit the inside of his cheek. She must be used to confident, capable lovers, adults who know exactly how to please her... I don't even know how to kiss... What will I do if she hates lying with me? What if I hurt or embarrass her somehow? What if it ruins everything we've already built? I'll never forgive myself if it costs me her trust and her friendship... B-but what if not lying with her ends up making her hate me too?!

In that moment, Yato wanted nothing more than to crawl into his futon and take up the vows of a priest, just so he had an excuse not to mess things up.

Did Hiyori expect this of him? Had she been waiting for it all along?

He glanced up to watch her lively discussion with the shinki, her sleepy exhaustion all but forgotten. His eyes lingered on the softness of her flushed skin, the delicate strands of hair framing her face, the faint scars that he now knew she considered badges of honor (and which he'd longed to trace and admire with his fingertips from the moment she'd explained how proud she was of them), on her slightly unnatural irises, and the delicate curve of her smile.

She was truly beautiful, and Yato had no idea how to even begin doing any of it justice with words, much less with any sort of intimate touch.

"Yato?"

He blinked, surprised out of his thoughts to find everyone staring at him expectantly.

"H-Huh?" he stammered, panicking.

Yukine snickered while Hiyori gave him a very gentle look that made his heart feel like it was about to burst.

"I was just asking if you were ready for dinner," she said.

Yato flushed.

"Oh... yeah, l-let's do that," he muttered, his mind still occupied with far more difficult domestic matters.

In the beginning, there is a girl.

Mercurial, hopeful, mischievous, but vibrant.

She loves with the force of the wild, she hates with the passion of fire. She dances in storms and lays under stars with the moon for a companion. Small and sweet, she wanders the country with curious delight, never stopping to think of those she leaves behind.

She takes what she wants, she gives it back elsewhere. Neither kind nor cruel, simply a being of nature, like all things, all gods, all people.

But there is one thing she cannot have.

One day, the goddess of the underworld falls in love with her innocence and her spirit.

A deal is struck.

In the end, there is a boy.

Gentle, giving, and foolish.

The girl takes him for all he is worth and leaves nothing but gnawed bones where once there was a heart full of love.

The goddess is pleased. The boy is empty.

The girl pays her debt, and the wheels of fate turn and turn.

Until they stop once more, echoing with the ripples of the past, and the one who will pay for the sins of others meets the eyes of the rose-eyed wind within a dappled wood.

Everything changes. Everything ends.

Just like that.

"So, do you feel ready for your court debut?"

It was after dinner, and Hiyori was sitting at the edge of the koi pond in the garden with her feet submerged up to her ankles. Yato sat next to her at a little bit of an angle, leaving enough space between them for the game of hanafuda they were currently playing to pass the time.

"Uh, no," he said, frowning at her from behind his fanned out cards. "A fact you know perfectly well. But you're not distracting me that easily, Hiyori."

"Hah, as if I need to distract you to win," she grinned. "Koi koi," she noted, announcing yet another winning hand.

"Damn it! Every time!" Yato groaned, throwing down his cards petulantly. "You're not playing fair!"

"Am so," she scoffed, reaching for the tray of snacks behind them. "You're just terrible at this."

"Yeah, well, I barely know how to play-"

"Which is why I gave you a handicap at the start."

Yato scowled. "I told you that a handicap was going to be useless, I'm cursed, remember?"

"Oh, it's not that bad," she said with a smile as she held up the punishment brush. "You'll have a very nice ink beard by the time we turn in for the night."

"Ugh," he complained as she drew another line on his cheek. "You're enjoying this way too much."

"What can I say?" she chuckled. "I like winning. I'm-"

"A combat god, I know," he sighed. He stretched out his arms, stifling a yawn. "You're just lucky I don't hold grudges."

Hiyori snorted. "You? Not hold grudges?! You're still whining about how I won at karuta-"

"I can't read!! It's totally unfair!!" he insisted, crossing his arms petulantly. "I have to look for the cards based on the shapes of the words and I still haven't memorized all the stupid poems yet either!!"

"You can so read," she said. "You've passed every hiragana test we've given you in one try, and your visual recognition skills are so good you've still been able to win cards every time we play!"

"It's not the same as being able to read without needing to stop and think for a minute about what I'm looking at," Yato insisted.

"I think you're just a sore loser."

"I think you're just a bully."

"Watch it, husband, or you'll find yourself missing appendages in the morning."

"Ha! You always say that, but I've yet to lose even a finger."

They continued to argue as they gathered the cards, but it was with good humor and plenty of laughter. Hiyori couldn't help but feel relieved that things seemed to have settled quite nicely between them ever since they set things straight regarding Yato's background. Lessons were continuing apace, if somewhat quietly, as Otsukimi drew nearer, and Yato was making very good progress on most of the topics and etiquette he had to learn, though of course there were setbacks when he accidentally destroyed something or hurt himself, as he often did. Hiyori had been trying various spells and charms to try and lessen the burden of his curse, but so far nothing had really helped. Yato had told her not to bother after a few attempts; he'd just continue on as usual and get back up whenever he got knocked down.

Hiyori hadn't given up though; she was determined to do something for him, even if it was just so that he could go an entire day without some sort of cut or bruise. She finally felt like she understood some of her previous consorts' concerns regarding her own wounds now, though she was aware their scars couldn't be compared since they were obtained under such differing circumstances. Still, she hated seeing Yato hurt, and she thought perhaps he might feel the same way if she'd been in any recent fights.

Things had been quiet, though. The court was preparing for the upcoming festivities, and many gods had complicated and time-consuming duties to see to. Thankfully, Hiyori's main responsibility required no preparation; there was a small exhibition match on the second day of the banquet at Lady Inari's palace, and all she was expected to do was put on a good show to entertain the guests; her opponent this year was a minor god whose name she could never recall, so as long as she didn't win too quickly, her only other concern was to ignore all the snide comments from the other gods and then get as drunk as inhumanly possible for the rest of the festivities.

She was a little worried for Yato, of course; he had enough bad luck without alcohol making things worse, but there wasn't really much she could do about it. At Otsukimi, everyone drank; to refuse was to insult the host and the guests of honor, so Yato didn't have a choice. Luckily, that also meant everyone else would be drunk out of their minds, so as long as nothing terrible happened, Hiyori was sure she and her consort could manage with what little preparations they'd had time for.

"I can't believe there's only a bit over a week left," Yato sighed, rubbing his temples as Hiyori poured them both a bit more drink. Neither of them were all that good at holding their alcohol, but she figured building a bit of tolerance before Otsukimi likely wouldn't hurt. "I feel sick every time I remember."

"I know," she admitted, holding up the refilled cup of sake for him. He took it, gently swirling the liquid the way she'd taught him. "I'm nervous too."

"Will Amaterasu be there?" he asked, shuddering.

"... Unfortunately, yes. But we won't need to speak to her, don't worry. She wants as little to do with us as we want to do with her."

"I wish I knew why she seems to hate me as much as she does," Yato asked, watching the koi swim around Hiyori's feet. "I understand that she blames you and humans for the war and all that, but I dunno, that look in her eyes... it felt personal."

Hiyori nodded slowly. "Honestly, I couldn't say what she's thinking. She has never attacked one of my consorts like that before... she's always tried not to provoke me, just in case I revert back into madness. I can't blame her, I have the blood of far too many gods on my hands..."

There was a silent pause while they both sipped at the alcohol.

"Is it 'cause of my curse, then?"

"I assume so... Or at least, whatever is under it..."

"... It kind of scares me that you don't have any idea what it could be," he admitted.

"Mm, it rather frightens me too... But as long as it's keeping you here with me, I'm thankful," she said truthfully. Yato blushed and downed the rest of the cup before refilling it himself.

"I-I see..." he muttered.

I wish you would just tell me what you want, she thought, eyeing the marriage mark on his little finger. I've never questioned myself like this before, but every time I'm sure you love me, the distance you rebuild between us confuses me. I don't know how to proceed if you won't let me in, Yato...

She sighed, wondering why she couldn't just voice the questions she wanted so badly to ask.

"... Hey, Hiyori...?"

"Hmm?" she asked, draining her cup. She was feeling pleasantly fuzzy now, not quite drunk but definitely a bit more frustrated than she normally allowed.

"You... you never talk about... about your other consorts..." Yato said. Hiyori gave a small start, but when she looked up, she found his expression was hidden behind his overlong bangs.

"Oh... no, I suppose not..." she managed awkwardly. Why would he want to talk about that? They usually hate thinking of the others... It's only natural.

"What... well... Did you... l-like any of them?" he asked, his posture stiff and his shoulders rounded as if he expected a blow.

Why are you torturing yourself, you idiot? 

"... Why do you want to know?" she asked instead, frowning with uncertainty. "The past isn't going to come back..."

He seemed to shrink into the shadows, clearly ashamed.

"... I... I dunno," he admitted, wincing. "I guess I just... N-no, n-never mind," he coughed.

Hiyori stared down at her empty cup.

"Yato... Do you hate that I've been married before...?" she asked, liquid courage making her bold.

"N-no. I mean... I don't love the idea," he muttered, and Hiyori couldn't help but grin at what was clearly an innermost thought given voice by the sake.

Cute. He is jealous.

"It's not about whether or not I hate it," he continued, enunciating a bit more clearly. "I'm not self-centered enough to think I'm special when I knew all along you've never had a choice in this... And in any case, you have a right to a past, like anyone else. Just because I'm your current h-husband... S'not like that really means anything... But... I do want to understand you better, Hiyori... You're still my wife. My friend. I... I c-care about... about you... and I want to know about the things that are important to you..."

He trailed off, turning away slightly in embarrassment. 

"I also... I'd like to know... What kind of..." he struggled for a minute before he seemed to give up, his face burning in the moonlight. "Er, just, y'know, what you think..."

She mulled that over for a minute, wondering what she should say. She let Yato refill their cups again before she decided to tell him the truth.

"I... I loved almost all of them," she said softly. "I couldn't help it... they were all so different, so alive. For a god like me, they were like the sweetest, most wonderful dreams... People are breathtaking," she sighed. "I don't think I could explain it very well... but watching them..." she raised a hand and a firefly alighted perfectly on her outstretched finger. "It's kind of like this," she said, holding it out to him. "So small, so insignificant, and yet so bright... There one moment, gone the next. Beautiful, ephemeral, it makes your heart ache."

Yato hesitated before he held out his hand and let her place the little light on his skin. He watched it flicker, his brow furrowed. "... I think that makes sense," he said, letting the firefly crawl over his fingers thoughtfully. "It's like... Art. Music. The sort of thing you want to hold onto even if it doesn't have a form."

She smiled. "Yes, just so. Watching humans makes me sad, but it also makes me happy. Living among you feels nice. There's a coldness to immortality. A longing, I suppose... Gods live until they are killed, but after hundreds of thousands of years, you begin to feel empty inside. Everything loses its flavor, it's specialness. It's only the impermanent things, the things we can't keep... Those are the only things we can truly feel alive around. Probably because we can't have them," she noted. "Of course, these days, I'm the only god who will admit it. Everyone else has spent eternity numbing themselves and pretending that court life is enough."

"... It sounds lonely."

"Being me generally is," she said, only half-joking. 

But Yato didn't laugh. He gave her a look of deep understanding, looking much older than his seventeen years with that unnameable something staring from within his soul. 

"It must be hard," he added quietly, his voice taking on a rough, emotional texture. "Loving and losing people like that..."

"Yes... it's... it hurts very much..." she said, a lump forming in her throat. "But no matter what I do, how hard I try to save you all... I know it's not really possible, but I wish... just once..."

A hand brushed against her little finger as it lay on the wooden panels.

"It's okay," Yato said, gazing at the trees swaying gently above. "I don't blame you for any of this. I'm... I'm sure they didn't either... no one could really hate you, Hiyori."

She laughed, a dull, lifeless sound. "If only that were true."

He turned back toward her, and the burning heat of his gaze was so intense that it almost frightened her. Almost.

"It's true for me..." he insisted, almost a growl. "It will always be true for me. There's nothing, nothing you or anyone else could possibly do to ever change that."

She couldn't move. She couldn't think. She could only sit frozen, held hostage under that ice-blue heat.

Why did that color unsettle her so? Why did it feel so wrong, and yet so familiar...?

Yato's expression grew hurt, desperate, as if her silence were cutting into his flesh. His brow knotted with pain as he released the firefly and leaned just a bit closer, searching her face for some spark of... something.

"You really... you can't remember," he whispered, his lips trembling. "If only... at least... I hope you know, somewhere deep inside, that I never meant for this to happen, Hiyori... All I want, all I've ever wanted, is for you to be free..."

Hiyori couldn't look away, she couldn't do anything but listen to the rasp, desperate note in his voice. His eyes were dark and conflicted in the glow of the firefly's light, stormy waves of ice on a pitch black night. Something warm and gentle touched her cheek, the softest brush of a pair of knuckles stroking her skin.

Her heart caught, her head went completely blank, unable to breathe as her blood burned through her. This wasn't like Yato at all, and yet...

"... I'm sorry you have to live like this," he whispered, and Hiyori was sure, just for a moment, that his voice felt deeper, rougher than usual, almost like he'd hurt his throat, like he was imitating a rather large animal. It felt strange, uncanny, but settled on her nerves like the embrace of a long-lost friend. "The last thing I want is to hurt you, Hiyori. If I'd known..."

The firefly suddenly went out.

His fingers fell away.

The sharpness of his gaze had been muddied somewhat in the seconds that it took her eyes to readjust to the darkness, and Yato shivered.

"Mm, I think I'm a bit drunk," he mused, ruffling his hair. His tone was back to normal, she noted, wondering why he'd changed it at all. "Kinda spaced out for a minute... Hiyori?"

The god blinked, brought back to her senses. "Oh... y-yes, I think I drank a bit too much myself," she admitted, patting her cheeks in a slight self-reprimand. "I could have sworn..."

But she suddenly felt oddly dizzy, and her thoughts felt slippery and mixed up.

"This doesn't bode well for moon-viewing at all," Yato groaned, returning the cups to the tray. "We barely put a dent in the jug," he grimaced.

"Mmm," she managed, but already she couldn't recall what they had been talking about just a moment ago. "I think... maybe we should go to bed early," she said after a few minutes of fighting a loud, rude yawn. "I'm suddenly very tired..."

"Okay, I'll get Hiiro," he agreed, getting to his slightly unsteady feet and making it to the corner before he tripped and fell right into the pond. "GAH!!!!! HELP!!!" he screamed, splashing awkwardly with the added weight of his soaked clothes as he coughed and gasped for breath.

Hiyori groaned and pulled herself over to the railing. "It's like two feet deep over there, you idiot," she called as he thrashed dramatically. "Quit that, you're gonna scare my fish!"

He looked very sheepish indeed when he remembered how to stand and found the water only came up to his knee.

"Oh. Right. I'll just..." he all but scrambled back onto the platform and fled into the dining room, his clothes dripping all over the corridor.

Hiyori smiled, leaning her slightly aching head against the rail as one last coherent thought came and went, the smallest whisper of wind vanishing into nothingness.

You always were such a cute, clumsy fool, Yabo... ku...

She sighed, and all was forgotten.