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Bishamon didn’t notice immediately.
How could she?
In the midst of the end of the world, she happily clutched the body of her most precious shinki, her second-in-command. Kazuma was still alive. That was all that mattered. She had felt his name on her soul strain. She had felt the distance and the fear and the sudden awareness that was usually followed by death. At that moment, she’d been convinced that she’d lost him.
And then she’d called his name, and instead of being greeted by emptiness, she was met by his tired, exhausted smile, the shade of his green eyes as familiar as it was comforting. She’d held him as the shadows grew around them, and instead of helping her brethren fight off the undead monsters, the Sorcerer summoned to equalize them all, she huddled her family together under the protection of a shrine and dug her fingers into Kazuma’s unconscious body until her heart could finally, finally believe that he had come back to her.
But that was then.
Now, back in Takamagahara, she couldn’t stop staring at the name etched into the space between his collarbones. Kazu, written with the Kanji for “calendar”, rested on his chest like the necklace of a lover would. He was still sleeping, exhausted after the months he’d spent protecting her unconscious body after surviving whatever horrors the Sorcerer had thrown at him. If he’d really survived. Only time would tell. His pajama top was unbuttoned at the collar, so she could keep an eye on his name (on both names), everyone else banned from visiting him in his sickroom.
After Tsugaha, Bishamon had thought she would know how to deal with this. She didn’t. Back then, she’d been alone, unable to confide in Kazuma, and even now— now, she was once again left to her own devices.
There was a reason Gods had guideposts, and there was a reason the Gods’ Greatest Secret was as debilitating as it was. It left them alone, forced them into isolation, sowed distrust, and weakened the ranks of the other shinki.
Bishamon knew Aiha and Kuraha wanted to see Kazuma–she could feel Akiha’s discontent at not being allowed access to the patient deep in her soul. They weren’t stinging her, not yet, but she could feel the doubt claw at their resolve.
It had been a hard year on the Ha-clan. She had tested their loyalty again and again, they had lost many of their sisters and brothers, they’d become enemies of the Heavens, and then— well, then Bishamon had fallen sick and left them alone to deal with the consequences.
Kazuma was supposedly the one who took care of them while she was indisposed.
Supposedly.
Only Bishamon couldn’t stop staring at the foreign kanji decorating his chest. With each rise and fall of his ribcage, tension eased from her tired muscles. And yet each heartbeat echoing down their divine connection also made her doubt.
He had betrayed her.
Undoubtedly, in some misguided attempt to help her, but— Kazuma had betrayed her. In a way that made her stomach curdle and her toes curl in her steel-toed boots. It left a violating stain on her soul, a wrongness that not even the cleansing qualities of the hot baths could wash away.
He had become Nora.
His right hand rested on the starched white of the linens Akiha had carefully prepared, the name she had given him branded on the back of his hand for the world to see. Kazu, with the kanji for “trillion”, Kazuma as a human, Choki as her weapon. She had chosen that name with deliberation many, many years ago. She’d been a different God then, more divine, less human.
Because Kazuma was the one who’d softened her.
Who’d stayed by her side after they’d lost everyone.
Who’d combed her hair and brought her soup, even when she couldn’t face the world.
Who’d protected her from the Heavens and who’d waited for her to turn her grief into anger.
Who’d became a Blessed Vessel for her, just through the strength of his love and his unyielding loyalty.
And now there was a different name adorning his skin. Now, he had sworn loyalty to a different god, had given away the one gift a shinki was to cherish beyond all else: his name. It was his identity, after all. The seal kept him connected to the Near Shore instead of banning him to the Far Shore.
And even that might be broken.
There was dirt underneath his finger nails. The bruises underneath his eyes had deepened. Exhaustion clung to his shoulders. Kazuma had never cut the most imposing figure, but looking at him now, Bishamon found him frighteningly small. He’d only been nineteen when he died – her grasp on mortal things was shaky at best, but even she knew that it was awfully young for a human to die at that age.
The emotions of her shinki mixed with her own. It was hard to keep them separate, made easier by the physical space separating them right now. At least there was a door between her and the worry in Aiha’s eyes. At least Kuraha was down the hall and not in the room with them.
Bishamon was angry.
That was not a new experience. A God of Fortune, Bishamon had been born from the wishes for victory and success. The very heart of her nature was wrathsome. She was a warrior and a slayer, the adrenaline of battle only bested by the pride of seeing her enemies defeated right in front of her.
She knew how to be angry.
Angry at the Heavens for not listening to her about Ebisu. Angry at Yato for naming Kazuma. Angry at Yato for using Kazuma in a fight he knew would kill them both. Angry at Kazuma for choosing Yato again and again. Angry at Kazuma for taking a name besides the one she’d given him. Angry at Kazuma for potentially dying. Angry at Kazuma for no longer being just hers. Angry at Kazuma—
Usually, she wasn’t angry at him. Usually, it was Kazuma’s job to direct her wrathful nature until it found its rightful target.
But he couldn’t do that for her now, pale and unconscious as he was. The name on his chest was an insult, the fear for his fate a constricting band around her heart.
If Bishamon knew anger, she was uncomfortably familiar with fear as well.
She couldn’t lose him.
That was the simple truth of it.
She had watched as the Ma-clan destroyed itself, senselessly suffering as their jealousy ripped her apart, and she had felt every death as Yato sliced through their deformed bodies with that cursed Nora of his. She had suffered the same darkness take root in the Ha-clan, only to be once again saved by Yato, and she had cried as Tsuguha had slowly fallen prey to the Gods’ Greatest Secret only to have Kazuma be forced to kill her.
Every single time, Kazuma’s continued survival was what saved her. What kept her going. What made her fight to become a better God, a better Master.
Only now—
She was sure his name had fractured. She wasn’t quite sure which. So far, the cracks weren’t visible.
She was just waiting for the inevitable.
With a sigh, Bishamon pushed away from the chair she was sitting on. Her legs were stiff. Not too long ago, she’d been on bed-rest herself. Defeated after taking on all of the Heavens in an effort to kill the Sorcerer. Raising her arms above her head, she stretched tired muscles. Her uniform felt constricting.
Stepping away from Kazuma’s sleeping form, she aimed for the window. The sun shining through the glass was weak, the light in Takagamahara always diffused. Amaterasu focused her attention mostly on the earthly planes, after all.
Outside, the world continued on. Some of the younger shinkis under her care – too young to understand their own undeath – were playing with Kuraha, braiding flowers into his mane as he watched over them. Kazuha and his sister watched from afar, too mature to embrace the naivete and innocence that usually came with dying before a certain age.
Usually, she loved this view.
It was her small heavenly kingdom, filled with all the souls she saved.
Only today, there was no joy in it.
There was only the unconscious man at her back.
Only the looming weight of his death and the fury over his betrayal.
(and he had betrayed her)
Clutching the windowsill, her knuckles turned white. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw that damned name again. Red against white, etched into Kazuma’s skin just below his throat, the intimacy of the placement infuriated her. Bishamon used to be deeply prideful of her name on Kazuma’s hand – easy to see, it was clear to everyone that he was her guidepost. His hand was what showed her the way. And now— yeah, he could probably hide it, should he do up the buttons of his collar, but he would forever have Yato’s name close to his heart.
It didn’t help that Yato’s name for Kazuma was so awfully similar.
That idiot god had probably thought he was doing her a kindness by naming her shinki something similar to the name he already rightfully carried. Instead, it turned the name she had given him poisonous. Kazu was supposed to be something the two of them shared. It was her name for him.
And now—
A growl escaped her.
“Veena?” Kazuma’s voice was weak, confused.
She whipped around fast enough, her hair hitting the window behind her with enough force to create a soft ting. Kazuma was awake. His green eyes blinked in her direction. Of course. He’d lost his glasses during battle. There was a soft frown drawing lines on his face, the image in front of her overlapping with the young shinki she’d met hundreds of years ago, back when he wore his hair in a low bun and preferred a green yukata to the sleek cut of their current uniforms. His face hadn’t changed in all that time, and yet they had. As people.
(a god is never wrong)
(a human will make mistakes)
Frantically, she searched for signs of it in his expression. Tsuguha grew increasingly disorganized as the memories slowly came back to her. It had been a slow process, but one that Bishamon had felt in her very heart.
Kazuma only had eyes for her.
“Veena?” he asked again. “You’re… here?”
“I’m here.” She forced a smile. Crossing the room, she sat down on the chair next to his bed. He gazed in wonder as if he was seeing her for the first time, awe dancing through his eyes until his entire face shone with it.
“You really are.” The relief in his voice echoed down their connection until it pierced her heart. His smile was fragile; hers was brittle. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” Bishamon said, unable to stop herself from adding, “Especially when I woke up, and you were gone.”
With a flash, the joy in his eyes was swallowed up by guilt. He flinched back, his left hand instinctively coming up to cover the name on his chest. At least he hadn’t used the hand with her name on it to cover himself. Small mercies.
Pale skin turned even paler.
“Veena, I can—”
“Explain?”
“Yes.” His voice dripped with pleading, his desperation not unlike the time she found out he had helped Yato by performing an ablution on his shinki. Back then, she’d exiled him by telling him to become a Nora. Now the truth of that reality sickened her to her stomach. “I can explain.”
“Then do.” Maybe if she stared only at the alien name and the unfamiliar brushstrokes of the kanji, she could keep the sorrow from swallowing her whole. If she held onto the anger, the fear and grief couldn’t claim her. She was a goddess of war – it was not fair her heart bled for every lost soul.
“I—” Kazuma started, only for his voice to break. Shaky hands reached for the glass of water on the nightstand. Bishamon suppressed the urge to help him. “You have to understand, you were unconscious. The Heavens, they had almost killed you. Because of the Sorcerer. We had to— Oh God, what happened to Yato? Did we—?”
“Last I heard, the Yatogami survived. The Sorcerer did not.”
“And what about Yukine? I don’t—?”
“Don’t change the subject.” Bishamon didn’t want to hear that name. These names. She didn’t want another reminder that Kazuma wasn’t strictly hers anymore, even if she knew it was silly. The story Kazuma had to tell her surely involved Yato’s name many times.
(she couldn’t ask him about his death – she couldn’t ask him whether he was dying)
Kazuma stared at her in silence as if to dare her to take it back. She didn’t. With a sigh, he followed his master’s orders. “I knew we had to kill the Sorcerer. And I knew doing so would most likely kill Yato. Yato knew the same thing. He also knew whatever shinki he brought along to this fight would most likely share his fate. And so— he tried to do what you did, Veena. He went to ask Nana for help.”
Gods were incapable of being wrong, yet something faintly similar to the human emotion of guilt rippled through her at the reminder. After all, Kazuma was right. She, too, had asked that girl to die for her instead of taking Kazuma into her battle with the Sorcerer.
But there was a reason for that.
A reason Yato knew. He would never have—
“Yato was denied.” Kazuma smiled. “I know it is not your fault, but both you and Yato were incredibly cruel when you asked that girl to die for you.”
“It was.”
Kazuma accepted her unspoken apology with a nod. “Either way, Yato needed a powerful shinki willing to die alongside him. And it could not be Yukine. So– I mean, Veena, you know I would do anything for you. I have done everything for you. I—”
“You let him turn you into a Nora.” The word tasted of acid and spit on her tongue.
Kazuma flinched back. “No.”
“I can clearly see his name on your skin.” She blinked furiously. There would be no tears. “I gave you that name because I saw great potential in your spirit. I made you a member of the Ma-clan with that name. I made you my guidepost with that name. And you—”
“I forced him to make me his shinki!” Kazuma’s words cut through her angry tirade like a blessed weapon. “I forced him. Veena— you have to understand, to save you, I would— apparently, I would even betray the name you gave me.”
The blow was fatal. She swayed in her chair until her shoulders slumped. Her bangs covered most of her face, and she was grateful for it. That way, Kazuma couldn’t see the shameful flush to her cheeks.
“You… you would leave me to go and die by the Yatogami’s side?” She was a God of War, her voice was that of a child.
“I would always happily die for you as long as I knew it would help you.”
She didn’t want to hear this, but as his master, it was her obligation. Heart beating frantically, every ounce of her body demanded that she ordered Kazuma to stop this right now. To stay by her side and give up on that stupid, deadly loyalty. Duty kept her silent.
“Yato didn’t want to name me,” Kazuma continued, when her silence remained strong. “He knew you’d be angry at him. But I— I couldn’t let him face the Sorcerer on his own. Not when that man tried to enact revenge on you by— it doesn’t matter. I– I tricked Yato into naming me. And together, we fought the Sorcerer. It was— he had Yukine, and turned him Nora as well. We were— Yato and I, we were winning. And then—”
Kazuma paled.
Anger forgotten, fear turned the blood in Bishamon’s veins to ice. “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about that. Actually— forget about Yato. I’m not all that angry. It was just a misunderstanding, probably. We can—”
She couldn’t do it again. She had barely survived the process with Tsuguha. Every name she’d gifted a spirit was inscribed into her heart as a god. It was a pulsing, aching connection that filled her with a sense of aliveness she couldn’t access without the help of her shinki. The corruption of one of these connections was pain, pure and unfiltered. It was wrong, sticky, and ugly.
Gods couldn’t get sick, but a decaying name resembled a hearth of infection. If losing a shinki to an attack was akin to being stabbed through the heart, the Gods’ Greatest Secret being broken was a vivisection of all the parts that kept a beating heart alive.
She wouldn’t survive losing another soul to the horror of their down death.
She wouldn’t survive losing Kazuma, no matter how angry she was.
“I… died?” Kazuma asked, the furrow between his eyebrows growing deeper. Bishamon’s heart constricted. Maybe she was just imagining things, but the bruises underneath his eyes looked deeper.
Leaping up from her chair, she closed the distance between them. Her grip was firm when she took his face in her hands. His eyes widened at their proximity, Bishamon weirdly charmed by the faint blush crawling up his pale cheeks. A sign that he was still himself. A sign that he was still her Kazuma.
“Look at me.” It was an order.
Kazuma obeyed. His green eyes were covered in a hazy sheen.
Her heart wept. Her eyes were desert dry.
“It’s okay, Kazuma. We really don’t need to talk about it. We can— you were worried about Yato, right? He survived. Apparently some teenagers filmed him running down a street in Akihabara screaming while on fire, and it stabilized his existence long enough not to be immediately forgotten. Kuraha has been waiting for your return. He says he is not suited to being a guidepost on account of how easily distractible he is by balls and mice. Aiha has really come into herself. I am very proud of–”
“Veena…” Kazuma’s face between her hands was warm. Human. Alive.
“Yes.”
“It’s okay.” He was still pale, but the smile on his lips was real. “I remember.”
“You…?”
There was a crack in the impenetrable wall holding her heart together.
“Is this what the secret is? Is this what killed Tsuguha?”
They both knew Kazuma was what killed Tsuguha in the end.
Bishamon didn’t trust this sudden peace – it couldn’t be that easy. Kazuma couldn’t suddenly be okay. If she confirmed something, and he broke because of that, she would never recover. Her lips were sealed shut, her body frozen while holding onto Kazuma.
Still in her grasp, Kazuma licked his lips. “That’s it, right? When— when shinki remember their death, they get consumed by it. That’s why everyone is so afraid of it. That’s why we were forbidden from Tsuguha’s sickroom. That’s why no one else is in the room with us right now. They— we infect each other. It’s a virus, and right now, you’re afraid I’m going to take everyone down with me.”
“No.” Bishamon shook her head. “This is— Kazuma, this is not about anyone else. This is about me not wanting to lose you.”
“Even if I am a Nora now?”
“You could carry a thousand names, and you’d still be my Kazuma.” Bishamon found she meant it.
With a sigh, Kazuma fell forward into her grasp. They’d rarely touched like this in all their centuries of knowing. Bishamon was surprised by how easily he fit against her shoulder. The fabric of her uniform jacket grew damp – he was crying. Carefully, Bishamon raised a hand to run down his back. It was an entirely human show of comfort, one she had learned about only recently.
He seemed to appreciate it.
“It’s okay then,” he said between two big heaving sobs. “You don’t have to worry.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re my family, Veena.” He struggled against her grip until he could look at her again. Snot and tears ran down his face. “I might have been Hirano Kiyotsugu at some point, but my name— my name is Kazuma.”
He remembered.
His seal wasn’t just cracked, it’d been destroyed.
Yet he was still here.
Bishamon’s mind flashed to Nana, who resisted the God’s Secret by being more focused on her urge to slaughter and kill. Sometimes, if the shinki truly didn’t care about their own death, they could resist the poisonous pull of the Secret. It was basically unheard of. As far as she knew, Nana and the Nora were the only two shinki who’d ever remembered and didn’t turn monstrous shortly after.
And now there was Kazuma.
Her Kazuma.
Who loved her and the name she gave him enough to denounce his own birth name.
Her eyes found Yato’s name on Kazuma’s chest all on their own.
Kazuma had betrayed her. But in doing so, he had once again proven that he was more loyal to her than he was to anyone else. His survival was proof enough of that. The alien name on his skin was just another price they had to pay for his continued existence.
It was a price she would gladly pay.
“You are a miracle,” whispered Bishamon.
“And you’re my God.”
Right now, it didn’t matter that there was a second God he’d sworn loyalty to.
Because she would always be his highest priority, to his own detriment and hers.