Thanks a lot for all the people who favourited and followed this story, and of course the people who wrote a review too. There is a review to which I can't answer to personally, so I will write an answer there:

To Aofery: Thank you, it's always nice to wake up and read this kind of message! But I noticed that I often get reviews late at night... Sleeping is important! Really, take care of yourselves :)

I hope you will continue liking this, even if it's the last chapter.

Yukine shot upright with a gasp, fear and horror clinging to each of his bones so strongly that it hurt. Exhaustion and dizziness instantly slammed him back in his bed, where he massaged his temples with the tips of trembling fingers and tried to calm his breathing to a useful level, not hyperventilation.

He let out a sigh when the panic had finally ebbed away. "What a horrible nightmare," he whispered to himself, his heart still beating fast.

"It wasn't a nightmare, Yukine-kun," muttered Hiyori, startling the shinki who hadn't noticed her presence by his side. "I'm... I'm so glad you're alright...!"

"Hiyori..."

"W-We almost lost you," sobbed her fuzzy silhouette. She was saying something else, but there was a static, high-pitched sound in his head that completely blocked whatever she was trying to tell him. So he just blinked at her while his brain tried to process what she'd told him a moment ago.

The blood and the yells weren't just a nightmare then... He couldn't believe that he had lived - survived - to all this. But she was probably right. The colours that he saw were duller now, and there was something heavy and sad in his chest that he knew wouldn't ever disappear.

"Where is Yato?" he asked in a tiny voice, unknowingly cutting her. "Y-Yukine-kun... I-I'm sorry. No one knows where Yato went, or how he is doing. He has been missing ever since you've been admitted to the hospital three days ago."

The situation was bad. More than bad. Last time Yato had disappeared, it's when he had left for Yomi and almost got himself murdered by Izanami's creatures. And before that, it was when his father forced him to do his magatsukami work. It wasn't happening again.

He threw all the covers away. "I... I have to search him."

"Yukine-kun, be reasonable! You just regained consciousness, and you already want to go out?! It's raining outside! Please, lay down and calm down, because you're... you're going to..."

"Hiyori..." Her clenched fists and reddened nose made him hesitantly hug her. "I'm... I'm sorry to have worried you all so much. And not to have told you anything too... But I have to find Yato. Don't you remember when he went to Yomi? We could have lost him there! I just have this feeling that he is going to do something really dumb, and I have to find him before it's too late."

Hiyori only tightened her embrace. "I promise you we will be back soon," he smiled reassuringly. "I won't mess up this time. I still have a lesson to catch up with you, after all, and you hate when I slack off."

"Y-You better come back safely, both of you..." she conceded, hugging the boy again. "Be careful outside."

Yukine teleported to the first place he thought of. After everything that had happened, after having rubbed shoulders with a past that was forbidden to him and that he shouldn't ever have learned anything about, where Yato had most chances to be was pretty obvious.

As he had hoped, the god was here, facing directly the flowerless cherry tree. Yukine made a mad dash towards him because he had that sick, horrible feeling that he was a few seconds away from leaving forever.

Yukine wasn't sure he had heard right with his heart beating wildly and the thunder roaring in the dark sky, but he thought he'd seen Yato mouth something that sounded dangerously like Father at the phone when he turned his head a little bit. His god's voice was low and he wasn't a lip-reader, so he wasn't actually sure, but going back to his father's side was definitely the kind of stupid thing Yato would do to protect others.

Tears started to sting his eyes when he saw Yato put his phone back in his pocket and his misty sigh disappear in the air. Yukine's arms slipped around his master's waist just in time, just as it was starting to become blurry. Yato took a forced step forwards at the strength of Yukine's embrace.

Yukine barely believed that Yato was still here, and he forced himself not to blink to make sure the black jersey was still in front of him. He tried to catch his breath, but soon gritted his teeth and buried his nose in the god's back to hide his tears. "Wh-Where do you think you're going, idiot...?"

"You woke up," remarked Yato in a small voice.

"Answer me!" he cried. "Where were you going?!"

Yato's shoulders sagged, a few raindrops sliding down his already wet back at the movement. "I'm sorry, Yukine, but I have to go. Father gave me a new mission."

"I won't let you! Don't you think he has done enough to us by now?! Yato!" The god reluctantly turned around, and that's when Yukine was faced with the saddest eyes he had ever seen in his on Yato's face. Intense pity was reflected in his flat and lifeless gaze, and Yukine took a step back before he had noticed it. "Yato?"

"I have to go, I'm sorry."

Yukine slipped his hand in Yato's. "If you leave then I come with you. I won't let you leave alone."

The god's brows furrowed in annoyance at the determination in his kid's eyes. "Yukine, stop being stubborn and go back with the others. This is my problem, and... you suffered enough because of me for a lifetime," added Yato, whispering the last part.

He almost yelled that he wasn't the one being stubborn right now, that it was Yato, that stupid, idiot, good-for-nothing god who was always making everything complicated, but his dizziness caught up to him and brought him to his knees. Maybe he had left the hospital too soon.

He tuned out Yato's frantic questions in favour of clutching his drenched sleeve, some water squeezing out of the fabric. "Yato, please..."

No one moved during a few seconds. Coldness and wind had considerably numbed the shinki's limbs, who barely felt his master move him under the tree, where the branches blocked most of the pouring rain. "Are you alright?"

He nodded without a word. He felt light-headed and sore, but he had to drag a few answers out of Yato before doing anything about himself. "Don't leave..."

"I won't leave," mumbles Yato after a silence. It's not something Yukine should know, because he would be disappointed of Yato or angry or even more disgusted that he probably was, but a lot of things happened during this lapse of three days. Enough for Father to leave him alone a moment, until he decides that he is bored and wants to torture Yato's mind again.

He moved behind Yukine and encircled his slightly shivering, huddled up frame between his arms. He tightened his grip, hoping that he can warm him up a little bit and shield him from the cold. He thinks that it's for that that he holds him so close, but he isn't sure at all. "Yukine, I'm truly sorry for... for what happened to you. You shouldn't ever have had to be burdened by my sins."

Sadness was bleeding through Yato's voice, and something else that Yukine was too tired to decipher. He shifted so that his god's arms covered his eyes. "You... You lived awful stuff, Yato. When I woke up, I thought I'd had a nightmare. I didn't want to believe that what happened was real."

"I'm sorry you had to see all this."

Only a shaky whimper left his throat at this, and he snuggled against the god for more warmth when a shiver went down his spine. How Yato could apologize after this was beyond him, really.

"Say, Yukine, what... what did you learn about my past?" asked Yato apprehensively, combing his hand in his shinki's wet, golden locks. He clearly sounded like he was dreading Yukine's answer, and Yukine shrank on himself more. "Damn Father. He told me that he tried to break you with my memories, and sadistic as he is, I believe that he tried his best to achieve his goal."

Yukine must have seen everything, then. He must have seen Sakura's death, the abuse, the cries, the blood all over his tiny hands, the blades, the tears, and Yaboku.

"I..." He inhaled, letting the cold air go to the bottom of his lungs. Somehow, the coldness seemed to slow down his heartbeat as well as the burning emotions in his body. "I didn't learn much, I promise you..."

Yato's tongue clicked. "Don't lie to me, Yukine."

"It's true, Yato! It was... I mostly felt down all the time, and I couldn't see anything else than what your dad put in my head. I remember that... he yelled a lot at you, when..."

"When what?"

"When the woman with beads in her hair... When she turned into a monster." Yato stopped breathing altogether. "I heard you call her several times, but I could never remember her nam-"

"Do you know why she turned into a monster or not?" Yato's eyes were so intense, it felt like they were glowing with urgency and fear; Yukine hadn't expected him to react so strongly to what, to him, was only a mundane piece of information.

"N-No, I don't know," he stuttered. "And judging by your reaction, it's better that I never know."

"Yeah," laughed humourlessly the god after a silence. He couldn't ever know. "Sorry for freaking out..." A sniffle made him frown, and he turned to see Yukine trying his hardest not to let his tears fall. "Yukine, what's wrong?"

"I was so scared..." he mumbled to himself, and Yato's eyes glassed over. He could understand where this fear came from. He'd had centuries to get used to the sickening feeling of his sins crawling on his back. He'd had centuries to finally understand that he wouldn't ever be someone or something good, something else than a toy, to cope with his grief and shames. And even now, when something resurfaced too suddenly, he realized that maybe he wasn't doing such a good job at mastering his emotions so that no one would worry.

But Fujisaki had dropped a ton of misery on Yukine's still weak shoulders in a second. It was no wonder that he had been crushed by this.

He bit his lip uselessly and curled into a tighter ball as more tears fell on his cheeks, mixing with the raindrops already there. "I... I was terrified, Yato! I thought I was going to die!"

He pushed away the voice in his head, the voice of 'Look at what you've done again, Yaboku.' to cradle Yukine in his arms and rock him back and forth until he was done crying. But it felt endless, the few tears that Yato managed to wipe quickly replaced by new, cold raindrops.

The rain didn't stop for a full hour, hour during which both god and shinki tried to piece themselves back for the sake of the other under the dead sakura.

"You're back, Yukk- Yato-chan?! You're h-here too?!"

"Yeah," he rasped in a scratchy voice, wondering a second if he had caught a cold by staying out in the storm for too long. Well, whether he had one or not, he wasn't going to take care of it before Yukine got better. He carefully lowered his dazed shinki to the floor. "I kept him outside for way too long, he is soaked. You have to dry him, and-"

"I think you misunderstood something," growled Daikoku. He stomped in front of the door and crossed his arms. "We have to dry him? You stay here too. Move a freaking inch after disappearing for three days and worrying my goddess and I will kill you."

There was a fierce worry shining in the older shinki's eyes, something that Yato wouldn't have ever thought he would see directed at him after the ugly revelations that happened a few days ago. He let Kofuku and Hiyori take care of his kid for an instant before he smirked at him.

"Don't tell me you were worried about me, Daikoku," teased Yato with a mischievous smile. "Me, the pathetic, good-for-nothing god unable to find himself a shrine or a proper way of living who is always squatting your house for food?"

"Damn hell I was," he barked back immediately. Yato's expression crumbled into one of surprise, not expecting him of all people, to sound so worried. "After whatever happened, you just disappeared without saying anything to anyone. You think we weren't worried about you?!"

There wasn't anything to worry about in this empty shell of a person. And holding all his pain back and never show it or share it with anyone was pretty much all he had done throughout the centuries. He couldn't help it if he had taken the habit of doing everything alone. "I'm sorry, Daikoku."

A few seconds passed, and Yato thought Daikoku was probably gauging the honesty in his statement. But then he tsked and stormed out of the room.

He sighed and looked at Yukine, who was still shivering despite being in front of a heater and the fluffy and warm-looking towel draped on his shoulders. Yato hesitantly reached out and took it to dry his hair in slow movements. "I'm sorry to have kept you out for so long. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he whispered, freezing on the spot when these words left his lips, exactly like someone had slapped a restraint on him. These words that he had repeated, recited so often recently brought bile to his lips that he struggled to keep down. He would never be fine now; how could he? How could he after everything that had happened, after knowing in how much pain his master was in everyday and all the time?

He shook his head as if he was trying to shake this idea off. "I'm okay, now. I'm okay..." But the only sound of his tears falling to the wooden floor was the only thing Yato could hear.

Yukine had gone through this mess without physical injuries, or not too much, but he knew it must have been beyond painful to live that. His younger, frail, trembling silhouette took Yukine's place during half a second, and a piece of his heart shattered.

Opening the door of the spare room upstairs revealed a form similar to a corpse laid on a bed that, upon closer inspection, was actually an asleep Yato. Kofuku gasped at the pitiful sight, and Bishamon made a small grimace.

"Hiyorin, is he..."

"He is okay," she smiled. She ran a hair in the sleeping god's hair. "After ten minutes of arguing that he was fine and didn't need this, I convinced him to stay there a moment... That dummy fell asleep the second his head touched the pillow."

"He really, really doesn't look good," mumbled Kofuku, all traces of her usual cheeriness gone. "He looks like he is going to disappear. And his eyes were strange too when he arrived home."

"Do you think he killed again...?" wondered out loud Kazuma. Kofuku looked at him with wide eyes, but Daikoku only sighed. "Don't make that face, Kofuku. it's very likely that he did. Yato's father would never have left Yukine alive if he hadn't come to make one of his twisted missions again."

A deathly silence fell in the room. "I want to help Yato... I just want to help him, but almost each time something bad happens to him it's my fault. It's all because he wants to protect me from everything. I-It's not fair. Wh-What has he ever done to deserve all this...? What kind of hafuri am I if my master gets hurt because of me...?"

"Don't blame yourself for this, Yukine," sighed Bishamon. "You're already doing a great job in protecting him, you know? You saved him in more ways that you can understand."

Kazuma arched an eyebrow at her, wondering what exactly she meant by this. But it wasn't something he could understand either, being in the same situation as Yukine was. He probably wasn't aware of how, but he had saved her too. "No matter how much you love him and wish he was safe all the time, you can't protect him from everything. There is too much happening to him."

"But he deserves to be happy too. It's not fair," he sniffled, and Kofuku knelt to rub circles on his back.

They knew that they couldn't even begin to understand what Yato had lived all this time, and even living it personally had not enlightened Yukine much. Only haunting thoughts that he wouldn't wish on anyone and hazy, bloodcurdling memories remained from this experience. And when Yato was always doing his best for everyone, when he showed a childish, carefree façade to the world, it felt so unfair to feel like this inside. He deserved happiness as much as anyone else on this planet, maybe more.

Even if Bishamon was right, even if he was indeed doing something for him, he wished he could do more.

His sluggish brain barely registered Hiyori's soft voice when she spoke to him. "How are you feeling, Yato?"

He was so sleepy that he didn't want to tire himself more by opening his eyes, even if it was to see her face that he had missed. He couldn't feel his body at all. "I'm fine..." he answered, his face half-buried in his pillow. "How is Yukine?"

"He is okay. Thankfully he didn't catch a cold by staying outside for too long... and it's good that you didn't catch one either." Yato peeled one of his tired eyes open, and could only see her legs now. "And if you're feeling fine enough to move then let's go! Yukine-kun and the others are waiting for us at the restaurant."

"Restaurant? What are you talking about?" he moaned, huddling under the covers more. "Let me sleep five minutes more Hiyori, please..."

"No you won't. You just said that you were feeling fine! Come on!"

"But I'm tired... Can't they all come here instead?"

"Of course they can't, I just told you that they were at the restaurant! Everyone is waiting for you, Yato, so hurry up and get out of that bed immediately!" Hiyori's fists clenched when she saw the god snuggle more under the covers and moan something else to her.

She yanked them off without an ounce of pity, and Yato yelped at the sudden coldness assaulting him. "Hiyori!"

"I have had enough of your laziness, Yato. Get a change of clothes and rejoin us at the restaurant immediately. I will send you the address on your phone."

The god thought about arguing more but one look at Hiyori's face made him change his mind entirely. "Y-Yes ma'am."

He waited that the danger that the young woman was sometimes left the room to sit up and stretch. He had no idea of how long he had slept, but it was night now. He let out a sigh and got to his feet, starting to search through his belonging something that he could wear to go out, something dry, unlike the wet clothes that stuck to his skin to some places.

Reluctance and dread at the thought of facing others now that they knew turned his search in something closer to dawdling, though.

A burning shame lit his skin on fire at the thought of Yukine, or Hiyori, or any of his hardly-earned friends looking at him like he was some kind of dangerous and disturbed monster that should be locked somewhere for all eternity. Yato himself knew that. He knew that he was a horrible creature, so why Fujisaki had had that need of breaking the illusion that he was a god of fortune to the others?

The weight in his stomach got heavier and heavier as his thoughts darkened and darkened, to the point where he fell and couldn't stand up anymore. He stayed frozen on the floor for an unknown period, unable to breathe, until he felt someone's hands shake his shoulders.

"Yato!" called a worried voice. He looked up from the parquet to look at his kid. But he didn't any of the concern reflected in Yukine's eyes, so he looked away. "Sorry. I'm really sorry, but I don't think I can go."

"What are you talking about? Why couldn't you..." Yukine trailed off when he caught a glimpse at the look in his master's eyes. "Yato, we organized everything for you. You can't not come."

The god stayed silent, and Yukine slipped his hand in his master's larger one. "Yato, listen to me. It's mostly to have a good time together and for you to think about something else than the depressing thoughts that you dwell on every day that Bishamon-sama proposed to go there. Don't... Don't ruin everything like you often do and just relax, okay? Breathe. I promise you it will be okay."

"Okay," he breathed.

He beamed a fake, broken smile and tugged Yukine's hand to scoop him up in his arms. "Aww, my kid's so worried about me! He is such a sweetheart!"

"What?" he squeaked. "Let me go, you creep! Hiyori just brought me here because she was hungry, like everyone else, and that you were taking ages to come! If it meant being touched by your dirty, sweaty palms then I shouldn't have come at all!"

"Nah, you're lying! You came because you're worried about me and because you love me from the bottom of your heart!"

"Not true!"

"Yes it is! Yukine, my precious little h-a-f-u-r-i, he loves me," sang the god, taking a great amount of fun in watching Yukine's face turn scarlet until the latter got enough and shoved him away and started to bark him to put clean clothes on to finally go.

A smile found a way on his face before he had even noticed it. He had missed falling back in their dynamic of tough love and family more than he thought.

A joyous moment at a restaurant. It is what it was supposed to have been in theory, but Yukine had underestimated Yato and Bishamon's capacity of arguing.

"I just can't believe you," he growled as he finished putting his pyjamas on. "You just had to provoke her, didn't you?"

"I didn't provoke her!" repeated the god for the umpteenth time this evening. "I was just warning her!"

"You told her that she was fat! Do you have a death wish?! If she'd had her pistols with her, she would have murdered you in the middle of the restaurant!"

"Okay, first of all I didn't tell her that she was fat. I only warned her that she would get fatter if she ate too much," explained calmly the god, as if he tried to make Yukine understand. "And second, it was just a friendly warning. She needn't throwing a plate at my face."

"You don't say people that, Yato. Even if it's just a friendly warning as you say."

The god stuck his tongue at him before turning away from him in his futon, wincing when he laid on his bruised side. Bishamon had thrown a plate at him; there was no way that he wouldn't fight back. But soon their fight escalated, and when Yato crashed on the table of a couple who'd been dining quietly, they had all been banished from the restaurant.

Now, all that remained were the bruises, and given how painful they were, Yato was starting to regret to have had the thought of riposting.

"You're an idiot," said Yukine casually as he settled in his bed. Yato blinked at him an instant. "We should bring you to the hospital to check if there's indeed a brain in that head of yours."

"Why don't you go sleep in your own bed?"

"The lamp is broken," he groaned, hiding his blush under the covers. "And I don't like sleeping without it. Daikoku-san said he would repair it tomorrow."

Yato chortled. He would have to check if that lamp was indeed broken. "Well, I trust you. Mind if I ask you something, though?"

"It depends."

"Why didn't you want to do a misogi?" Yukine's breathing hitched at the sudden seriousness in Yato's voice. "Whether you liked it or not, a misogi would have been the only way to save you. You're aware that if Father had decided that you weren't needed anymore, you would have died, right?"

"I..." Said like that, it sounded pretty dangerous. "I know that. I know, but your father was manipulating you, and-"

"Yukine, I'm not talking about me here. I'm talking about you, about you being stubborn and-"

"You didn't want to go through one, so I wasn't going to force you!" he snapped. "Your dad wants to kill me anyway, so what tells you that he wouldn't have just killed me afterwards?! You never take care of yourself Yato, and I'm sorry you got mad if I do! I didn't want you to feel worse than you usually do!"

Yato blinked at him, and Yukine slowly advanced to hug him. He let out a shuddering breath, stopped by Yato's chest. "I know I can't do everything for you. I know that there are some things you can't tell me, things that you have to struggle with on your own. But I want to help you. I-I'm really not good at this stuff, but..."

"You saw how they all acted when we were at the restaurant, right? Bishamon-sama, Kazuma-san, Daikoku-san and Kofuku-san, and Hiyori too. No-None of us think less of you or i-is disgusted by you or a-anything your father put in your head, and... and we wanted to show y-you that our relationship wouldn't change, no matter who d-does what to us. We all love you, and I... and I love you, Yato, even if I d-don't always show it. You're very strong, a-and I admire that in you. I-It will never change. A-And also-"

"Shush," laughed Yato, pressing a finger against Yukine's half-open lips. "Don't teenagers have a quota of emotional stuff to say? I think it's good now."

But Yukine was strangely persistent this night. The blush on his cheeks darkened, but he continued speaking. "Don't think you can d-dismiss me l-like that. I-It's important, Yato. You have t-to know that-"

"I know that already," he smiled, wiping one of Yukine's round cheeks. "You needn't repeating it. And I thank you all for this."

Yukine looked at him, suspicion clear in his orange eyes. But then Yato smiled and lowered his head to kiss his forehead, so he thought that he had got the message and fell asleep with a sigh against Yato's chest. He wasn't sure, but getting this off of his chest may have made him feel a little bit lighter.

He looked at the moon.

So they loved him, huh. After knowing how much of a bad person he was, they still loved him. Now that he thought about it, they had indeed acted normally around him earlier. No one had flinched or pulled a face at being next to a magatsukami, and he was still surprised at that.

And even Yukine, his shinki that he put in agony, that he almost murdered - he got too attached once again, Father warned him but he didn't listen once again - still loved the awful, dirty, weak-willed person that he was with all his heart. But they had all come a few centuries too late.

It was too bad that Yato didn't love himself. Not anymore.

Six chapters is long, though XD

I tried writing two endings for this, but I prefer this one. Not by much, but it's better. Well, less worse. Seeing one of his shinki almost die once again broke Yato - more than he already is - and as sad as it is to say it, I believe he never really loved himself, so that's why I wrote this ending line... I know it's not great, though. But I'm still learning, okay XD

Thanks a lot for reading this all, and have a nice day ;)