Half a year has passed since the god Yato vanished without a trace.
Iki Hiyori, now nineteen, lives an ordinary life as a university student in Tokyo—attending lectures, making friends, studying psychology. She gave up her powers as a half-ayakashi to walk the Near Shore as a normal human being. It was her choice. It should have been enough.
But the hole he left behind refuses to close.
Between lectures on grief and loss, Hiyori finds herself searching for answers she can't find in any textbo
Dawn Without Yato -Noragami After Story- - Blade of Atonement — So That I May Remain Myself
The silence of the deep night transformed into a pulse inside Hiyori's ears.
With every step she took, the groan of rusted steel beams was swallowed by the darkness of the abandoned building. The former Tachibana Electric Building—the place where she had once stood shoulder to shoulder with Yato and fought. Back then, a sense of mission had outweighed her fear. Now, it was different. Cold sweat traced a path down her back, and her clenched fists trembled as if they no longer belonged to her.
*(There's no turning back now.)*
Hiyori climbed the stairs to the third floor. Every electric light was dead, and every window had been boarded shut. Only the moonlight remained, barely tracing the dusty floor in pale blue outlines.
"You came, Hiyori."
A voice.
That voice was indistinguishable from the god to whom she had once entrusted her life, yet it carried a sweetness that felt as though it were crushing her heart directly in its grip. Hiyori's breath stopped completely for a single moment.
In the center of the floor, a single folding chair had been placed. Kugaha sat there, his long legs crossed elegantly, waiting. Behind the bangs of his deep, blue-tinged black hair, his ice-blue eyes narrowed. The moonlight made the dark blue bruise on his left cheek stand out, glistening like the trail of wet tears.
"There's no need to be so frightened. I have no intention of hurting you."
A lie.
Hiyori's instincts screamed it. The air around him alone was sweetly turbid and heavy, like rotting flowers. Incense, and iron, and the scent of Yato. But the color of possessiveness mixed within it told her that the man before her was absolutely not Yato.
"...Yukine."
Hiyori's voice was hoarse. Her throat felt glued shut, and the words wouldn't come out properly. Even so, she forced them out.
"Don't hurt Yukine. Please. I came here, just like you wanted."
In that instant, Kugaha's smile vanished.
As if a mask had been peeled away, all gentleness drained from his face. What remained was a sub-zero, expressionless void. The motion of him rising to his feet was fluid and smooth, yet it carried the stillness of a beast cornering its prey.
"You still don't understand."
Kugaha stopped right in front of her. His right hand reached out and seized Hiyori's chin. Cold fingers. Yato's hands had always been so warm they almost stung. Kugaha's blue eyes filled Hiyori's vision as he forced her face upward.
"I am the final parting gift of the god called Yato."
His voice dropped even lower.
"Until his very last moment, he possessed emotions he refused to direct at you. The desire to bind you, to dominate you, to make you his alone—all of that dregs, that sediment, mixed with his divine spirit and took shape as me."
Hiyori's eyes flew wide open.
"That is why I know everything about you. How even now, you clutch a five-yen coin and visit that shrine. The exact shape of the hollow inside your heart. And—"
Kugaha's finger traced the old scar behind Hiyori's ear.
A cold insect crawled up Hiyori's spine.
"That I am the only one who can fill that hole."
"No...! You're not Yato...!"
Hiyori desperately tried to shake her head. But Kugaha's hand would not let go.
In the next moment, the world flipped.
The cold hardness of concrete slammed against her back. The air was forced from her lungs, and Hiyori gasped without making a sound. Kugaha had pushed her down onto the floor and was straddling her.
"That's right. I am not Yato."
Kugaha's fingers found the top button of Hiyori's jacket. Slowly, as if performing a ritual, he undid it.
"So, in place of him—who never laid a finger on you—I can do this. I can break you, if that's what it takes to make you mine."
The second button came undone.
"...Stop."
Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes, trailing down to her temples.
"Please... stop..."
She had no strength. Kugaha's divine spirit, saturated with obsession, bound her entire body. She couldn't move a single finger. Her vision warped with tears, and the moonlight on the ceiling blurred.
*(Someone—)*
*(Yato—)*
Her prayer, however, vanished into the void.
Kugaha's fingers touched the third button. His blue eyes now blazed with a maddening passion, while only his mouth retained the shape of a gentle smile.
"There's no need to be afraid. It will be over soon."
At that moment—
—CRASHAAAAAAAA!!!
The window glass of the abandoned building shattered into pieces from the inside.
Backlit by the moonlight, a small shadow burst onto the floor. Amidst the glass fragments scattering like diamond dust, the impact of its two-footed landing sent cracks racing across the concrete floor.
Blood-soaked blond hair.
His left arm hung down at an impossible angle, swinging limply. His hoodie was dyed so crimson its original color was unrecognizable, and blood dripped from every part of his body.
"Get your filthy hands...!!"
Yukine's amber eyes blazed with fury. The pattern on the back of his right hand, wringing out the last vestiges of his power as a Blessed Vessel, emitted a dazzling golden light.
"Get away from herrrrr!!!"
The moment Yukine screamed, a golden boundary line unfolded.
The air trembled and crackled as geometric patterns of light enveloped Kugaha's body. The unbreakable boundary line—the final trump card of Yukine, who had once been a Blessed Vessel. Its cords of light mercilessly bound Kugaha's limbs, pinning him to the floor.
"...Yukine."
For the first time, the composure vanished from Kugaha's face. The restraints of light were suppressing the black impurity that tried to overflow from his body.
"Don't screw with me... don't you screw with me...!"
Yukine dropped to his knees from the exertion of power beyond his limits and coughed up a massive clot of blood.
With each retching hack, a dark red stain spread across the concrete floor. Blood continued to flow from his broken left arm, forming a small pool at his feet.
"Yukine...!!"
Freed from Kugaha's binding, Hiyori scrambled over to Yukine as if crawling.
"Why... why did you come...! Your arm, your arm is so badly...!"
Yukine twisted his blood-smeared mouth into a grin.
"Isn't it obvious..."
With his trembling right hand, he continued to maintain the boundary line. The cords of golden light completely sealed Kugaha's movements. But their brilliance was weakening with every passing second.
"I decided... I would protect you. Even if Yato is gone... I'll protect you."
"Foolish."
Within the boundary line, Kugaha muttered in a low voice.
"You are merely shaving away your own life to maintain that boundary. It won't last more than a few minutes. When that time comes, you will die as well. And I will be free, and in the end, Hiyori will become mine—what exactly do you think will have changed?"
"Shut up..."
Even as he spat blood, Yukine did not stop glaring.
"A few minutes is enough. In that time... Hiyori just needs to escape."
"Do you truly believe she will run away and leave you behind?"
"Even if she doesn't!!"
Yukine shouted. That voice gouged at Hiyori's heart.
*(Again.)*
*(I'm being protected again.)*
*(Yukine is dying again, because of me.)*
Something inside Hiyori shifted with an audible crack.
It wasn't just fear that had been making her tremble. It was anger at herself. An irrepressible rage at her own self, who could do nothing but be protected.
*(Enough.)*
*(No more blaming someone else.)*
*(Clinging to the vestiges of Yato, being bound by the past—I'm done with it.)*
She rose to her feet on trembling legs.
"Hiyori...?"
She heard Yukine's startled voice.
Hiyori stood before Kugaha. The golden light of the boundary line illuminated her wet cheeks. The tears hadn't stopped yet. But deep within her eyes, a steady light now resided.
"The hollow inside you cannot be filled without me. You need me."
Kugaha desperately spun his words. For the first time, a flicker of impatience surfaced on his face.
"...No."
Hiyori spoke clearly.
"I'm done being bound by the past."
She wiped her tears. There was no hesitation left in the gesture.
"You are not Yato. Yato respected me as an individual human being until the very end. He never treated me like a 'thing' the way you do."
"That's not true! I am—"
"I will not be a substitute for anyone."
Hiyori's voice rang out clearly across the floor.
"I am Iki Hiyori. I will live my own life. Your obsession, your very existence—there is absolutely no reason I need to accept any of it."
Those words became a blade and pierced Kugaha through.
"Ugh, AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"
Kugaha's body convulsed violently.
His existential core—his identity as Yato's replacement—was shaken to its very foundation by Hiyori's rejection. From all over his body, black impurity began to gush out uncontrollably. It was thick and turbid like ink, polluting the air of the floor.
"Stop... please stop... I... what did I exist for...!"
Kugaha's anguished scream echoed through the abandoned building.
The impurity of Yato that had composed him diffused, eating away at the walls and floor. The concrete surfaces blackened and began to pulse as if they were alive. The entire building was gradually transforming into an ayakashi's domain.
"Gh...!!"
Yukine's boundary line reached its limit.
The cords of golden light shattered with a sound. Yukine lost consciousness immediately, collapsing limply into the pool of blood. The pattern on the back of his right hand flared brightly for one final instant, and then vanished completely.
"Yukine!! Yukine!!"
Hiyori clung to Yukine's body.
So cold. He was so terribly cold, and the smell of blood was overwhelming.
"No... you can't... I still... I still haven't been able to give you anything in return...!"
Her tears fell onto Yukine's bloodied cheek.
But at that moment—
"...In that case."
A slick, wet sensation.
Something cold and damp coiled around her ankle.
Looking down, she saw that the impurity overflowing from Kugaha had changed shape, forming tentacles that seized her leg. Kugaha's body no longer maintained a human form; it had become a black haze spreading across the entire floor, and at its center, only his face remained, twisted in agony.
"Come with me. I will take you, along with my entire existence... to a hell that belongs only to me."
The tentacles of impurity tried to tear Hiyori's body away from Yukine.
"Let go...! Let go of me!!"
Hiyori desperately clung to Yukine's body. Her fingers gripped his hoodie and would not let go.
The entire building began to be swallowed by darkness. Even the moonlight was blocked out, and her vision was on the verge of being stolen away completely. The air was heavy. She couldn't breathe. Impurity crept into her lungs, and her consciousness began to fade.
—At that moment, in the distance.
She thought she faintly heard the sound of a bell.
The clear tone of a kagura suzu.
Crossing over the mountains, piercing the darkness, the divine spirit of someone was approaching this abandoned building at a tremendous speed.
Kagura Shin.
"...Kagura-sama."
Unconscious, Yukine murmured the name as if in a delirium.
The sound of the bell was audible.
Distant, but certain.
Heading toward the depths of this darkness.
It wasn't over yet.
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