EDIT 29/07/18: I'm really sorry guys. I know it's been a while and it's not fair to you all that I've started something and left it like it is, but I just don't have it in me to continue this for the foreseeable future. I'm really sorry. You all have given me such incredible support and I'm even express how grateful I am, but I'm just... not in the same headspace I was when I started this. Maybe I'll find it again someday, so I'm leaving this fic as it is. But if anyone has ideas of how they want to continue this fic and wants to adopt this baby, just drop me a message and I will be happy to discuss it with you! Once again, thank you all so much.

ORIGINAL A/N: I love Ch19. In canon, Kazuma's loyalty to Bishamon manifests in the form of him being unwilling to serve any other master. But his loyalty could have manifested slightly differently too. If he was willing to go against Bishamonten's wishes by asking Yato to massacre his whole clan (and causing her so much pain in the process) giving in to what he perceived as Yato's demands in order to save her life is not an impossibility.

As for why Yato wants Kazuma to be his shinki... that will become clear as the story goes on ;)

Here's to Adachitoka-senseis' recovery and the return of Noragami! As always, I am indebted to the KazuBisha shippers out there whose fics have given me a lot of inspiration. Please enjoy!

Kazuma's sandals skid and sink in the sucking mud and he stumbles, his body pitching forward for a heart-stopping second before he catches his balance. "Bishamon-sama..." His eyes squeeze shut as he doubles over for breath, panting harshly from the unfamiliar exertion of running. After he had been taken in by Bishamon, he hadn't had to run for his life from ravenous ayakashi for a long time. And now...

Dashing the mingled sweat and rain from his brow, Kazuma straightens and starts up in a jog. He has to save her! His lungs burn and his mud-covered feet slide dangerously in his straw sandals, but desperation urges him on and he quickly picks up into a run again. Several travellers look up at him in incredulity as he dashes past them, but he barely notices. They forget about him as soon as he passes them.

He doesn't know how long it takes for him to reach the village where the feared Magatsukami is rumoured to be staying, but it sprawls before him now in all its dull utility. The people here are well-dressed and the streets are relatively clean. The sun warms his back; his rain-soaked clothes having long since dried.

Despite the drowsy peace that envelopes the close-packed houses and narrow roads, he can sense the Magatsukami here. A malevolent if quiescent presence that lurks behind the shoulder.

Kazuma's throat catches as he swallows. Each step he takes seems heavier than the last even though he knows that he is not stinging his master in the least.

This is a terrible thing that he is about to do; something that no tears or pleas can never take back. Even now, he can barely countenance it, but he has no doubt that this is right.

There he is—Yatogami. Dressed in the black of death, he sits on the edge of a well with one leg balanced against the knee of the other. His girl-child of a shinki stands beside him, dressed in a disconcertingly cheerful kimono. The small bit of shade provided by the wooden roof falls over their blank faces, and Yato's ice-blue eyes glow almost eerily in the half-light.

Kazuma smooths his mud-splattered kimono the best he can and recaptures the flyaway strands of his hair at the nape of his neck, despairing at his filthy state as he wipes his face of dust and sweat. The Exemplar of the clan would have given Kazuma a good scolding for daring to seek audience from Bishamon like this, but surely the Magatsukami will excuse his dishevelment. If the rumours are true, Yato will only delight in seeing others brought low.

"Forgive me Yatogami-sama, I beg you hear my request." Kazuma kneels on the ground and lowers his face to the ground. With every uneven inhale, the dry scent of clay soil fills his nose. Shame and regret twists his gut for this betrayal of his master, but where there might have been guilt there is only a hollow desperation. "I am Kazuma, one of Bishamon-sama's shinki. Bishamon-sama is dangerously blighted by her shinki. Please, I beg you to wipe out my clan and save her life."

He does not ask to be spared, only Bishamon. Only his master.

In the silence, Kazuma can almost feel the chill of Yato's gaze.

"Did you hear that, Yato?" The shinki's voice comes out high and mocking. "He wants us to kill all of his friends. Can you believe this backstabber?"

Kazuma can only keep his head bowed. For all his honourable intentions, her accusations are true. But if this is what he has to become, he will accept all the slurs and insults without a word. "Please," he repeats in his mind. "Please—"

"You got money?"

The question is offhand.

Living by Bishamon side as her shinki, Kazuma has everything he wants but not money. "I-I have nothing." Only the clothes on his back, his collar dampening with cold sweat as he curses himself for not having foreseen Yato's demand.

"But you have a name, don't you?" Yato's shinki asks. He can imagine the cruel smirk curling her lip even as his breath freezes inside his chest. "Do you want to be a stray?"

"I..." Kazuma stares at the ground with wide, unseeing eyes. His hands are pressed to the ground before him, the blood-crimson strokes of his name stark on the back of his right hand. It is the sign of a sacred bond between divinity and humanity, and it is the only precious thing Kazuma has.

Bishamon is the only precious thing he has.

But did he not vow to himself to save her? To give up anything and everything, including his name and his very life, in order to free her from the blight and pain her corrupted shinki have caused her?

Yato is still silent.

"If that is the price Yatogami-sama wishes to name..." Kazuma chokes out, his fingers of clawing deeply into the dirt as his heart contracts with a sharp pain, "then I am willing."

There's a rustle of cloth as the Magatsukami slowly rises. "Show me the way," he commands, and Kazuma's head whips up in shock. Joy and agony mingle so thoroughly that he is unsteady even on his knees. "After I name you."

Yato's unwavering gaze stares him down, steady and cold. He lifts his hand, power already gathering at his fingertips. "Thou, with nowhere to go and nowhere to return, I shall grant you a place to belong."

"Forgive me, Bishamon-sama!" Kazuma closes his eyes tight and strangles the sound of despair in his throat.

"My name is Yato. With this name, I make thee my servant."

Power swirls around him, and Kazuma's fingers clench into the fabric of his kimono.

"Thou art Suku (掬). Thy vessel is Koku. Come, Koki!"

The new name sears into his left cheek just below the eye and he disappears in a brilliant flash of red light.

Yato looks down at the new wakizashi in his hand. It is fully black, from the blade to the oval guard to the criss-crossed hilt wrappings. "Not bad," Yato murmurs, testing the balance of the sword before taking several swipes at the air before him. "It seems that you understand a Magatsukami's needs."

At the back of his new master's mind, Kazuma hangs his head. With a shaking hand, he wipes away the tear that had escaped down his cheek and trailed over his new mark. "Please don't use me to kill them," he whispers.

Yato lowers the sword. "Very well. Revert, Suku!"

As the command is released, Kazuma appears back in his human form. The mark on his face throbs—betrayal branded onto skin. He picks himself up with resignation weighing his bones and shoves away all self-pity into the dark back corners of his mind. This is all for Bishamon. "May we go to Bishamon-sama now, Yatogami-sama?"

His original shinki gives Kazuma a cold look but Yato nods, tucking his hand into his sleeves. "Lead the way."

The new stray bows, his eyes lowered. "Please follow me," he murmurs.

The ayakashi that has formed over Bishamon's estate in Takamagahara is a monstrous abomination. It writhes, gaping maw open to the skies as it swings its mishappen head. Currents of air crackling with energy whips harshly about it, and the earth vibrates with its anguished, throaty howls. A huge, milky-pink eye stares sightlessly down at the three arrivals as it wrecks wanton destruction on the houses around it.

The shinki girl laughs delightedly and shields her eyes against the sun with her hands. She is a vision of childish glee as she skips towards Yato, crowing over the fact that Bishamon and her shinki are about to perish together.

Kazuma can only stand there, overcome with horror as he searches for a glimpse of long blonde tresses and pale skin.

The towering beast of an ayakashi groans again, its mouth stretching wide, and suddenly Kazuma sees her. "S-she's there!" he shouts as hope seizes him sharply. "Inside the mouth!"

Yato squints his eyes. "Ah."

Kazuma immediately bends into a deep bow. "I beg of you, please help Bishamon-sama!"

It is as if all blood has rushed to his head. A sharp throb starts behind his eyes and his heartbeat pounds in his ears, frantic like a caged creature.

"Hiki!"

When Kazuma raises his head, Yato is gone. There's a glint overhead and Kazuma spots him in the air, his body twisting and turning gracefully as he takes flying leap after leap, slashing as he goes. The ayakashi who had been his friends and comrades rain down about him as bits and pieces of discoloured, blackened flesh, shrieking and weeping as they fall. There are too many eyes and too many limbs on those bloated, bloody pieces, and yet, Kazuma can still hear their pleas.

"Save me, save me!"

"It hurts!"

And worse of all is Bishamon's voice, shrieking and wailing as she begs Yato not to kill her children, defending them all until she cannot draw breath.

Kazuma cannot speak for fear of screaming himself mute.

How could have things gone so wrong? Bishamon had taken them in out of overflowing kindness. She had given kind words to even the nail that had pierced her earlobe; a useless shinki who could not even draw a borderline. She loves them all.

The tears that wet his face are like cold trails of ice as he watches, helpless, as the Magatsukami he had called cuts down his family.

"Please live, Bishamon-sama. Please."

He cannot bear any other result.

Kazuma is trembling like a leaf in the wind by the time Yato brings Bishamon down to him, her unconscious body slung over his shoulder like a sack of rice. The Magatsukami is surprisingly gentle as he manoeuvres her limp form into Kazuma arms. He holds her close, throat tight with gratitude as he wraps the shredded remains of her gown around her the best he can. He can hardly think as his eyes flit over her, seeking the reassurance of any sign of life. She's mottled over with blight and bruises and cuts, but her chest rises and falls with rapid breaths. She is alive and it is all he can do to not break down weeping.

"Go take care of her until she wakes," Yato says. There is an intensity in his stare as he looks between the two of them, but his expression is unreadable. "Tell her what has happened—all of it. Then come to me."

Kazuma nods jerkily, having expected as much but thankful anyway for permission to stay with her for a while more. "I understand. Thank you."

Yato nods back once, flicks the blood from his katana, and reverts his shinki back to human form with a soft command. "Hiiro."

The girl-child appears, her pink lips stretched in a wide smile as she claps. "That was fun, Yato! Don't you think?" She glances at Kazuma slyly out of the corner of her eye, waiting for his reaction.

Feeling his gut churn at her words, Kazuma reflexively clutches Bishamon closer. It is a relief when Yato doesn't respond to his shinki's bloodlust in kind. With nothing more than a quiet "we're leaving", he turns and walks away. Hiiro's smile doesn't waver as she skips after Yato, but Kazuma has to resist the urge to shiver at how cutting her grin becomes.

He's like her now. A stray.

A/N: 掬 means to "scoop up water with the hand" according to , while its compound 掬する means "to scoop up (with both hands), to empathize with, to take into consideration".

I apologise for what is likely a terribly misinformed use of Japanese and on'yomi/kun'yomi readings. It's a strange name, but it's the only one that I could find with a meaning and pronunciation that I like :) If you add on the "ne" (音) family name at the end, Yato's name for Kazuma would be Sukune (掬音).

I'll try to get Yato to explain why he chose that name in a future chapter!