A Little Bit of Everything

In Which Yato Learns That Feelings Are Not, In Fact, Optional

My fanfic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77692631/chapters/203500416

Fanfic summary:

When Hiyori pushes Yato out of the way of the bus, she doesn’t wake up again. Trapped in her spirit form with her body in a coma, Hiyori becomes Yato’s Regalia and breaks nearly every rule that comes with it. Heaven disapproves of this violation of the natural order and Yato's Father attempts to tighten his leash. And Yato is forced to reckon with what it means to bind someone who was never meant to be bound.

---

Hello from the other side of a mini hiatus! Between house hunting and improv classes, my brain has basically been running two apps at once and both of them were lagging. We're finally in underwriting, so the marathon is nearly over. I can redirect some of that mental bandwidth back to where it belongs: making a fictional god emotionally confront himself.

Anyway. I was re-reading my draft recently and started adding some explanatory dialogue for Yato, the way you do, and then it hit me: in canon, Yato basically never explains himself. Ever. To anyone. It's always Kofuku, or Kazuma, or Tenjin, or literally whoever happens to be standing nearby with better communication skills.

Hell, for learning about Sakura, who only Mizuchi/Nora and Father know about, Hiyori spontaneously developed telepathy while Yato was asleep. Still mad about that. It's such a lazy narrative shortcut. Imagine how beautiful it would have been if Yato had tearfully recounted the events to Hiyori, showing his deepest trauma to her that he's never shared with anyone.

Here's the thing that really gets me, though. Yato is SO closed off that even the one person who has repeatedly risked her life, her body, her actual half-alive existence just to keep following him around gets nothing but crumbs. Crumbs! She's out here bleeding for this man and he can't even offer a full sentence about his own childhood.

"But Author", you might say, "Yato is terrified Hiyori and Yukine will learn what a monster he used to be and might abandon him."

Yes. Exactly. That's the point.

Stories exist to take a flawed person and force them to grow through hardship. That's kind of the whole assignment. And I don't think canon actually made Yato do that homework. Case in point: he possesses Hiyori's body without consent, specifically to isolate her during her high school debut, violating pretty much every boundary she has, and then… nothing. No real reckoning. No consequences. The narrative just kind of shrugs and moves on like it didn't happen. Cool cool cool, very normal, very healthy.

So now, I've come to the realization that the events leading up to the showdown and recruitment of Bishamon need to be centered around Yato learning to open up to Hiyori. I'm going to give Hiyori a helping hand here, because Yato can be a brick wall sometimes, and allow her to feel his emotions when she is in her weapon form.

Obviously this is going to send Yato into a full spiral. My man is going to do what avoidant people do best: he's going to try to pull away and stop calling Hiyori entirely. And he's going to pick precisely the worst possible moment to do it, right as Bishamon finally decides she's done tolerating his continued existence on this earth.

Timing? He's got none. It's part of his charm and also the reason this whole arc is going to hurt so good.

My fanfic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77692631/chapters/203500416

Fanfic summary:

When Hiyori pushes Yato out of the way of the bus, she doesn’t wake up again. Trapped in her spirit form with her body in a coma, Hiyori becomes Yato’s Regalia and breaks nearly every rule that comes with it. Heaven disapproves of this violation of the natural order and Yato's Father attempts to tighten his leash. And Yato is forced to reckon with what it means to bind someone who was never meant to be bound.

---

Another bookmark!! I genuinely never thought I'd get this far @_@ Some fics released around the same time (ones with six or more chapters) don't even have this many. Wild.

So I sat down and wrote another 1,300-ish words on the Bishamon arc... only to not finish the chapter because I hit another roadblock on the divergence logic. Bummer. BUT. There was a huge outline breakthrough hiding behind that wall, so hear me out.

Chapters 3 and 4 were drafted and working beautifully — the real question was how they connected to the Rabou and Bishamon arcs. How many chapters sit between Hiyori grasping what it means to be a Regalia and her actually connecting to Yato? My outline said at least four. My outline was wrong, actually, because when I looked at it closely, most of those emotional beats were already living in arc 1, just shuffled around. So I cut arc 2 entirely, strategically folded in some of the saved snippets, and suddenly I have a smooth, clean flow from chapter 5 all the way through potentially 12 or 13. Rabou's arc is still very much in rough ROUGH draft territory, but the bones are there.

Of course, this restructuring means Hiyori gets the Princess Peach treatment. I can already hear you going, "But she's Yato's only Regalia in your story, how does that even work?" And my answer is: you're going to have to find out, because I painstakingly worked through exactly that when I first wrote it. Honestly? I wasn't totally sure it would work when I chose to include it either. We figured it out together.

The unexpected hero of this whole process has been Howl's Moving Castle, of all things. It showed me how this particular plot thread begins and where it's going. Other stories really do give you inspiration in the strangest, most sideways ways.

I also rewatched Aragoto on Crunchyroll, hoping it would magically snap everything into place and let me blast through the arc in one sitting. Reader, it did not. What I've learned is that I just need to turn my thinking brain off, because apparently my fingers and the characters know better than I do. My job is just to get out of the way.

My fanfic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77692631/chapters/203500416

Fanfic summary:

When Hiyori pushes Yato out of the way of the bus, she doesn’t wake up again. Trapped in her spirit form with her body in a coma, Hiyori becomes Yato’s Regalia and breaks nearly every rule that comes with it. Heaven disapproves of this violation of the natural order and Yato's Father attempts to tighten his leash. And Yato is forced to reckon with what it means to bind someone who was never meant to be bound.

---

I got my second comment on my fanfic earlier this week. I was so happy, I got over my anxiety of posting the second chapter and just posted it. Then I immediately got a kudos and another bookmark! I've got two whole bookmarks now. That's huge for a niche old fandom, guys. I'm pretty much internet famous. ✨

I've got the third chapter drafted out now. It felt incomplete before. I thought the second chapter was incomplete too based off of beta feedback, but people seem to be happy that I updated at all. Whoooaaaaa 🙀 (jk I know progress is better than promises of continuing)

Unfortunately, I merged in a "scrap" from another chapter I'd drafted to finish out the third chapter, so technically I set myself back progress-wise. It needed a cliffhanger!

The Bishamon arc draft is intimidating me. I really just need to sit down and write out raw nonsense and edit it together later.

Link to my fanfic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77692631/chapters/203500416

Fanfic summary:

When Hiyori pushes Yato out of the way of the bus, she doesn’t wake up again. Trapped in her spirit form with her body in a coma, Hiyori becomes Yato’s Regalia and breaks nearly every rule that comes with it. Heaven disapproves of this violation of the natural order and Yato's Father attempts to tighten his leash. And Yato is forced to reckon with what it means to bind someone who was never meant to be bound.

---

First things first: I'm engaged!! My boyfriend proposed and I said yes, obviously, because I have excellent taste. We've been house hunting and doing wedding planning stuff, so life has been gloriously chaotic. That's my excuse for the fanfic drought and I'm sticking to it.

I've written the ending. I've drafted three arcs of the beginning. What I have not written is literally everything in between, which is. You know. The entire story.

The arcs I need to tackle: Bishamon's arc, Ebisu's arc, getting Hiyori back into her body, establishing Father as an actual villain, the Yukine emotional arc (sorry babe, you're not the protagonist here), and finally Father's whole scheme to destroy Heaven, steal Yukine, and corrupt Hiyori. I have outlines. I have notes. What I have is a massive wall of blankness every time I open the doc.

So I'm doing what any responsible writer does: rewatching Season 2. (Crunchyroll brought it back, praise be. I should just buy the disc set. I already have Season 1.)

This will be a controversial topic, but let me cook. A thought I had while thinking about Bishamon's large family was how it's different from all the other gods from the beginning. For gods introduced up until Ebisu, their primary Regalia are soulmate-coded. Kofuku and Daikoku. ("Gods share a mind and body") Tenjin and Tsuyu. Bishamon and Kazuma. I theorize that Hiyori was originally meant to be Yato's Regalia, and therefore his guide and soulmate.

However, when they swerved from that idea and made this random rebellious teenage boy Yato's Regalia, suddenly they were stuck with the conundrum of recreating Black Butler, so they had to inject the gods and their Regalia with the idea that they are platonic family instead.

Yato and Yukine are father and son. Which is its own whole thing, given that Yukine's memories eventually reveal his real father was abusive, and Yato... does not exactly set a great contrast at first. Anyway, Adachitoka clearly did not want to go the shota yaoi route and honestly thank god.

To give Yukine a romance that fit his apparent age, Mizuchi got shoehorned in. They're cute! But the pacing is rough, and Yukine getting an ablution over it was genuinely unhinged. That's like burning your skin off because you got a rash.

This leads me to wonder how much of the Regalia system was actually designed with intention, versus retrofitted to justify consequences for Yato and Yukine's behavior... and how much that ad hoc logic then had to apply to every god-Regalia pair.

Because the internal rules are all over the place. Bishamon could call her Regalia against their will when she was blighted, then suddenly next arc, it's revealed Regalia can resist their god's calls (see: Yukine, Mizuchi, Kazuma when Yato makes him a nora). Kazuma's ability to switch between sword and bow forms (very cool, very Soul Eater) only shows up at the end and gets handwaved as a Blessed Vessel thing.

It reads like improvisation, honestly.

So if it was all improvised, maybe I can tweak things based on furthering Hiyori's emotional arc instead. Her family life is great, and in my story, she's between life and death, and it's the fear of fully transitioning to death that is her main concern. The stinging mechanic isn't very sustainable, and becomes a major feature of Bishamon's arc. I'm working through my thoughts on that one. But as a narrative tool for Hiyori instead of Yukine, what does it look like?

Still thinking. More updates when I've actually written something.

**I finished the manga. We need to talk.**

Link to my fanfic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77692631/chapters/203500416

Fanfic summary:

When Hiyori pushes Yato out of the way of the bus, she doesn’t wake up again. Trapped in her spirit form with her body in a coma, Hiyori becomes Yato’s Regalia and breaks nearly every rule that comes with it. Heaven disapproves of this violation of the natural order and Yato's Father attempts to tighten his leash. And Yato is forced to reckon with what it means to bind someone who was never meant to be bound.

---

First: I'm really glad I slogged through the Heaven's Revolt and God's Greatest Secret arcs. Yukine having a breakdown and defecting to Father was so well-constructed. The horror of him seeing his murderous father reflected in Yato hit *hard*. That arc felt genuinely earned.

The ending though? Cute, but messy.

Yukine hates being a Regalia. Hiyori wanted to be with Yato. Yato wanted to be remembered and be with Hiyori. These are the threads the whole story is built on. Yato's wish getting granted by becoming a *meme* is funny in concept, but it doesn't do the emotional weight of those arcs any justice. It's like running a marathon and getting handed a participation ribbon made of sillybands.

Here's the ending that popped into my head after talking about Kubo of the Three Strings with my boyfriend (the one where a goddess becomes mortal because she falls in love with a human): What if, when Yato kills Father, instead of disappearing, he becomes mortal? Yukine gets released from his contract. And because of all the work he did grieving and understanding his human life that was cut short, he gets to ascend and to move on to reincarnation and get another shot at life. The thing he's been desperately chasing since the beginning. Hiyori doesn't have to be a Regalia forever (which honestly feels like an injustice, full stop, everything about the Regalia system is broken. Father was right to want to destroy it.) Yato gets Hiyori. Everyone gets something real.

I think that would be a much cleaner and sweeter ending. I'm Yatori trash, but Hiyori being a Regalia forever or being separated from Yato until she dies feels like an injustice.

Now, Father's Final Boss form... respectfully, what was that??

I can accept that he became a goryojin like Tenjin/Michizane, and that he learned everything he knows about the afterlife from his time in the underworld. Fine, great, love that for him. But power *greater than Amaterasu*, just... appearing? Out of nowhere? Him just straight-up *being* Izanami and tearing Japan apart? That was so unearned. Visually cool!Thematically a jump scare.

Yukine becoming a wolf and Yato regressing into a child being attacked by his father was genuinely poetic and matched Yukine's themes. But it also gave me whiplash.

But back to my fanfic...

I've been toying with rewriting Father's backstory entirely. The whole "Buddhist monk tries to kill him, loses Kaya in a storm, ascends by answering wishes to kill people" pipeline just doesn't hold together for me. If Father could collect lifelines through killing, why couldn't Yato do the same? The internal logic is shaky.

My current idea: What if Father was a former Regalia who usurped his master and clawed his way to godhood specifically to overturn the rotten Regalia system? That would explain why Heaven knows about him and fears him and it would make Heaven's paranoia about Hiyori as a *living* Regalia feel so much more grounded. What if the God of Calamity making the same mistake as a past god risks triggering a repeat of the Great Calamity of the Sorcerer?

Draaamaaaa~

Honestly, I was worried I'd write myself into a lukewarm ending because I hadn't finished the manga yet and hadn't written enough of the fic to feel out the thematic threads. Now that I've done both, something clicked. Time to skip to the end and draft some tearful moments. I work better backwards anyway apparently.

Hey guys,

Just dying for some community with folks who like Noragami as obsessively as I do while I fight my way through (hopefully) finishing my first long form piece.

These posts are going to be a stream of thought kinda deal, and people like it, great! If not, at least I got my thoughts out.

It's called "If Iki Hiyori Didn't Wake Up..." and I've got the first chapter on AO3 already. https://archiveofourown.org/works/77692631/chapters/203500416

Fanfic summary:

When Hiyori pushes Yato out of the way of the bus, she doesn’t wake up again. Trapped in her spirit form with her body in a coma, Hiyori becomes Yato’s Regalia and breaks nearly every rule that comes with it. Heaven disapproves of this violation of the natural order and Yato's Father attempts to tighten his leash. And Yato is forced to reckon with what it means to bind someone who was never meant to be bound.

---

The premise is: "what if Yato made Hiyori his Regalia at the beginning?"

Turns out it changes a hell of a lot of stuff. Which I love, because Hiyori feels sidelined in her own story (open to debate, but I feel it strongly enough that I wrote out a whole outline for this nonsense).

I've got an outline figured out, and I've got 30% of it written down in first draft format. I've got about 10 to 11 arcs planned out, and I've just been jumping around as inspiration strikes me.

Chapter 1 is up because a friend liked it, but Chapter 2 humbled me fast. Turns out “this is done” and “this needs a full rewrite” are sometimes the same thing. Which is sad, cuz I thought I had three good chapters written and ready to post. But progress is progress, and if my writing group has taught me anything, it's that getting it written, even shittily, is the most important thing.

Anyway, re-reading the manga has been dangerous. I've been driving my boyfriend up a wall talking his ear off about the lore bits that I remember or learn about that affect my story. The Bishamon arc changes dramatically when Kugaha can't just kidnap Hiyori to pit Yato against Bisha. The introduction of Yukine and the trajectory of his whole emotional arc takes place later and differently. Also, the entire "God's Greatest Secret" arc where they hunt down Yato's Daddy-o is non-existent in my story. Maybe I'll talk about it later.

Can we talk about how dumb it is for godly weaponry to be completely nuked instantly by just saying "Hey kid... how'd you die?" We could nuke the entirety of Heaven at once if you just gathered all the Regalia into a conference and shouted into a megaphone "Hey, y'all DEAD!" *surprised Pikachu face* Yukine's whole emotional arc was about being dead and unhappy about it, you really going to say ✨magic✨ is the reason he never thought about why that is? No weird little habits or quirks that carried over from his life that made him wonder?

I can accept Yato's Dad being cracked by having an OP regalia that can corrupt other Regalia with a poke. He's the big bad™️, of course he's got bullshit like that. But just by any body asking Regalia a question? Nana shows up like a last-minute patch fix and then barely matters. That whole situation feels like duct tape over a narrative crack.

When I was originally reading the manga many many years ago when it was still getting published, I remember rage quitting when Yato told Hiyori goodbye to go hunt his Father. Man, that really put the final pin in Hiyori's narrative coffin. I like Hiyori a lot and she has so much missed potential.

That's why I'm putting all this time into writing a fix for this horrible miscalculation that I see in the story.

It's no wonder Yukine is seen as the main romantic interest for Yato more than Hiyori when Yato calls Yukine his "one and only" and other gods say God's and Regalia share "body and mind" and two of the three pairs of gods are CLEARLY in domestic or close to romantic relationships. The fuck you mean Yato and Yukine aren't fucking on the down low?

Anyway, I'm Yatori for life, so I am putting her in the spotlight.

It feels good to get these thoughts out. Maybe I'll write more when I finish the manga and write more of my fanfic.

If monsters only shed dust when they die, then humans constantly shedding dust must smell awful to them.