Stray Stories Chapter 3

A Story of Mutual Deception (しいの, Damashi Ai no Koto) is the 3rd chapter of the spin-off manga series Noragami: Stray Stories (ノラガミ, Noragami Shuuishuu). It was released on November 15, 2013.

Short Summary
Yato meets a fortune teller and becomes obsessed with finding out his true character.

Extended Summary
Yato is conned by a fortune teller, Ishizaki, into buying yet another trinket. He is being punished for borrowing money again by Yukine, Daikoku, and Kazuma (who is randomly punishing him for being 'Toya', the man drawing adult comics of Bishamon) when he declares his faith in Ishizaki-sensei. Kazuma points out that the fortune teller uses a technique called cold-reading which had Yato fooled. Yato refuses to budge from his opinion of Ishizaki. Hiyori gets through to him when she explains that even assuming Ishizaki knew all about Yato it was no reason to assume he was a good person and questions what Yato knows about the man. She also questions why one would pay to be told what one already knows about oneself.

Eyes open to the deception, Yato suppresses his aura and lives and observes every aspect of Ishizaki's life. Yato confronts Ishizaki and almost convinces the man that he is truly 'omniscient'. Hiyori saw him reading a book on techniques and realizes that Yato used hot reading on Ishizaki, recounting his observations. When Yato demands his money back, Ishizaki begs, stating that his daughter is ill and he only got into this business as he was exploited in the past similarly by tricksters. Yato admonishes him stating 'there is no god' (to Hiyori and Yukine's horror) and encourages him to go and earn an honest living and that his daughter believes in him, not god.

Despite everything, Yato does not change, watching fortune readings on TV during breakfast and promising to pay the money back someday and even comically gets sued by Kazuma for unauthorized use of Bishamon's image and emotional distress caused. On the other hand, Hiyori sees that Ishizaki has truly moved on, now working honestly as a road construction worker and reading palms for his colleagues as a harmless hobby.