A shinki's purpose, huh? Sure, he knew that -- at least, he'd been told that shinki were intended as their gods' moral compasses. But he'd blown that off as some old god bullshit.

Yams isn't an old god, though. And now that he's thinking about it, the way Hakkai had been with Elsa had been... intense. That's the word he wants all right: intense devotion. And they aren't the only example, either. There's people on the network every day talking about how amazing (or stupid) their gods are.

Is it something inherent in being a shinki, that devotion?

"And if she did get hurt," he muses, waving a hand a half-second later in Yamato's direction. "Not because of anything you did, but because something happened and you couldn't protect her." His cigarette is one long column of ash, but he doesn't seem to notice. "What would you do?"