Zu Mari scowled at the godsword in his hand. "You could talk all this time, and you let me go on thinking you were just a grumpy lump for months?!"

"I like it when people underestimate me." The sword hesitated. "I may have been weaker when we first met," it admitted. "I had been without substance or sustenance for too long. Your touch, your spirit, was enough to revive me. So for that I owe you appreciation."

"Been absorbing my wisdom and knowledge?"

"Wisdom and knowledge, yes. That is what I need from you."

Zu narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "You sound like Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death."

The godsword fell silent. "Do I?" it mused, its voice soft. "Well. It seems I picked up more than I realized from our time together. She'd never let me hear the end of it."

"Who?"

"Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death, of course. We were friends, once, before she decided to live among mortals. I could have told her that would end badly."

"You... you knew Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death?"

"I did just say that."

"But... how?"

"You do understand the concept of ascension?"

"You sound just like... her." Zu still couldn't quite wrap his mind around Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death being a woman. He'd always imagined its former self as a battle-scarred veteran of many battles, a man who'd take no nonsense from anyone, and who looked at the world with that same biting edge he used with Zu.

And even more so after evolving into Fire Twilight Death. He could not imagine his bloodthirsty blade as a woman. "You're sure Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death is a woman?"

"No, of course it isn't. She was at the time I knew her, but I'm sure she's changed since then. The form I knew was neither her first nor her final one. She did always say she wanted to practice blending in with mortals."

This only confused Zu more. "Mortals do already have male and female..."

"Not like her, they don't," said Smoke of Progression, and Zu thought he heard a wistful note in the godsword's voice. "Hezekiah was something else."

"That's a very strange name."

"She was a very strange immortal. You have to understand, when you live forever, things take on a very different perspective. Hezekiah… Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death... she was never one to accept things the way they were meant to be."

"She was a rebel?"

"You could say that. Couldn't wait to become immortal when she was mortal. Couldn't stop watching mortals once she was immortal. Kept making plans to interfere in their lives. Strange, strange woman. So when the Divergence occurred and some of us decided to go down and live as mortals again, she went with them."

"Were you... in love with her?" Zu asked. Having one of his immortal swords know the other immortal sword was one thing, but if they were going to be getting romantic... he may have to step in.

"Love, as you're imagining it, is such a mortal concept. We were friends, true friends, friends beyond life or death or time or substance. Love? Of course I loved her. But... we went our own ways, and I would not seek to draw her back."

"She wants to ascend again," Zu admitted. "I've promised to help her."

"Ascend again? She wishes to rejoin us?" The hope that suffused Smoke of Progression's voice was unmistakable. "How long will it take her? She must be close. She knows all the secret ways."

"Not exactly. She's currently... well, bound to a sword shape just as you are."

Smoke of Progression was silent.

"I've promised to help find her a way to ascend, but I haven't found it yet."

"I can help," Smoke of Progression whispered. "I know things now which I did not understand before. There is no path to ascension for one bound such as we, but... I have spoken with the spirit of time, and she agrees with my assessment. You, Zu Mari, are the Unbinder. The one who can break connections and forge them anew. The power of your spirit, what you call the Protagonist Fragment, it is not what you imagine it to be."

"A power that makes me the center of focus for anyone who meets me? An answer to the helplessness I endured for so long? A path forward to strength and freedom?"

"True, it is all of those, but it is more. It is the essence of binding and unbinding. Of connection and separation. When you direct your will upon another, you unbind them from their old desires and bind them to your own. But these links will only grow stronger with time. You will begin doing it gradually, perhaps sometimes deliberately, but mostly slowly and without focus. The longer you use it, the easier it will come. The more you will unbind and claim the hearts of those around you even if you do not wish it."

"What does this have to do with Fire Twilight Death?"

"Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death is bound to a sword form, you said?"

"Yes. Like you."

"No. Not like me. I was torn from the heavens and sealed in this blade, the last gasp of my dying spirit protected in this shell before it could be annihilated. She was mortal, and the blade was forged in another way entirely. What is required to release me is nothing compared to what is required to reforge her."

"Which is?" Zu demanded, growing impatient.

"I do not know. Without seeing her, I cannot say. But I know it will be possible, and I know we can find the answer."

Zu rolled his eyes. "All that rambling just to say 'I don't know, we'll figure it out when we get there'?"

"Your soul is a very boring place," protested Smoke of Progression. "I've been waiting for you to retrieve me properly so we could talk for weeks. The spirit tether only carries so much fidelity, communication decays over distance and if we're not within the same room it's hard to project anything but raw emotion."

Zu sighed. He attached Smoke of Progression to his belt, then resumed pacing his room. "I don't suppose you know anything about Master Elvanis? Overhear any good gossip down in the town?"

"Those in the town know little but rumor about the Green Flame and his children. Master Elvanis is not a name which has ever been mentioned in my presence."

Zu paced a while more, then gripped the hilt of the sword. "You believe in me, don't you, Smoke of Progression?"

"Believe in you?" The sword somehow managed to sound incredulous. "Believe in you how?"

"That I can grow strong enough to overthrow the Green Flame. That I can burn this city to the ground. That I'll save Serena and ascend to rule the gods."

"Of course you can."

Zu smiled faintly. "I'm glad. I worried, a little, that I may be losing my nerve. I keep feeling things... weak, cowardly things, things I never would have felt before. I'm not helpless. I'm not going to be stopped. But sometimes it feels--"

Master Elvanis slammed to the ground before him. "Give me the sword."

Zu froze.

Before he could move, his belt disintegrated. The godsword at his hip clattered to the floor. Then, without a gesture, it shattered into a thousand pieces, which then shattered again, leaving it as only dust.

Zu nearly fell as one of the other prisoners bumped against him, steadying himself against the shoulder of the captive chained in front of him. Back on the balcony.

The loop had restarted again.