Mira

After the smelting the furnace is destroyed with every scrap of metal collected, even the slugging dross.

''What do you want forged with these remains?''

I have no idea, ''what would you recommend?''

''These are mostly the impurities but something useful can still be made from this, even though it will be inherently flawed.''

So I tell them I want forearm guards. Vambraces I think they are called. I'm still not used to being a muscle head but I know its about practicality not accessary that's needed to stay alive.

When using the blade of a kusari-gama as a knife in close-quarter combat my forearms get sliced often and almost without fail. In a knife fight one should expect to get cut I'm told by Asriel. But vambraces, or is it greaves, would greatly reduce that risk. Spiritual vambraces should be even better I think, even if made of discarded dross they will eventually scale up, right?

There is a slight rest before I moved to the forging house. I am given a chance to bathe, eat and sleep recoving my strength, my condition is know and has been catered for. It is still good to actually be allowed ease.

The world disappears,

There is black mist.

There is toxic oil floating in the air like a stain on the world, my body divorces from me into a sleeve worn and impassonale like any other item of cloth.

The mist that is the oil that is the air congeals into a shadow and wears my skin.

I'm terrified as the naked flesh works towards me with an alien being tucked inside.

''Give me the weapon,'' for the first time in two years the spirit of the djinn within speaks to me in a dream.

I am terrified, shrunk small into a cloud of some sort I realise curled defensively, even unable to uncurl with fear i am also disgusted. Has the ever been such violation as this, such rape of the body?

''No!'' I lash out as taught, unleashing all my weapons in a desperate blaze. Unused spell casting instincts, flooding chakra channels, kicking punching, stabbing slashing.

Suddenly I am standing in my body with my shoulders heaving, before me is a man-thing.

It has manifest as a handsome brown-skinned man with dark eyes, a well-toned body and stars sparkling throughout his skin. I know instinctively what this is. I know I have power over it because I suddenly have something it wants from me.

The djinn-spirit conveys an entire conversation to me without uttering a single word. As my mind catches up it stayed stationary, studying me with those dark eyes. There is majesty in this being, this is a thing that has known eons beyond counting. Here, teniously tethered to me through my fried mana conduits. It eats ambient mana which somehow keeps me from becoming mana starved and die. I understand this and more through the exchange of communication. This creature is greatly diminished and yet still strong enough to have developed a domain in my head or something.

It speaks without speaking, sharing concepts and ideas, emotions and thoughts. Crysta said spirits can't lie, but they can mislead. I go through everything I'm feeling and 'hearing'. A thought gives me pause and increases my heart rate beyond what is posssible.

"What did you do?" I whisper. Horrified.

This thing put something in my daughter. A part of itself that will grow faster in a developing child, and as Vigdis grows so too will this creature somehow. Gaining faster development into the physical from her natural development.

It scared me half to death that I had never thought that this thing inside me could do such a thing. Getting pregnant was an accident. With the Barathians unable to breed me all these years I had assumed I was infertile but it turns out it was the magic that was making it difficult for me to fall pregnant. Now being a magical dud brought back my fertility.

I have been taking precautions ever since but fuck if I'm not happy to have Saya, and she'll never be anyone slave. I attack, I unleash everything in a blazing scream, somehow exploding into all these attacks simultaneously, exploding into a bubble of scathing air while kicking and stabbing going for lethal strikes.

The 'thing' tries to reassure me it will not nor can it harm my child.

''Fuck you!''

It tells of the benefits she has already experienced from its presence. Things that will help her become an unrivalled warrior.

''I will destroy you!''

I don't stop attacking and somehow every attack i unleash go off perfectly, even air-bombs, air-bilts, mana skills that i shouldn't be able to use but evenso nothing I do comes even close of harming the creature.

We talk as I fight, my stamina undless but nothing I do having the least effect. hours turn to days turn to ten-days, turn to months as I try to hide my growing panic. This is a very strong spirit creature.

I need to think. The mere fact that it took so long to communicate implies it had a lot of itself to recover first. I am glad for those lessons on spirits that Crysta insisted on now.

It tells me that the vampire saw it but wasn't sure what to do as it clearly wasn't possessing me. Just a passenger. It then offers to be forged into the weapon to come in the place of my soul.

''the material these humans are wasting away would be of more use to energy beings like me, I could wring out 10x more power from such material that you could. Plus we will still be bonded for as long as you live you will benefit from my power as well.''

It tries to sell me as it ingores me ineffective attacks, those dark eyes never waving but neither will I.

''I want you out of my daughter!''

It tells me secrets of celestial ore, it not really even a meta but something more malleable than human flesh to spirits. ''You will also heal with my growth in power, you will be more than you ever were.''

''Be gone from her daemon!'' I curse it as I fight, pointlessly blocking my ears but the lies slither in anyways.

Months turn to years, my obsession to kill this thing that would make a slave of me, that would make a slave of Saya. My Saya, never! While I still have strength in me I will fight, I will never stop figghting.

''Get out of my Saya!'

For the first time it retreats, surprises on its countenance before I am completely overwhelmed. A feather engulfed in a storm, untethered, lost, completely at the mercy of the elements.

It spoke of the things it could teach me in return for my service. That we could benefit each other even after the contract it has with Crysta ends. Through it all, I kept one thing Crysta said to me repeatedly at the forefront of my mind. 'Never trust spirits.'

'Alright I will give you the weapon and bond with you, if you safely and completely leave my daughter.'

After a lifetime there is stillness, 'alright feiry one. I shall leave your daughter's spirit.'

'And never return.'

'And never return,' it agrees.

I wake up in a cold sweat completely drained.

{sigh], i can't believe that happened. Did that happen?

When it 'called' me 'feiry one' it reminded me of my fae heritage. Somehow my fae heritage is protecting me from this thing's influence or it thinks I know something I don't.

I have a lot of reservations about giving this creature anything it wants but I also want it out of Vigdis, but I also don't want to die. By all the gods and everything holy please may my daughter be okay.

I don't wanna give this creature what it wants but I am also desperate to survive myself. If the vampires agreed to the entire thing. Their counsel would greatly be appreciated, anyone council really.

I wipe the cold sweat from my face.

The following day I do seek out the famous Khan Watanabe and convey to him some of what the djin showed me.

"So you want to forge the weapon using both the Spirit and your soul. That is an interesting concept," the man says sitting across from me on his seat pillow.

"Yes," I say with more confidence than I feel then look over to Chiyo my sensei in the kusari-gama.

Khan responds. "My apprentice told me about the spirit and didn't want to pry further. It seems a very old Spirit, and I can see it feels too... restricted in your body. By giving this spirit a body of its own you realise that you will be making it stronger? It may need you now, but who’s to say what might happen in future." Khan says before looking at the master sword smith.

"What say you Master Yoshindo?"

Yoshindo Yashihara is a master sword smith and he is one of several presents in the meeting. But he is important because he is to be the forger of my weapon.

He grunts and nods.

"Sapient Spirit bound katanas are volatile and dangerous weapons. Many a devout samurai has turned into a bloodthirsty tyrant after prolonged use of such independent weapons.

"We have a long recorded history of these facts. The Kurumasa swords being only the most infamous," the Master Smith says and sips his tea looking down in apparent thought.

"But never has it been recorded that a contracted spirit was bound into a weapon and then a human soul tempered into the weapon as well. I confess to not know the consequences of such a merger. I'm only a samurai swordsmith. But as a smith, I would be lying if I didn't confess a professional curiosity and eager anticipation.

"We all know the power, beauty and grace that can be found in a spirit possessing a weapon, but also the horror they often bring. Many in my profession express frustration with the uncontrollable destruction weapons with such potential cause. Maybe this could be a solution, though potentially we could be making an even worse tyrant,'' he throws his hands at the paradox. ''But as a smith, I am willing to try," he says looking up.

The other smiths nodding their understanding. This thing has turned into something bigger than I intended. Becoming an open debate among the smiths and the vampires. It seems it will be more an experiment than anything else though.

And the vampires agree that having more of myself than the Spirit in the weapon should keep it within my control.

But I am also reminded that soul-swords usually develop a personality unique to the person they were forged from. So the combination of the Spirit and my soul may result in a new type of being altogether.

*

{Pain}.

The katana is said to be folded a thousand times and that's what I think they did, fold me a thousand times. Most of the forging process is a blear but I do remember some things.

I remember the blessing of the forge before we began. I remember runes being drawn on my naked body. I remember the pieces the master smith chose coming forward and entering the forge. Then all I knew was pain.

So much fucking pain that I scream myself raw at the mere remembrance of it. Am i remembering or feeling it?

There is some awareness of sweat, tears, snot and hammering mixed in but ultimately I am shitting myself with pain, please let me just die.

{Pain}.

This is too much, what have I ever done to deserve such suffering? I'd rather be dead. The tearing of the soul is the most painful experience there ever was. I don't care how strong you think you are you will scream in pain, you will be nothing, no dignity, just pain.

While the metal is red, being hammered and folded by a circle of people, me among them taking turns hammering into it in a hypnotised dazed. A part of me is very slowly and delicately leaving me barren and entering the burning metal.

I screamed even as I hammered, in a trance as the pain hammers deeps. It isn't debilitating though.

At some point, I realised that this folding is the folding done when making a katana, not a kusari-gama. I thought we were making a sickle-chain but I am beyond protesting at this point.

There is a point after a person jumps into a cold lake, just before the body adapts when the is searing pain. It only lasts a split second, but the memory of that pain is what causes us to hesitate before jumping into any cold water again.

That is almost like what I feel as my soul is surgically and carefully extracted and poured into each fold. Only my body never adapts to the pain and I stay at that threshold of pain throughout the process. However long it takes, I have no idea.

*

From there the finished product is taken to the sword polishers. Who polish, decorate, carve and sometimes attach the tsuba if the smith didn't do it himself, or herself. At this point I am taken away to some sort of spiritual pond and placed in the water.

The tsuba, or guard is made from soul-bound spiritual metal. My katana has some script carved into it as an extra defensive feature but usually, soul-swords aren't rune carved because they don't need to be. They are powerful enough without help.

From the water, I am taken to meditation where incense is used and tea's to promote healing and peace of mind. Basically drugging us so we don't do anything stupid before the finished zanpakutō is placed in our hands.

I'm numb.

I don't think it’s too long before the weapon is presented to me and the moment I touch the scabbard I know this weapon. I know it has a piece of me inside it. I know it’s currently asleep.

I know I'm in deep 'fucken' trouble trying to control this thing.