Chapter 23: Enlightenment

Masamune found herself in a strange world. All around her were islands of green floating in the sky without anything to support them. Each was connected to the other with a series of wooden rope bridges, swaying with every blow of the breeze. But that wasn't important, what was important was that she had a human body. She pinched herself, the flesh supple and soft, and if she looked hard enough, she saw blood coursing throughout her body. Her metallic sword self is nowhere to be seen.

Below her, she felt the touch of grass, it was something soft, yet at the same time, prickly to her feet. There were smells, there were sounds, there was even touch. It was heaven for the poor sword, who had naught but sight. 

She lay on the grass, its soft but pleasant prickliness brought a new sensation, tickliness. Above her, clouds swirled on a canvas of blue sky, the sun high in the sky shining soft, orange glows. A gentle wind blew, and its pleasant breeze made her hair fly like crazy. It was just her, the delightful scent of grass, the wind, and the sky, and it stayed like that.

Masamune began to admire herself. This was the first time she had a human body that felt right. Frel's body from before was forced, so she couldn't feel any of the things she had now. 

She had pale white hair, red highlights, and supple skin, reflective of her sword features. Her fingernails were finely trimmed, and she donned a beautiful white blouse and pants, which reflected her sheath. She didn't know how, but she instinctively knew that her eyes were a deep crimson red. 

Idly watching the clouds float by, she eventually got back onto her feet. She wanted to explore what lay beyond her own island, and the many floating islands that connected to hers. Feeling the grass crumble beneath her feet, she stepped onto the closest rope bridge. A gentle wind blew, and the bridge swayed, but Masamune wasn't scared. She was a sword, with fear of anything other than hunger not affecting her.

She looked down once she was halfway across the rope bridge. Beneath the wooden planks and the tied rope was an infinite abyss of darkness, where the only source of light was the silvery moon. A large contrast to the sky above her, which was bright blue with the sun shining down. The 2 sides eventually met somewhere in the infinite horizon, where blue met black.

Continuing forward, she touched down on the first island other than her original. The grass had a similar feeling to the last, but this time it reached up to her waist. The island's true size was somewhat deceiving. From afar, it looked like a small circle the size of a house, but up close it was more like a flat, grassy plain. At the center of the island sat a single stone pedestal that rested an anvil, visible through the waist-high grass.

Curious at the sudden contrasting prop, she approached it and observed. It looked like a simple anvil at first, forged from black iron and carved with strengthening runes. The stone beneath it was cracked and brittle, from decades of abuse. Masamune unconsciously touched the anvil.

Her entire vision shifted, the blue sky warping into the black night, and then back again, with the stars looking like streaks of light in the skies. All around her, the wood began rising from the ground, constructing itself into a simple wooden hut. Stone reassembled itself into a blast furnace, black dust came from the dirt and coalesced into coal, and within seconds, she was within a cozy little smithery.

Masamune barely had time to register anything as a person near the blast furnace. He was barechested, save for a sooty apron, and wore grimy work shorts. His beard reached down to his chest, and his hair was grey with its tips singed black. He was hammering something on the anvil, and as Masamune watched, with each swing, his eyes glowed green. Every time the hammer went up, it was embued with mysterious white energy, which then plunged down into the piece he was working on.

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She watched in silence as he hammered away at a glowing orange bar of metal. As she watched, the metal elongated into a rough, sword-like shape. He tossed it back into the fire, took it out, and began hammering again, this time folding the metals atop each other. She didn't even know how long it was, as the man finished the final touches of the Sword, a familiar etched white blade with carved dragons decorating the handle. 

It was herself. The vision was showing her how she was created. The man got up and retrieved a scabbard from a chest, a similarly white scabbard etched with runic symbols and majestic drawings of the moon. He slid the scabbard down the blade.

The moment the scabbard clicked into place, the entire house crumbled at light speed, everything reverting back to the original green fields of grass. Masamune was left with a million different questions. But the most important of which was,

Who was he?

And, 

Why is his anvil here?

She stared at the anvil, remembering how it supported her developing frame as the man hammered her into existence.

Why couldn't she remember anything before that day in the forest?

She touched the anvil again, but nothing changed. The cold breeze bit at her skin. Suddenly, the anvil glowed as a purple brain appeared above the anvil.

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