Tsukumogami

After my first success, I created several more Ofudas to add to my collection. Most are fairly useless—created to test what Japanese characters work and what doesn't. But some offer me a depth of functionality I can't find anywhere else.

One of them is an Ofuda inscribed with the word 'Weight'. As implied, once I stick onto my body, it begins adding weight onto that specific area for a good few minutes before the Ofuda is burned through. I can then add more characters to specify how much weight it should add and how long it should stay active. More powerful effects will, obviously, take more Primal Energy for me to create.

Of course, the main reason why I made it is because I've run out of options for makeshift weights. After nearly a year of training, the cinder blocks I began with are now nothing more than paper weights to me. And it's not as if I can go to a gym and get bigger weights. I may be a nine year old now, but that's still years too young.

So magic comes in, and it's amazing. I can slap one onto my arms, and suddenly it'll feel like I'm carrying my entire house on my shoulders. I can then put one onto my legs, and I've basically turned myself into a giant block of lead.

Although, by that point, I need to start worrying about the ground I'm standing on. Because anything softer than stone will get physically crushed beneath me. Trust me. I learnt that the hard way.

That aside,

It's been a week since summer break began. I'm holed up in my room at the moment. It's bright outside, but I'm stuck on my bed, heaving tired breaths as I try again to move my left hand. It doesn't move, and I sink into my pillow with a small sigh.

As I've been doing for the past couple days, I'd been mucking about, making Ofudas with all sorts of Japanese characters and seeing what they do. Drawn by curiosity, I wanted to see if I could create an Ofuda that can shoot electricity, or maybe do something similar.

The short answer? Yes. Yes they can.

The thing was, I'd accidentally inscribed the word 'Lightning' instead of simply 'Electricity'. I'd activated, expecting a small spark, and instead received a giant bolt. Thankfully, my eyes had warned me in time, and I'd brought up my hand to block my face from getting hit.

The shock was deadly, but my Primal Energy had stopped it from doing anything too drastic. The sheer heat that blast carried had burnt through my hand though, and I nearly screamed in pain as blood fell from the charred hole.

I quickly slapped a Healing Ofuda onto it. The wound healed up in no time, but the nerves that got damaged are still all frazzled. My eyes tell me that my Primal Energy will need a day to heal it all.

I sigh. It's completely my fault. I really should've used my eyes before haphazardly activating that Ofuda. I have no one but myself to blame.

Still, it at least shows that my endurance has also risen. That blast of lightning would've killed any normal person, but the only thing I suffered is a temporarily paralyzed hand.

And also a reminder to always use my eyes before doing something risky. Because this scenario isn't all that terrible, but other scenarios can be worse. Honestly, it's a problem. I've had these eyes for nearly a year now, and I still forget that it exists at times.

Eventually, both bored out of my mind and exhausted from the lingering pain, I find myself falling asleep.

But my consciousness doesn't slip. Instead I find myself dreaming, my mind surprisingly lucid as I float in an empty, gray void. I try to move, but I am immobile. There's an invisible force clinging to me, stopping even the smallest movement.

There, floating just a distance away is a…wooden hammer? It's a small hammer, fit to be held by a child. One of its faces is sloppily colored a bright red, as if a child had attempted to paint something on it.

Something feels odd about it, however. And though frozen as I am, I'm still able to activate the Eyes of God.

And what I see amazes me. Magic surrounds it like a veil, swirling and coiling around it with intense density. It's the first time I've seen something so filled with magic—at least aside from myself. Not even that Stray Devil had this much magic inside it, and that thing had consumed eight people.

But then I see more. My eyes dig deeper, and I find something even more amazing. That hammer-, it is alive. There is a limited consciousness hiding inside it. A rudimentary one, more akin to a baby's, but one formed due to the culmination of magics and curses that dwelled in that hammer for nearly a century.

A name comes into my mind then, and I realize what it is I'm staring at.

A Tsukumogami. Tools that have gained sentience, whether through Spirits or Kami.

Slowly, more information comes into my mind. As all Tsukumogamis, this wooden hammer began as a normal tool. A toy, actually, made by a father and gifted to his son in the early 1900s.

Then the world wars happened. That child's parents were killed under tense gunfire during the first world war, and the orphaned boy was forced to move entire towns on his own. By the time the first world war ended, that boy had grown into a man. He had a wife, and she bore their child.

But the second world war came. The father was sent off to the battlefield and died painfully in a bombing run. His wife, tense and grieving, fled the country. She gave birth to a daughter, and she gave her child the hammer as a gift. They lived peacefully for a few years, before the wife eventually passed away due to failing health.

Later, the girl fled, leaving the hammer behind to be buried and forgotten. But all the negative emotions of its carrier had stuck, and all the grief and deaths from the wars had clung onto the negativity, turning them into curses. It was then buried, and forgotten, the curses began to build in power.

And it only awoke because of my recent success in creating Ofudas, clinging to the familiar energy that was once so prominent.

"Find me," it whispers into my mind, sounding like thousands of people speaking at once. I probably should be wary, but my eyes show that it holds no malice towards me. More than anything, it's lonely. A tool meant to entertain a child, hidden and stripped from its purpose for nearly a century.

Though I can't speak, I promise to do so. The hammer shakes happily, somehow hearing my thoughts. It then shoves its location straight into my head, and it's only because of all the headaches my eyes have given me that stops me from blacking out from the sudden pain.

Then, as abruptly as it began, the dream ends. My eyes open, and the sky outside my window has turned dark. There's a pair of store-bought melon breads on my desk, and a small note from my mother telling me to eat once I wake.

I try to move my left hand. It doesn't move.

I shake my head. There's not much I can do about it.

I walk to my window, and I pull it open. The night air floods into my room, and I grimace as I look down at the ground below. My family is asleep at the moment; no one will see me jump down when I do. But getting back up with just one hand? That might be a little difficult.

Nonetheless, I leap out of my window and land on the ground with no issue. Then, leaping past the short fences, I begin sprinting towards where the wooden hammer is buried. It's fairly close to the forest I frequent to actually; it's probably why it's been buried for so long.

I make it there in minutes. I stand over the spot it's located, and I can immediately feel the weight of its magic permeating through the soil. I'm surprised I didn't encounter it in the past, but that's probably because it's now broadcasting its location to me.

So, pumping my working hand full of Primal Energy, I begin digging into the soil. And in no time, I grasp onto the wooden handle buried deep, and I drag it out in a single powerful pull. The soil breaks, and the wooden hammer meets the air for the first time in decades.

"Hey, little guy," I say, smiling slightly as I wipe away some of the remaining dirt. "How're you liking the night?"

The wooden hammer shakes slightly, beyond overjoyed. With my eyes, I can see its magic slowly approach me in the form of a tendril of dim blue energy. It touches my hand then, and it continues to do so for a good minute. Its happiness overflows, and I find myself grinning as some of its feelings flow into me.

"Let's get you home." I say.

The hammer shakes in agreement.