Two Stories

Inori and Haruki had fallen asleep together on the couch as the morning sun began to raise. Ichiro and Yuki stepped onto the catwalk just outside the door so they could continue chatting without disturbing them.

"I haven't gotten to see a lot of you lately." Yuki muttered.

"Yea, sorry about that." Ichiro replied. "I've been working out a lot and trying to find a blacksmith."

"What do you need a blacksmith for?" Yuki wondered.

"I want a new hammer made." Ichiro explained.

"A hammer? I'm sure you can just find one at a hardware store." Yuki advised.

"I tried there, they were all tiny hammers." Ichiro continued. "I was wanting a hammer more similar to what I had in my world. I've been bulking up a lot over the last couple weeks and most of the training I did before involved my hammer."

"So you just want a new hammer in order to exercise more?" Yuki pondered.

"Well, no." Ichiro lamented. "For most of my life I've never been without my hammer. Not having it is like I lost a part of me. It's like waking up in the mornings and I'm missing a body part. Actually, Inori has been helping me find a blacksmith that would try to make me a new hammer, or at least let me use their forge so I could make my own."

"You know how to blacksmith forge like that?" Yuki found another random skill that Ichiro hadn't divulged because he never considered it important to share.

"I helped make my own hammer." Ichiro continued to explain a bit more of his history. "Lenora brought me to the same group of blacksmiths that made her hammer and part of it was that they required you to help. They said you had to put your heart into it or it would fail you, so I don't know how to make a sword or shield or armor, but I know how to make a hammer."

"So, when are you planning on going to make your hammer?" Yuki moved slightly closer and rested her head on Ichiro's shoulder.

"Inori said I could take a train there and that it would take six hours." Ichiro considered his plans for going to the blacksmith. "The last hammer took me sixteen days to forge. I'll have to stay there while I make it so I need to find a time in which I can build it properly. The people on the phone said it would cost a lot for the materials and I said that was fine. She also said that for the specifics I want, I wouldn't be able to take the train home because they wouldn't allow it on the trains so I need to find a way to bring it home. Lenora wouldn't have me use a sub par hammer so it's worth it."

"I see." Yuki began to see the values Ichiro held and how his hammer was also a way to relate back with Lenora. "I never had a connection like that besides my brother. Maybe because I haven't had enough time to gain a connection to something or someone like that."

"You didn't have a loyal friend or helper or teacher or weapon you depended upon in your isekai?" Ichiro quizzed.

"No, I had a skill that turned my power into physical objects." Yuki explained. "I was a paladin. I made this armor and weapon out of pure energy and it would fade away when I didn't need it anymore."

"I haven't heard anything about your world." Ichiro noted.

"Oh?" Yuki stopped leaning on Ichiro and, instead, looked him in the eye. "I guess not. We've been busy with life and trying to get you situated and then things just started getting a bit crazy." Yuki paused for a few moments before she said, "I'll make a deal with you."

"What kind of deal?" Ichiro muttered to himself.

"If you tell me another story from your time adventuring, then I'll tell you one of my stories!" Yuki smiled at the possibility of hearing more about Ichiro's world.

"Ah, that sounds great! What kind of story do you want to hear?" Ichiro excitedly agreed to the idea.

"Tell me about one of your big fights." Yuki said leaning toward him again.

"Hmmm." Ichiro uttered as his mind scanned through his memories. "I fought a storm once."

"A storm?" Yuki skeptically questioned. "You fought a storm..."

"There was a massive storm that raged through the world every two hundred thousand days or so." Ichiro started. "Errr...around five hundred years. Sorry, Inori told me the counting by days thing was weird."

"Oh, that's fine." Yuki replied. "I was getting used to it. Anyway, tell me about that storm!"

Ichiro continued, "It always started on the east side of the continent, but quickly rolled across the world leaving devastation in its wake. Lightning storms, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes...every form of horrible storm weather you could imagine all happened. None of the species lived long enough to experience it more than once and, really, only the elves passed down knowledge of it to their kids since they lived so long."

"But, how do you fight a storm?" Yuki wondered.

"It took me surviving it before I even realized that the storm followed a pattern." Ichiro explained. "It would always start in one place and follow a specific path through the world. After finding out the starting point of each event, I found out what I could do to stop it. The lightning and tornadoes were caused by a volcano waking up and billowing heat into the sky. The volcano woke up and the tsunami were caused by the earthquake. The earthquake was caused by a massive colony of stone golems that lived in some caves under the ocean."

"So you fought stone golems to stop it all?" Yuki asked.

"Well, yes and no." Ichiro asked. "I had to work my way backwards through it all. I had to force the clouds to disperse which is why my hammer was better than a sword. More surface area acted like a fan to blow the clouds away. I was struck a few times by the lightning, but it worked out."

"You really did fight a storm!?" Yuki wondered, exasperated by the prospects of what the was telling her.

"The volcano and tsunami almost worked each other out, I just had to crack the side of the volcano and direct the tsunami toward it." Ichiro said with a very matter of fact tone in his voice as if it seemed like a normal things to do. "Then, to stop it from happening again, I destroyed the golems. I wouldn't say it was my hardest fight, but it was one of the most taxing because it was over the course of a few weeks."

Yuki was speechless. Ichiro had just talked about fighting multiple natural disasters and had boiled it down to such an inconsequential sounding event. As Yuki tried to find the closest story comparable, she could only think of when she fought the four generals of the enemy kingdom's army.

"You make it sound so easy." Yuki grumbled through feelings of inadequacy.

"I wouldn't say easy." Ichiro added. "I just had a lot of time to prepare and become strong. The storms caused a lot of damage and killed a lot of people. If I hadn't taken care of it, then it might have continued on forever ruining the lives of people."

"How were the stone golems causing the earthquakes?" Yuki wondered.

"One was being born every ten thousand or so days...err...twenty five years. So every five hundred years or so, the population would grow so large that they needed to cull them again and they would fight." Ichiro answered as he swam in nostalgia. "Their war would make the ground shake."

Yuki, perplexed by the indifference Ichiro showed at the seemingly godly act he accomplished, couldn't help but mentally compare what she did to what he did. Ichiro seemed almost giddy remembering the time fondly.

"You really seem like a hero." Yuki admired his resolve and accomplishments. "It makes me see you as that much more amazing."

Slightly embarrassed, Ichiro muttered "It doesn't seem like that amazing of a thing. It was just another day for me and a lot of people suffered before I figured it all out an intervened."

"The story I was going to tell was fighting four generals." Yuki sighed.

"That sounds like an impressive fight, truthfully." Ichiro professed, validating her. "Fighting four enemies at once already sounds harrowing, but for them to be strong enough to be considered generals makes it even more impressive."

"I don't feel like it can compare to fighting nature and a city of stone golems." Yuki mumbled and tried to warm her hands by breathing on them.

Ichiro put one arm around her, pulled her hands up with the other, and tried to help warm her before adding, "You shouldn't try to compare what any of us did to what you did. If I've learned anything from hearing the other stories is that each of us endured different things at different levels, but it doesn't take away from the fact that we did endure those things."

Yuki looked into Ichiro's eyes as she considered what he had said. Her breath made small clouds in the cold air of the morning.

"Maybe you should be leading the support group since you seem to have a better grasp of taking care of us." Yuki said.

"Definitely not." Ichiro noted as he lightly shook his head. "They might not say it, but the group wouldn't exist without you. You're the one holding everyone together. It's not a matter of who you were or what you did. It's who you are now and how you treat the people around you."

"I hope you're right." Yuki said as she leaned in and rested her head against his chest.

The pair stood there for a few moments as Yuki enjoyed his warmth

"Maybe we should go back inside now. It's getting a bit cold." Ichiro said as he turned back toward the door.

Yuki grabbed his hand and stopped him by saying, "We shouldn't wake them. Let them have a few moments of peace. Maybe, we go upstairs to your apartment."

"If that sounds better to you." Ichiro said as Yuki gripped his hand slightly tighter.

She responded with a nod and the two turned and began walking away of Inori's door.