Ch 8 Ser Fat Bastard

Silence is the harbinger of storms, destruction and everything ominous. It is also the precursor to many great songs of life, beauty and auspiciousness. Perhaps then it is not silence which heralds peace or war. It is our heart and how it interprets our surroundings.

It is our heart that smells the oncoming destruction; it is our that sees the forthcoming peace. Then is it our heart the greatest sense of all?

Aki Tsuchisaru believed it was. So he trusted his heart once more, sneaking behind a giant boulder sized boar. He stilled his breath and hunched his shoulder moving on the grass as he was the wind itself. His hands quickly danced through eight hand seals as he slapped his hands on the boar's hairy butt.

The boulder sized boar jumped. His hairy face coming face to face with Aki's bloodless one.

"Heavenly Illusion: Soul Prison."

The boar's raging eyes glistened for a moment, entering the world of Aki's making. In this world, the boar was as large as the mountains. His harem of sows filled entire forests. Even the apex predators were afraid of his long white tusks.

As the mountain sized boar went on rampage, defeating cheetahs and making their wives as his sows. His soul slowly started trapped itself in a prison of his own desire.

"Five out of ten, gozaru. Beautifully done."

Aki rubbed his left palm on the ground, hoping the wet grass would erase the burning sensation. It did not. Stil, the satisfaction of completing the jutsu did. Only a little.

"It took you five days to master the technique, gozaru."

"Thank you."

"Even with me guiding you."

"Is that sarcasm?"

"Perhaps it is. What colour is the seal on your hand?"

Aki checked the seal on his hand. It was the kanji for fat and boar, written with blood red ink.

"It's red, why?"

"The trick to doing the Heavenly Illusion: Soul prison is making a Gen-jutsu reality that is increasingly like ours, but still a paradise to the target. Better the illusion made, better the seal on the soul."

"Better the seal, the longer the soul lasts in our impure world?"

"Correct gozaru, so you have twenty hours to bind that soul with a metal."

Aki sighed, collapsing on the grass. Twenty hours, that may just be enough for metalworking.

Gin's art of metalworking had two tiers, one normal for mortal weapons. The other for chakra weapons.

The metalworking art for chakra weapons required yang release, to breathe vitality in metal. The forger then controlled that vitality to mould the weapon into a desired state.

However, to retain that vitality in the weapon and make it capable of channelling chakra. The forger must birth a conscious in that weapon.

The last part was impossible for Aki. It did not matter if he practised it for five days or for five decades. Though there was a way around it. That was to bind a soul to the metal.

That was where Heavenly-Arts: Soul Prison came into place. A Gen-jutsu capable of trapping souls in a prison. Sadly, it was really hard to make it work on Humans. Even for Dan, and he was the progenitor of the jutsu.

"Let's leave early today. You can use that time to adjust your body."

"All right."

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"You're back early, brat." Gin asked.

Aki flashed his palm to the inquisitive white marten.

"See that?" Aki said. "That is the fruit of my genius."

"The seal is in red ink. That's the worst possible seal out there. This is barely a B-level jutsu. I expected better."

"It traps souls, idiot. How come it is only B-rank?"

"Because it traps only animal souls, and it works only on low-level chakra beats." Gin said. "B-rank is me being generous. To make this work on humans, that will be some S-level thing."

"Sure."

"Don't sulk and get ready, or do you want me to show it to you how it works?"

"No, I have the hang of it. Just take the heraldry form and we can get started."

GIn gave a nod, turning into white light and shooting for Aki's left ear, as the white marten transformed into a long earring. His other half, Dan, returned to normal, assuming his post on Aki's left shoulder.

Aki picked up a scroll from the table and put it in his mouth, then with a few quick hand-seals and smeared blood across the foot-long scroll, summoning a green ethereal fire.

The green fire on the open charcoal forge made a sound like that of a flowing river, moving on the black charcoal bed like some ghostly mist.

"You have fifty minutes, gozaru. Make it count."

Aki made an unintelligible sound from his mouth, then used his own chakra to make protective gloves around his hand. He took a deep breath and tossed the billets prepared earlier in the fire. When the sound of the flowing river changed into the song of downpour, Aki placed his hands on the hot coal bed.

It felt like holding a cup of boiling tea. Hot and unbearable, more painful than any injury because it was constant and caused consciously. Aki persisted with his teeth gritted, channelling chakra passed by Gin.

Gin's chakra did little to relieve the pain Aki was feeling, but it was necessary to mould and vitalise the billet. Aki made a thin wrapping of his own chakra around Gin's, making the foregion energy take shapes and behave to the whims of his will.

The golden coloured, yang nature chakra shot out the back of Aki's hand, shaped like tentacles of some deep sea creature. In places, due to lack of control on Aki's part, chakra was leaking out like mist, making it harder for the boy to see the billets.

Dan did his job by casting a genjutsu on Aki, making him see a three-dimensional diagram of the weapon he was about to forge.

With the help of gold chakra tentacles, Aki started moulding the billets, making them into twenty palm sized cylinders. It took him around a minute to mould one perfect cylinder, and to rifle a senbon wide hole with other detailed carvings inside the cylinders.

Aki's hands were burning by the time he was done with all twenty cylinders. Painfully, he tore his hand away from the coal bed, performing hand seals for the Heavenly-Illusion-Soul-Prison.

The boar's soul tore out of his burned hand, which Aki forcefully launched between the circle made of twenty cylinders.

Every piece of cylinder was indented with the kanji bound. And as the boar's soul reached the dead centre of the circle. Aki redid the hand signs for seals for Heavenly-Illusion-Soul-Prison.

Red chains made of chakra shot through the kanji bound, and together twenty chains held the raging boar in place. Dan did the last deed. He placed a genjutsu on the soul, making it believe it was a weapon.

Red chakra chains reeled in the boar's soul, dividing it among themselves, completing the final metamorphosis.

The result of the forging process was a two and a half metre long Bo staff. Its entire length was filled with motifs and relief of a great horned boar demon destroying mountains and cities.

"Apply the salve, or it'll leave a scar behind, boy." Gin's said, his voice coming from the earring on Aki's right ear.

"What about the rest?"

"I'll do them for you. You've learned enough of the art of metalworking. For now, it is adequate. With time, we will work on mastering it."

Aki was too happy to oblige. He left the blood and saliva stained scroll on the floor, and applied salve on his hand with Dan's help. He'd have to visit the hospital later. The scarring was more severe than he imagined.

"What will you name it, gozaru?"

"Nothing if I have to follow your rules."

"A small courtesy goes a long way."

Aki sighed, remembering the norms of Al-I-Ra. Every weapon made for assassination must have the word bastard as a suffix. And prefixes were generally a characteristic of the trapped soul.

The combination of both rules made for pretty unflattering names, but Aki honoured the customs. Least he could do to honour a dead culture.

"Ser Charge Bastard?"

"Too common, gozaru."

"Ser Hairy Bastard?"

"Unflattering, gozaru."

"How about, Ser Fat Bastard?"

"That has some nice ring to it."