Chapter 21 - Everyday relations (2)

And after a couple of months, Saeko and I turned seventeen full years old, and just for a friend's birthday, I forged a katana suitable for her. It is quite difficult to forge swords and katanas professionally, first I had to form a blank by putting together several layers of steel plates. The cutting edge of the blade was made of harder and tougher steel, and the lining on the sides was made of softer and more flexible. As a result, I got a professionally forged katana with the initials of the girl.

Having presented her to Saeko, I immediately received a confused look and a kiss on the cheek ... well, as well as winks from Master Isao, who apparently already thinks that I will be the husband of his daughter. The next day, the girl came to the academy with my katana on her belt, however, no one was indignant, since she usually walks like that. Well, there should be a bokken instead of a katana, but the girl is the captain of Kendo, so it's okay... probably that's what the school head thinks.

After seeing the katana, my sister also wanted a gift from her beloved brother, so I decided to forge a weapon for her. And it's not just Alicia's begging eyes and gentle hugs that are to blame here, not at all. It's just that after the incident with the attack on the three of us, I decided that it would be better if my sister had some kind of weapon with her. But still, the first thing I did to her was a personal modern block bow. I spent even more time on it than on a katana, simply because of the novelty and unusual nature of working with other materials. But in the end, a compact block bow turned out, which is assembled into a small plastic object of thirty—five centimeters, which can be hung behind your back, but in the active state it becomes three times larger due to the elasticity and flexibility of materials.

But besides that, I also made her a folding knife... more precisely, I would call it a folding short sword. Since when folded, it looks more like a knife of twenty—five centimeters.

But it is worth pressing a special button located just under one of the fingers, as due to the created pressure of a heavy spring inside the sword, the blade takes its true size at forty—three centimeters, which just resembles a short sword.

I made such a sword for myself, just in case. A couple of days after I gave the bow and sword to Alicia, she began to look at me with the same look as her sister, Rei, had recently. But I have already started forging suitable weapons for her, and constantly improving my skills. It was like I was remembering doing something like that... which gave me some thoughts, but that's not what I'm talking about now. For Rei, I started making a folding spear, which in the inactive state looked more like a mace fifty centimeters long. But as soon as Rei activated the mechanism, additional sections came out of the two sides of the "mace", which eventually turned into a kind of Bo staff, that is, a long pole. But it is also possible to manifest the tip of the spear, which is folded inside the end of the staff.

Having received well—deserved praise from the master and sincere joy from the girls, I thought about my skills. Of course, I watched the master, but I came up with many of the ideas that I used when forging weapons myself, and it felt like I was remembering something long forgotten. And one more thing — the soul. Recently I read in a magazine about what some peoples think about the soul, about its structure and about its eternity. Of course, from a scientific point of view, all this cannot be considered some kind of proof... but I have arguments that still make me believe in the soul.

My birth, my initial knowledge of the world, albeit very fragmentary, as if ... as if someone tore off a piece from the whole and what remained continued to live. After all, a more or less adult consciousness at birth cannot be explained by a simple virus, even if it is able to change bodies causing them to mutate. Knowledge in this case will simply have nowhere to come from, and I had them. I was aware of the world around me, I realized that even if I was a child, but with a formed consciousness. All this makes me think that maybe I once lived in another place, in another... world. And after death, I ended up here with lost memory and some knowledge. All the biology that I studied, I always had the feeling that I grasp everything too quickly, intuitively understand what I simply could not have known before.

I indulged in such reflections from time to time, which was noticed by my friends, who seemed to sense my gloomy mood.

— "Hmm, what did you say? I'm sorry, I just got lost in thought." — I apologized weakly.

—" Yes, I see." — Miyamoto frowned slightly, but then sighed and said again. —" I asked do you want to eat? I made too big a bento for myself today."

—" I want to." — Alicia's voice rang out and, ignoring Rei's slightly displeased look, she began to take the tomatoes and put them in her mouth. "It 's delicious , it 's sad that you didn 't try itt, Felix.

— "Uh-huh, I can assume from your satisfied little face that you really liked it." — I stretched out my hand to her face and wiped some sauce, maybe it was mayonnaise. The girl only smiled at my actions and hugged me by the hand.

— "Bro, you are so sensitive and attentive ... not like some." — She looked towards the next bench where Hisashi was sitting. He himself talked to Rei a couple of times when she was away from our group and from Takashi, who went to the club for a month and abandoned it, since he did not achieve visible success with the girl. But his friend, Hisashi, also liked the girl, but Rei reacted very ... coolly to all the attempts in her direction. Perhaps it was affected by the feelings she used to have for Takashi and the way he ignored her and she was very sad because of this. But Alicia immediately stopped the attempts to herself, telling him that nothing was shining for him ... poor guy.

— "He's been sitting there looking at you for about ten minutes, Rei. You could have talked to him so as not to give the guy hope, well, or agree. " — Saeko said, looking first at Miyamoto, and then at the nervous guy. The purple-haired woman herself was now dressed in keikogi, that is, in a form in which you need to train martial arts, in our case Kendo.

—" I... they haven't confessed to me yet, so I'm worried... it's still unpleasant to refuse and upset people so much," — Rei said and put the Bento aside.

— "During my training, I was offered to meet many times. " — Busujima recalled all these courtship cases. A couple of times they wanted to beat me up, thereby proving that Saeko deserves them more. — Sometimes there were very rude individuals, for example, Tsunoda from our class. He often gets from Felix when he tries to roll balls to me. — the girl described our classmate quite vulgarly… which does not negate the truth of the words spoken.

— "No wonder you are considered the first beauty of the academy." — Miyamoto told her. And these are not just words, there was some guy who really measured the beauty of girls… so Saeko took first place among the girls of the second-third grade of the academy. But in the new school year, my sister and Rei appeared, who are also very cute and are not inferior to Busujima." — It's good that this has not happened to me yet... except for that incident and this annoying Hisashi... he spoiled all the statistics for me. "— the girl was indignant.

— "He looks so pitifully in our direction, waiting for you to be alone... "— my sister drawled.

— "And didn't anyone offer you to start a relationship?" — Busujima asked my sister with interest.

— "I was offered. Besides, some chubby boy in my class sometimes looks at me... well, and Sayu." — my sister said. — "I was offered in high school... but why do I need them if I have a brother?" — my sister asked a rhetorical question and snuggled closer to me with reddened cheeks.

Nearby passing schoolchildren even stumbled, seeing Alicia in such a state. And Rei and Saeko... they're already used to Alicia hugging me all the time.