Chapter 34 The Days to Ahead

After seeing off the two staff members that escorted him back to Kajima's house. Azi went to his room and began contemplating recent events while he sat on his bed. When he kissed Shizu the night prior, he felt a warm unknown emotion in his heart.

He wasn't sure if it was love but it felt familiar. He could not remember when in his past he felt this emotion and felt a bit worried about not having such an important memory.

As he thought harder about the previous night, he suddenly remembered that when they awoke Shizu had seen him suckling on her nipples. The memory made him blush wildly and made him question why he would do such a thing, especially while unconscious.

He wondered if he had a unique interest in breasts but wanting to not dig any deeper due to his fear of awakening a strange part of himself, so he tried to take his mind off of it. Examining himself, he realized that the wounds he had suffered during their previous fight were already healed.

Remembering what Kajima told him about magical energy on their way back from the hunt, he realized that the warriors and soldiers in this feudalistic society were much stronger than what he could remember from his memories.

The reason for this was the extreme conditions that the people of the Empire had to live in. A forest filled with monsters as strong as the kengiri and as numerous as the gengiri meant that the people had to have high amounts of stamina and strength to boot to survive.

Looking at his forearm, he realized just how skinny and small he was when compared to the muscular but supple body of Shizu's and Kajima's enormous muscles.

He knew there was nothing he could do to change his height, but he resolved himself to physically train himself to be able to stand at not only Kajima's side in the forge, but with Shizu as well to honor his kiss of fealty with her.

Thinking back on the events before the inn, he suddenly remembered that Ben and Bail should have delivered what he ordered from their shop as it was already past the time Azi designated for the order to arrive.

Curiosity on what he could do with the materials got the best of him and his mind began to wander away from his past memories. Azi then left his room with a gleeful smile on his face wondering what today and the days after will hold.

Making his way into the workshop he saw a large mat in a corner of the large room which had numerous wooden crates stacked upon each other with a note attached to the front most crate.

Approaching the mountain of crates, he picked up the note and read it,

"To Azi,

Here are the materials you bought and a few extra items I thought would help ya with ya project. I left it to Kajima to get it sorted out. Let me know if you need anything else.

From, Ben and Bail

PS. Remind Shizu to bring us some booze."

He chuckled at the last statement of the note and reminded himself to join them in some light drinking in the future. Moving his attention to the wooden crates, Azi began going through them and organizing them.

All the raw materials of various ores were set aside into one pile, the scrap weapons were set elsewhere, and finally the monster corpses were laid outside of the workshop in a small clearing where he and Kajima previously disassembled monsters and animals.

Using what he learned, he began working to disassemble the monsters. He didn't want the meat of the beowolves to spoil as it could be sold for cash and the gengiri flesh had a horrible stench when it was left to rot.

Azi worked to keep him busy until he noticed that someone came home. Expecting it to be Shizu and Kajima, he was a bit disappointed to see only Kajima but he nonetheless welcomed him home.

"Welcome back Kajima, ummm where is Shizu?"

"She had work to do today and needed to double time it since she slept in with a certain someone. A quite bold someone I might add. hahaha."

Azi blushed at what Kajima's respond implied. Noticing the boy's obviously blushing face, Kajima then asked Azi in a concerned tone.

"In any case, I need to ask. How do you feel about the kiss of fealty you performed with Shizu? Do you really accept the responsibility, do you want to be her apprentice?"

"I have no problems with the responsibilities and being an apprentice is a great opportunity to learn about many things. I am also starting to enjoy Shizu's company. She has been a good friend to me, but she can be a bit rough from time to time hahahaha." As he said this, he rubbed the back of his head with a wry smile on his face.

"You got that right." Agreed Kajima. "But have you been told about her trials? What do you think, are you sure you want to attempt them?"

"Well, I'm not sure if I can pass because she didn't tell me what the remaining 3 trials are, but she did affirm that I can pass with hard work."

"It's best that you do not underestimate Shizu's trials, she makes you do things that are very difficult and dangerous. Keep that in mind when she attempts to test you in the future.

I also have to warn you about your trusting nature in people. In only the past 3 days, you have been getting closer to people like myself and Shizu. Why are you so trusting of us?"

Kajima, while now responsible for Azi, had felt worried about Azi after Shizu informed him about her and Ozen's agendas that involved using Azi for the benefit of the nation. He was also suspicious of Azi as he suspected that he might be faking his amnesia in order to abuse the fact to his advantage.

Kajima, while he is a skilled blacksmith, was also a skilled soldier. He was battle hardened and learned to pick up on things not usually noticed by a common person. Azi's recent feats were a red flag in Kajima's eyes as it was not normal to show such potential and prowess without having a foreboding background.

Azi paused at Kajima's question as he took a few brief moments to think about his answer. Kajima looked on at Azi with a calm expression, but underneath it was suspicion of his identity and worry for his future.

Azi then answered in a casual tone, with no hint of lying in his words.

"It's just because it feels natural for me to depend on you and Shizu. When I first came to Shisayama I had no idea what I should do. I had no home, family, or a past I could really remember, but you and Shizu helped me make memorable memories and fought alongside me against the kengiri. If not for Shizu and you, I think I would have died in the forest and that is a good enough reason to trust you both."

Kajima was impressed by Azi's words, he did not detect a single lie from Azi which to his relief disproved his suspicion that Azi was lying about his amnesia. But his worry still remained as the issue of Azi being abused for his abilities concerned him.

Wanting to give Azi some advice he nodded at the logic behind Azi's reasoning but warned him. "Your reasoning is sound but be careful. You do not want to be too trusting when you get close to people in high society. Those snobs in high society like to backstab those that are no longer useful or forcefully use their authority to get what they want from others."

"So, are you saying I should not trust Shizu?"

While Kajima disliked the idea Shizu and Ozen had to "utilize" Azi, he could not outright take the decision out of Azi's hands. If he did try to influence Azi's actions, he would be a hypocrite. He also didn't want to spoil the relationship between Azi and Shizu.

Even though Shizu had plans to use Azi, he knew that Shizu truly loves Azi but could not realize her feelings due to her sense of duty to the nation. So, he gave Azi the best advice he could.

"That is for you to decide. I can't make this decision for you, only you can Azi. You will decide your future. My role is to teach you what you want to know."

"I understand, I will have to think about it tonight." Taking a brief moment to pause, Azi suddenly changed gears as a smile formed on his face. "On a different note, now that you are back, could you help me familiarize myself with the forge and its tools? I want to learn more about blacksmithing since I need to start work on Shizu's weapon."

Seeing the glint in Azi's eyes suddenly appear he understood that the boy wanted to switch to a more interesting topic, which made Kajima laugh in his mind at how gleeful Azi looked right now.

"Alright, what are your questions?" Kajima said with a smile as he thought to himself

'As usual, Azi's got that light in his eyes. I wonder what he will ask me about next?'

For the rest of the day Azi and Kajima conversed as they both cleaned up and gathered the butchered monsters and animals Azi had completed. There were now furs, buckets of beowolf and gengiri blood, gengiri carapaces, and beowolf fangs spread out across a large stone table in the forge.

As Kajima answered one of Azi's questions concerning blacksmithing, he directed Azi's attention to the forge and how to fuel it and handle the fire. Kajima's forge consisted of a kiln, a blower, an anvil, and an assortment of hammers for forming metals into different shapes.

There were also metal tongs to handle hot metals, stone basins that were used to melt metals down, and a large wooden basin of water for tempering and cooling.

Kajima then began showing Azi how to form metal ingots from the ores he bought. Taking some of Azi's supply of material he then performed many demonstrations of his blacksmithing skills. Kajima reformed and restored a scraped weapon and then sharpened and polished the weapon to fighting form in only a couple hours.

As Kajima worked, he elaborated on what basic processes of tempering Azi should practice to obtain a better feel of how to work the metals. He then had Azi try to do what he taught him which resulted in Azi's first few attempts showing his amateurish level of skill.

At best, Azi could create a couple of ingots or metals that were not misshapen. The scrapped weapons Azi tried to restore ended up becoming too brittle from his mishandling of the tempering.

Finally, Azi's polishing and sharpening techniques were definitely lacking, at times he would accidentally break the scrap weapons he was performing maintenance on. Some time he would accidently apply too much pressure when sharpening which caused it to deform slightly or chip the blade's edge.

The time it took Azi to do all this was excessive for only a few ingots and a couple swords. This was due to how he got so easily tired from the intense heat of the forge and how his arms would need long breaks after hammering metal into shape.

The hammers were quite large as their heads were 5 times the size of his fist and their weight made it hard for him to wield. It then made sense to Azi on why Kajima told him that the current tools he gave him would be temporary.

The apparent size of the hammers are suited for people of larger builds like Kajima.

There was no way Azi, who was 5 feet tall, could effectively use Kajima's tools which caused him to get a slight headache as he realized he would have to do more prep work to fix Shizu weapons.

By the end of the day, Azi was covered in sweat and dead tired as he had dark bags under his eyes. After a nice hot bath, that was personally made by Kajima who favored bathing after working the forge, Azi washed off the sweat and grime of today's work. He then had a large dinner with Kajima, Shizu was not present as she needed to work late into the night.

The two talked about how Azi could improve his forging techniques by learning from Ben and Bail. While Kajima was skilled, he would be busy with work at different times of the day, so he suggested that he learn from others to fill the time Kajima was unavailable.

After dinner was concluded and Azi had helped clean up the table, he went to his room and slumped into bed.

His pained groans from all the aches across his body slowly turned into a soft breathing as he surrendered himself to the soft bedding and pillow. His relief was short-lived as Azi was awakened in the middle of the night by a familiar voice who asked to join him in bed.

*****

Shizu's Point of View (POV)

While Azi was getting his lessons on blacksmithing, Shizu was battling a mountain of paperwork that she had to finish by the end of the day. These were important letters to key individuals that had to be sent out urgently to give out orders to act and solve the current problems in Kujyuri's territories.

This was the work Shizu had left unfinished in Kujyuri and this irked her as she was never the one to enjoy reading paperwork and writing letters all day.

She instead preferred to train and train others in combat. Thinking of her previous work environment in Kujyuri, she remembered her sister Rulu and missed her immensely.

She felt guilty that she could no longer spend time with Rulu as she would always dote on her whenever she could, but she had to bear with it for now. Shizu believed that this temporary separation was for the good of Kujyuri's future and for Rulu's growth into becoming her own person.

With newfound motivation, Shizu begrudgingly continued to work at the pile of paperwork that seemed to never end. She took an occasional break to eat when she felt hungry but for the time being, her focus was just on the work on her desk.

When the sun had set and the moon was high in the night sky, Shizu sighed heavily as all the muscles in her body began to feel as if they were turning to jelly.

It was already late into the night and while Shizu did get more than enough sleep last night, the amount of stress she had accumulated was more than enough to negate the energy she had stored up.

Remembering that she had more work to do tomorrow she again sighed and began to drag herself up to her feet so she could put on a coat to keep warm from the night air.

After making sure that she had the coat on right, she made her way to Kajima's house. Feeling her exhaustion reaching a critical point, she rushed to the nearest room which coincidentally was Azi's.

When she entered, Azi had gotten up from the bed, obviously half asleep as his eyes had bags under them, and he looked over to the entrance where she stood. In a brief and tired tone, Shizu asked.

"Can I sleep here?"

Azi just nodded his head and moved over to make room for her on the bed. Wanting to hurry to sleep, Shizu slightly leapt into Azi's futon bed on the floor.

For a few minutes Azi and Shizu shared what they did that day, but the sound of their conversation soon became silent as they fell asleep.

When the next morning light comes, they would awaken and face the days ahead, together.