Arc 1 Chapter 5: Appalling Memories

At lunchtime, Yukina and Akko sat in the courtyard. "Yuki, what's wrong; you've just been poking your food." Yukina used her chopsticks to poke the fried boneless Piscis, a fish with scales used to make armor and weapons; they usually are caught on the beach of Vertelia.

"How can you be so calm after seeing a fellow student dead..." She would reply before finally taking a bite of the fish. Akko had already finished her food by this time, so she had no excuse not to tell Yukina.

"My parents were knights in the city of Centrum, and I wanted them to show me what it was like to be a knight. During one of their expeditions, they decided to take me along. We journeyed to the outskirt of town since they got a report of some bandits looting from the merchants that would exit from the city. Once we got there, all we saw was blood-soaked grass and those inkindled creatures eating people, but they looked like the ones we fought today; they were the form of people; at the time, I didn't know what they were, but my parents told me to run away, so I ran until I came here."

Yukina would continue eating the fish, taking this time to think of a response before finally mustering up the will to say something.

"I'm sorry to hear about that, Akko," Yukina replied without trying to add too much else so she wouldn't trigger any more traumatizing memories for Akko.

"So you understand now? Great, now finish your food before it gets cold." Yukina would finish her Piscis, and the two of them would head back inside the school and finish the rest of their classes.

Once night fell upon the town; the twin moons of Xenonia would illuminate the town and glisten in the sea by the city beachside before the lamp posts throughout the city turn on. Yukina and Akko walked together and treaded to the beach to get a breath of fresh air; the smell of seawater tickled their nose, they could hear the sound of humming waves and crunching sand under the soles of their shoes; one would call it a natural silence. The two Vulpians would stand there as their thoughts ran wild, trying to process the day.

"You know I originally became an Arcanist, so I can travel the world and help people...and possibly make more money with my smithing, but, after learning about the possibility of becoming an Inkindled...I'm just terrified, " Yukina said, breaking the silence.

"I guess that's just how life is...but don't worry, Yuki, I'll make sure you don't become one!" Akko would respond with a thumbs up, and a wink as her ponytail swayed in the wind. "Yuki, remember when we used to come to the beach all the time when we were kids?" Akko asked.

"Yeah, you always made those sandcastles, and I'd step on them. We also went fishing; I remember catching someone's boot," Yukina replied. The both of them giggled and continued their way home, eventually parting ways at the fork in the cobblestone road. Yukina would head back to her smithing shop, which she had recently changed hours for late-night smithing on weekdays and all-day smithing on weekends.

She headed upstairs to get changed into her blacksmithing uniform, which consisted of a white shirt, black apron with pockets for her hammer, tongs, and other smithing tools; brown gloves made from the hide of a winged cow called the Alas Bolvus; and a face shield with a tempered glass visor. She would walk down the stairs and flip the sign in the front to open before walking to the forge to light the charcoal on fire with a match; the heat from the fire would make her sweat as she flapped the bellows to blow air into the furnace to increase the intensity of the flames.

Once Yukina was done setting up shop, she would pull a stool over to the counter and sit there waiting to receive orders from the customer that had yet to come for the night. A Blonde Vulpian man wearing glasses with a bent bridge walked towards the shop.

"Welcome to Sako's smithy; what can I do for you?" The man set a pile of gold coins with an image of a star crested onto them on the counter.

"I need my glasses to be repaired." The man had the physique of a bookworm, so anyone could infer that he was a man of knowledge. Yukina counted the gold coins that lay before her on the counter. She counted forty coins.

"Okay, forty aurum, should do it for a simple repair!" The man handed Yukina his glasses and would wait by the counter. Yukina pushed out the lens in the frame, set them on the counter, grabbed her blowtorch, put her face shield on, and turned the nozzle on the blowtorch. She was igniting a blue flame that would match the color of her eyes and would dig into her pocket to grab the tongs and hold the glasses still as not to shift them too much or to accidentally burn herself by having her hand too close. After that, she would straighten the bridge of the glasses by hammering it against the forge with a small hammer. "Here you are; the repair was successful. Have a great evening!" Yukina said after returning the fixed glasses, waiting for the man to reinsert the lens into the glasses, before waving goodbye; since not many people were walking the streets, she wanted to test her skill at making weapons after what happened with her first encounter with an Inkindled. Once the man left, she grabbed one of the iron slabs and tossed it in the forge, waiting for it to become malleable.

Once the iron had heated up, Yukina removed it from the forge with her tongs and set it on the anvil. She began to strike it with her hammer; the sound of metal clanging was be heard throughout the city as she forged the blade of a sword using her iron to shape the slab and whetstone to shape it. When she finished, she inspected the blade and was able to see herself in the reflection of the blade. After the visual inspection was the durability test, she connected the blade to a handle and swung the sword at the anvil; she felt her spirit snap in half and saw that the part of the blade was now on the floor, and she was still holding the handle. "I think it's time I went to bed." The discouraged Vulpian said, tossing the handle into a wooden barrel filled with broken blades in the corner. She removed the hot coal with a shovel to let it cool down and moped her way up the stair before changing into her black nightgown and flopping her petite body onto the bed. "I wish my skill would extend beyond that of just simple repairs." She said. Her eyelids began to feel heavy as if they were being pulled down before finally closing, letting her mind drift off into the realm of dreams.