by To say it was dark would be an understatement. The darkness that permeated this cave was such that it seemed to begin to shut off all other senses. Kameyama began to wiggle his fingers ever so slightly just to prove to himself that he still could. There was no air current against his skin, but nor was he hot. Beads of sweat did not draw from his flesh, but no chill ran up his spine either. He did not turn his head to look around, as he knew whatever it was would present itself when it was ready. He did not recall how he had gotten here, but he knew that he was here for a purpose.
“Raiji,” A voice said suddenly, throwing Kameyama into a defensive stance and causing him to instinctively cover himself with an electric field of energy. Except nothing came. The electric energy in his body had been drained away. “Raiji Kameyama,” The voice said one more time. It was impossible to place a gender on it, as it didn’t register on such a spectrum, but if he had to register an emotion with it, it would be something closer to disappointment.
「Please don’t call me by that name,」 Raiji said, but no sound came from his lips. He wasn’t even sure if he moved them, but the thought traveled with intent nonetheless.「I prefer to only be called Kameyama.」
“You are hiding. Hiding your name, hiding your body, hiding everything you can. But you know you cannot hide the past. You must face it.” The voice said. And that was when he felt the first thing in the room. A hot, wet exhalation of breath. It held no scent and yet the air exhaled was old. As though the last time it had released breath was the last time someone had been in this place. “You left only a few years before. Have you already forgotten what lies within your blood?”
Kameyama cringed at the creature’s breath. Although he could not get a sense of how large it was based on the breath alone, he could discern that it was definitely bigger than him. He gave up attempting to summon the magic within him at all, as it seemed currently that there was nothing to conjure. Had it been drained from him? Was something temporarily holding his recently acquired power in place? Still, what it said bothered him more than what it seemed to be. 「In my blood? There is magic. There has always been, but I didn’t know. How can I have forgotten what I did not know in the first place?」
“I speak not of the blood that flows, but something that has laid deeper within you. It was passed down within you and buried before you. Will be buried in you and after you. It was given to you, but it cannot be kept.”
It was here that Kameyama registered what he was speaking about. His father had often called metalworking `The gift you receive that you must not keep` whenever he would teach something new to his son. Through that, Kameyama learned to immunize himself against the fear and hardships that came with metalwork. 「That’s a skill, not a magic.」
“And who are you to say what magic is and is not?” The voice said. It seemed to let out a mixture of laugh and disappointed huff at the same time. “I challenge you, Raiji Kameyama. For you are stronger than steel. The sense of justice within you, your unshakeable faith, and most importantly a heart willing to fight for your beliefs all make you stronger than you could imagine.” With each word hence, its voice grew with intensity, moving from that disappointed whisper to a triumphant, encouraging roar, “You are a metalworker, and you think you can simply leave behind that past? Feel it! See what is within you!”
Kameyama’s eyes flashed open. He had not known they were closed. Within him he saw a vision of a potential future. A man standing against an unseen opponent, tall and courageous. A man who knew who he was, and what he was there for. This alternate vision was so familiar yet unfamiliar that he almost did not recognize who it was: Himself.
Dancing across the field in a blaze of lighting, the alternate Kameyama raised his hand against a burst of flaming energy, A single triangular shape seemingly branded into his arm replicated itself along his forearm until it formed a protective circular buckler. The energy smashed against the conjured shield, heating it immensely but unable to break through it. With a dismissive thrash of his hand, Kameyama tossed the attack aside.
“Well well,” He smirked, pushing his glasses up slightly with his middle finger, “Time to start tipping my hand!” The shield on his arm seemed to overheat, turning into a liquid and slipping into the ground. Meanwhile Kameyama himself rushed forward, holding out his hand as he raced towards his enemy, some unseen shadow. Bursting from the ground, the liquified metal had reformed itself into a trident. The Metalworker swung about at the last moment, using the collected momentum to strike at the side of his opponent. Whatever this opponent was, it didn’t go down easily. Through some unseen means, the shadowed opponent blocked his attack, causing a temporary stalemate. Rather than waste precious time and energy, Kameyama chose to relinquish ground and jumped backwards, dropping his weapon into the earth once more.
Taking a defensive stance with one hand before the other, back leg bent and front leg stretched out, he was still a moment as he reassessed his opponent. Patience. He would wait if he needed to until— Now!
He spread his hands outwards like a magician revealing a trick, releasing a torrent of steel pellets at intense speed towards his opponent. The shadowed villain dodged through the metal rain, careful of everything before him. Before, not beneath.
The opponent went suddenly still. Kameyama smirked. The trident that had dropped from his hand before reappeared as a jutting, jagged steel blade, piercing his opponent through the chest. The words of his father, passed down from his grandfather and generations before, rang through his ears. No metal is ever wasted. Broken blades become victories. Rusted shields are memories. Worn steel becomes a lesson. It’s only what you do with it that matters.
A deafening crash brought Kameyama back to his senses. The limitations of the cave had been removed. He was kneeling in the center of it, panting heavily, sweat dripping bead by bead onto the stone beneath him. His left forearm was resting on his bent knee, right hand pressed as a fist into the ground beside him.
Before him was a man, a man larger than life. Dressed in full armor of a make and origin the likes of which Kameyama had never seen. He, now identifiable clearly as a he, seemed ancient and powerful. An eyepatch covered one eye, while the other seemed to pierce his very soul. He spoke into Kameyama’s very heart.
The world is unbalanced, I can feel it more than most. I cannot abide by the sudden rise in God Slayers. I must find someone who can assist me in finding a perfect balance to this plane. I require someone, Raiji Kameyama. Someone of unshakeable belief. The steel in your soul makes you strong. The dark in your past makes you wise. But it is the faith in your heart makes you the perfect vassal for me. Accept a portion of my infinite grace, and be the undoing of those that would err on the side of injustice. So says I, Lord Ramuh!
In just as much time the spirit was gone, leaving Kameyama alone by himself. He called out mentally, then vocally for the voice again, but found no response. He was tired, was that the cause? Would it appear whenever it wanted? Such a thing to label him a vassal would rarely move at Kameyama’s own beck and call. Aside from that… he was a bit full of himself. The aging warrior began to stand up. He had set Optix off to the side for this trial, but now sought her counsel through this strange occurrence.
“Are you alright?” She asked. As soon as he put her on, she began to analyze his vitals, “I’m detecting some changes to your body. Base metabolic rate, heartbeat, lung capacity all changed. There are even alterations to your melatonin levels. There’s also something new in your system. I can’t quite make out what it—“
From the base of his neck, where it met his spine, a torrent of shining liquid metal splashed out, each droplet seemingly sharp as a blade in its own right, turning his shirt and long sleeved coat to dust in an instant. Before what had just happened could fully sink in, the streaming metal coursed along his frame through the scars running along his forearms. They sunk in and hardened, replacing his light blue lightning scars with bright silver ones of the same shape.
“Well… goodness…” Kameyama murmured. “I need something to—“ Before he could finish the thought, the metal covering him stretched and deformed itself over his physical form. It mimicked perfectly the shirt and coat he had been wearing just a moment later, even changing color in a chameleon like form. The metal seemed to thin itself out like fabric. It would take a very close inspection by someone extremely skilled to realize that it was only a mockery of what he’d originally been wearing. “I’m don’t know if it’s supposed to do that. Optix, what is this? Should I be trying to get it off of me?”
“As usual, a goooood question,” There was a soft glowing green light streaming from the necklace that covered his whole body piece by piece, like an automated scanner. There was a moment of silence afterwards, as Optix flipped in place while she analyzed the information. “I… I think this is Slayer magic. I almost thought Requip because of how it forms over you, but I think it’s more accurate to say it’s a part of you. It reacts to you. At least that’s how yours seems to work. Based on instinct and heart.”
“It acts as a magic? So as far as spells go…?” He asked with a leading upward inflection.
“Well if my assumptions are correct, sir, you know them already. All of them. You just have to figure out what you know. Remember, it’s based on how you got it. Where did you get it?”
“I’m a vassal now, I think. Which I believe I shouldn’t say that as casually as I did, but things seem to be moving faster than one expects here.” Kameyama responded, “So I just think about all the things he said. This Lord Ramuh person.” He stared at his hands and focused on what Optix had instructed, and what Lord Ramuh had informed him of previously. The metal acting as his shirt glimmered with potential.
Letting out a forceful exhalation, he slammed his right hand into the ground. The metal extended itself from his coat deep into the ground. It seemed to shed its coloring as it did. Remembering the technique he had done in the future version of himself, he attempted to replicate it by shooting a metal spear up through the ground before him. A long, flat metal pillar much greater than the one that he had pressed into the soil suddenly erupted from the ground ten meters from him. Kameyama staggered and fell backward at the unexpected size of the monument. “Alright I definitely wasn’t expecting that.”
“It seems you’re capable of absorbing the metals that are also in the ground.” Optix said. She was spinning around rapidly attempting to accumulate and aggregate the rapid intake of data. “This will take a lot more work to get down. But if it’s you, I know that you can do it.”
Kameyama nodded and smiled, “Not sure what I’d do without you, Optix.” Shakily getting back to his feet, he made his way out of the cave. When he was asked what had happened, which he most certainly would be, he wouldn’t be able to give a clear answer. But now, with whatever this was coursing all around him, he felt a strange sense of purpose. A renewed beginning.
“Well well…” He pushed up his glasses and smirked. “Almost time to start tipping my hand…”
/2200 FIN
“Raiji,” A voice said suddenly, throwing Kameyama into a defensive stance and causing him to instinctively cover himself with an electric field of energy. Except nothing came. The electric energy in his body had been drained away. “Raiji Kameyama,” The voice said one more time. It was impossible to place a gender on it, as it didn’t register on such a spectrum, but if he had to register an emotion with it, it would be something closer to disappointment.
「Please don’t call me by that name,」 Raiji said, but no sound came from his lips. He wasn’t even sure if he moved them, but the thought traveled with intent nonetheless.「I prefer to only be called Kameyama.」
“You are hiding. Hiding your name, hiding your body, hiding everything you can. But you know you cannot hide the past. You must face it.” The voice said. And that was when he felt the first thing in the room. A hot, wet exhalation of breath. It held no scent and yet the air exhaled was old. As though the last time it had released breath was the last time someone had been in this place. “You left only a few years before. Have you already forgotten what lies within your blood?”
Kameyama cringed at the creature’s breath. Although he could not get a sense of how large it was based on the breath alone, he could discern that it was definitely bigger than him. He gave up attempting to summon the magic within him at all, as it seemed currently that there was nothing to conjure. Had it been drained from him? Was something temporarily holding his recently acquired power in place? Still, what it said bothered him more than what it seemed to be. 「In my blood? There is magic. There has always been, but I didn’t know. How can I have forgotten what I did not know in the first place?」
“I speak not of the blood that flows, but something that has laid deeper within you. It was passed down within you and buried before you. Will be buried in you and after you. It was given to you, but it cannot be kept.”
It was here that Kameyama registered what he was speaking about. His father had often called metalworking `The gift you receive that you must not keep` whenever he would teach something new to his son. Through that, Kameyama learned to immunize himself against the fear and hardships that came with metalwork. 「That’s a skill, not a magic.」
“And who are you to say what magic is and is not?” The voice said. It seemed to let out a mixture of laugh and disappointed huff at the same time. “I challenge you, Raiji Kameyama. For you are stronger than steel. The sense of justice within you, your unshakeable faith, and most importantly a heart willing to fight for your beliefs all make you stronger than you could imagine.” With each word hence, its voice grew with intensity, moving from that disappointed whisper to a triumphant, encouraging roar, “You are a metalworker, and you think you can simply leave behind that past? Feel it! See what is within you!”
Kameyama’s eyes flashed open. He had not known they were closed. Within him he saw a vision of a potential future. A man standing against an unseen opponent, tall and courageous. A man who knew who he was, and what he was there for. This alternate vision was so familiar yet unfamiliar that he almost did not recognize who it was: Himself.
Dancing across the field in a blaze of lighting, the alternate Kameyama raised his hand against a burst of flaming energy, A single triangular shape seemingly branded into his arm replicated itself along his forearm until it formed a protective circular buckler. The energy smashed against the conjured shield, heating it immensely but unable to break through it. With a dismissive thrash of his hand, Kameyama tossed the attack aside.
“Well well,” He smirked, pushing his glasses up slightly with his middle finger, “Time to start tipping my hand!” The shield on his arm seemed to overheat, turning into a liquid and slipping into the ground. Meanwhile Kameyama himself rushed forward, holding out his hand as he raced towards his enemy, some unseen shadow. Bursting from the ground, the liquified metal had reformed itself into a trident. The Metalworker swung about at the last moment, using the collected momentum to strike at the side of his opponent. Whatever this opponent was, it didn’t go down easily. Through some unseen means, the shadowed opponent blocked his attack, causing a temporary stalemate. Rather than waste precious time and energy, Kameyama chose to relinquish ground and jumped backwards, dropping his weapon into the earth once more.
Taking a defensive stance with one hand before the other, back leg bent and front leg stretched out, he was still a moment as he reassessed his opponent. Patience. He would wait if he needed to until— Now!
He spread his hands outwards like a magician revealing a trick, releasing a torrent of steel pellets at intense speed towards his opponent. The shadowed villain dodged through the metal rain, careful of everything before him. Before, not beneath.
The opponent went suddenly still. Kameyama smirked. The trident that had dropped from his hand before reappeared as a jutting, jagged steel blade, piercing his opponent through the chest. The words of his father, passed down from his grandfather and generations before, rang through his ears. No metal is ever wasted. Broken blades become victories. Rusted shields are memories. Worn steel becomes a lesson. It’s only what you do with it that matters.
A deafening crash brought Kameyama back to his senses. The limitations of the cave had been removed. He was kneeling in the center of it, panting heavily, sweat dripping bead by bead onto the stone beneath him. His left forearm was resting on his bent knee, right hand pressed as a fist into the ground beside him.
Before him was a man, a man larger than life. Dressed in full armor of a make and origin the likes of which Kameyama had never seen. He, now identifiable clearly as a he, seemed ancient and powerful. An eyepatch covered one eye, while the other seemed to pierce his very soul. He spoke into Kameyama’s very heart.
The world is unbalanced, I can feel it more than most. I cannot abide by the sudden rise in God Slayers. I must find someone who can assist me in finding a perfect balance to this plane. I require someone, Raiji Kameyama. Someone of unshakeable belief. The steel in your soul makes you strong. The dark in your past makes you wise. But it is the faith in your heart makes you the perfect vassal for me. Accept a portion of my infinite grace, and be the undoing of those that would err on the side of injustice. So says I, Lord Ramuh!
In just as much time the spirit was gone, leaving Kameyama alone by himself. He called out mentally, then vocally for the voice again, but found no response. He was tired, was that the cause? Would it appear whenever it wanted? Such a thing to label him a vassal would rarely move at Kameyama’s own beck and call. Aside from that… he was a bit full of himself. The aging warrior began to stand up. He had set Optix off to the side for this trial, but now sought her counsel through this strange occurrence.
“Are you alright?” She asked. As soon as he put her on, she began to analyze his vitals, “I’m detecting some changes to your body. Base metabolic rate, heartbeat, lung capacity all changed. There are even alterations to your melatonin levels. There’s also something new in your system. I can’t quite make out what it—“
From the base of his neck, where it met his spine, a torrent of shining liquid metal splashed out, each droplet seemingly sharp as a blade in its own right, turning his shirt and long sleeved coat to dust in an instant. Before what had just happened could fully sink in, the streaming metal coursed along his frame through the scars running along his forearms. They sunk in and hardened, replacing his light blue lightning scars with bright silver ones of the same shape.
“Well… goodness…” Kameyama murmured. “I need something to—“ Before he could finish the thought, the metal covering him stretched and deformed itself over his physical form. It mimicked perfectly the shirt and coat he had been wearing just a moment later, even changing color in a chameleon like form. The metal seemed to thin itself out like fabric. It would take a very close inspection by someone extremely skilled to realize that it was only a mockery of what he’d originally been wearing. “I’m don’t know if it’s supposed to do that. Optix, what is this? Should I be trying to get it off of me?”
“As usual, a goooood question,” There was a soft glowing green light streaming from the necklace that covered his whole body piece by piece, like an automated scanner. There was a moment of silence afterwards, as Optix flipped in place while she analyzed the information. “I… I think this is Slayer magic. I almost thought Requip because of how it forms over you, but I think it’s more accurate to say it’s a part of you. It reacts to you. At least that’s how yours seems to work. Based on instinct and heart.”
“It acts as a magic? So as far as spells go…?” He asked with a leading upward inflection.
“Well if my assumptions are correct, sir, you know them already. All of them. You just have to figure out what you know. Remember, it’s based on how you got it. Where did you get it?”
“I’m a vassal now, I think. Which I believe I shouldn’t say that as casually as I did, but things seem to be moving faster than one expects here.” Kameyama responded, “So I just think about all the things he said. This Lord Ramuh person.” He stared at his hands and focused on what Optix had instructed, and what Lord Ramuh had informed him of previously. The metal acting as his shirt glimmered with potential.
Letting out a forceful exhalation, he slammed his right hand into the ground. The metal extended itself from his coat deep into the ground. It seemed to shed its coloring as it did. Remembering the technique he had done in the future version of himself, he attempted to replicate it by shooting a metal spear up through the ground before him. A long, flat metal pillar much greater than the one that he had pressed into the soil suddenly erupted from the ground ten meters from him. Kameyama staggered and fell backward at the unexpected size of the monument. “Alright I definitely wasn’t expecting that.”
“It seems you’re capable of absorbing the metals that are also in the ground.” Optix said. She was spinning around rapidly attempting to accumulate and aggregate the rapid intake of data. “This will take a lot more work to get down. But if it’s you, I know that you can do it.”
Kameyama nodded and smiled, “Not sure what I’d do without you, Optix.” Shakily getting back to his feet, he made his way out of the cave. When he was asked what had happened, which he most certainly would be, he wouldn’t be able to give a clear answer. But now, with whatever this was coursing all around him, he felt a strange sense of purpose. A renewed beginning.
“Well well…” He pushed up his glasses and smirked. “Almost time to start tipping my hand…”
/2200 FIN
