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To be revered as a master was a funny thing.
In his youth, Eiji had wanted nothing more than to be great. As the fourth son of a farmer, he knew it was not an inheritance but rather something he had to build for himself. When the swordsmith in a neighbouring town had lost his only son to a fever, Eiji had asked him if he could apprentice in his trade. The smith had agreed, and Eiji had grown in his craft since then. From there, he had set his sights on being the best swordsmith in Japan. Ambition had been his God in those days. When his own forge had burned down with his wife inside after working himself into exhaustion while attempting to forge the best blade ever made, that God had taken a sacrifice. Only after losing everything except his craft had, he truly become a master. The title felt silly now. At the end of the day Eiji was just an old man who made swords.
His apprentice never dreamed of greatness. Mizu’s God was revenge rather than ambition. For her, becoming a great swordsman was the only path she’d seen available to her. She was out for blood. To avenge her own existence. Her self-hatred an impurity Eiji had never been able to beat out of her.
It had been a blessing and a curse to see her once again after she’d started her quest. Her body was broken, and her sword had been shattered. Both were too pure, to devoted to being weapons to make room for anything but death. Mizu had dedicated herself to being a foolish young man with no regard for her own life. Eiji remembered the lump of metal that had fallen from the sky, and the young child with nowhere else to go. Mizu had tried to hide that fact from him, so he let her stay. She tried to let him think she was a boy as well, but a boy wouldn’t have been so careful about where they peed in the bushes or so despondent at their own ugliness. He’d heard the girl crying in her sleep crying for her mother, promising that she would be a boy for her so the bad men wouldn’t find them. These were Mizu’s demons to fight, if she wanted him to believe she was a boy then who was Eiji to argue?
Mizu had reforged her steel but not her sword. She failed at first, but her soul was stubborn. Perhaps she’d learned it from him. To be stubborn, to be focused, to be devoted to one’s craft. Eiji would not forge new steel for her. He was a swordsmith, a master, and at times he tried to be a father even if this was not a skill he’d felt he mastered. At times Eiji missed the curious child or ornery teen Mizu had been, rather than the weapon he had forged himself into. If it were up to Eiji, he would want to know Mizu as an adult beyond her quest. Whether she was a swordsmith or something else, whether she accepted herself as a woman or continued to live as a man, Eiji wished she could see the value in herself even if others did not. At least when she had come back to him, she had not been alone.
Eiji was amused to see Mizu had taken on an apprentice of her own. Not that Ringo had given her any other options. According to Ringo, Mizu had sliced a flesh trader’s fingers off for information and for threatening him at his father’s soba shop. From there, Ringo followed Mizu and decided to be her apprentice. The man was just as stubborn as Mizu in his own way though infinitely chattier. Looking back, Eiji was grateful for Mizu’s quiet determination and diligent work ethic. It had been easy to adjust to her presence despite her stubbornness. Unlike Mizu, Ringo sought greatness. Or so he said. Eiji suspected that Ringo wanted to be great so he could be valued, and he wanted to be valued so that he could be loved. Once Eiji had asked him about home, Ringo confessed that he hated home but that he loved noodles and went on to describe the differences between soba, ramen, and udon noodles. In one conversation, Eiji had thought about noodles more than he had in his entire life.
Ringo was insistent that Eiji eat and sleep and have clean clothes. He made an offhand comment about how being his apprentice was easier than being Mizu’s because he wasn’t getting stabbed all the time. If Ringo had bandaged Mizu up, Eiji assumed he knew she was a woman. They were dancing around each other keeping her secret. Eiji would let him believe he didn’t know. Perhaps in time one of them would cave. Eiji suspected the reason Mizu had left Ringo with him rather than bring him to London was so Ringo could have guidance and Eiji could have company. She valued their lives more than she valued her own.
Mizu and Ringo had left for Edo. At first only Ringo returned. He was uncharacteristically silent. Eiji never thought he’d miss the chatter as much as he had. Perhaps death had been more stubborn than his apprentice. He’d thought so until Mizu returned several days later. She may as well have been a ghost. Mizu was quieter than usual, her voice filled with shame. She begged him to take care of Ringo and thanked him for everything, calling him Swordfather. Of all the names and accolades he’d been given in his day, Swordfather was his favourite. Then she left. This time Eiji doubted that she would ever return. She had an ocean to cross on the promise of a foreigner’s words.
There had been another man who had come to his forge with Mizu and Ringo. A warrior of sorts. He thought himself skilled, Eiji found him to be arrogant. He was loyal enough to get himself tortured for her but there had been tension between them. He’d fought with her, said some cruel words, and stormed off. Eiji had both hoped and assumed he would never see the man again. He’d seen him once. After Ringo and Mizu left for Nagasaki, the arrogant swordsman came to his door, it was as though he were a stray dog returning to the last house that left it scraps in the yard. He was looking for Mizu. Eiji told him where he was going, and he left without saying goodbye. Mizu brought such troublesome people into his life.
Eiji knew exactly two things about London. The first was that it was halfway around the world. The second was that Mizu was going there. She told him she had men to kill. He hoped she would find more to her travels than death. Mizu was not afraid of death. Hope frightened her more. Revenge was her God, and she worshipped at its alter. Those who got in the way of it become bloody sacrifices to her devotion. Eiji tapped the steel she’d reforged. Her own soul with pieces of people who had influenced her quest. He told Mizu she could kill a God with that steel. Part of him hoped that God would be her own. Much like the metal that fell from the sky, Mizu’s soul could not be tamed. Not by him, not by anyone. He loved her nonetheless.
Being a swordsmith meant that his work always ended up in someone else’s hands. Eiji rarely got to keep the swords he made. Those belonged to the samurai, Eiji could only glimpse into their souls. Mizu had left her soul in his hands. He tapped the steel again and thought of firing up the forge. Perhaps it was finally time for that soul to take shape.