Book 3: Chapter 112: Yasutsuna

Lily was enjoying the sight of clear snow from the open door of her room while having tea on this day when Kotoka came over to visit her.

“Lily, Master Ehiro sent someone to enquire about the details of your clan crest.”

“My family crest?”

“Yes. Don’t the Minamoto clan, Uesugi clan, Takeda clan and the Ashikaga clan all have their clan crests? We ought to have a clan crest for our Lyn clan as well. That’s the reason I came to ask you about it. Do you have any thoughts on it?”

“This is pretty sudden, Madam Kotoka. I have no thoughts on it yet, so let me think about it for a while.”

Lily fetched a brush and paper on that night. Even though Lily’s painting skills weren’t at the level of a master, they were actually quite excellent. After all, the female body art ukiyo-e—The Plum Which Blossoms in Frigid Winter and Winter Garden’s Sparrow—that Lily had painted, could be considered as a legendary masterpiece of the East as well.

Lily raised her head and looked up at the night skies where the crescent moon was suspended as the sakura outside the window whizzed down gently.

A certain idea had come to her mind already.

I might as well use the ‘Moon’ and ‘Sakura’ as the themes to draw the clan crest.

Lily then closed her eyes. As someone who was innately sensitive to nature and liked appreciating it, an image gradually manifested in her mind.

She picked up the large brush and wetted it with viscous ink.

Although Lily had slender wrists, she actually liked using large brushes for some reason.

She then drew what she had felt from the idea that pa.s.sed through her mind as well as the experiences and emotions she went through after arriving in the Heian world in the form of a clan crest.

Lily summoned Kotoka, Haihime, Yumi, Yukiko and the rest in the cottage’s hall on the next day.

“Since I learned painting in the past, I drew out the clan crest on my own. Well, it turned out like this. Please have a look, everyone.”

Lily never asked other’s opinions hypocritically if she had decided her mind already.

She then revealed a black square cloth.

The square cloth was just like the night sky and had a crescent moon with sakura falling down across it drawn on it in white.

The mystical part was that the sakura were black when they covered the moon but were white when they floated across the night sky.

The two colors—black and white—although this variation looked basic, they actually encompa.s.sed the trichiliocosm as well as the mystical pathway of light and darkness.

The combination of falling sakura and the lean crescent moon emanated a slightly lonesome, sorrowful yet transcendent intent.

“This is our clan crest, Moon-Scattered Sakura.”

It looked beautiful and elegant to the sisters, but it also made them a little worried.

“The crest is pretty unique and elegant, but isn’t it a bit poignant?” Kotoka asked.

“Unlike the other samurai clans, our objective isn’t fame or fortune; but is to create a safe haven for all of us where we can stay detached from worldly affairs and live a carefree life. Just appreciating the beauty of nature’s mountains, rivers, flowers, plants, sun and moon alone is satisfying enough. This clan crest also acts as a reminder to never forget my initial resolution after coming to this world.”

The sisters looked at Lily with admiring and approving yet somewhat worried gazes. It seemed to them that Lily still harbored a sorrow unknown to them deep in her heart.

A few days later, the interior of the snow-capped smithy had become a heat spot.

The flames of Mt. Fuji were still inside the forge and although they were just embers, their temperature was exceptionally hot. If normal tamahagane were put inside, it would’ve undoubtedly melted in a second.

The room was dark and only had the residual light of the forge illuminating it.

Lily stood across Ehiro at this moment and a long, blade-shade item which was covered in cloth rested between the two.

Lily had arrived at the smithy a few days ago and poured all her energy into drawing the soul runes of this blade and its decoration had finally ended post-quenching. It was finally time to reveal the blade made from grade 9 tamahagane of the highest quality that could top even the legendary heirlooms of the East.

Lily bowed towards Ehiro deeply. Even the healthy, tall and ever-energetic Ehiro looked a little thin and pallid right now, so it was pretty clear how much work she had put into forging this blade.

Ehiro’s eyes, however, were bright and expressive as she had reached new horizons as a bladesmith after creating this blade.

It was rare for a bladesmith to obtain a chance to create such a legendary blade from rare materials like that in their life.

“Evil Slayer Yasutsuna,” Ehiro’s eyes heated up as she reached forward and grabbed the woven fabric while looking at Lily.

Lily nodded and Ehiro pulled the fabric aside with a whoosh, making it flit across Lily’s vision.

A bewitching crimson glow that nearly enamored her reflected in Lily’s eyes.

Lily’s vision gradually adapted to this glow in the dark room.

It was a bewitching tachi with a golden handguard, black hilt and red sheath.

A s.e.xtet of Lily’s clan crest was drawn on the agate-like shimmering red lacquered wooden sheath using the golden power grounded from Amanojaku’s golden horn, forming a pretty unique design.

“It’s so pretty…” This red wasn’t vermillion or crimson or magenta and was an even purer, flawless and innocent zenith of red—pink.

It was pretty hard to find this kind of wholly pure red which was the same one of the rainbow colors in the Heian period.

Lily stepped forth and picked up the blade.

“Oh. This weight…”

It wasn’t that much of an issue for Lily with her current strength, but it was impossible for a normal samurai to wield it even if it were given to them.

The blade also seemed to emit a powerful grudge through the sheath.

Sugawara no Michizane was the leader of Heian Empire’s Four Great Demon Apparitions. He had used that iron seal to stamp countless doc.u.ments steeped in the intense grudge of his words, so a chaotic grudge had a.s.similated inside that iron seal from a long time ago.

A block of tamahagane steeped in grudge was the perfect material to create a cursed katana and was much more suitable than normal grade 9 tamahagane.

Lily’s bosom moved up and down intensely when she grabbed the blade’s hilt and her eyes shimmered suddenly.

“Clang!”

A flash of silver light illuminated the whole smithy when Yasutsuna left its sheath and a powerful grudge similar to that of Michizane’s manifested in the world!

Just like a tempest, the grudge engulfed the whole smithy like a storm and blew the items inside all across the building, causing a lot of the materials and tools to fall down from the shelf. The whole building began quaking because of this grudge as well!

“Lily! Do you want to destroy this building?” Ehiro also cried out in alarm.

Even Lily was frightened by this terrifying power.

“Return!” Lily supplied the blade with spirit power and blood-colored sword runes flashed across its shimmering edge, followed by the forced suppression of the grudge.

“Buzz!”

The smithy regained its calm gradually after a long time, but the interior was in a mess and the blade was still trembling like before.

Lily adapted to the brightness of the blade slowly. The soul runes that she had drawn on it were powered by her spirit power and the crimson spirit power as well as the eldritch nature of the blade forged from Michizane’s exceptionally tough Iron Seal formed a delicate, firm yet flexible fusion of mutually interdependent extremes.

It was a beautiful, powerful and eldritch blade.

Lily opened her pink lips slightly and exhaled a faint white breath, “This so-called Evil Slayer actually uses evil to vanquish evil. This actually fits my style better.”

Evil Slayer Yasutsuna, length 120 cm.

It was slightly longer than Crescent Moon.

It was because the smelted iron seal had reached this size perfectly, enabling it to accommodate all the grudge stored within the seal.

There was also no need to test the sharpness of the blade.

Instead, she raised the blade up and began singing a waka-style poem of the lonesome moon and the falling sakura while moving gently and slashed the air in front of her slowly with Yasutsuna.

The notes that she sang experienced a subtle change as the blade slashed down and seemed to get cut off unnaturally.

“A sound cutoff!” Even Ehiro was taken aback.

The smithy was bound to get destroyed if such a powerful blade were tested casually, so Lily handled the blade with slow and elegant movements, yet the blade was so sharp that it was actually able to cut through the air even then, which was the reason it sounded as if the voice had cut off.

“Quaking the world with a movement yet nourishing everything in this world with tranquil silence… It’s a rare and excellent sword indeed.”

Lily could sense the peerless power contained within Evil Slayer Yasutsuna as well as the intent that Master Yasutsuna and Master Ehiro, the two master bladesmiths, had infused into creating it.

However…

Lily had a feeling that even though this blade’s current power exceeded Crescent Moon’s power by several times, it still hadn’t reached its limit as a blade.

It was undoubtedly possible to upgrade a cursed katana to the next level by a.s.similating anima into it, but it was a wonder if a grade 9 blade could be upgraded further.

It wasn’t just a matter of simple and direct augmentation. Although this blade could be called an excellent sword from the moment it was born, Lily had a feeling that it lacked something.

However, it wasn’t possible for Lily to guess what such a powerful grade 9 sword lacked with her current knowledge.

Lily enclosed Yasutsuna into its sheath slowly and gave a deep bow to Ehiro.

“Master, you have—”

Ehiro’s body quivered suddenly before Lily could finish her words and she fell forward after spewing a mouthful of blood.

Lily reacted quickly though and shoved the table aside, rushing forth to hold Ehiro’s waist in order to prevent her from falling down.

“Ehiro? Master Ehiro?” Lily called out to her anxiously, but she had long fainted.

Lily arrived at the wooden cottage while giving Ehiro a piggyback and made her lie down inside, following which Kotoka diagnosed her.

“It’s nothing serious. Master Ehiro is just too exhausted. She is in very good health, so she just needs a few days of rest and supplements to recover,” Kotoka stated.

Lily sighed in relief after hearing this and held Ehiro’s hand after positioning it on her thigh while looking at her sleeping visage, her heart filled with agony. It wasn’t an easy task to handle the toughness of grade 9 tamahagane and the hotness of Mt. Fuji’s flames. However, Master Ehiro had spent all her days and nights over the past month or so forging the blade for her. It was really… too arduous!

“Master…” Lily kissed the master’s forehead. She didn’t know how to express the grat.i.tude she felt right now, so this was all she could do.

Shiu arrived inside the room right when Lily was attending to Ehiro personally.

Lily was in the middle of wiping Ehiro’s face and body with a white towel and water basin right now.

Lily actually wasn’t that good at taking care of people and although it would’ve been better to find some other woman to take care of Ehiro, Lily thought that she was also a woman and that she should take care of Master Ehiro who had collapsed from the exhaustion of forging a blade for her personally in order to express her goodwill a little.

“Master?” Shiu was also a bit astonished after seeing Lily take care of another woman just like a virtuous wife and felt a little strange internally.

“What is it, Shiu?”

“It’s Mister Kimura, Master!” Shiu answered.

“Mister Kimura?”

Kimura was one of Lily’s retainers and the administrator of Takes.h.i.ta Town. He was one of the very few people that she trusted, so he was aware of this location as well, but he wouldn’t have come unless it was an urgent matter.

Lily had a premonition that something was about to happen.

“Mister Kimura is waiting outside the valley for you right now.”

“Outside the valley? Why didn’t you let him in?”

Lily followed Shiu through the tunnel and pa.s.sed through Blossom Valley to arrive at the woods a little further from the valley’s entrance. There was no way to find the entrance of the valley from this location.

Lily found Kimura waiting there with a few guards with a carriage behind them.

“Mister Kimura,” Lily and Shiu walked out of the wood’s trail.

“Lady Lyn-hime!” Kimura kneeled immediately.

“You needn’t be so polite, Mister Kimura. What’s so urgent that you couldn’t wait for me inside the valley?”

“Lady Lyn-hime, there wasn’t enough time to get permission from Madam Kotoka, so I didn’t dare to bring her inside without permission, but the matter is of utmost urgency, so I brought her over instead,” Kimura was dressed pretty haggardly, so it was obvious that he had rushed over.

“Who did you bring?” Lily looked towards the carriage.

Kimura and Lily arrived in front of the carriage and Kimura pulled open the carriage’s curtain, revealing a pale and injured short-haired samurai woman whose waist, arm and thigh were covered in bloodied bandages lying inside it.

“Airi?!” Lily recognized her immediately as she was Rei’s second-in-command, Shiina Airi1.

Airi looked severely injured and also seemed a little dazed. It seemed like she was able to hear Lily’s voice, so she called out weakly, “Take me to see Lady Kagami… take me…”

The fact that Rei’s second-in-command had come to look for her in a severely injured condition made Lily certain that something was definitely wrong, and she felt even more worried about Rei. She climbed into the carriage and held Airi’s hand.

“Just what happened, Airi? Tell me what happened. Did something happen to Sister Uesugi?”

The icy wind from outside flowed back into the carriage and caused Airi to shiver all over, making her even more dazed. It looked like she was unable to hear Lily’s words clearly and also refused to open her eyes.

“Take her inside the valley quickly!” Lily shouted.

The group pulled the carriage inside the valley and Lily carried Airi into the mountain deity’s temple. Kotoka and Yukiko had also rushed over after receiving the report and used a screen to hide her before bringing hot water and administering emergency treatment on her with medicine.

“How did she get injured so badly… Isn’t she Miss Uesugi’s second-in-command?” Kotoka and Yukiko provided Airi with emergency treatment and changed the dressing of the wounds.

“Take her armor off,” Lily commanded.

Yukiko and Kotoka removed Airi’s shoulder plates and breastplate.

Meanwhile, Lily untied the belt of Airi’s samurai armor and lifted Airi’s clothes to press her hand against the underside of Airi’s underbody and circulated her spirit power to inject some of it inside Airi. Lily’s spirit power wasn’t the same as Rei’s, so it didn’t have that much of a healing effect. However, this allowed Airi to recover some spirit power even though the efficiency of absorption was actually quite low.

Airi was a samurai in the Sword Saint level, so it was possible for her to recover from some of her injuries once some of her spirit power was restored.

Airi finally woke up and scrambled up slowly with Yukiko’s help, “Take me to see Kagami Lily. I have…”

“I’m here, Airi! I’m here!” Lily held Airi’s hand.

Airi finally recovered her senses and Lily’s vague outline became clear in her eyes gradually, “Lady… Kagami? Is it you? It’s really you… H-How did I come here?”

“Mister Kimura brought you over. You needn’t rush, Airi, speak slowly,” Lily stated gently2.

1. Robinxen: Airi was a name I used for one of the heroines in a VN I started writing one time.
2. Robinxen: Volume 4 setup?