Chapter Text
Nya fiddles with the small blade in her hand, tracing her thumb against the tip of the steel. It’s a crappy knife, with an uneven handle and a bolster that doesn’t even make its entire way around the blade, but it was the first knife she’d ever made, a sentimental artifact of her childhood that she holds dear to her heart.
Blacksmithing isn’t her strong suit, it’s her older brother, Kai, who is the real forger in their family. Nya watches him often during the day when customers aren’t wandering in and out of their little shop. His grip on the metal is always so absolute, his effortless shaping of blade spines making her jealous beyond belief. Their skillsets compliment each other perfectly: Nya burns herself every time she tries to chuck an ingot into the furnace and Kai screams at customers the moment they turn annoying, so Kai makes the blades, and Nya sells them.
Today is a slower day, though days usually are slower than not. They’ve had maybe three or four customers trickle into the shop so far this morning, so Nya has spent most of the day fiddling with her blade as she leans against the front counter, grateful that the weather is at least nice. She hears Kai hammering into a poor piece of metal behind her, an older gentleman walking up the path to their shop up ahead. She watches him with interest as he approaches, an old man dragging a bamboo walking staff with him. Perhaps he’s buying a blade for a younger relative as a birthday gift, like a nephew or a grandson. A niece or a granddaughter, too, she corrects herself, and stands up as he finally crosses the front canopy of the shop entrance, plastering a smile on her face.
“Welcome to ‘Four Weapons’,” she greets, her voice instinctively softening, a habit for customer service and respect for her elders. The older man peaks his head up at her, his beard appearing much longer now closer up. “Can I help you find something you need?”
“As a matter of fact, you can,” he responds back, tapping his staff against the cobblestone as he turns his head towards an array of helmets they have on display. These helmets are of particularly good quality, some of Kai’s finest work so far, which is why they’re displayed up front. She cringes as the old man taps the tip of his staff against one of the helmets. “Your shop seems fit for the use of a samurai, but may I ask where your tools are for a ninja?”
Kai’s been instructed many times before to keep his mouth shut while customers are in the shop. Despite this, she hears him laugh after one more heavy clang! of hammer against iron. “Ninja?” he laughs again, placing his hammer back on its tray as he dips his work-in-progress into the pot of water next to him. “You’re about a few hundred years too late for that, old man.”
“Kai,” Nya shoots back. Another customer they were going to lose thanks to Kai’s big mouth, again. She turns her head back to the old man. “Please excuse my brother, sir. He knows better than to disrespect our elders.”
To her surprise, the old man laughs back. “Interesting that the boy knows better, yet he wastes not a second to call me an ‘old man’ right when given the opportunity.” She cringes, he’s right. “No matter. The young must be given the opportunity to learn before they can flourish up to their true potential. Besides, it seems as though he may not be the one I’m here for after all.”
Both Kai and Nya stop. She hears the sizzle of heated metal cooling down behind her fizzle out as Kai takes the blade out of the cold water. “What are you talking about, old man?” he quips as he takes a few steps forward, approaching the counter, and Nya doesn’t miss the way he steps instinctively between her and the stranger, ready for a fight. “You come in here wasting our time, spewing out ridiculous riddles and talking about ninjas that are long gone from the land. Either you pick something out and buy something, or you leave this shop and leave me and my sister alone.”
The older man doesn’t step back despite Kai’s threats. He observes, like grappling with a deep-seated assumption that has suddenly been challenged. “Ah,” he finally sighs. “It appears as though I was wrong. Fire becomes destructive only when given the opportunity. But when it is contained, you may find yourself appreciating its warmth versus fearing its heat. There’s a difference between being warm and being hot-headed.”
He looks down at Nya, and there’s something strange in his gaze that makes her feel vulnerable. “It looks like that is something you may have to learn from your sister, young man.”
With that, the old man gives one last little huff, finally venting his frustrations, before he turns around, tapping his staff one more time against the floor before he hobbles out of the shop.
“What an old loon,” Kai huffs back, making sure his voice is just loud enough for the old man to hear as he crosses back into the path outside leading away of the shop. He turns around. “Are you okay?”
Her eyes are caught on the old man, still making his way down the path. It isn’t until she feels his hand on her shoulder that she finally looks back up, shrugging the hand off immediately and letting herself sigh back against the counter, ignoring his question. “What do you think he was talking about?” she asks.
“He was talking about fire and ninjas, Nya,” Kai sighs as he walks back to the furnace, inspecting the sword he’d abandoned earlier in the conflict. “Whatever he’s talking about is just a sign he’s a few years overdue for the retirement home.”
Nya glares at him, and he snickers back before turning to return to his work. An interesting customer, one they had lost thanks to Kai’s short temper once again, but nothing more than that, she tells herself. She settles right back against the front counter, blade returning in her hands, and fiddles her thumb back along its blade, unaware of the deep, purple cloud that is minutes away from engulfing the sky and changing the trajectory of their lives.