Zou Yuhan.

The only swordsmith who could forge a blade to rival the quality of the Ten Royal Arms, ancient weapons created by a legendary smith who was said to have infused some of his own soul into each of his masterworks.

My Father’s, now mine, the Crimson Dragon Emperor, was one of the Ten Royal Arms. it had a sister blade I had never seen before, which were identical except for the color of the gems on their pommels and their inscriptions. My mother’s blade was also one, known as the Dividing Queen.

Zou Yuhan’s blades aren’t quite on par with these legendary weapons, but they were still far and away the best swords in the country. My mother greeted him while I browsed his basic wares with Xinyi. While they were all great swords, none of them stood out to me.

As the son of two legendary warriors, I grew up surrounded by swords and other weapons, so I had a decent eye for their quality by now. And while these blades were enough for a normal person, I’m sure my mother would want something more. She had grown to like Xinyi, even if she somehow saw her as a rival for my affections.

“Yi Zen, what about this one!” she picked up a giant sword, too big for anyone her size to wield. It was more like a slab of iron than a sword, and it dwarfed the girl.

“Ok, give me a basic combo.” I leaned against the wall of the shop and crossed my arms.

“Uuurah!” she let out a battle cry, but the sword didn’t even leave the ground. The inertia of the heavy blade was too much for her, and it wouldn’t budge even an inch. I couldn’t help but laugh at her attempt to move the absurd sword, who would even buy something like that?.

Going through some other swords, none of them quite matched the girl before me. Either too short, too heavy, or just bizarre to look at, nothing seemed appropriate for her.

“No no no, you don’t want any of that junk, I only put those out for the rabble.” Zou Yuhan emereged from his home, my mother behind him. She smiled and waved at me for some reason, and I just shrugged. He looked up at my mother, as he was quite short, and urged her forward. “Yan, show her the real deal.”

A wooden box in hand, my mother Yan placed the package on a table in front of her and unlatched it. Inside the box she retrieved an object wrapped in a silk cloth, and began to unwrap it before us. I yawned, not that interested, but Xinyi looked on with ecstatic glee.

From within the plain cloth emerged a longsword, of average build length and thickness, but there was something different about it. A strange, almost scalelike pattern wove its way through the metal. In light of the midday sun, the sword couldn’t help but draw the eye.

“Hoh, impressive work as always, Yuhan. If I didn't already have my Dividing Queen, I’d have half a mind to take it for myself.”

“I-If you give me that blade, you can have Yi Zen back!” Xinyi’s eyes saw only the sword before her, and she spouted some nonsense in her desperation to seize the blade.

“Sold!” Yan replied, sliding the sword into a matching scabbard within the box before holding it out for Xinyi to take.

“I don’t remember being a tradable piece of property here!” I protested, but I was already caught by my mom, who dragged me into her embrace. She ran her hand through my hair while I contemplated suicide. “Mooom please~”

“What’s the matter sweetie? Is it so wrong to want to be close to your son?”

“Uwaa, it’s so light!” Xinyi marveled at the sword, just far enough away that I couldn’t reach out to her for help. I was trapped.

“I ain’t thought of a name for ‘er yet, just completed it a few nights ago.” The smith started to talk to Xinyi about the blade, leaving me to suffer my mother’s unleashed desires. She had somehow found a comb, and was now fixing my hair without asking me.

“I wanna die” I mumbled under my breath, staring at the ground.

“Huh, what was that sweetheart?”

“Nothing.”

Xinyi began practicing her sword forms with the new weapon, the elegant blade showing no resistance to the air at all. Even I was impressed by the workmanship of it, his swords just got better the older he became it seemed.

“Those moves, you never met a man named Yi Gon, did ya girl?” the smith Yuhan asked her, and my mother stopped messing with my appearance.

“Never heard of him, I learned how ta’ fight from a wandering monster hunter who passed through the village when I was seven.” she responded, ending her combo of swings. “Why?”

“Just similar to his style is all, but I will admit I don’t remember his moves as well as I used to.”

“No, you’re right, Yuhan.” My mother let go of me and walked over to the two. “Those are certainly the same swings Gon used when he practiced. I’d never forget them…”

For the first time in my memory, my mother sounded… sad. Her voice was distant, and she seemed to want to avoid talking about the subject anymore.

“I’m sorry, Yan, I didn’t mean to…” the sword smith bowed his head and stepped away from Yan. Xinyi had no idea what was going on, and slid over towards me.

“What’s wrong? Who’s Yi Gon anyways? Somebody famous or something?” she asked me, her simplistic personality unable to figure it out on her own.

“My father.”