Sachihiro

‘’I want to experiment with my sorcery more, I have some ideas of how to best use it.’’

‘’Good good, sorcery is one of the weapons that can be developed to extreme effect, follow.’’

I follow and we walk from the mud swamp I found the elder creature in through the pavilion into a stone building without windows or doors that I quickly notice my spiritual senses can’t pierce beyond. I look about me, open space like a storage facility and nothing else but the white bleached walls around the space.

‘’This chamber is yours for as long as you have use for it, you can do anything you want here so long as it doesn’t leave this place and infect the rest of me. Decorate it or accumulate possessions as you like, the dimensions of this hall will expand or retract to fit your needs if that becomes necessary. Sorcery and spirits are not my domain so I cannot be of direct help to you but if you need help do not hesitate to ask, good luck.’’

I find myself alone again in an eye-blink, good. I take the rune-drawing stylus out of my storage pouch and immediately start drawing my summoning sigil in the middle of the hall. Th floor builges changing shape as I draw, connecting in was I could only imply on a flat surface. I finish quickly and more completely than I ever had with a circular sphere building from the ground monster anthill. A summoning circle large enough to summon another library mirror if needs be but not so large as to let anything too big through.

I have had an epiphany, or I’m a crazy person willing to experiment with his life and safety because I am sick and tired of doing things the same way. No risk no reward right?

I senter the centre of the summoning circle and breathe, centring myself clearing my mind whilst focusing on my spirit. I fall into jinzen but flow with it in the real world instead of the inner world of dream and smoke. I resonate with my soul in zanjutsu state of being that brings to the fore who I am and how very sharp of an edge my soul is.

I activate the circle using myself as the key that opens the lock.

###

I open spiritual eyes in a spiritual place made of molten fluid blazing like liquid glass ever in motion with no true form of its own. A world on fire that isn’t burning up, a world of shifting hue and tones beautiful to the senses, liberating to the spirit, deadly to the flesh.

...

...

I take a breath like the first breath of my existence, taking everything in as my presence sends a ripple out into the vastness of the endless place like a pebble falling in the middle of an already chaotic ocean yet ai make absolutely no difference to the whole.

...

Nothing comes to investigate, nothing seems to be paying any attention and I relax slightly. Having left my physical body behind and come into the spiritual realm inhabiting a spirit presence I’m not sure what is going to happen. I’m not sure whether I am confining myself to untold misery or an attack that will harm my spirit directly. So far no 'Phosphorus' has come to highjack my spirit, the coast looks clear.

Looking at myself I’m a being of muted fired and consuming light, a being of humanoid structure but malleable form like wax. My body sits in the centre of the summoning sigil somewhere within the elder creature’s domain whilst my spirit-body seats here, wherever here might be. I feel the powered sigils like an open door at my back through which I can pass, I close it carefully. Felling it power down yet keeping connection as I hoped it would, good.

Standing I look around though there is no need to look to see, old habits. I study the summoning sigil from this side, watching it shift and bend as it constantly adjusts itself like a living enchantment while on the other side it stays the exact same as I had drawn. The circle is adapting constantly like a surface sliding against another.

I study it for a while, connected to it but keeping it closed lest it attracts unwanted attention. It speaks in a way, it’s a language all on its own, a pseudo-life in how natural it is. A form of structure in an otherwise formless world of spirit that brings a sense of order. It is a door, it is a window, it is a passage, it is a peep-hole, it is a tap, it is a sieve, it is a filter, it is a membrane separating the physical from the spiritual yet allowing the two to join in intimate contact.

I study it and learn much more in the immeasurable time I spend connected to it than I ever have before. I learn it and as though something alive it learns me as well-

[Arg],

-I grunt suddenly yanked back into my body contorted in pain dizzy with confusion... What the fuck is happening! The world is shaking, everything is muted but busy in a chaos of activity and sound that bombards me back and forth,

[Argg]

-my body is unresponsive to my commands as I try to move. Like a frozen corpse, I taw, ice-picks jabbed into my veins while I freeze and burn! I am burning!

...sensation comes fully to my body and none of it is pleasant.

{whimper}, I take a breath as my body comes back under my command, the pain receding, my surroundings registering and no I’m not under attack.

‘’You’re insane you know that?’’ A being I don’t know but I recognise as one of the androgynous species of demi-humans that live here looking down at me as the backlash phases out of me.

‘’What did you do?’’ I ask not exactly sure what happened.

‘’I pulled you out of there, are you alright?’’ I feel the concern in his aura; yes this one is defiantly male I feel.

‘’Why did you pull me out?’’ I’m not sure how angry I should be but I’m definitely somewhere on the angry spectrum, I was learning so much about the sigil and this idiot pulls me out like that. What the fuck was that backlash about did he cause that?

‘’I thought you were lost, you had left your body and the sigil was closed. Mother sent me to check on you, said you might need some help with your sorcery. You’re sure you’re okay?’’

The obvious concern of the person turns my anger to annoyance as the intent behind the interruption seems to have been genuine.

‘’I’m fine,’’ I say slapping away the offered hand as I get to my feet unsteadily. ‘’Who are you?’’

‘’I’m Kevin, you’re the Herald everyone’s been talking about.’’

Who’s everyone? ‘’Kevin, cool. I think I had things in hand.’’

‘’You weren’t breathing.’’

I wasn’t breathing? I take a breath just to check my lungs, everything seems okay to me. Was I at risk of dying? I feel fine, a bit of timgling but fine.

‘’I’m fine now, thanks for the concern. You can leave.’’

‘’You want me to leave?’’

I don’t know you, I don’t want you in my shit. ‘’Yes.’’

‘’Okay... here,’’ he hands me a marble. ‘’Call if you need me.’’

A sigil lights up the air behind him and he steps through it winks out an instant later. I bring my brows back down annoyed at myself for raising my eyebrows in surprise involuntarily in front of a stranger. That was a cool exit though, wait... could I?

I study the air where the Kevin person disappeared getting only faint traces of a tangy spirit but nothing at all to clue me into what was done here. I get back to my circle, activating it with spirit.

###

Opening my eyes I’m in a fiery world of shifting colour. A world done in water paint smudging crimson gold as things shift at a glacial but visible pace; volatility, chaos and matter intermingling as they shift. I’m in the exact same place I was before but nothing at all looks the same, not even me. I pull the door closed but leave a peep-hole through which to keep an eye on my body. I know how to do this from my previous connection to the door, it’s easy even.

I don’t have to physically keep eye on the hole but spiritually I’m connected to my body monitoring it, feeding it spirit through that monitering. That was my mistake before, I completely cut my body off from my spirit-body when I closed the door and now I’ve remedied that. Again I get lost in studying the internal part of the god-tier summoning sigil.

I watch it shift, realign, change while remaining anchored to the one I’ve drawn in the physical world. A lot of it is beyond my comprehension but some of it isn’t, some of the constant adjustments are easy to insinctively understand as I see how they’re done. I feel why they are done the way they are. There is so much more I could be doing with this sigil, even the little I’m catching boggles my mind to consider.

I could stay a lifetime watching the sigil shift rearranging flowing with symbols and characters. It’s adapting to the changes around it but that’s not the main reason I resorted to this. I didn't come here risking myelf to study this sigil.

Mhmmm, I look at my spirit self and bring to bear the things connected to me spiritually. Threads like many translucent wires connect to me and disappear into the vastness of this awesome place. Many many threads, much more than I had anticipated. Some are broad and strong while others are wispy and thin, all in different tones, colours, scents, and flavours that speak to the variety of the different things I am connected to spiritually.

I see the storage ring solidly, as solid as everything else in this shifting dreamscape but connected to my spirit-self firmly and easily malleable into different shapes without losing anything in its function. Just as solidly Kata and Razor are weapons of spirit connected to me. Razor, an o-katana-shaped sword of muted fire that folds and bends like a leaf in the wind as I will it so. Kata, a single-handed half-moon-bladed axe of deadly sharpness, connected to me spiritually. Both weapons here though physically I lost them at the tuning-stone.

Or did I?

I melt Kata into my palm, it absorbs into my spirit-hand like molten metal. I will it to take shape in the physical world and lore and behold, like beads of sweat spirit-metal coats my palm in the physical world. It doesn’t take the shape of an axe but my palm turns a metallic grey without losing the flexibility of the flesh. I will Razor into my other hand and slowly my hand up to my wrist takes on a dark metallic hue. I think it’s sub-dermal. The metal forms right under my skin in the physical as I shift the bound items in the spiritual.

I let them go spiritually, they stay where they are physically until I shift them again to a different part of my body in a different shape. Truly spiritual metal is more than just metal, until just now even having put part of my soul in the material I have never really grasped how versatile it truly is. Is spirit ore even really metal?

I feel the fragments of Honour embedded in my physical body in a spiritual way as I experience them just as vividly in my spiritual body as I do physically. Could I shift Honour’s shape as well? Is that how she goes from a nodachi to a battle-axe when I shift into Shikai? What is Shikai really anyways?

Questions for another time, I have a different mission now and I’m very hopeful about what will result.

Grabbing one of the most solid connections I have I send my attention through it in the form of a vibration hoping it will be picked up on the other side.

‘’Yes Master,’’ Katya’s muted excitement blooms as we establish communication for the first time since I got lost. ‘’It is very good to hear from you again Master Sachihiro, I live to serve.’’ I feel her happy submission as she spiritually prostrates herself before me.

I’m so fucken’ happy I’m gushing with excitement! I could hug her so tightly right now, she’s a godsend!

‘’Report,’’ I say putting her in her place. Her nervous excitement at being made to perform wars with my nervous excitement tinged with fear of the horrible tidings I’m about to hear about the horrors my family has been through.

Has anyone died since the crystal that went dune in the tunning stone, are they safe? Where are they?

‘’Yes Master!’’

To say I'm surprised by what I hear would be a gross understatement.