Shane's face darkened as he grabbed the battle-ready Erza—who looked two seconds away from charging him in the bedroom—and dragged her straight toward the forest.
"Why are you pulling ? Can't we fight anywhere?" Erza grumbled, though her feet still followed.
"Anywhere?" Shane shot her a look and jabbed a thumb back at the house. "We paid real money for that place. If we break it, we'll be repairing it with real money."
He hadn't been to the guild many tis, but every visit ca with Makarov complaining about who smashed what and how much the renovations were going to cost.
"…" Erza pictured what a real fight would do to their living room. Her montum wilted a little. "We can just fix it…" she muttered under her breath.
They quickly reached a clearing deeper in the woods.
The ground was flat, the view wide open. Frost-dusted, bare-branched fruit trees ringed the edge—a perfect sparring spot.
"Looks like apple trees…" Shane's attention drifted. "Wonder if they're wild or planted." He made a note: co back in season and see if he could buy a basket.
"Hey!"
Erza snapped him back with a sharp clash of steel, her twin swords crossing with a clear ching that echoed through the trees.
Her silver-and-scarlet knight armor glinted in the morning light as she barked, "Aren't you transforming?"
She'd always assud his "Heroic Spirit mode" was so kind of take-over or transformation magic.
Shane ca back to himself but didn't rise to the bait. Instead his gaze fell on the pair of swords in her hands.
"Before that," he frowned slightly, "let see those."
"Hm?" She didn't understand, but handed them over without hesitation.
His fingers brushed the cold blades.
They had a decent heft. He could feel the faint pulse of the lacrima fused into the spines, boosting hardness and sharpness a bit.
"So this is a magic sword…" he thought.
On toughness and edge alone, they were clearly better than the plain steel he'd been forging.
But—
"The craftsmanship is awful," he judged silently. "Crude structure, sluggish energy flow, zero elegance. A waste of good materials."
Mimicking the obsessive smith from his vision, he took a sword in each hand and lightly tapped them together.
Ding—
The clear note had barely sounded when—
Both "sturdy" swords snapped like dry twigs and clattered to the ground in several pieces.
Erza's pupils shrank; she froze.
"What… what are you doing?!"
She lunged, snatching the hilts from his hands and staring at the glittering shards on the ground, face full of pain.
"My swords…"
She crouched and touched a fragnt with trembling fingers, on the verge of tears.
She'd bought them last month, while he was lost in forging—one sword was 70,000 J.
Shane didn't look bothered at all. In fact, there was disdain in his tone. "With here, why are you still using this junk?"
"What's that supposed to an?" Erza looked up.
"It ans," he said, lips curling, "I can forge magic swords now."
The calm red in his eyes flared into wild fla.
"You wanted to see my new magic in action, didn't you?"
The words had barely left his mouth when—
BOOM—!
Crimson fire exploded around him, blooming like a lotus of fla and swallowing his figure whole.
Heat roared out, stirring the air and making Erza throw an arm up on reflex.
In the dancing blaze, she saw his everyday clothes unweaving and reforming in fire.
A vivid red single-sleeve wrapped his right side; his left chest and abdon were bare, showing smooth, honed lines. Threads of fla spun around him, knotting into a wide white belt at his waist; a pure white cloak fell from his shoulders, patterns shimring along the inside as the flas died down.
When the last ember faded, Shane was completely transford.
It wasn't just the outfit. An indescribable pressure radiated from him, enough to make Erza hold her breath.
Gone was the usual "warm winter sun" feeling that made people relax.
Now he was a roaring furnace—blazing, boundless, with an inhuman edge of absolute focus.
Shane didn't waste words. He simply flexed his hand—the hamr, tongs, and anvil manifested beside him with a soft scatter of sparks.
He gripped the broken sword fragnts with the tongs. Without any visible spellwork, the tal softened near his palm, lting into a glowing lump.
He dropped the fused mass onto the anvil and raised the hamr.
Clang.
The clear, ringing strike sang through the trees, the rhythm strangely pleasing rather than harsh.
Erza watched without blinking. She'd seen him forge before and thought his movents smooth and skilled, far beyond a normal smith.
But now, though she still couldn't follow the intricate thods, she could feel sothing deeper in it.
The beauty of craft—even an amateur could sense the "thousand-fold hamring" in those motions.
The work went shockingly fast.
With each swing, sparks flared; the tal moved under his hand like it was alive, stretching, thinning, flowing into the outline of a long, lean blade.
In no ti, a simple yet razor-edged longsword had taken shape.
With a final tap, he lifted the still-glowing blade with the tongs and tossed it into the creek.
Ssshh—Steam erupted in a white gust.
"Just a casual piece," Shane said, dismissing the tools, tone mild. "Still beats the junk you bought."
When he'd broken the old swords, he'd already mapped out the lacrima inside and had deliberately avoided damaging their cores—those were now intact, fused into the new weapon.
He eyed Erza's fitted armor with interest. "Just so we're clear—I'm not reforging your armor."
"Huh? Why not?" she asked on reflex.
"Because the only 'weapons' I care to forge are ones ant to cut," he said, a craftsman's stubbornness in his voice. "Armor's for defense—shields, plates… it's the wrong kind of work."
Neither he nor the ideals he'd inherited from Senji Muramasa felt the slightest pull toward armor.
A disinterested forge never produces a masterpiece.
At that, sothing hit Erza. Her expression shifted; she hurriedly waved a hand.
Magic flashed; her elegant knight armor vanished back into Requip space, replaced by her original sleeveless dress.
Now it was Shane's turn to look puzzled. "You're not going to wear your armor? Doesn't it boost your magic?"
He could feel the amplification woven into it.
~~~
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