It's perfection.
Every single one of my tools, every single implement or piece needed, fixed up and given a fancy coat of paint, all packed into this private little corner of Heaven.
Even better? Despite the privacy, despite being practically boxed in physically and by magical barriers, there's still plenty of space to move around, to breathe!
As I said, it's the perfect forge. Made just for me, all my tools from below have been gathered, so I'll be all set. They went above and beyond putting it all together, truly.
I put down what looks like a half-glowing crimson-red railroad spike pulled freshly from the ground on the table. The table immediately caved inward, yielding to the divine slab of metal like ice to hot water.
My eyes slowly trail down to the wreckage at my feet, as I let out this painfully low hissing sigh.
That perfectly sums up my experience with this so far.
Behind me, a light, airy chuckle fills the air.
My head whips around so hard that an audible crack vibrates throughout the space as I glare several suns at the cheeky little fox that thinks it's a good idea to enjoy my suffering right now.
Inari stands there, smiling lightly with a hand just before her lips, completely unbothered by my seeming willingness to almost break my own neck.
"What?" She muses slyly, "You kept me waiting, you know? I may as well take some amusement now that you're finally here…"
I roll my eyes at that, the rest of my body turning to finally catch up with my head.
A soft sizzle crackles beneath the skin around the left of my neck. Healing something.
Oh. Shit, wait, I did break something!?
Oh well.
"As if that's a problem." I finally respond, "After all, I see you took the time to make yourself comfortable."
A white dress shirt looking damn near the point of bursting, tucked neatly into a slim black short skirt, with black leggings trailing all the way down to a pair of haughty high heels.
If she didn't own several companies, I'd legitimately be more inclined to believe she was someone else's secretary. She rocks the sexy secretary look way better than Uzume does, hilariously enough.
The fox goddess smirks at me, "Well, I was in the middle of a board meeting, and I wasn't sure how long you were going to take, so I couldn't get too comfortable." Her smirk grows, almost exactly like Yasaka's in a way, a sly fox, "Of course, now that you're here, and apparently stronger than the Distinguished Ones, should I get more comfortable for you, hmm~?" As she says that, she hooks a finger under the fold holding together her dress shirt.
With a single tug, that thing could easily come off.
I deadpan at her and hold my hand out to the side.
In a sputter of light, a pink bat seemed to materialize in my hand, instantly confusing the fox goddess before me.
"This?" I raise the bat, "It's a Horny Bat. If you keep this up, I will literally smack the horny out of you. It will not be pleasant." My deadpan deepens into an annoyed frown, "Seriously. I am not in the mood."
Inari blinked at me, slowly, before pouting in an almost perfect mirror of Uzume, her arms wrapping around herself under her chest.
"Oh, fine." She huffs, as her pout softens, "...It was really that bad then, hmm?"
Oh, Inari, you don't understand the half of it.
With a sigh, I drop the bat before turning back to the broken table and lump of rapidly cooling metal at my feet.
Truly, I wish I could grab a metaphor that would make even the tiniest bit of sense to the fox goddess, but I only really have one, and I doubt Inari would understand it.
Basically, that one Star Wars scene from the prequel trilogy, where Obi-Wan and his master are trying to use their lightsabers to cut a way through a set of blast doors.
That. But it's seventeen times as long, slow, draining, and only one of them.
If I were in that universe, I would have fallen to the Dark Side from this alone. The sheer fucking hatred of this single activity would have done me in.
Not even Gabriel Ultrakill, the Apostate of Hate himself, can begin to understand how much I loathe a piece of metal right now!
The only reason I haven't become an Evil God right this second is that I'm that drained from getting this railroad spike reject out of that damn arena.
I can't even crave violence right now. Or sex. That's how fucking out of it I am.
"Yes." I answer, plain and simply, and as dead as the sun in my chest, "So, can you please come over here and tell me my work was worth it?" I wave her on over.
The click of her heels alerts me to her following my order, though her putting a hand on my back gently as she stopped beside me wasn't part of it.
Stray thought. Does Inari have tails? Like Kunou, or Yasaka? She totally should, right?
That train of thought is halted as Inari hums, appraising the slab of crimson metal on the ground with a calculating gleam.
"That's a trick question, Nori." She kneels, her fingers tracing along the broad side of the metal, careful not to even touch the sheer edge, "Technically? Anything can act as a core for a shrine. Anything really can be a Shintai."
The image of that rock set in the shrine randomly flashes through my mind.
"From mortal-made objects, to things of nature, whole mountains and waterfalls even." Inari explains, even though that only makes me think of more questions like how, "In spirit, however?" Her hand pulls away, and she looks up at me with a small apologetic smile, "We won't truly know until you're done."
My face and mind blanked out.
"Huh?" That was all I could manage to stay, numbly.
Inari simply gave a small nod, "Yes, I understand how that might sound, so…let me put it like this. From what your mother explained to me, what you're trying to make here isn't just a shrine, but basically a Sacred Gear."
I nodded to that, slightly, still a tad numb.
"Sacred Gears are more than just objects with a thing stuffed in them, that then grants them powers." Inari tries to explain, "There's so much more complicated chunk going on behind the scenes, it's almost like trying to explain modern-day corporate bureaucracy…" She trails off, giving her own metaphor an aggravated huff.
Even I couldn't help but shiver at that, though. Seriously, in Japan, that stuff's got to be hell.
"So, I can't promise anything right now." Inari pats me on the back, "We theoretically have all the pieces, according to your mother, but putting them together into something that works isn't going to be easy."
"Oh. I am, well, aware." I grumble out.
Inari once again chuckles lightly at my pain.
I would smack her across the ass for that, but I simply don't give a shit right now.
"So, basically." I start, picking up my trusty magical hammer, giving it a spin in my palm, "Fake it, and pray that I make it?"
Inari beams a smile toward me, "Confidently. The art of the deal in one. Don't worry," her free hand comes up, a soft aurora of divine power gently radiating from it, "I'll keep watch, and make sure to tell you if you start making something that probably won't work. I'll nudge things along so that whatever you make can be the best vessel it can be. The rest? That's up to you, and your mother."
Finally, I send her a small smile back, "...Thank you." That fades, however, once my eyes lock onto the metal slab once again.
With a drawn-out, pained sigh, I reach down to pick up the metal slab.
My finger brushes the edge.
My finger promptly falls off.
Inari lets out a half gasp, half stuttered and held back laugh at my side.
I lifted my hand back up, watching with a brand expression as my finger slowly regenerated.
Painfully slowly.
Yeah, I'm that out of it already.
Seriously, fucking super divine metal bathed in the power of primordial creator gods. All of my hate, ALL of it!
Once I finish and streamline this process, I will find a way to automate all this with clone slave labor.
Yeah, that's right, I'm willing to risk a clone rebellion over this shit!
I know, I know, technically my clones are absolutely loyal to me, but they are me, and if I hate this shit now, imagine a dozen plus mes all forced to work on this at the same time.
Yeah, I'd break a fundamental rule of a technique to get back at the asshole who made me have to do this shit. I know myself that well.
I also know I will one-hundred percent take that risk, it is that worth it!
My hand whole once again, I say nothing as I start up the forge, and immediately put the thing on full blast.
The roaring of the heat, of the divine and magical flames, immediately turns the place from serene and quiet into the ground zero of a jet engine firing up.
I don't think I could have grabbed the largest pair of tongs I had faster.
Even though I wanted to pitch the whole thing of metal straight into the chamber like a baseball star, for the sake of the rest of my equipment, I gently latched onto it using the tongs and lowered it in, broadside down, into the chamber.
Without further ado, I slapped the lid shut over it and kneeled before it, watching intently on the inside.
The glow and haze of heat around the metal continued to build.
The metal itself was still cooling.
In real time, I was watching something submerged in divine fire cool.
The novelty still doesn't make it almost like watching paint dry.
My aura surrounded my hand, which I promptly jammed into the forge coals, feeding and fanning the flames directly.
The sun in my chest did a double-take, throbbing in something akin to pain as it strained itself to accommodate my will.
Thankfully, in this case, I think mostly due to inheriting Hinokagutsuchi's divine power of blacksmithing, powering up the heat and flames of the forge specifically are far easier than everything that happened on that arena for the past…
Huh. It feels like days I was standing and cutting up there on the arena, but I know really that's just me being mellow dramatic at this point.
Hours. It was a long time. It was a really long time.
This? Way easier, even in my incredibly drained state.
Still going to take a very long time, though.
Inari, after watching for a moment longer, whistles and begins stepping away, "Well, send me a prayer, when it's about time, alri-"
I cut her off by grabbing her wrist with my free hand.
Inari whimpers.
Something I honestly didn't expect from the very professional and mature fox goddess, so much so that it nearly made me push a bit too much into the forge all at once.
Almost. Thankfully, I caught it.
Regardless.
Without even sparing her a glance, I state, "There is no escape."
~ A New Sun ~
And so there was none, although Inari may have wished it otherwise.
Once again, I didn't count the hours.
I was too busy focusing on pushing down my hatred and annoyance of the task at hand to do that.
Because for this part, keeping those kinds of emotions out is sort of important.
It's sort of hard to explain, but this goes for all things art and art adjacent, really. No matter what it is, music, painting, writing, what have you, the creator's feelings and emotions can always be felt in some sense within whatever their working on.
A rather plain but direct example in my case? The Horny Bat was made while I was horny, to stop the horny. Simple, right?
Kind of. When it comes to divine artifact creation, it can be a little more esoterically bullshit.
Thankfully, in this specific case, my work this time isn't supposed to feel like anything in particular, which is far easier to explain.
In this case? I'm making basically an empty vessel. It's not for me to fill the words in, paint the walls, or echo my music throughout the halls, not here.
That's for whoever is going to take up residence.
Therefore, during the entire forging process, I smashed how I felt throughout the entire thing down.
I was a machine in motion, whose sole directive was to basically make a simple shape.
And oh boy, what a shape it is.
A slab, turned into a gleaming, straight crimson Tsurugi.
Yet, despite the shine and polish, if someone were to look at the blade, they'd think it rather dull.
A slab of metal in a different shape is still a slab of metal. There's no ornate adorning the blade, technically no proper hilt to hold the sword, just pure, shaped metal.
Empty shaped metal. That's its purpose.
I run my fingers along the side of the blade before sliding and tracing them along the edge.
Not even a scratch.
Excellent.
Breaking me out of my hyper focus, Inari's hands come into view, draping something down where the hilt of the sword would be.
A length of cloth with an empty embroidery, and a similar length of hemp rope, a shimenawa, usually used to mark sacred spaces and repel evil.
I take the blade on both ends and lift it, allowing Inari to wrap the cloth and rope around where the sword's hilt would be.
Now, it's perfect. Now, it's ready.
At my side, Inari lets out a long sigh as she ties the cloth and rope taut, and I set the sword down.
The first words out of her mouth were, "...I'm not sure what time it is anymore."
I snorted at that, because honestly, me neither.
Takamagahara doesn't really do night to begin with anyway. Why count the days in Heaven when everyone up here will live an eternity, right?
There is technically a way to tell the passage of time up here, but…
My head tilts upwards.
Same old sky.
I really don't feel like flying up and checking.
Hell, I may not have enough energy to even fly right now in the first place.
I look to my side, finding Inari wiping a hand across her brow, her semi-professional getup now messy and unkempt.
We didn't even do anything. She especially didn't do anything physical besides watch very intently.
All that's up with her outfit? Purely from the heat. Not even a joke.
"I take it you're going to take it easy for a bit?" I ask, suspecting the answer.
"Oh, absolutely." She smirks, tiredly yet triumphantly, "I heard Uzume wasn't using her room, I'm sure she won't mind me...borrowing it, for a while."
Now it's my turn to chuckle.
Somehow, someway, despite her not ever using it to my knowledge, Uzume would be annoyed by that, wouldn't she?
"Have fun, then." I give her a strained smile, not because it's fake, but because I've never felt so weak in my life, "And thank you for the help."
Inari smiles, reaching over and rubbing my cheek, "Oh, I will, and really, there's no need for that. I didn't do that much, all things told."
"Still did something." I shot back immediately.
Inari merely huffed at that before turning around and heading off.
I didn't watch her go, as my gaze settled on the forge sitting before me.
I could remember it, as clear as day, how it looked before I started.
Now?
It was the opposite.
Clean polish is replaced by blackened burn scars.
Precise angles and curves are now warped and bent out of shape.
There's a faint crackling of coals still not cooled in the background. The water that was supposed to be used to cool the metal down? Gone. Evaporated instantly.
The backup oil met the same fate.
Apparently, those were divine water and oils. I don't know how, but they were. Everything here was.
I had to use my sheer will to forcibly strangle the flames and heat.
Most of my tools are gone. The only stuff that survived was the further magically enhanced ones or straight artifacts, like my hammer, but even then, they looked warped slightly from the sheer damage of the immense heat.
I smell the heat in the air, and I can taste the melted and evaporated metals in the air.
My gaze settles back on the end product.
I'm happy with this, really. Even if it doesn't work out.
But I can't make another like this. I need better tools, way better.
The only reason this forge is still standing upright instead of slagging over is because my sheer fucking will contained the heat and flames more than the chambers of metal and rock ever could.
I let out a long, low breath as I finally noticed the strained quivering in my legs.
"H-Huh…" I stuttered aloud, breath catching, as my legs then promptly gave out beneath me, and my face nearly slammed into the anvil where the sword sat.
As it was, I managed to catch myself on the big metal block, albeit just barely.
Slowly twisting my body around with a grunt, I managed to instead turn into falling on my ass, my back leaning against the anvil.
It's not comfortable, not one bit. But somehow, it's Heaven regardless.
"Holy fuck…" I groaned out, raising my now shaking hands with active strain, "I d-didn't even, damn…"
I didn't even notice I was this out of it.
Everything's numb. Not buzzing, like pain, I mean, I can't even feel that.
Honestly, I really should have seen this one coming. I was hammering away at that damn metal like I was trying to get deep stains out of a bathtub without bleach, only water.
I'm more shocked my arms haven't fallen off at this point.
"Heh, thought if a blade did take me out, it wouldn't be quite like this…" I joked weakly to myself.
It took more than a little effort than I'd like to admit, but I finally managed to clasp my hands together in probably the world's weakest clap.
The second time was far better in my opinion, but that was only because the work of getting my arms up was already done by that point.
So. I thought, with all the sheer exhaustion in my heart, I may have miscalculated. A little bit…
I barely had time to finish my prayer before a beam of light shot straight down into the space of the forge.
No shock there, the forge is on the Palace ground, wrapped around by its walls but not inside.
What was a shock? I wasn't expecting two of my mother to walk out of the light.
…And for one of them to be shorter, while having a far larger chest as well.
Yet, both still locked their gazes onto me with extreme concern, regardless, so hey, who cares if I hallucinate here or there now?
My hands fall onto my lap, and my vision narrows as the numbness begins washing over my consciousness.
I heard noise. Sound. What could have been words. Yet it sounded muddled, as though someone was trying to talk to me while underwater.
For the first time in a real long time, a nap sounds so unbelievably good right now…
Huh, yeah, you know what?
I think I deserve one.
Goodnight. Or, day, whatever time it is.