His teacher apparently planned to make this a regular thing, while he could only stand off to the side and watch in silence.
Honestly, it was a feast for the eyes.
Gale Sun!
When he used it and when his teacher used it, they were two entirely different things.
That feeling of letting everything go and losing himself in the hammering was something he had never been able to grasp.
But watching Tetsu no Sosuke swing his hammer, so absorbed that nothing mattered but the hammer and iron in his hands, Yuichiro finally understood. What he lacked was that ability to shut out everything else and devote himself completely to a single task.
So he made no protest to his teacher. He simply stood there and watched.
Tetsu no Sosuke came day after day, and one blade after another gradually took shape.
But none of the blades he forged were Nichirin Blades.
They were ordinary swords, and he seemed dissatisfied with every single one.
He kept changing his techniques, working all sorts of strange things into the process to improve the iron material's toughness and other properties. The results did improve, but they still clearly fell short of Tetsu no Sosuke's standards.
Sometimes Yuichiro worried about Tetsu no Sosuke's state of mind.
For instance, whenever Tetsu no Sosuke wasn't forging, he would stare at his own weapon and quietly repeat its name...
"Sunblaze... Sunblaze... Sunblaze..."
Then he would gently wipe down the blade and tend its edge with meticulous care before calling its name again...
Yuichiro felt an urge to turn tail and run straight to his teacher's wife for help.
Yet Tetsu no Sosuke acted perfectly normal in every other respect.
There was no sign at all that anything was wrong with his mind...
"Just as I thought... It