"Why are you hurt, Zen'in-san?" I asked him, placing the sword back.
"Well, you see, these swords are supplied by my father's shop, and I was the one who made these. Hearing you say that these are trash hurt me," he replied.
"Oh! I am sorry that I said the truth out, and let me introduce myself."
"No need, I know you, and it seems you know me too," he interrupted me in the middle.
"Oh! Just now, Kenji said the names of the new ones while showing them."
"Really? That's all he said?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied.
He looked at Kenji with a face that said, 'That's all? Is that all you have to say about me?'
Then Kenji gave out a sigh and a facial expression saying, 'Okay, I got it.'
"This is my cousin, the one that lives in Fukushima," Kenji said.
My face gave out an amazed and shocked expression, and I said, "Your father's sister's son?"
"Yeah, him," Kenji said while showing his hands towards him in a respectful way while saying it in a sarcastic way, bowing slightly.
I turned and gave a handshake, saying, "It's nice finally meeting you."
"Not at all, the pleasure is all mine."
He shook with a firm hand.
"So, you and our Keiko are dating?" he asked out of the blue.
"Where did you hear that?" I asked him with a confused expression.
"From Keiko. She was excited while saying she got herself a boyfriend."
"She exposed me that easily?" I asked.
"No, she was keeping it a secret to surprise me, but Akiko gave it out when you arrived, saying, 'Here goes my boyfriend to your boyfriend. Do they have magnets attached to their backs or something?'
"You should have watched her while she was saying those. It looks like she is jealous of you," he said, imitating her lines. It was a bit funny.
"Yeah, Akiko is that kind of a person, and don't worry about Keiko, I will take good care of her," I said.
"By taking care of her, that reminds me, Akiko said you cut off a candidate's arm for hurting her hand. That's romantic and scary at the same time. You don't need to go that far," he said with concern in his voice.
"That's not the reason why I cut it off. She's watching too many dramas these days. She said what she imagined. Don't mind her words," I brushed off the topic.
"Now, let me hear why my swords are 'TRASH'," he said with a somewhat serious voice.
I noticed the atmosphere changing, and I didn't want to make an enemy out of another person.
When I was about to say that I was sorry, Keiko came in with Akiko and the other new girl, saying, "Shoya-kun, this is my boyfriend, Fujiwara Satoru," crossing her right arm with the left arm of mine in her usual, cool, and distinct way.
He replied that we both had done our introductions and that I had some bad opinion on the swords he made.
"Opinion? I don't think so. He doesn't give or have opinions; he just judges, whether they are good or bad," she just described my character with a badass and cool expression, with full confidence in me.
"Really? How did you judge his swords?" Akiko asked in a state of shock and amazement.
"He said those swords are trash," Kenji said from the back with a little happiness in his voice, which only the three of us could understand.
"What!?" Akiko exclaimed, and Keiko remained silent.
The girl who was with them asked on what grounds I was saying that, and then I said that I would prove it to her.
She asked me what if I couldn't prove it, and I said I would apologize to him.
That's what I intended to do from the start, but now that it came to this, I decided to go for the win.
I asked Kenji to take a sword and channel his Ki into it for a few minutes, and I took a sword, and we both clashed.
My sword broke in half from where the swords made contact, and his sword broke into pieces.
Everyone was shocked to see the two swords break that simply with just a single clash, where one of the two didn't even use Ki.
"Why do you think these two broke? Or why did they break differently? And I didn't use Ki, so why?" I asked the ones standing there.
No one answered; they just stood in silence watching the broken sword pieces.
The remaining ones in there with us looked in our direction due to the noise we made.
They soon formed a group around us, excluding the older ones.
"As everyone's here, let me explain what happened here. These swords are good for normal training, where Ki isn't used, but for battles where Ki is used, these will break as the forging process isn't done correctly."
"Let me go briefly: our swords are made with two different kinds of materials. One is Kionium, and the other is what kind of metal you want to use, like Tamahagane or 1095 carbon steel or T10 steel or 1060/1045 carbon steel or L6 bainite and S7 steel or 9260 spring steel."
"Depending on what steel you use, the Kionium content should be adjusted, and the Shita-Kitae should be done properly. Here, these are made with 1060 carbon steel. Do you know the properties of that steel, Zen'in-san?" I said and asked him a question.
"Yes," he answered with a question-mark face.
"Please understand and explain those properties to the ones present here," I said.
"I don't understand why I should explain those to them and why you are asking me to do this," he replied.
"You'll understand once you do so. Just explain," I said.
"1060 carbon steel is an excellent steel with excellent toughness, durability, and shock resistance, making it ideal for blades and tools," he answered.
"And?"
"And what? That's all."
"I know why these are like this now. I thought you made these like this just on purpose, but I think I was wrong. You simply made these without knowing.
"1060 steel becomes brittle if Shita-Kitae is not done correctly, so do the other metals, but not as it does. You also made your proportions wrong in the mixing of materials. You added less Kionium.
"Even if the Shita-Kitae was done correctly, the swords would have been broken. So, that's the reason why these are 'TRASH'. As for why they broke differently, as the Kionium is low, the other material got damaged as Ki flowed through it, and the other sword broke as it was brittle from the wrong Shita-Kitae," I concluded my judgement and rested my case.