Welf Crozzo was not standing around doing nothing.
He had told himself that a times already which was a pretty good sign that he actually was standing around doing nothing and he just did not want to admit it.
He was standing near the side of Hephaestus Familias forge holding a hammer in one hand and working on a half-finished blade that was lying on the anvil in front of him.
He was trying not to look at Rayleighs workbench.
It was hard.
The forge was full of people who made things out of metal.
They were all pretty good at noticing when someone was trying not to watch someone else work. Tsubaki was the one to notice what Welf was doing.
She was leaning against a pole that helped hold up the roof with her arms crossed and a big grin on her face.
"Welf if you keep staring at Rayleighs workbench like that his new sword is going to get embarrassed "she said.
"Then again his swords can be kind of mean so maybe it will start judging you back."
Welf almost dropped his hammer.
"I was not staring! I was just.... I wish everyone would stop acting like I am trying to get Rayleigh to lecture me or something."
Rayleigh was sitting at his workbench with a blade lying across his knees.
He did not look up. "If that is what you call work then I think I owe some of my blades an apology " he said. "The piece of metal on your anvil has been waiting for you to either finish it or get rid of it."
Some of the people in the forge started laughing.
Welf looked down at the blade he was working on.
The edge was not even.
He clicked his tongue in annoyance.
"I got distracted "
"Yes that is what everyone noticed "
Tsubaki started laughing hard and Welf looked like he wanted to hide.
That would have been bad because Hephaestus had already yelled at them twice that month for not being safe at work.
Rayleigh looked up from the blade he was working on.
He had a sword called Benihime lying across his lap.
It looked really elegant..
Welf could tell that it was not harmless. It felt like a woman who was smiling at you while she was thinking about how to attack you.
Welf did not like that he could tell that.
He liked it less that he wanted to know how Rayleigh had made the sword.
Rayleigh noticed that Welf was looking at him.
"If you want to ask me something just ask " he said. "If you keep pretending like you're here to work the metal might start getting mad at me for letting you get away with it."
Welf put down his hammer before he did something with it.
"Okay fine! I wanted to know why that new sword feels different. Your other swords are all really loud and noticeable even when they are not being used. This one feels quieter. It does not feel weaker. It feels like it is waiting for someone to make a mistake."
Rayleigh looked interested.
Tsubaki's grin widened. "Oh? Look at you, Welf. That's a proper smith's observation."
Welf looked away feeling embarrassed.
Rayleigh rested a hand on Benihime's sheath. "Good eye! Benihime is not weaker than the others, but her temperament is different. Senbonzakura is proud, Ruri'iro Kujaku is vain enough to make Narcissus look humble, and this one has the kind of patience that makes me suspect she will cost me sleep."
Welf frowned. "You talk about them like they're people."
"They are, in the ways that matter."
"That's still hard to wrap my head around. A sword having a will is one thing, but you speak like each of them has preferences, moods, and enough personality to be annoying on purpose."
Rayleigh looked at Benihime as if considering the matter. "They do. Some more than others. If you ever hear Ruri'iro Kujaku complain about color coordination, do not engage. He can smell weakness!"
Welf stared at him, deciding he was not ready to unpack that sentence.
The problem was that he understood weapons.
He understood steel, heat, quenching, balance, and the ugly pressure of expectations wrapped around the Crozzo name.
He knew what it meant for people to look at a blade and see power before they saw the hands that made it.
But Rayleigh's weapons were different in a way that made all his old instincts itch.
A Magic Sword was a tool.
A dangerous tool, yes, but still a tool.
You made it, used it, broke it, sold it, feared it, hated it, or worshiped it depending on how stupid you were feeling that day.
A Zanpakutō did not fit into that category.
That was the part Welf hated. If he admitted that, then he had to admit Rayleigh had stepped into the same territory as Crozzo Magic Swords and somehow walked past it instead of sinking into the same mud.
Rayleigh watched his face, then lowered his voice. "You're not wrong to be cautious. I prefer it. People who see a strange weapon and want to swing it are the reason I write death waivers."
Welf grimaced. "You're still making people sign those?"
"After yesterday, I'm adding a second page and perhaps a line that says, 'If the sword shows you your emotional problems, do not attempt to solve them by pulling harder.'"
Welf's brows drew together. "What happened yesterday?"
Tsubaki coughed.
Rayleigh looked at her. Tsubaki looked away, wearing the expression of someone who knew and wanted him to say it himself.
Rayleigh sighed. "A public-sale Zanpakutō chose Cassandra Ilion from Apollo Familia, damaged a ceiling tile, forced me into contract negotiations before breakfast, and may have developed the personality of a rude child with prophetic tendencies."
Welf stared at him. Then he looked at Tsubaki as Tsubaki nodded.
"He's leaving out the part where Hephaestus punished him for the ceiling."
Rayleigh's expression became pained. "Financially."
Welf's eyes narrowed. "How bad was it?"
"Bad enough that I reconsidered whether genius is worth the maintenance cost."
"That sounds like your own fault."
"Most expensive things are."
Welf snorted before he could stop himself. Rayleigh gave him a look of exaggerated offense.
"You laugh now, but one day you too will create something brilliant, troublesome, and expensive enough that Hephaestus-sama smiles while destroying your savings."
The humor faded from Welf's expression. "I don't make Magic Swords."
Rayleigh did not answer.
Tsubaki's grin softened, and the nearby smiths returned to work, sensing the shift even if no one said a word.
Rayleigh looked at the half-finished blade on Welf's anvil.
"No, you don't. And I'm not telling you to. But eventually you'll have to decide whether your problem is with Magic Swords themselves or with the way people use the Crozzo name to turn smithing into slaughter."
Welf's jaw tightened. "That sounds like the same thing to me."
"It isn't," Rayleigh said. "That's the annoying part. A blade can be made for killing, protecting, threatening, bargaining, or proving someone's pride. The steel doesn't get to choose the story people attach to it.
A Zanpakutō is different because it talks back, and even then, people still try to turn it into whatever they want. Cassandra's sword was nearly treated like a trophy before the contract ink even dried."
Welf looked away.
His hands tightened on the edge of the anvil. Rayleigh did not push further. Not yet.
The forge door opened before either of them could continue.
The temperature in the room dropped, though not because of magic.
Ais Wallenstein stood at the entrance with Riveria behind her.
Ais looked the same at first glance: blonde hair, golden eyes, calm expression, sword at her side. But Rayleigh saw the difference.
Her posture was controlled, her breathing steady, and her gaze fixed forward, yet a strain around her eyes remained—one that had not been there before Gonryōmaru shattered.
"Rayleigh," Riveria said, stepping into the forge with the calm of someone who could make a room full of loud smiths lower their voices without asking.
Rayleigh stood, sliding Benihime back to his side. "If Ais is coming here about Gonryōmaru, then short notice is better than late notice."
Ais's fingers tightened near her sword hilt.
Tsubaki's expression sobered as well.
She had been there when Gonryōmaru's Bankai shattered, and even if she did not understand every detail, she understood what it meant for a weapon to break in a way that could not be repaired with a hammer.
Riveria placed a hand on Ais's shoulder. "She has been sensing things since the battle. Not consistently, and not enough to explain clearly, but enough that Finn decided it was better to ask you before allowing her to keep training."
Ais looked at Rayleigh. "I can still feel him sometimes."
The forge grew quiet.
Rayleigh did not rush her. Ais seemed to struggle with the words, which was rare.
She had never been talkative, but this was different from silence.
This was someone trying to describe a wound no one else could see.
"When there is strong spiritual pressure nearby, something in my chest reacts. It is faint, like hearing someone call from far away. I cannot answer. When I try to move the way I did before, my body remembers the beginning of the step, but the path disappears before I can take it."
Welf frowned. "The way you did before?"
"Shunpo," Rayleigh said. "A movement technique tied to spiritual control. She was starting to learn the shape of it through Gonryōmaru's bond, but after the blade shattered, the bridge collapsed before the foundation settled."
Ais looked down. "I tried anyway."
Rayleigh exhaled. "How many times?"
Ais did not answer fast enough. Riveria answered for her, voice calm but edged with irritation.
"Three times that I know of. The first caused dizziness, the second made her collapse for several minutes, and the third gave her a nosebleed and temporary loss of balance. After that, I forbade her from attempting it without supervision."
Ais lowered her head.
Rayleigh stared at her, then rubbed his forehead. "Ais, I understand being stubborn. Truly, I do. I work with Tsubaki, live under Hephaestus and am currently being trained by someone who thinks medical recovery means 'hit him less hard than usual.'
My tolerance for stubborn people is high. But trying to use Shunpo through a broken Zanpakutō bond is not training."
Ais looked at Rayleigh with wounded confusion. "I wanted to know if he was still there."
Rayleigh's expression softened.
The frustration did not vanish, but it changed shape. "I know."
Those two words carried more weight than a long scolding.
Ais's shoulders relaxed. Rayleigh hated that she looked relieved just because someone acknowledged the reason behind the behavior.
He gestured toward the inner testing room attached to the forge.
"Come in. I need to examine the residue. Riveria-san, you can observe. Welf, since you were pretending not to be interested in soul-weapons, you may as well learn something useful."
Welf looked startled. "Why am I involved in this now? I thought I was being insulted for bad hammer work five minutes ago."
"You were," Rayleigh said, walking toward the inner room. "Now you're being educated. Hephaestus Familia is efficient."
Tsubaki clapped Welf on the back hard enough to make him stumble.
"Go learn from him, brat. If Rayleigh starts sounding too smart, throw something at him."
Rayleigh looked back at her. "Please do not encourage workplace violence in front of guests!"
Tsubaki grinned. "It's too late to pretend we have standards."
Riveria watched the exchange with a hint of amusement, while Ais looked as if she was trying to understand whether this was normal Hephaestus Familia behavior.
Rayleigh noticed her expression and sighed.
"It is often like this, but with more fire."
Ais nodded, accepting that.
The inner testing room was smaller than the public chamber under the shop, built not for customers but for experiments Rayleigh did not want near anything flammable, fragile, or legally troublesome.
Several Kidō seals lined the walls, their spiritual patterns woven into Hephaestus's own defensive enchantments.
Welf examined them as soon as he stepped inside, though he pretended not to when Rayleigh glanced at him.
Rayleigh ignored the pretense. Ais stood in the center of the room while Riveria remained near the wall, staff in hand.
Welf lingered by the door until Rayleigh dragged a chair closer with his foot and pointed at it.
"Sit if you want to watch. Stand if that helps you think. But if you hover in the doorway looking like a guilty cat, I'm putting you to work taking notes, and I warn you now, my notes are unpleasant."
Welf sat. "I hate how specific your threats are."
Rayleigh drew a thin spiritual thread from his fingertip, letting it drift toward Ais without touching her.
The thread shimmered as it approached her chest, then bent sideways as if caught by an unseen current.
Rayleigh frowned. "That's more residue than I expected."
Ais looked up. "Then he is still there?"
The hope in her voice made the room feel smaller.
Rayleigh chose his words with care. He was not good at lies, and Ais did not need one.
"Part of the bond remains. Not Gonryōmaru himself in the way you remember him, but the imprint he left on your soul is still reacting. Think of it like a sword-shaped scar that remembers the blade even after the steel is gone."
Ais's expression tightened.
Welf looked uncomfortable, perhaps because even he could hear how cruel that sounded despite Rayleigh's tone.