[ ooc ] alternate reality where characters can forge swords

Clang!

Bakugou strikes the earthen material, eyes glinting at the glow of the metal base. He works to the forge with aching limbs, feeling the fire roaring within his belly. He lets the heat concentrate at the pit of his stomach, constrict and let it roll and spin within its confines before filling his lungs with cold air. As his core temperature rises to unnatural degrees, rumbling wildly within his organ, his diaphragm squeezes his lungs until a concentrated flame leaves his lips. The fire touches the hearth of the forge, cracking colours of bright gold and orange. His eyes are like a mirror, rekindled by the embers that spluttered from the wood. The heat softens the earth he is sculpting, letting him hammer and shape the blade for the handle. He squints at the refracted lights, scrunching his nose at the ashen particles which rise and disperse in the air, carefully working the forge as heat threatened to melt the fur off his cheeks.

Clang!

The sound of it is crisp, rebounding against his ear drums as he forges his weapon. The clear sound of his strikes resembles that of an echo, a pitched shrill that reverberates along the walls of a tall forest. Within Bakugou’s world, the universe his eyes chose to see, his life was a desolate ruin. It was empty with nothing to accomplish, an eternal landscape of dread and inconveniences. The sound of his work, the clarity of each strike, seemed to echo through it. He could see its spectral form within his mind – a reverberating sound full of energy, sonorously booming through passages of space and time. Eternal and young, undying. He can feel his own ears ring, unable to differentiate between his imagination and the clashes of stone against stone. Once again, an unrelenting flame projects from his tightening lungs, whirling against the fire that continues to live and consume the offering laid out to it.

Clang!

His story hasn’t ended. He may have died in that other world, but he is alive now. Alive and breathing, a creature of infinite potential. It should not be any of his concern to worry over what could have been. He’s had enough experience and time to reflect, enough moments where the universe seemed to hush him with a wave of her soft hand. She silences him without a single word, watches him through her spiritual gaze. He lost that fight because he was underprepared, he lost that fight because he held too much of an ego to undergo proper training. Now Bakugou knew what to do and he planned to execute it well. The first was to work on his strength, increase the power of the muscles in his legs. Next was to increase his lung capacity, work on the fire that made his figure tremble with a hellish heat. This was why Bakugou was working the blacksmith, fixated on the weaponry he was creating. His sanguine eyes are glistening, gleaming with a sense of revelation and an understanding pride.

His soul was unending, refusing to die like the imperfect stone he was hammering harshly against. He may not be a god but he is not a normal mortal either. The lava, contained by stone, bubbles calmly beside him as if the heat were his own. There, the male manipulates the fragments of fire to heat the rock – training his ability to manipulate what had been born of the earth rather than his body, refining both his sword and his elemental prowess. In that other world, the world he has called home for all this time, he died. Yes, he reminds himself, he died and suffered for it. He sulked for some time, struggled to forget about it. The feelings of failure, lost and frustration will always linger within him. They lived on like an undead flame, flickering and existing within the deep, empty chasms of his lost mind. The world he sees is in ruins, encapsulated by a fire that will never go out. It burns like his rage, his anger that so deeply defines his every motivation. But it is not anger that explains the state of his catastrophic soul, nor is it hatred and pain. No, it was a feeling much more permanently bound to him, shackling his spirit no matter what life he jumps to next.

Clang!

It was like he could drown at any moment. It pulls him down like the anchor of a ship until his shriveled lungs beg for air, screaming for just one more breath, crying for another chance. And when he remembers it, even dares to acknowledge it, the agony begins. He feels the crushing of his mind, squeezing him both inside and out. The feeling drives him wild, mad for salvation and peace. Then, like venom, his emotions settle mercilessly at the base of his throat. The feelings corrode the muscles in his neck, melt down his oesophagus and drip acids along his vitals. It makes him wince, clench his teeth together, but this time he’s brave enough to grasp the air and breathe. He hopes for a sensation of peace, for the tides to stop thrashing and throwing him overboard. Bakugou unleashes another fiery flare of heat then draws the shape of his sword, refining the blade until it was sharp enough to resemble how it felt to remember himself, his core, his centre. His ribs rattle, his vessels shuddering like the crackles of the forge.

Clang!

That’s right. The fear. It is an unruly fear that guides him. Acknowledging it only makes it worse, ignoring it only riles him further. It is fear that prolongs its stay, lengthening like the blade he was thundering all his strength towards. Bakugou had always been afraid of the same thing. He wanted to be victorious, powerful and unstoppable. He didn’t want to lose, he didn’t want to be made a fool of. All Bakugou ever wanted was the glory, the pride, the feeling of unending accomplishment. For a long time, it was all he ever knew. Back when he was a child, they congratulated him for simply being born a gifted soul. It stayed with him, left to ferment and distort inside of him. Up became down, left became right, truth became lies. It was capable of making his world turn red, green and blue depending on the day, depending on how it wanted to ruin him.

The nature of why he feels afraid is because he doesn’t want to lose anything or anyone. He’s spent all his life knowing only victory and praise that to fall behind, to fail at improving, is the universe’s way of spitting in his face. He doesn’t want to be incompetent, he doesn’t want to become a zero, he doesn’t want to be a mere speck floating within an unforgiving and painfully vast universe. From his fear brought his insecurities and his complex. He refused to be inferior, he refused to let himself be an instrument to suffering. And yet, without properly realising it, he became the perfect tool for internal destruction. He broke himself in his own way, criticised himself for every mistake and every lost opportunity. If he failed to defeat someone, it was his own fault. If he failed to catch someone in time, it was his own damn fault. He hated it when others tried to save him, hated it when others pitied him. It was like accepting that he was weak and to be ashamed of, and he couldn’t stand that. He would rather the world held a constant spotlight to him, let him be who he knew he was, let him become the hero he brought himself up to be.

And it was from his superiority complex that then lead to his anger, the rage that so tragically formed him. It was his fury that gave him energy, fury that kept his fire going and destroying everything in his path. Conversations, friendships, hope. They burned all the same, cremated like the rest. He was short-tempered because he didn’t like being challenged with a petty snide and it also was a way of protecting himself from whatever other emotion he might have been feeling. It wasn’t to say, of course, that he wasn’t afraid to cry in front of others. He’s done it before. He knows he can admit when he’s feeling frustrated and upset, but crying is different to the true horror he feels inside. Most days he doesn’t even realise he feels afraid, he doesn’t even realise that he is more than just the ‘unpleasant’ protagonist. But it during those days when he stops gazing through rose-tinted glasses that it drains the blood from his face, makes him realise just how pathetic and foolish he has been all this time.

Clang!

His heart ruptures, thudding wildly as he tightens and strengthens his stone sword. His attention stares longingly at the weapon, clashes and bangs echoing and beating within his ears, ringing and resounding powerful, crisp cuts. There is a rhythm that arises from the beating of stone, reminding him of the drums he could play in the other world. Then, with a calculated force, Bakugou delivers a heavy blow, striking the spot and feeling the soreness that sat in his muscle fibres, stinging against is peeling bandages. He wheezes and struggles to hold himself up. His shoulders rise to accompany the shorter breaths he has been taking whilst Bakugou smooths the stone, redefining the sharp edges of his weapon. He lifts it by the handle again and reawakens the fiery hearth, treating the blade to the fire and then continuing to grind the surface of the sword until it was perfectly and carefully shaped to his image.

The ragdoll rests it gently against another surface, letting it sit upwards to stare back against his face, reflecting his tired features. Black smoke coats around him, the fire in his belly subsiding like a beast going to bed. It is at this moment that he stops to admire his finished masterpiece, gleaming right in front of his ruby gaze. Just as his sword has finished, his temperature returns to normal. No longer does his body project the same degree of heat it had caused before, no longer was his fire appearing in abnormal ways. He was calm, like as if working the forge had tamed his destructive nature. The hearth was one thing, of course, but Bakugou looked to the sword as if it was more than just a product of his work. It was an eternal symbol, a sign of ‘fuck you’ to the universe and his haters, the world and his enemies, the land and his imaginary monsters. He knows that the sword will not last. It will one day become dilapidated, return to the ground like the dust, but he knows that he can just make another one by then. He can create more, become more. It was the same way his life was taken from him that day. His body was to return to the ocean, decompose back into the earth. But right now he was alive and renewed, alive in another world that didn’t particularly care about where he came from. He cared about now and that was all he intended to do. No more sulking over his past, no more blaming the world for who he was now.

Like recreating a new sword or even repairing a broken one, Bakugou could recreate his own life. He could reconstruct who he wanted to be, direct his time into rebuilding his once known strength and power. As long as his soul persisted, continue to remain within the blurred lines of space and time, Bakugou could live forever.