# Chapter 2
The road to the Black Bulls' headquarters had never felt so endless. Asta stumbled over every root in his path, his body one great throbbing wound. The three swords at his hip weighed more than a full Magic Knight's kit put together. This wasn't the magical kind of weight you could lighten with a levitation spell — it was raw, dead steel that dug into his thigh with every step and dragged his spine toward the earth.
His right hand, turned coal-black and withered, had stopped obeying him entirely. It had locked into a single position, clenched immovably around Enma's hilt. The violet blade inside its sheath seemed to breathe, slowly draining whatever strength he had left. Every breath was a struggle, his lungs burned, and dark red blotches swam across his vision.
*Just a little further… a couple more miles…*
He took another step. The ground lurched beneath him. The strength he'd been running on — nothing but sheer stubbornness — gave out. His knees buckled, and he hit the dirt road face-first. The crash of three swords striking the ground rang out like a funeral knell. Consciousness began to close in fast, pulling him down into cold, thick darkness.
He didn't wake up in his room. He didn't wake up in a sickbay, either.
All around him stretched an endless gray fog that smelled of salt, old wine, and blood. There was no sky, no ground — only a boundless void threaded through with an icy wind. Asta tried to push himself up, but something's monstrous presence pinned him to the invisible floor like a physical weight.
"And that's all you've got?" said a voice that sent ice crawling down his spine. It was low, dry, and vibrated with such force that the fog around him began to spiral inward. "This is the little punk who had the nerve to touch my blades?"
Asta forced his head up. A few steps away, seated on the broken stump of an enormous pillar, was a man. He wore a long dark-green kimono cinched with a red sash. Green hair, three gold earrings in his left ear, and a deep scar bisecting his closed left eye. He sat with perfect ease, hands resting on his knees — yet the aura rolling off him was that of a predator who could cut through space itself with a single glance.
This was no demon. This was will made flesh.
"Who… who are you?" Asta rasped, struggling to get to his knees.
The man slowly opened his right eye. The pupil gleamed like polished steel.
"My name means nothing to you, shrimp. To you, I'm just the echo of steel you woke up." The stranger dropped from the pillar. His footsteps made no sound, but the fog parted before him like it would before a god. "My swords — Wado, Kitetsu, and that temperamental girl Enma. They were never meant to end up in the hands of someone who faints from a short walk."
He came to a stop directly in front of Asta and looked down at his blackened hand with open contempt.
"You're swinging them like clubs. You let Enma eat you alive because there's nothing inside you but a hole where discipline should be. Keep it up and you won't just dull the blades — you'll turn them into chunks of rusted garbage. And I won't have my swords ruined, even from beyond the grave."
Asta fought through the crushing pressure and shoved himself to his feet. His eyes burned with the same fanatical fire they always did.
"I don't care who you are!" he shouted, driving his fists closed. "My home is gone! My friend was taken by monsters that magic can't even touch! If these swords are the only way to stop them, then I'll carry them even if they shatter every bone in my body!"
The stranger went still. For just a moment, the ghost of a smile crossed his lips — hard, and knowing.
"Ambition," he said quietly. "You've got will, I'll give you that. But will without mastery is just a quick way to get yourself killed."
He was suddenly right in front of Asta — so fast that Asta never saw him move. A phantom hand settled on the hilt of Wado Ichimonji, which materialized in his grip as if it had always been there.
"Listen carefully, rookie. I'm not going to babysit you. But I won't stand by and watch my blades disgrace themselves in the hands of a loser. I'll help you learn them — for one reason only: swords don't rust."
Zoro — because that was who this was — narrowed his eye and looked straight into Asta's soul.
"Every time you take Wado Ichimonji between your teeth, I'll be there to guide your spirit. It will be hell. Your jaw will feel like it's splintering, your teeth will feel like they're flying out, and Enma will try to drink your mind straight through your ears. If you last — you'll become the kind of person who can cut a path back to your friend. If you don't — I'll personally gut you with your own grimoire trash."
Asta bared his teeth. The pain in his arm suddenly felt bearable. The weight of the swords in the back of his mind suddenly felt right.
"Deal! I can take anything!" he roared.
Zoro snorted and drove his palm into Asta's chest.
"Then wake up. Your *captain* is about two minutes from digging you a grave, convinced you're already dead."
Asta's eyes snapped open.
Yami was leaning over him, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke. The Black Bulls' captain looked unusually serious, one hand resting on the hilt of his own katana.
"Oh, you're back," Yami said, his tone lazy — but the tension underneath it was unmistakable. "I was about five seconds from hauling you to the cemetery, kid. Your *Ki* just pulled a move that nearly put out my cigarette. What the hell was that?"
Asta pushed himself up slowly, feeling the swords reclaim their monstrous weight. But now, somewhere at the very edge of his thoughts, a calm and certain voice had taken up residence:
*Get up, idiot. Shift your center of gravity to the left. And stop trembling — you're embarrassing the steel.*
Asta grabbed hold of Wado Ichimonji.
*I'm getting up,* he thought — and this time, his movement was sharper. More deliberate.
"Captain Yami." Asta looked up at his mentor. "These swords… they're alive. And they're demanding I become a monster."
Yami squinted at Asta's blackened hand, then at his eyes — which, just for a moment, reflected the silhouette of a man with a scar.
"Sounds like you've gone and found yourself a teacher even worse than me." Yami smirked and spat. "Come on, back to HQ. We'll figure out how to keep you from falling apart before you even make it to the dinner table."
Asta followed his captain, feeling Enma begin to feed again.
But this time, he didn't just endure it. He started to *listen*. Listen to the breath of the steel — the steel that had just promised him a power capable of splitting the heavens open.