Michelle ended up inviting Nin over that evening, to introduce her to Hikari. Nin looked weirded out, but only for a moment, then circled around the NPC, as though looking for some secret flaw or weird... something.

  "Hikari, huh?" Nin raised one hand. "High five?"

  Hikari blinked, confused, and raised her hand, clearly unaware of the tradition. When Nin slapped her hand and offered her a low-five next, Michelle thought she could see the gears slowly turning in her minion's head, but over the next fifteen minutes, Nin introduced her to various introductory and familiar bumps and greetings.

  "It's weird," Nin said eventually, dropping back onto the couch with Michelle. "She seems normal, just a little bit... empty."

  "Yeah," Michelle admitted. "She needs a little bit of practice being normal."

  Nin snorted. "Don't we all," she said, rolling her eyes. "I thought minions were dumber than this."

  "Oh... you can boost them, though they'll be reduced when they go back into a Run. Sealed, like my Skill."

  "You never actually explained that," Nin said. "It was just sealed until it wasn't."

  "Right." Michelle took a breath. "It just cut the stats on my Skill until I paid enough experience and essence to unlock it. Same with my sword, but that used materials instead of essence."

  "How do you cut the stats on an aura? You can only drop the damage so much before it stops being useful. Like... at all."

  "The damage stays decent, but," Michelle grimaced, and held out her fingers, pinched tightly together. "You only get a tiny amount of aura to play with, which goes up as you level. It doesn't cover much of the sword, so I did a lot of thrusting at the beginning."

  "Are you serious? Ugh." Nin shook her head. "I was so jealous you got to bring that Skill, especially when it boosted the rarity of your mobs, but it sounds like it was a huge problem."

  "Kinda!" Michelle shifted on the couch slightly. "I'm not really sure how useful it was to my minions, because of that. Do you know, Hikari?"

  "I didn't understand how to use it," the NPC admitted with a shrug. "It was almost like I'd randomly get damage boosts, especially in the early levels. Even once the full aura was available, I wasn't really able to use it as anything more than a damage aura, although I know it's supposed to be more."

  "It is," Michelle replied, quite seriously. Hikari just looked back at her, not quite blankly.

  "Try explaining it," Nin said, scooting to the other end of the couch so she could see both of them at once. "Like you tried to explain it to me, except Hikari has at least used the Skill with a sword."

  Michelle sighed, but stood, pulling a random curtain rod from her Inventory instead of her sword, just to make sure she wouldn't damage anything by accident. "The True Kensei Sword is... an ideal. The Kensei goes beyond knowing how to use the sword and becomes one with it. The cutting edge... it isn't about the actual metal, you know? The ideal cutting edge... is the ideal of cutting, as a concept. Or, I guess, doing damage to dungeon monsters, which is supposed to be the same thing." She sighed. "I'm not explaining it well."

  "I don't really get it," Hikari admitted. "But I did sense something like that."

  That got both her attention and Nins, but Michelle still had to prompt the woman. "Go on?"

  "It felt like... a hole in the skill. I was supposed to fill the hole with something. A concept, I guess, of what the True Sword is supposed to be." She shrugged. "But I don't know what that is."

  "But you do," Michelle said, resisting the urge to snap or get heated. "You know what a sword is, don't you?"

  "'Pointy end towards the bad guys', Hikari said, and Michelle could swear she heard Jerry's voice behind the quote.

  "And that's a start, right?" Michelle held the rod like it was a bokken. "It has a side that hurts the enemy, and a side that doesn't. Conceptually, a sword is both of those things. It has a side that hurts, and a side that doesn't." She paused, and lowered the rod. "I mean, I guess all weapons do."

  Nin piped in. "Don't your dragon mobs also use the skill?"

  "Right, on their teeth and claws. Speaking of." Michelle pulled out her other support item, and a moment later, White Fang was in the room with her, the juvenile dragon looking momentarily surprised, then looking over at Nin suspiciously.

  Nin looked back, her eyes going wild. "You tamed one of your mobs?"

  "Yeah, that's apparently another thing you can just do. This one's also fairly intelligent. White Fang, Nin is a friend. She'll be nice to you, so don't hurt her." Before either could react, Michelle added, "Except during a round, of course."

  White Fang approached Nin carefully, head weaving back and forth slightly to look at her from other angles, but then he... she... Michelle frowned, and checked her overlay. He. He jumped on the couch next to Nin, coming close like a big puppy, clearly trying to get a sense for her.

  Nin, of course, had a huge silly grin, though she was cautious to try petting.

  "Go ahead," Michelle offered, and a moment later, Fang was making an adorable, distressed sound as he was crushed against Nin's chest, as the woman snuggled him with all the predatory ferocity of a lifelong animal lover.

  They laughed at the noise, and at Fang's halfhearted attempts to escape. Unlike a lot of animals, Fang was clearly not what you would call a wild animal. No matter how Nin teased him, and no matter how distressed he seemed to be... his claws didn't pull or tear at the couch or her clothes, let alone wound Nin. For all that she knew personally how sharp the dragon's claws were, it would not harm her.

  In that light, the idea of NPCs getting ideas in their head that you maybe didn't want them to, seemed a little bit more serious.

  After they calmed down, Michelle gestured to White Fang. "Fang, we're talking about the Skill, the True Kensei Blade. I don't want you to damage anything in here, and I know you can't talk, but I want to understand how well you understand the Skill." She wrapped her curtain rod with the skill again, but mostly the non-damaging aspects to it. A blade was a lot of things, including unyielding. She held it lower down, where Fang could easily reach it. "Can you try and break this?"

  Fang hopped down from the couch, and came over towards the curtain rod, eyeing it. After a moment, with a sudden burst of ferocity, it lashed out to bite the rod, its teeth glowing with a terrifying aura.

  Michelle could feel it scraping against hers, but she had more than enough mana and will to resist it.

  "That's pretty good," she said, nodding. "Do you understand how I'm using the Skill now? To defend the rod? Can you do anything like that?"

  White Fang considered her, and the rod. After a moment, Michelle noticed the scales on his back and sides started to glow. As she looked closer, she realized that the scales were all pointed, if not exactly sharp – but even that slightly pointed nature made them something like a blade. A lot of the beast's design was at least vaguely sword-like, down to those little details. So, to a certain extent, it made some sense that he could apply the concept to his scales... though it was something of a stretch, and based on her interface, he was using up mana pretty quickly.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "Right," she said, nodding, and looked at Hikari. "Do you understand?"

  "Not at all," her minion said, sounding not the least bit upset about it.

  Michelle sighed. "Okay," she said after a moment. "Think about all the things you used the sword for. It's not just hitting the enemy, but also blocking and deflecting, right?"

  "I don't know how to do that," Hikari answered, still cheerful.

  "Okay." Michelle sighed, already starting to get tired of this. She put her curtain rod away and summoned two bokkens. "Take one, don't add the skill. Get in a fighting stance."

  Hikari clearly had no concept of fighting stances. although she tried.

  Michelle made a disgusted noise, wondering if she should give up, but resolved not to, not yet. "Okay," she said again. "Let's try this from a different angle. What is – no. Hikari, I'm telling you. Your first job in a fight is not to die."

  Hikari's face sobered up, like she was taking this all very seriously.

  "That doesn't mean running away. Your sword is a tool to both kill the enemy and to block their attacks. In almost all circumstances, prioritize blocking their attacks, by putting your sword in the way of the attack." She swung the bokken slowly, and Hikari made an obvious, and technically wrong, block.

  "It's hard to... I mean, attacking is a process." She wished she could have explained all of this better, but she hadn't gotten that far into kendo, not before going into the Dungeons. Now, a lot of her experience was more practical than theory... with a healthy dose of movies and anime on top. Mostly, though, she couldn't help flashing back to the fight that had come to defined her. "For most people, after the attack is blocked, they have to reset and then start the process again. Blocking can also put you in a state where you have to reset, but you tend to have an advantage. So after blocking, counterattack." She gestured. "Come at me, slowly. But intend to attack more than once."

  Hikari went through the motions as instructed. Michelle easily blocked, and then immediately started moving at the same slow pace inside Hikari's guard, pulling her sword past Hikari's and towards the minion's torso. In slow motion like this, she reflected silently, it all made a lot more sense than it ever would during a fight. As soon as she touched with the blade, Michelle turned back around, pulling the sword into a weak block stance between her and Hikari. Hikari, to her credit, was already coming at her again, forcing her to deflect immediately.

  "If you can stop the attack and then counter, the only one side gets hurt, and it's the enemy." Michelle didn't let her now awkward position get her down. "If you can only block, at least you can draw the fight out. In any kind of martial art, your goal isn't to just trade blows until one falls. You beat them by knowing what should happen in a fight, and doing it better than they do. Stop now." When Hikari let off the pressure, they separated. "Everything that the Kensei does with their blade, the aura should help with. Blocking and cutting, of course, but also moving. Sliding past the enemy sword, when you are trying to attack, and preventing the enemy sword from sliding past when you're defending. Breaking the enemy's weapon and armor, and refusing to be broken yourself. The True Kensei Blade is an aura that expects you to learn how to do all those things, and then intend to do them at the right time."

  Hikari looked at her, face still quite serious. "I'm pretty sure," she said after a moment, "that I mostly still don't understand. But, I think I am starting to."

  Michelle relaxed, slightly. "Any time you are using the blade for something in particular, you should be thinking of what you want the aura to do that fits with what you need. Cutting, holding, moving, stopping, whatever. If you ever get really good, all of those concepts will be the same concept in your mind – the concept of a True Blade." She shrugged. "That's the idea behind the skill."

  "Your dragon is looking at you," Nin said, sounding awed.

  Michelle looked, and found that White Fang had an odd look on his face. He was intent, almost rapturous, clearly paying attention to every word.

  She considered sparring with the dragon, but decided that was not something she really wanted to do right now. Or away from the safety of the Run's practice area. Not that she thought White Fang was going to kill her, but there was something bloodthirsty in his stare.

  And this is a monster I'll have to beat up for resources. That thought didn't exactly encourage her, but Michelle just put her sword away.

  "Enough of that for now," she said, moving back and jumping onto the couch, and putting her bokken back with a thought. "As weird as she seems, Hikari's pretty interesting. You know, she decided on that hairstyle by herself..."

  She let herself slide mentally away from the topic of her apparently-weird skill. As much as it made sense to her, the theory and the practice of it, everyone seemed to expect Skills to be very basic, boring. Maybe even push-button. Not everyone, though, and not all the time. Even Erik had come to grips with how his Demon's Eye skill required more from him than attacking the glowing points that the skill showed him. And Nin understood that healing required mental focus, so it's not like the idea didn't make sense, in general. But something about the way Michelle talked about it turned her friend off.

  As they sat on the couch and talked, though, Michelle got the feeling that White Fang understood her. The dragon wasn't exactly on her lap, though it deigned to rest next to her on the couch, like a cat that wasn't yet certain it wanted to accept you, but was willing to accept some pets. Whenever she thought about her aura, though, she couldn't help remember the moment when Fang had launched himself at the curtain rod.

  Eventually, after the moment had rolled through her head a half dozen times, she suddenly nodded. He was already trying to be the blade. An animal couldn't hold a weapon; it had to be the weapon. As far as Fang was concerned, she was telling him the aura would let him do what he already had to do, better. It would bite when he needed it to bite, hold the enemy when he wanted to hold, release it when he wanted to release it, and protect him when he wanted to be protected – as long as he could justify it as being done by a sword-like part of his body.

  Maybe I could refine the skill in a way that makes it better for him. Michelle almost laughed at the thought. The True Dragon Blade. As cliche and yet epic as that sounded in her head, it would probably take the skill further away from her own Kensei blade. Wouldn't it?

  "You're thinking about your skill again, I can tell," Nin offered. At some point, she'd pulled a snack out of her Inventory. "You're smiling, so it can't be bad."

  Michelle tried, and probably mostly failed, to relay her thought about White Fang. The Thai woman just gave her an appraising look, slowly chewing the fried thing she'd had waiting in her Inventory since who knows when. "Nope," she eventually said, "still don't get it. But I love you and I'm glad you're figuring it all out."

  Michelle gave her a silly lopsided grin and leaned back into the couch more. She didn't have to explain the skill to Nin; she wasn't a swordsman, and would never be. For Nin, it was enough that Michelle understood. It would be great if she could explain it to her Minion and Mob better, and maybe others, but it wasn't critical.

  Though... that was kind of the thing with the Run, wasn't it? Everyone using each other's skills as much as possible. She considered that for a long moment.

  "Tell me about your skill," she said after a moment. "The one you used last time, the angel arrow thing."

  "Oh." Nin took a long moment to chew. "I'm probably not going to take it next time, and go with a heal skill. We kind of needed one. But..." She looked down at her snack. "I mean, I'm not sure it has a concept the way your skill does. It's mostly just an auto-attack, holy-element style thing. Though I definitely came to use it better once I got used to it. There's definitely a point to keeping things in mind that you want to be targets, and especially priority targets. And... as the skill is activating and after it's firing, I can almost make out all these different bits of magic doing different things, and if I focus on them, I can sort of make them all do the same thing, instead. That's how I made all the arrows hit the same target a few times, but it doesn't usually work."

  Michelle looked at her. "You don't think a skill called Angel Arrow has a concept behind it?"

  "It's just poetic." Nin shook her head. "I don't know. It's possible. But it's not like it's a hugely rare skill. It's just called that because it's holy element, and angels are holy." Nin took another bite, chewing it while she considered, and after she swallowed, added, "You weren't happy with your skill until you rebuilt it anyway, right? The original Kensei aura isn't the same as the skill you have now. Angel Arrow is just an attack skill that automatically targets nearby enemies. It's not special."

  Michelle could hear the implied thought. It could be, if we could figure out how to remake it. But that was beyond her own ability, and definitely beyond Nin or anyone else in the party.

  Probably. At least, nobody would be trying anytime soon. Not after...

  "Hey." Nin nudged her with a foot. "I saw that. Don't think about it. Just don't."

  "I know." Michelle looked away, but thinking of Jon made her head ache again. Instead of being ruled by that, however, she changed the topic. "I mentioned I talked with a woman in the Alpha dungeon today. She was complaining about it being hard to find free people who are good Runners, though honestly, she also kind of made it sound like she wasn't great herself...?"

  As Michelle related her experience with Lauren, and then the two moved on to theorizing about what kind of people they wanted their two fills to be, if they could swing it. There was no knowing for sure, of course, but it was better to think about things at least a little in case they found something who was just right... or who really wasn't. Having a good excuse, like they were looking for something else, would help in turning people away.

  By the time Nin left for home, Michelle was feeling better, even if there was a lot she wasn't certain of. She ended up dismissing Hikari but left Fang to wander around her apartment, and eventually the dragon made its way into bed next to her. Fang's scales were cool to start, but once she held the dragon long enough, she could feel a soothing warmth beneath.

  It's weird to think he isn't actually an animal. Michelle let her thoughts drift around that idea in lazy circles as she drifted off to sleep. There were a lot of weird things in the world, but this one... wasn't bad, at least.