The forge of Yggdrasil quieted as the echoes of Thanamira's summoning faded into the living roots.
All that remained was the hum of divine machinery — pulsing, breathing, alive.
Ayaka Kurogane stood motionless, her spectral fingers trembling as she stared at the cocoon of light that held her son's soul. Even without form, she could feel him. That faint warmth she once carried in her arms — distant, but still there.
Ayaka (softly): "He's really in there, Itsuki… our boy."
Her husband didn't answer right away. Itsuki's expression was unreadable — half awe, half sorrow. His hand moved to his chin, rubbing at an invisible stubble out of old habit. His gaze roamed across the divine forge — gears, sigils, molten light — the language of gods, yet still… mechanisms.
He could understand this. It spoke to him like an old schematic.
Itsuki: "I thought I'd never see him again… not even like this."
Ayaka: "He saved them, didn't he? The whole city…"
Itsuki: "Yeah. But now they're asking us to save him."
Hephaestus loomed nearby, watching in silence, arms folded across a chest of bronze flame.
He said nothing — the god of creation rarely interrupted mortal grief.
Itsuki walked forward, closer to the glowing silhouette Hephaestus had conjured — a half-formed projection of Karl's potential body. It was blank, featureless, neither human nor divine. Just a vessel waiting for identity.
Itsuki: "They said we should design him. But what does that even mean? A body that can contain both nanite core and human soul… The equations alone—"
Ayaka: "You're overthinking it again."
Her voice cracked through the silence, soft but firm.
Ayaka: "Don't build a machine, Itsuki. Build our son."
Her words silenced even Hephaestus for a heartbeat. The forge's light dimmed slightly, as if listening.
Itsuki exhaled slowly, nodding.
He extended his hand, and lines of light began to form from his fingertips — glowing like circuit paths, bending into shapes only an engineer's heart could summon.
A chest cavity first — broad, stable, almost protective. Then the arms — heavier than before, designed not for war, but for endurance. He was subconsciously sketching the boy he remembered — the one who always took the heavy load so others wouldn't.
Itsuki (murmuring): "He's always been the shield. Never asked anyone to carry him."
Ayaka moved beside him and added her own touch. Where Itsuki's lines were precise, hers were delicate — curves, symmetry, small details the eye would overlook but the soul would recognize.
The slope of his shoulders. The gentle arch of his fingers. The faint smile line beneath his eyes.
Ayaka: "He used to frown when you pushed him too hard."
Itsuki (smiling faintly): "And you'd scold me for it."
The blueprint began to glow brighter, merging their memories and emotions into a single, flowing diagram.
Hephaestus leaned forward slightly — intrigued.
Hephaestus: "You mortals… You craft not from logic, but from memory. Fascinating."
Thanamira simply smiled.
Thanamira: "Love is a design language, Hephaestus. One even you cannot perfect."
The god grunted, but didn't argue.
Ayaka's hands continued to trace invisible lines across the air — the inner structure, the heart cavity, the neural lattice. She paused when she reached the chest.
Ayaka: "His heart…"
Itsuki looked at her.
Ayaka: "We can't make it mechanical. It has to feel. Even if it's nanite-based, it should still ache. Still burn when he sees suffering."
Her words softened the god's smirk. Hephaestus watched, silent, humbled.
Itsuki: "Then let's make it like yours — fragile, but endless."
They both smiled — a small one, fleeting, but real.
Piece by piece, line by line, the outline of Kurogane Karl's new form began to take shape — the first draft of a being who would bridge the line between mortal compassion and divine endurance.
But this was only the start.
The forge still slept, and Karl's soul still dreamed beneath Artemis's guidance.
When Ayaka's hand lowered and the final trace faded into the golden air, she turned to her husband, voice barely a whisper.
Ayaka: "Do you think he'll even recognize us… when he wakes up?"
Itsuki: "He doesn't have to."
Ayaka: "Then why are we doing this?"
Itsuki: "Because he deserves a body that remembers — even if he forgets."
The silence that followed was heavy, sacred.
The blueprint pulsed once, as if it heard them — as if Karl's soul, deep within the roots, was listening through the veil of dreams.
The forge's light dimmed into twilight hues, shifting from molten gold to gentle amber.
The blueprint hung in midair, glowing faintly — waiting.
The blueprint hovered above the divine forge — a luminous projection of potential.
Itsuki and Ayaka stood side by side beneath it, hands still trembling from the first phase of their work.
Now came the harder part — not assembling metal or nanite filaments, but weaving who he was back into the design.
Hephaestus gestured to the diagram's glowing heart, the pulsing nexus of Karl's soul-to-be.
Ayaka sat beside it, her ethereal form flickering with faint distortions. The exhaustion of existing beyond death weighed on her spirit. But she didn't care. She gazed at the projection — at the shape that would soon become her son — and smiled through the ache.
Ayaka stepped forward, her hands glowing with ethereal blue flame — the light of soul-binding. She pressed her palms against the forming chestplate, whispering softly as fragments of her own memories rippled into the circuits.
Ayaka: "You know… it's strange."
Itsuki: "What is?"
Ayaka: "Even now, I still remember the sound of the TV. Saturday mornings. That silly theme song echoing through the house…"
A flickering image formed in the air above them — a small boy, no older than seven, wearing a plastic helmet and swinging a toy sword made of cardboard.