Chapter 474: Arc 6, - 90: Hinterhalt Part I
Even by the window’s side, the afternoon daylight shone through onto the desk by the side of the room. Articles of folded clothing stacked on top, stretched out hair ties, pens, documents—a few half-heartedly painted canvases were leaned against the legs.
Using cloth and a bowl of water, Jotou cleaned off brushes that had long dried with paint within the bristles. Eyes hazy and warm—each movement of her hands going off reflex at this point.
’I want pizza...’ The blonde grimaced. ’Might be too greasy. Is it the medicine? Hmm.. I guess pizzas in this world are less fast food-y.’ Her hands stopped working.
Realizing how slouched she was, she stretched back up in her seat, limb by limb; low mutters of relief escaped her lips until it was a full yawn. ’What if I paint my sword?’
Her ragged yellow coat was splayed across the floor. She reached down and took the blade that laid sheath-less atop it. Under the light and her gaze, the armite blade still shined as pristinely as when she first won it.
Her thumb grazed along the broad side of the sword; however unbreakable it was, it certainly would be paintable... The paint would surely fall off in flecks or dust by the time she sparked it, but that was a different problem.
All the clashes and the shocks; not a single dent or a scratch- Wait a minute. She narrowed her eyes and leaned in close; was that? Her fingernail lightly scratched a spot at the base of the blade and a flake of armite chipped off of it.
The chair scratched forward and she hunched over the table. It did not matter how much she squinted nor how much closer she got; the dots and tiny patches of discolouration were apparent.
She quickly took the towel she had been using and rubbed the sword up and down. A sword she never polished nor maintained ever since she got it.
Bit by bit, like peeling off long-dried stickers off of a wall, no more flecks came off. Now the patches, tiny as they may be, were much clearer to the naked eye. Specks of brighter platinum-golds peeked through the more faded colour of the overall blade.
There was no specific part that had a higher concentration of them, it was randomly dotted throughout. And the damp cloth splayed out in her hand had all the bits that had fallen off.
She searched through her aching mind of the cause and recalled a similar occurrence; one that caused the plates of the Frosting Wind’s armour to flake off—Beauregard’s acidity.