Are you dying

managed to find you, huh? Haven't seen metalwork like you b'fore. Wonder who made you."

He twists and turns and admires the work of the mystery smith. A lucky break indeed.

"Would've been wasted on that last guy, that's for sure. Maybe it's your lucky day, too."

sea of malice and savagery, had been replaced with an expression as luminescent as the stars themselves. Believing himself to be in solitude, he allows himself a moment of jovialty and mirth; a true face that'd been buried beneath mountains of cynicism.

"Hm, today might've been a lucky day, if I

forgotten by former allies, he had been a straggler, destitute and desperate. Even now, this has hardly changed.

Something like this, a fancy sword, decently crafted, is a luxury he'd not normally have. To a samurai, his sword is everything.

Izou lifts it again, his prior mien—drowned beneath a

frankly useless estimation in all things sans survival.

'High enough' means enough for bread, and for a lowly kashi, that makes all the difference.

But... He holds the blade close, and thinks not even once of pawning it. His entire life had been a series of struggles and betrayal. Abandoned and

"And I'm sayin' I'm grateful. I won't forget this kindness."

He drinks it slowly and carefully. When he finally sets the cup down, he speaks with complete seriousness:

"I owe you my life."

... He certainly won't say no to that.

He'd say he's fine, but when he tries to speak, he just does it again.