Short Story: Okinawan Kobudo Arts

“This oughta be right, yessir!”

“Yup, looks perfect!”

Rosetta had created a certain something, and Frei was looking it over in the workshop. She seemed satisfied. That certain something was a pair of large single-edged swords, but they were unusual in that they had some slight warping toward the bottom of their blades.

“So, uh, what’s the deal? This some new kind of weapon?” I asked her.

“Mm-hm! Take a look.”

Frei brandished the two blades and then crossed them so their grooved parts slid into each other, locking them at the middle. Then, she moved both of the sword hilts in tandem, prompting the blades to crisscross in a swift motion… It was kind of like looking at an oversized pair of garden shears.

“Scissorswords! If you use them right, you can cut the head off a monster easily!”

“That’s scary…”

I felt that cutting off a monster’s head was a bit grotesque, but I’d certainly done my fair share of that kind of thing in the past… Either way, Frei seemed happy to add a new lethal weapon to her collection.

“Another weird sword, huh?”

“Huh? But I made this based on a weapon you told me about, dad…”

“You did?”

I’d certainly seen weapons like this in anime and video games before, so I must’ve idly told Frei about it at some point, prompting her to get Rosetta to replicate it now.

“Do you know any other cool weapon ideas, dad?”

“Hmm… Cool weapons, huh…? I might be able to think of a few?”

A thought came to mind, and I told Rosetta to make it a reality. It was a

simple enough weapon, but I hadn’t seen it in this world before. A pair of thirtycentimeter-long sticks chained together suddenly appeared before us.

“What’s that? Some kind of flail?”

“They’re nunchucks.”

A flail was a short stick with a blunt or spiky thing attached to the end. Apparently, they were originally made to be agricultural tools before knights realized they could be adapted into more functional weapons. A popular type of flail seen in anime and manga was the ball-and-chain flail, which was commonly referred to as a ‘morning star.’ In truth, the morning star was actually a club, not a flail, and it was just a common error that was perpetuated through popular culture.

“So, uh, how do you use it?”

“Similar to a flail. You either swing it or use one of the sticks as a blunt force object.”

I started to swing around the nunchucks like a certain famous kung fu movie star and found myself surprised at how easy it was to use.

“Hiyah! Hyaaah! Hya—Ow!”

I got carried away and tried to catch it by swinging it over my shoulder and under my armpit, but I ended up thwacking my finger hard instead. It hurt!

“What move was that?”

“…It wasn’t anything specific. I just messed up.” Did she seriously think that was intentional?

“It doesn’t look like a useful weapon, really…”

“Don’t let looks deceive you, Frei. This kind of weapon is lethal in the right hands.”

“Really?”

I was almost annoyed at Frei’s lack of appreciation for the weapon, so I pulled up a video of the kung fu star I was trying to imitate.

“That’s amazing! He tangled up his enemy’s weapon!”

Frei’s eyes gleamed with excitement as she watched the man on the screen, his skill with the nunchucks far surpassing my own. After watching him for a few moments, she took the weapon from me and began to flail it around in her hands.

“Like this…and then… Hiyah!”

She began to pick up speed, and before long she was wielding the weapon in a manner that was almost identical to the professional in the video I’d just shown her. In her hands, the weapon smoothly wove through the air. She didn’t make a single slipup like I had.

“Hah!”

To finish it off, she struck a similar pose to the one in the video. How could she have mastered it so quickly? I could barely believe what I was seeing.

“This is really interesting! I’m gonna teach Linne and Allis how to use it!”

Frei toddled out of the workshop with stars in her eyes, but I could only stare on blankly.

“…Don’t worry about it, sir.”

Rosetta walked forward and gave me a pitying pat on the back. I just sighed.