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[RECORDING STARTS]
AL: “Hello, Channel 42! I’m your host, Amore Lombardi, and I welcome you to another thrilling session of Death Weapon-Meister Article, or DWMA, where we cover the highs and lows and stories of YOUR favorite weapon-meister duos!”
[PAPER RUSTLING, CERAMIC CLINKING FAR AWAY]
[BRIEF SILENCE]
AL: “So… last that we left off, we had begun covering the beautiful tale of the actual DWMA ’s star alumni, Sahed and Julia Lazarrett, and found ourselves at a dead end of old articles and rumors. But, just when it seemed like all hope for knowledge was lost, we finally heard back from one of our potential guest stars! Or — uh — I guess she’s a real guest star now that she’s here? Oh, whatever! Please welcome the beautiful, wonderful, and ever so gracious Ms. Rainah Bernaud!”
RB: “Thank you, Mx. Lombardi —”
[GENTLE GIGGLE]
RB: “— it’s a pleasure to be here.”
AL: “It’s a pleasure to have you!”
RB: “You flatter me, really, and I hope that your listeners are as excited to have me in this seat as you are. I know that quite a few of them were expecting to hear from the infamous Lazzaretts themselves.”
[DELIGHTED, CURIOUS HUM]
AL: “Infamous, you say?”
RB: “Yes, I do mean infamous… I believe that anyone who went to school with those two in their first year would say the same. They might be considered the perfect partnership now, but I remember when they couldn’t stop butting heads. It caused the principal and the school quite a bit of damage!”
AL: “Seriously?! I find that hard to believe!”
[PLEASANT LAUGHTER]
RB: “Most people do, and I can’t blame them when the media at the time and even now often misinterprets their chaotic misdemeanors as just another point in their long list of services to the people. They’ve certainly earned their positive reputation, but you’d be remiss to believe that’s all there is to them.”
AL: “I see…”
[SILENCE]
RB: “I know that you take pride in your research, Mx. Lombardi, and I’ve listened to the previous episode in preparation for this interview — you really captured the current state of their resonance in what little information there is available. I was quite impressed! It’s simply in your interpretations of their earlier partnership where you fall through, and that’s really no fault of your own.”
AL: “Thank you, Ms. Bernaud… I do take pride in my research, and it makes me happy to know that one of the Lazarretts’ closest friends believes I’ve portrayed them accurately! Perhaps you could shed some light on what I’ve missed?”
RB: “Of course! Let’s see here…”
[BRIEF SILENCE]
RB: “You’ve seen the article and video feed of their first fight together, haven’t you?”
AL: “Who hasn’t? I hear that it’s still shared around the DWMA as a reference video to incoming weapons and meisters all the time, so that they can have a better idea of what the stars of the business were like at their age. It’s a beautiful fight, and the fact that it was genuinely their first together — no prior practice, no planning, all instinct — only serves to make it more impressive. They hadn’t even chosen each other as their partners yet.”
RB: “I remember everyone being just as impressed as you are now… the media hounded at the academy’s gates and demanded to interview the first year duo who had killed a ramaging kishin just like that, and nearly passed out when Julia had yelled that they weren’t an official duo yet. Her blush was chalked up to embarrassment about her relationship, which wasn’t technically wrong, but it wasn’t the full story either.
See, Sahed had been fascinated with Julia from the start. His soul vision as a meister combined with his third eye as an Ah’kon made her blinding to him, and to many of the other Ah’kon who joined the DWMA. For most of them, she was actually too bright to work with, and avoided just as much as she was admired. Which was fine with her since she had wanted to team up with her best friend — my now wife — Kamille. Sahed, however?
He couldn’t leave her alone.”
[DREAMY SILENCE]
AL: “That’s… amazing.”
RB: “Maybe now, in light of hindsight, but even I thought he was a little crazy at the time. Reductive, in my mind, to so persistently bother someone who didn’t want to be bothered for something as impulsive as a feeling. He was already the meister prodigy of the century, capable of working with any weapon that he wanted and resonating with them just as easily. But he always thought with his heart, and his heart wanted Julia to be his blade. He wanted to make Julia his death scythe.
So he nagged and flirted and talked to her and I swear to you, it was like I was watching him transform into a love sick puppy every time she reciprocated or smiled at him. She couldn’t tell that’s what it was at the time, of course, still under the belief that he was just messing with her for the fun of it… but I knew it was real when I caught him staring at her weapon form our first practical class. He was right. Julia was absolutely perfect for him — a white steel rapier so pretty I nearly thought I was hallucinating.
Hysterically, I thought, ‘she’d look beautiful in his shades of blue.’”
AL: “Your first practical class…? But… that was months before their first fight together.”
RB: “It was. That gap of time is the reason why I call them infamous among our classmates and teachers, because Sahed had gone entirely off the rails for her, jittery every time she came close and determined to make her see what he did. That fight may have been the first time she had been in his hands, but believe me when I say that what they did that day was the culmination of months worth of effort on Sahed’s part. The news called them a match made in heaven, but I think that it was really a man-made love.”
AL: “Does it bother you, then, when people talk about the Lazarretts like they’re heroes born of natural talent instead of hard work?”
RB: “I’m not sure. I know that it bothered Julia and Sahed something fierce when they were in the academy and everyone would look at them like a novelty… but I also know how the people who called them heaven-sent felt.
You do too, don’t you, Mx. Lombardi?”
[SILENCE]
AL: “I do.”
RB: “I figured as much. You hide it relatively well, but you have a certain bias and admiration for my friends that I’ve only seen in people who’ve watched them fight. What was your first encounter with them?”
AL: “I… I was one of the junior reporters who got lucky enough to take a video of their first proper soul resonance during that end-of-year dance.
RB: “Really? Lucky indeed. That soul resonance was hard earned, and came at the end of a rather rough patch between them… why don’t you explain what it looked like from the perspective of a civilian, and I’ll corroborate with my experience as an Ah’kon and weapon?”
[LIGHT LAUGHTER]
AL: “Feels a bit like you’re stealing my show, Ms. Bernaud.”
RB: “Only trying to help.”
AL: “Fair enough, I suppose… they practically use it as easy as breathing now, but the thing I remember most about their first soul resonance was how exhausted and yet victorious they’d looked at the end. Everything before that, even when I watched it back in video, was a blur of colors and lights — a flash of electric blue the shade of Ms. Lazarrett’s eyes that had swayed and danced in front of me. I know now that it was actually a fire of some sort, but it had felt like… something else at the time. Something intangible.
Their outfits caught my attention as well, if for no other reason than how appropriate they were for such a momentous occasion. A delicate white dress decorated with carefully stitched lace flowers, a high-low skirt that trailed behind her, and just two aqua blue butterflies; a little one stitched to the right side of her choker and another, larger one wrapped around her waist like wings. Even if I hadn’t seen Mr. Lazarrett’s outfit, I felt like I would have known hers was part of a set.
Of course, his was no less beautiful… not many men can pull off a look like that. The black bell sleeved top had an opening at his chest, cinched at the waist with something that had looked like a belt-corset? The cape was especially beautiful, specifically designed with butterfly patterning the same color as Ms. Lazarrett’s belt and choker butterfly, so that it also looked like he had a pair of wings when he fanned them out. And, of course, he carried her white flowers along his belt and on his chest as a corsage.”
RB: “Oh my… my wife will be quite glad to hear you describe her early work so beautifully!”
[SHOCKED GASP]
AL: “Kamille Bernaud herself had created those outfits?!”
RB: “Yes! When they had asked her to make something for them for the dance, she had jumped at the opportunity to create a matching set so intertwined that no one would dare to believe the rumors of their decaying relationship. It had sent her into quite the frenzy, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard as many random facts about butterflies as I had in the month she spent making that dress and suit. Ironically, it wasn’t even a butterfly that Sahed and Julia’s outfits ended up being based on… it was a blue tiger moth.”
AL: “Any particular reason why it had to be that one?”
[LOW HUMMING]
RB: “I think that you would understand better if you knew what Sahed and Julia looked like to the Ah’kon, and to weapons and meisters everywhere.”
AL: “Oh! Of course! I’m sorry for letting myself get so carried away.”
RB: “It’s alright… I did too. It’s a little hard not to when I meet someone so appreciative of my wife’s work — she deserves it! In any case, I doubt that any of the Ah’kon had ever believed the rumors surrounding Sahed and Julia’s relationship, even if they were a bit worried about them. To us, their colors and flares had melded into one another so deeply that we could barely tell them apart when we closed our first two eyes. Despite whatever issues they were working through, that single fact had never changed.
Their soul resonance took that beautiful blend of colors — deep reds and vibrant blues combined with shades of gold — and dialed it up to eleven. Almost none of the Ah’kon on that battlefield were able to look away when it happened, and none of the Ah’kon I talked to any of the times after were able to say differently. If Julia’s color alone had nearly blinded us, hers and Sahed’s had filled our eyes with a spectrum we had never seen. Souls in resonance always look beautiful, and none more beautiful than theirs.
Theirs was made of fire and light and the animals seeking it.”
AL: “Amazing…”
RB: “It was. It still is.”
AL: “Do you —”
[VIOLENT RINGING]
[SURPRISED SHOUTING]
AL: “Darn it!”
RB: “Is that perhaps the signal that we should wrap this up?”
AL: “Yeah, it is… I’m usually better at keeping track of the time, but I guess I was a bit lost in the interview today. Thank for joining Death Weapon-Meister Article , Ms. Rainah Bernaud! Your account of Sahed and Julia Lazarrett has given me and my viewers insight into one of the most beautiful weapon-meister duos in the world, and I won’t ever forget what you have done for me today.”
RB: “It was my pleasure, Mx. Lombardi, and I hope that Sahed and Julia will find themselves on your show one day. They’re a bit… preoccupied at the moment, but rest assured that they’ll give an even better interview when they return.”
[RECORDING ENDS]