I was just going over Juniper's adventures in Ash Knight and Blades, and something stood out to me: why was so concerned about Kurenaikaze being useless against a lightsaber? I got the impression that her sword's like Utena's Thorn of the Rose, and perfectly capable of blocking lightsabers...

Let's see, which other weapons have we seen able to act that way--Corwin's Stick (I still get a chuckle from his reasoning for the name), Anthy's Rosenjaeger, Juni's Tonerikoken, and of course pretty much any sword Kaitlyn or Gryphon pick up.

I've got two different schools of thought here:

1. Stick, Rosenjaeger and Tonerikoken are all made from the wood of Yggdrasil, so they inherently have the capability to stop a lightsaber--Utena gets by from the power she wields, not the enchantments on the Thorn. This would mean Juniper's concern is well-founded.

2. Juniper was left in the dark--that is she never realized that the enchanments on Kurenaikaze could stop a lightsaber. It could that this particular, um, capability of her sword never came up in conversation. If this were true, I don't think her mastery is in doubt, though.

   Just posting some thoughts,

   ---
   Christopher Stevenson
   Programmer/Soldier
   

LAST EDITED ON Jan-03-06 AT 03:30 AM (EST)
 
>Stick, Rosenjaeger and Tonerikoken are all
>made from the wood of Yggdrasil, so they inherently have the
>capability to stop a lightsaber

This is, at least, true of Stick and Tonerikoken. We've never seen whether Rosenjaeger has similar properties (the one time she's faced a lightsaber-wielder, Anthy wondered about it herself, and never ended up in a position to find out for certain), but it's doubtful, since that staff isn't made from a piece of Yggdrasil. It's a finely-made Draconic warstaff, but made from more conventional materials.

>Utena gets by from the power she
>wields, not the enchantments on the Thorn.

Also the case. The Thorn of the Rose's enchantments, like those of most Valkyrie weapons, primarily act on the wielder rather than the weapon itself. In the hands of its proper owner, a Valkyrie's weapon makes its handler a little quicker, a little surer, a little tougher. The Thorn's habit of appearing when needed - as when Utena needed it to parry one of Akio's strikes during their duel in Knights of the Tenth World: Endgame - is another Valkyrie-weapon trait, though not all have such power. A lot depends on how elaborate the maker was inclined to get with the workings, and when they were laid in the weapon's lifespan. A sword forged from the beginning with the intent of making it a Valkyrie's blade, like the Thorn of the Rose, is going to be more capable than a mundane weapon "adapted" with Valkyrie enchantments later on, like Juniper's .32 pistol.

Kurenaikaze is similar to the Thorn in many respects. It was forged by a master weaponsmith of Asgard and was intended to be enchanted right from the word go. It's keyed to a particular user and performs especially well in that user's hands. As time goes on and its bond with its owner develops, its abilities may expand, as the Thorn's and Stick's have. And it's made from a fantastically durable alloy that can take and hold a truly phenomenal edge - but it's not indestructible. In the hands of an ordinary person, it could probably not stand up to a lightsaber - at least not without being badly damaged.

There are metallic weapons of Asgardian make that can, but they use a much rarer and more exotic material than even Ironbridge's special alloy (which is, at its heart, still steel). Only a very few weaponsmiths and armorsmiths have the skill, the experience, and the equipment to work in uru, the mystic iron known to mortals as adamantite (and in Cephiro as escudo), and only a vanishingly small number of mines in Svartalfheim produce workable quantities of the ore.

An uru weapon, such as Thor's Mjollnir, the blades of the Rune Knights, or the reforged Heart of the Rose, could be used in a duel against a lightsaber without any worry. Kurenaikaze, ordinarily, not so much.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>I was just going over Juniper's adventures in Ash Knight and
>Blades, and something stood out to me: why was so concerned
>about Kurenaikaze being useless against a lightsaber? I got
>the impression that her sword's like Utena's Thorn of the Rose,
>and perfectly capable of blocking lightsabers...
>

I doubt that Ironbridge would do that to her. It would, after all, get in the way of her achieving Master rank, since she wouldn't be able to tell that it was her own ability that blocked the saber, and not her sword.

Peter Eng
--
I'm only a Charter Member because of the DCForum upgrade, and because there's no rank below "Clueless F!wit."