6: Liquid
Water cutters are a common enough manufacturing tool, using a high-pressure focused jet of water to essentially rip through material. You most commonly see them mounted above a table or some such surface. The material being cut is laid on the table, and a computer-controlled positioning system maneuvers the nozzle around to cut the desired shape out of the material. I first saw one in use while touring a factory floor at one of our manufacturing facilities and because I have little to no sense of self-preservation I got the urge to stick my hand between it and the thick plastic material it was being used to cut. Fortunately, I was not able to do so – both because that would have caused a fuss and because the distance between me and the nozzle was far greater than the length of my arm.
It was funny, because the only other time I’d heard such a use for water had been in Metal Gear Solid 2, where Metal Gear RAY uses a water cutter as a weapon (and a means of cutting a tanker in half in order to escape it, but whatever that still seems pretty fucking weapon-like to me). A liquid blade, then, would need to take a similar principle and make it portable. It didn’t take me too terribly long to figure out a method, although I confess having to wear an external water pack does not make the thing especially practical. What it does do, however, is the thing you want a sword to do, which is to say that it cuts. It also, although I have never really gotten a straight answer what with all the screaming, definitely seems to hurt when it does so.
A life of liquid sword-based murder was not exactly how I expected to be spending my early 30s, but I was always told life has a habit of surprising you. Then again, when my mother said that I doubt she was thinking “one day son, you will build an effective tool for cutting things and it will end up getting you into a shitload of trouble with both the local criminal element and the authorities.” I guess life surprised both of us there.