*Shirou's Shed*
Walking into his shed, Shirou picked up his book and started reading "If you're reading this, then you didn't fry your brain by accident or maybe had someone to teach you how to safely use structural grasp.... Congratulations Kiritsugu.
Now, let's delve into the realm of Reinforcement, or as some Magi prefer to call it, Strengthening. Reinforcement is an elementary spell that is extremely difficult to master since its purpose is pushing a basis to the utmost limit. In this era, it is the foundation of all Magecraft that enhances the existence of the target by pouring and augmenting it with your prana.
This infusion leads to a temporary augmentation of the target's attributes, whether it's the sharpness of a knife or in the case of a pickaxe more durability, but if used on living organisms it would increase its physical strength, speed, durability, and maybe something else unknown to me at the point of time I am writing this.
To wield Reinforcement effectively, one must possess an intimate comprehension of the subject's internal structure—a task made daunting without the intricate knowledge provided by Structural Grasp or an advanced variation thereof. With the goal being of filling in the openings or hollows inside of the object you're trying to reinforce with your prana, and then incase it with your prana.
But be warned that even knowing the complete inner structure of the object, it's still hard to fill up the object's openings and hollows while also encasing the object. As such, many, many, many of your attempts will end in utter destruction.
I mustn't forget to mention that failed Reinforcements often lead to instantaneous obliteration of the object. There are exceptions, of course; exceptionally sturdy objects, such as tanks, might withstand such failures, but even then, an explosion is a real possibility.
Now... go Learn how to Reinforce... And be careful "
Shirou finished reading out loud.... while mentally apologizing for taking Earth's od or prana... he knows what's it's like to be leeched on... Even if he couldn't fathom the pain that the Earth must feel of having so many people syphoning out its life force every day...
.
.
.
Deep in thought, he let out a heavy sigh, reflecting on the intricacies of Reinforcement. "You need to comprehend the inner workings of objects, infuse them with prana, and then envelop them," he muttered to himself, mentally chastising his impulsiveness. before realizing... he realized that he'd gone to great lengths to draw his own blood, only to now question if that sacrifice was even needed when he could have learned this earlier and created food which he could have reinforced ?
.
.
.
"Why does it always seem like I'm learning things the hard way?" he wondered aloud, frustration tainting his voice.
A sudden fit of laughter erupted, though it held no mirth, but rather a bitter irony. He clutched his sides, trying to quell the laughter even as it intensified. It was a painful reminder of the absurdity of his recent actions.
He didn't even let her know that he fed her his blood.
Collecting himself, he resolved to think and wait a bit more before doing something as Shirou starts looking for a knife -since it seems structural grasp works better on knives than maybe reinforcement will also- and when he finds one, he creates his nerve circuit " Trace On " and uses structural grasp on the knife and tries to find the openings which he found pretty easily thanks to structural grasp and tries to fill them up....
He sees his *prana* pour into the hollow parts of the knife which he's done pretty easily this is just like structural grasp as his hands shake slightly... now he has to encase the object with *Prana*... But how ? What was this 'aura' he needed to envision around the knife?
I mean what even is an aura ?
"An aura... energy surrounding something," he contemplated, seeking an image for guidance.
So, what does... look like energy... while surrounding something.... like...
Then, a vivid image flashed through his mind – fires enveloping buildings and people, a destructive force.
....Fires surrounding the buildings and people as they burn....
He feels it the knife in his shaking hands being encased in his- *Bang*....
" What " Shirou muttered, bewildered, as he examined his injured and shaking hand, the remnants of the knife embedded in his flesh not even reacting to it as drops of blood flow out of his new wounds.
Questions raced through his mind. Why had the knife exploded? He pondered this as he gingerly removed the embedded pieces, each extraction drawing more blood, which curiously healed at a much slower pace than his previous, more severe injuries. Much slower than when bigger holes were in his body...
He remembers that the scabbard was the reason for his quick recovery and so using structural grasp on himself seeing the damage is indeed being repaired even slower, so looking and finding the scabbard he notices that... the glow is slightly smaller ?
Did... Does it ?
Does the scabbard has less and less energy inside of it ?
But how does he recharge it ?
It's not like with his phone, right ?
There's nothing like a charger for a scabbard... Maybe he should try to fill it up with his own *Prana* ?
Wouldn't hurt to try-...
But wait ?
If that doesn't work..
Doesn't that mean he shouldn't use that * heal * magecraft anymore ?
Well, he will think about this more when he finished reinforcement and learns how to successfully infuse an object with Prana.
Looking for another Knife Shirou finds it and sees that he has only about 9 more.... he will need to go buy more....Using structural grasp on the knife he repeats the same thing but this time he's holding the knife far away while hiding behind a box... he doesn't know how much energy the scabbard has... and he doesn't want to die without completing his promises...
Filling the hollow parts of the knife with *prana* and began to visualize it, pouring his prana around the knife, engulfing it like flame's.
While at the same time he creates another nerve circuit feeling his first one already being exhausted and use's it for structural grasp to see what is going wrong-!
Bang !
...
..
.
Welp at least this time he's hurt way less, Shirou thinks while with shaking hands picks out most of the shards
And also, did he see it correctly ? When he stopped pouring his Prana into the cracks and hollows parts of the blade, and moved on to surrounding the knife in a flaming aura type *prana* thing... The prana seemed like it just... flew off ? into random directions as his concentration stopped from filling up the hollow parts.
So, the reason it didn't work is that when I move from filling the hollow parts of the knife with Prana to surrounding it... I'm not there to keep it in place hm... Maybe I should try surrounding the knife in Prana before filling up the holes in it?
Picking up his 3rd knife Shirou tries to surround it with od... and it works... for 2 seconds before it starts to break apart... into dust.... What would happen if used on humans?! .... Why did it even break apart into dust?.... Staring at the dust Shirou tries to structural grasp it and sees.... that it was crushed by his * Prana * into the holes more and more very quickly making the metal grind into each other turning it into dust...
Ok, you NEED to fill up the holes first... But how do I make it stay in place while surrounding the knives in *Prana*?
Unknow to Shirou for now but he wasn't actually using prana but just od. And as you usually use prana for EVERY single one mystery in magecraft even structural grasp. The reason he doesn't have access to prana is because... he doesn't have a single magic circuit just 0.0000000000000000027 of a circuit if not millions of zero's more or maybe even infinity zero's more. The 2nd reason is because... He creates the WEAKEST magic circuits from his nerves... So weak actually that they don't get consumed and heal pretty quickly * naturally *.... If we're talking about the quality of the circuit then the low-quality circuit produces 10 units of prana while Shirou's nerve circuit barely produces a measly 1 unit of od, not even prana !... If not even less!
Shirou's nerve circuits are 10000 times weaker than the worst circuits known to magi because his nerve circuits are only able to produce od and not Prana since they are too weak to absorb mana from the environment.
Anyways, the reason why you use prana in every single spell is because - while not being anywhere near the most important reason - prana doesn't fly off like od and stay's there powering the spell. Prana is much heavier because it's the combination of bough mana and od..... Well, mostly Mana since mana is Earth's od and earth's life force is big meaning it's really big and heavy for that reason most if not all magi have a hard time absorbing mana since it doesn't flow towards you and if it does it's really, really slow not even talking about how much room it takes in your circuit before they both combine and become prana.... And also, because the Earth is fighting against you...
Anyways for what time today, Shirou tries to think of how to make his od stay in place while looking at the pile of metal dust... He has to make it stay in still.... What makes things stay still.. or slow it down at least?
So, he need's to make his * Prana * move slower.
'Hm, what makes a human slower... Cold?' Shirou thinks but shakes his head he obviously doesn't know any ice magecraft and how do you freeze * prana *?... Gravity?.... How the fuck do you control gravity?!.... If it's possible it's way out of his league....Air? He heard air sometimes makes a person slower.... But the same problem as ice...
...Weight?... Shirou quickly googles what weight is and he finds out.... No, he can't since its gravity that like he said he can't control and mass..... Wait... He doesn't need to control gravity since it's always pushing down.... He would just need to increase the mass of od... How would he do that? He quickly googles what mass is and sees that its just size or a couple of objects crowded together... So, it won't work since a maximum amount of size of * Prana * can be put into an object or otherwise it will explode from overflowing like with his earlier problems with structural grasp....
Shirou was about to think of something else, before reading a word on the what people also google...
Compress .... and he sees the meaning of compressing is making something smaller but with the same weight.... This... This might actually work.... He has to create enough od to make it heavy enough to fly away slower... and then condense it.... it really might work... But...
Shirou quickly shakes those off he survived two different hells and lived! He has promises to keep... No, he NEEDS to complete his promises and with renewed determination...
"Trace On" Shirou creates some circuits that create od, and in his mind grabs his od into his hand feeling almost no weight... "Trace On" Shirou creates another nerve circuit that's creating more * prana * and grabs it into his hand also combining them making them bigger and feels the * Prana * become a small bit heavier...And he starts repeating this process over and over again creating 126 nerve circuits and he feels it... the * prana * is almost as heavy as well something heavy... 'This should be enough right ? ' Shirou thinks looking at the * prana * that's as big as his hand.... Now... To compress it... to make it smaller.
Shirou places his other hand on the * Prana * and starts to press on it.... trying to crush it into something like a really, really small ball... 'And it's working!!! It's really working !!!' Shirou screams in his mind with a grin looking at the imagined * Prana * in his hand that's so small you almost didn't notice it....So small... that it looks....
Shirou shake's his head not wanting to get distracted and lets the orb of * Prana* go.... and it stays there... He see's that it's floating away, slowly... really, slowly away...Now he should try using reinforcement...
Picking up another knife Shirou creates another 126 nerve circuit... Just now realizing the absurdity of that number..... He sure is happy that Kiritsugu taught him math...
Now he knows how many nerve's he's * sacrificing * every time...
Anway's aside from his sarcastic side... Picking up a knife
He tries to fill in the hollow parts of the knife... after doing it Shirou starts trying to envelop the knife in * Prana *. Not even hidding behind a box to stay safe... he's conf... No, he knows this will work...
So, Shirou opening his eyes, sees.... the knife is glowing, exactly the same way as with structural grasp. But he's not using structural grasp anymore... Shirou quickly picks up another knife and starts pressing his reinforced knife onto the normal... And it easily cut's through it...Like cutting vegetables with a really sharp knife...
Still, he has to practice a bit more.... Looking down Shirou sees a couple of knives left... Now he picks up another knife and reinforces it... Which is a bit easier than before... the same as with structural grasp, the more he used it the easier it got... His hand's while still shaking are
Anyways he now presses his old, reinforced knife and the new one against each other in an x shape away from himself. After a couple of moments, Shirou sees that they won't cut each other for a while so he stops and takes a look at them. His old one seems to be more damaged than his new one, quickly structural grasping them bough he sees that there is practically no difference between them.
So why is his old one...Neverminded he sees that his reinforcement is still destroying the objects from the inside slowly. That explains why his old knife is in worse state than new one, looks like he still has a long way to go, or atleast in the way so that his reinforced objects don't destroy themselves...
After practicing his reinforcement on his last knives over and over again until they become useless and when they did, he started using his reinforcement on spoons or forks. Which he found out like structural grasp, his reinforcement works better on knives... And he really can't find or think of a reason as for why....
He was shaken out of his thoughts by his phone buzing looking down he sees a broadcast for the weather for the next week... He also sees the time... and realizes that he was in here for hours... Shirou quickly scrambles up and runs into Sakura's room. And see that she was still out cold... And he smells her, losing her prana.
Shirou was about to cut his hand to draw blood... Before remembering what he thought earlier ...Could he reinforce some food or water to feed her... Since well... He's not comfortable with feeding an unconscious Sakura his blood.... Well, it wouldn't hurt to try... So, Shirou quickly runs into his kitchen and reinforces his ingredients... Which was hard.... Really...Really hard... Who knew that so many germs were on his ingredients.... As he gets another idea and so uses his reinforcement on them but fails it on purpose causing them to break apart or in some cases explode killing... Confirming his theory, if he's in a pinch he could destroy someone with failed reinforcement.
After that, he realized he has to reinforce his cooking utensils since when he tried to cut the meat it was hard enough to stop his butcher knife... and make his hand already shaking hands, shake even more.... after reinforcing his butcher knife he was about to cut the meat before stopping realizing that he might cut the cut board in half.... So, he reinforces the cut board....'Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to cook with reinforcement...' A really tired Shirou thinks. With all the self-made nerve circuits.. compressing his * Prana * into a small balls... then using so many structural grasp and reinforcements in a single day... But he has to... It's for Sakura!
Also, for cooking... but mostly for Sakura !
So, with renewed determination Shirou quickly cooks the reinforced food which took way longer than he expected and walks into Sakura's room with a lot of food. He sees that she's still sleeping and this actually worries him a bit.. Why is she sleeping so long?.... Walking to Sakura, Shirou places a hand on her shoulder and tries to shake her... But after a few minutes of nothing happening, Shirou gets an idea... Remembering how she reacted to his structural grasp earlier Shirou apologizes under his breath and tries to structural grasp again....
"NOOOOO!" Sakura woke up with a scream cutting of his structural grasp. Shirou quickly brings her into a hug while she continues screaming..."Are you okay?" Shirou asked after Sakura calmed down a bit. Sakura nod's her head looking a bit pale " You have to eat this" Shirou said bringing her, his reinforced plate of food. Sakura looked at the plate before smiling a bit "Thank you Shirou but I'm no..." "You have to eat this" Shirou interrupted her with a glare surprising her since as far as she remembers, Shirou never glared at her...
So quietly, Sakura grabbed the plate of food and takes a bite...And her mind explodes "aaaah" Sakura moans and blushes immediately, but you can't blame her this is the most delicious thing she ever ate. And before long she finished her plate not realizing her prana is recovering, but Shirou does smelling her prana recovering making him sigh in relief "Are you okay Sakura?" Sakura gets a confused expression since she already told him that she's fine... didn't she?
"I already told you that I'm fine Shirou" Sakura tells him again but gets more confused when Shirou shakes his head "No I meant... I meant you're prana... Something was taking it from you..." Shirou tells her shocking her.... But she guesses it's not so surprising since his mother is a magus..."I thought you weren't a magus" Sakura said since she was 100% sure Shirou wasn't a magus. "I didn't know you were one too... " Shirou said looking at her making her look down, Shirou became guilty and tried to change the subject "I became one not too long ago..."
Sakura was about to say something else... But then she felt them... they are turning and wrenching inside of her... meaning...Her grandfather....He's coming here! Why is he coming here and not Shinji?! "Shirou I have to go home!" Sakura tries to save Shirou from her grandfather....
But he doesn't react....
His minds is filled..
With thousands of people crying in misery and pain....
Shirou not only see's it... but feels it.... The pain of Thousands... The despair of thousands... Without thinking Shirou gets up and walks towards his front door.... When he got there he opened it seeing a really old man in a robe walking towards him...
The old man stops for a moment and looks at him showing Shirou his completely black eyes.... Shirou starts walking towards him with no fear...."You're not human." Shirou says standing less than 8 feet from the old man who stares at him "Bring me Sakura." The old man....
No, the old thing says and Shirou declares " You won't get her. " The old thing grunts at him "What's stopping me from taking her from you" The old thing says unleashing his magical power that's pressing onto Shirou and making Shirou feel the pain of countless others increasing..."GRANDFATHER DON'T!" Sakura running towards them screams breathing heavily by the second "DONT HURT SHIROU!!! I WILL GO WITH YOU!" Sakura pleads with her grandfather walking towards them....
But Shirou grabs her hand...
Not again...
Not another person will suffer or die because of him...
" Run home. " Shirou says not taking his eyes from her grandfather... Thinking about how to make him leave...Since the old thing is... something similar to a spirit...More *Human* But pretty similar to what Avenger is.... And Shirou doesn't think he has a way to get rid of a spirit permanently especially when it's this strong....
No
wait
Maybe...He might have something that can... But he doesn't know for sure....
"Sakura come here now" The old man commanded flaring his power, Sakura collapses to the ground.
"AAAAHHHH!!!"
And starts screaming, Shirou quickly drops next to her feeling her pain. Glaring at the old thing.... Shirou grins.... This might actually help him scare off the old thing!
Sakura's grandfather is confused by the arrogant boy's grin and then he felt it... He immediately recognizes it... The curse that burned everything and everyone...
The curse that he is more than sure will destroy everything about him...
The old man thing sees blue... Unknown words to him... appearing on the boy and Sakura stops screaming....
"W-What are you doing ?!" The old thing just noticed that his main worm is afraid...Afraid for the first time in hundreds of years.... From this boy.... This is dangerous... He fought many...Many other magus... And he became arrogant.... This was a mistake... He guessed the boy here was a magus and he came here underprepared with no information... He thought it would be a useless boy from a weak family barely able to breathe from the prana he's exerting... And now he finds out that the boy has a curse... No, seems to be able to control the curse that killed millions in the fire...
Even if it's a lesser version...
"Leave." Shirou interrupts the old thing from thinking any further, unleashing more of his curses. Terrifying Sakura's grandfather so much that even his body is starting to shake a small bit "Leave Now" Shirou continues his voice darkening, curses increasing and overpowering the old things prana....Realizing that he's in serious danger and even if he does kill the boy... What will happen after?.... The boy before dying could create another fire... And there is no way he could survive the fire so close to it.... Grunting the old man stops releasing his prana.... "What is your name boy..." The old man says wanting to learn the identity of the boy..."Go fuck yourself..." Shirou said not wanting to give anything to this thing anything...
"My name is Zouken Matou of the Matou family." The thing, now named Zouken said trying to instill some fear into the boy.... Shirou just continues glaring at Zouken with a grin... that started to grow...'I have bad luck my ass!' Shirou thinks realizing that this could also be turned into an advantage... "My name is...." Shirou pauses to increase his grin "Shirou..." Zouken glares at the arrogant boy...."Emiya..."
He will kill his pathetic excuse of a grandson for sending him here!!!! Zouken screams in his mind. Not only is he facing someone with a curse, that makes even him scared! He's possibly facing the son of the magus killer, the bogey man of the moonlit world!!! He has to get away quickly!!!!!
NOT EVEN TALKING ABOUT HIM HAVING SAKURA SO CLOSE TO HIM !
And knowing the previous Emiya with everything she has done...
Zouken quickly turns away and starts walking not showing his fear knowing an Emiya will capitalize on it...
Not knowing Shirou feels his fear... In midst of thousands screaming, he feels Zouken's fear increase hearing his family name... 'Thank you Kiritsugu...And you too Avenger ' Shirou thanks in his mind for all the help they did...
As the monster disappears....
"Shirou?... Where is my grandfather " Sakura said not screaming nor breathing hard looking around... Before she locks on his arms... or more accurately the blue cursed words. Which Shirou quickly removes and bringing her to a hug he says
"Your safe.... You're safe here... He will no longer touch you... "
' Safe... '
Sakura... heard her mind repeat.... Tears start falling down from her eyes...Tears of happiness...
She's Safe !
She's free!!!
"T-Th-Thank You Shirou!!!" Sakura screams in gratitude crying on Shirou's shoulder...
Shirou smiled..."I promised you... You're safe here..." Shirou says calmly while rubbing her back...After a while, it started to rain..."Let's go home Sakura" Shirou says and Sakura -who stopped crying and just stayed there wanting to be next to her savior... Her Hero....- Smiled and nods...Finally... she has a house where she's safe....
To be continued.
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