*Continuation*
"...What is he?" Shirou asked Sakura immediately when they walked into his house after he checked and double-checked that the thing wasn't around anymore with his sense of smell and ... what should he call it? ... you know when he senses evil things?... dark sense? Let's go with dark sense.
Knowing that he was talking about her grandfather she starts shaking her head "I... I-I don't know...." She really doesn't, all that she knows is that those... disgusting things are involved "But.... But...." Which she can't even talk about... The things those do... THE THINGS HE DID TO HER WITH THE-!
Shirou interrupted HER thoughts with a hug, and she realized she was shaking... from those memories... But Shirou like a hero... will always protect her...
When Sakura started talking or at least started to try to speak trough her tears. Shirou immediately felt it... The hatred, The shame.... THE DESPAIR...
All of it coming out of Sakura and growing by the seconds. And the more it grew the familiar it felt.... Like... Avenger...
Overwhelmed by the torrent of Sakura's emotions but more importantly her tears, Shirou instinctively drew her to himself, hugging her... Protecting her. Absorbing her pain, despair, and anger. He was determined to shield her from this anguish, even if he couldn't fully understand its source or meaning.
And so absorbed he started to absorb the pain, and anguish from Sakura...
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And continued to absorbe...
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And still continued to asborb-
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' How much!!! HOW MUCH DOES SHE HAVE!!! ' Shirou's inner voice roared in anger and frustration. He couldn't fathom the depths of Sakura's torment, and he seethed with anger at the one who had inflicted this suffering upon her.
She almost had as much as the park! How can she have so much!? What happened to her?! What did that thing do to her?!
Shirou snaps out of those thoughts when Sakura hugged him back and buried her face in his neck.
He sighs quietly 'Looks like I won't be getting any answers...' Shirou thinks to himself before he notices that Sakura's whole body started to crush him slightly... and he realized.... she fell asleep against him while hugging him...
'Sigh.... Welcome, home Sakura' Shirou thinks fondly and tries to get out of the hug...
And failed...
Huh....
'Never knew she was... clingy?' Shirou thinks trying to get out of the hug again... and failed again... dam she has one strong grip...
"Shi-rou-Kun..." Shirou hears Sakura say in his neck confusing him slightly "Hero...." She finishes quietly... but Shirou heard since she was so close to his ear.
The word hung in the air, making Shirou's mind churn with thoughts. ' But... I'm not a hero ' he contemplated, a sense of unworthiness and... Dread ? washing over him. ' I... Didn't even do anything to become a hero. '
He then feels her move slightly in his hands.
"She won't be comfortable like this" Shirou says with a blank look in his eyes, quietly trying to shake off those thoughts.
After trying 2 more times and failing with Sakura groaning in protest.
Thinking for a bit Shirou realizes... he could try to reinforce his body... But he never tried it on himself.
Well, what's the worst can happen? It's not like he wouldn't have tried it later, and the sooner the better as he might need it against that thing that calls itself Sakura's grandfather.
So.... how will he do this? Maybe like with items fill up the holes with od? But does the body have holes? Maybe pour his * Prana * into his muscles?
*Trace On*
Using structural grasp Shirou *sees* inside of himself and starts to pour his compressed *Prana* into his arm where the ... muscles are? What are muscles? he might have not thought this trou-?!
' FUCK !!! '
'Definitely didn't think this through!' Shirou berated himself mentally. Swiftly, he employed Structural Grasp on himself once more, witnessing his Prana mercilessly shred what he once believed were his muscles.
Quickly casting structural grasp on himself Shirou sees his what he though was muscles being shredded by his * Prana * with no mercy.
Quickly stopping the flow of the * Prana * in his arms. Shirou breath a small sigh of relief because his arm is starting to hurt less, the scabbard probably healing him.
Alright so maybe he should have looked up or read in the book, how to reinforce his body. But unable to move to get his phone in his pocket because of Sakura and because his arm is shredded while the other arm can't get past Sakura.
'Wait....If it got shredded did it mean that...' Shirou thinks to himself and tries to reinforce his other arm Shirou repeats everything, but this time uses his normal * Prana *, not compressed.
He will try small then get it stronger/more compressed trough slow progress.
And... so slowly and steadily he begging's the process.
*Inhale*
Shirou takes a deep breath feeling slight pain from his one good arm but its manageable, it appears he was right. His body is just couldn't handle the power, which is stored inside of his soul not even talking about its compressed form, his completely destroyed - healing - arm being the proof.
As he sees his arm being filled with * Prana * and carefully compresses it more and more but is careful to not overdo it uncaring of the pain, the failed one hurting way more.
The sight of his arm being gradually infused with Prana, its fibers strengthening with every moment, was a testament to his resilience. Careful not to overdo it, he channeled his Prana into his arm, sculpting it into a formidable bastion of strength... at least compared to his size of body and untrained body.
So now with his reinforced arm Shirou carefully breaks out of her grasp and quickly grabs her waist to stop her from falling and with his other damaged arm grabs her knees taking her in a bridal carry.... in a comical bridal carry because it's a 12-year-old carrying an 11-year-old girl to what he decided by himself, her room.
*Shirou's shed*
After placing Sakura gently into her bed, Shirou immediately walked into his shed. His arm was healed, but like always when he uses magecraft, trembles, a testament to the immense strain it had endured.
Picking up the book Shirou starts reading "Congratulations... Well, that's if you didn't die from reinforcement. But if you are reading this and didn't skip reinforcement for it being hard and dangerous, then really congratulations for being able to use such a difficult mystery even if you might have had help... Anyways the next mystery that you need to learn is Gradation Air or as some people call it Projection Magic.
Projection is a practice involving the materialization of objects, in accordance to the caster's imagination, through the use of Prana. Gradation comes from the fact that the created object slowly fades away after being created."
'Wait...You mean you can create anything you want ?!' Shirou screams in his mind already imagining what he can do with it. He can create money and use it even if it disappears, he can still use it right? Not even money if he can, he can just create priceless items or gems and trade them for money... Or he can create bullets and guns, so he doesn't have to worry about his ammo problem or never having a weapon!'
Shirou continues reading "Another problem with projection is that the items created are brittle and hollow being easily broken and the more complex the item you're trying to project the more prana it costs that's not even talking about Gaia's influence... I will write about Gaia latter in the book if I can... Anyways what I mean to say is that gradation air is a useless Magecraft that people usually is discarded... which I agree with, and because of that I recommend you don't spend too much time with it. Just be able to project something simple like a scalpel, vial, piece of paper... or just maybe a pen or pencil, like I said this is a useless Magecraft its only useful for learning the next mystery called Alteration.
The concept behind this Magecraft is rather simple, to shape magical energy into the material composition and design of an object that is being imagined by the magus, the better the image in the caster's imagination, the more stable and longer lasting the object will be, and it can be further improved by having technical knowledge of its construction, such as a blueprint, or having materials to overlay the desired shape upon.
I recommend you use structural grasp on something simple or find a blueprint for an item you want to project at first and then slowly but surely just try to project something with your own imagination.
Now.. go learn Gradation air.... Just don't spend to much time learning it."
'Sigh...Well, I guess I shouldn't have expected to learn something overpowered so early from the start' Shirou thinks with a sigh and quickly finds something to structural grasp and then try to project, which was a small wrench.
"Trace On"
Shirou says quietly and turns his nerves into magical circuits, using structural grasp on the wrench Shirou finds out as much as he can about it, after doing that Shirou keeps in mind what he learned just now.
he closes his eyes and tries to create the item already having everything in mind...
When he opens his eyes, he sees himself... Infront of the anvil... and grabbing the forging hammer and starts banging the anvil imagining creating the wrench...
*Bang*
*Bang!*
*Bang!!*
*Bang!!!*
*Crack!!!!*
And the.... thing? Because there is no other way to call it, breaks apart... And Shirou wasn't disappointed about the destruction of that thing... wrench? Because it definitely wasn't going to be a wrench.
Shirou was about to leave his little world... before " Try hypothesizing the basic structure" quickly Shirou turned around "Avenger?" Shirou asked "How are you here isn't this my ima...gination..." Shirou finished after looking around and sees that he is in what Avenger called his own little world... Huh... though this and his imagination were different.
Turning to Avenger again he sees her... giggling behind her hand..."*giggle* Your so cute when your confused Shirou" Avenger said before continuing "This place is connected because you started to create your, what you call, nerve circuits from your nerves and this place is connected to your soul and magic circuits usually connect the soul to the body. What I mean is this place is connected to your magic circuits which are connected to this place." She finishes explaining it to Shirou making him nod since it does make some sense.
Before remembering she said something earlier " Avenger, you said something about hypothesizing the basic structure? You mean like my structural grasp? But wouldn't that just make me use my structural grasp instead of gradation air?" Shirou asked with a puzzled look on his face.
Avenger stared at him...before she just smiled at him mischievously "Who knows, won't hurt to try right?"....
Lie...
Lies...
Lies!
Unseen by both of them but a curse is glowing on Shirou's body.... the curse of trust.... Or in this case it is becoming the curse of mistrust.... and being enhanced more by being near Avenger, Who you could practically call the goddess of curses.
'She's hiding something' Shirou think shaking his head of the curse of lies and looking back at her he sees... her disappearing humming.
But before she disappeared she heard Shirou whisper " What are you hiding.. "
And the curse of trust/mistrust stops glowing.
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...'Fuck...' Thats the word his mother used when she tried cooking once more after she read the whole cookbook, but everything still burned down, and she grumbled something which ended with gin... But when he asked her what it meant she just blankly slapped her face and explained that its a bad word meaning something bad happened and that she will explain it more in the future.
Shirou doesn't know why but that words for some reason came to his mind right now and for him felt like summarized the whole situation right now with Avenger... ' What the fuck is she hiding ? ' Shirou thinks...
...
But unable to think of anything and he could just ask her, when he sees her next time ?
With a self-disappointing sigh, he turns around and walks back to the anvil and starts the process this time using all of the seven steps of his structural grasp.
Picking up the hammer Shirou imagines hitting his od with the hammer
*BANG*
Judging the concept of creation.
*BANG*
Hypothesizing the basic structure.
*BANG*
Duplicating the composition material.
*Crack!*
And a crack started appearing on what looked like.... Exactly the same wrench he structurally grasped! Though not finished, it looks like his od was to weak and couldn't handle it being transformed into something else.
Letting go of the od he sees its starts to disappear into blue particles similar to Avenger disappearing into red particles.
But... The wrench was going so well he will just need to add and compress more * Prana * and it should hold on.
And so with compressed od on the anvil Shirou bring down his hammer and...
Judging the concept of creation.
*Thud*....
The hammer did nothing to the compressed * Prana *...
So, he probably added and compressed too much * Prana * didn't he ?
Removing some of it he brings the hammer back down again and it seems to be going well, it looks more and more as a wrench-!
*Crack*
' What ? ' Shirou thinks seeing the piece of a wrench cracking which grows and then it releases a small explosion, causing the rest of the wrench to cracks making Shirou realize to let go of the wrench and run.
* Bang ! *
Exploding which Shirou thankfully survived since the * Prana's * explosion was weak.
And so, he lays there.... staring at the bright blue sky endless sky feeling the back side of his body hurting from the explosion.
' This will take a while... ' Shirou thinks getting up while groaning ' What went wrong ? ' Shirou knows for sure that, that shouldn't happen since that part was compressed.... But other than that, he really doesn't know what went wrong...
And so, he tries again.
Judging the concept of creation.
* Bang !*
And again.
Judging the concept of creation.
* Bang ! *
And again.
But this time the point that always explodes first, he makes it with normal * Prana * instead of the compressed version if anything for the explosion to maybe become weaker.
Judging the concept of creation.
*Thank*
All right going good.
Hypothesizing the basic structure.
*Thank*
' Going very good ! ' Shirou now wanting to add more * Prana * and compresses it remembering that the original wrench was slightly degraded there.
Duplicating the composition material.
*Thank*
Yes, it seems to be working !
And before he realized he was...
Imitating the skill of its making.
No... even now he's not realizing that he's imitating the skill of its making.
*Thank*
Sympathizing with the experience of its growth.
Shirou doesn't know why but he used structural grasp on the not finished wrench and decreased the odd in it and releases its compression.
*clang*
It now feels like hitting metal with metal
*Clang*
Reproducing the accumulated years.
*Clang*
And finally...
Excelling every manufacturing process!
*CLANG!*
After the final hit Shirou with closed eyes and a grin as big as it can be!
he screams out !
"TRACE ON!"
Not knowing why but felling the urge to use his Aria
Shirou puts as much od as he felt needed inside of the wrench.
And finally opens his eyes seeing he's in the real world... holding a wrench with another wrench that he structural grasped lying on the floor...