Chapter 20: The Price of Recklessness
Morning had settled over the Emiya Residence with a diaphanous light that contrasted violently with the tension permeating every corner of the house. Rin Tohsaka hadn't left. Despite the fact that the "dual tutelage" was a concept that still churned her stomach, her survival instinct— and an intellectual curiosity she refused to admit— kept her anchored to the Emiya Residence. While observing the golden woman, who had appropriated a corner of the living room with the ease of someone claiming conquered territory, Rin reached an internal conclusion she would never admit out loud: she couldn't leave Shirou alone with that entity. She had to evaluate her, understand what kind of danger she represented, and above all, make sure she didn't turn her new student into a failed experiment.
Gilgamesh, lounging in the armchair she had declared her "provisional throne," pretended to read a gold-covered book she had pulled from who-knows-where. But her eyes, every so often, would drift towards the scene with a sharpness that did not escape Rin's notice. That woman's presence was like a thorn stuck in the back of her neck, a constant reminder that she wasn't the only authority figure in Shirou's education. And that, for the Tohsaka heir, was deeply irritating.
'It's not that I care what that arrogant woman thinks,' She told herself, adjusting a parchment with a brusque movement. 'But if I'm going to teach him, it'll be my way. No interference.'
— Alright, Emiya,— She began, her voice adopting the didactic tone she used when she wanted to impose order.— We're going to try something different with projection. Last time, your… "experiment"… resulted in an energetic disaster and a mechanical bird. Clearly, your Origin is interfering.
Shirou, still with a slight trace of exhaustion on his face, nodded attentively. His circuits tingled faintly after the previous day's collapse. They sat facing the table in the center of the living room.
— The theory is simple,— Rin continued, pointing to a diagram on the parchment.— Gradation Air follows specific steps: visualization of the object, understanding of its material structure, and pouring prana into that image to materialize it. The problem with you is that your mind, influenced by your Origin, rejects the mundane. So we're going to use that to your advantage.
Shirou frowned.— To my advantage?
— Think of something grand,— Rin said, with a flash of pride in her own cleverness.— Something you consider a "miracle". Something so impressive your brain can't resist it. And then, when you have that image clear, try to project a spoon. The idea is that, by focusing on the grand, the mundane will seem so… insignificant, that your power will produce it without distortion. Like a byproduct.
Gilgamesh, from her armchair, emitted a sound that could be interpreted as a stifled laugh. Rin shot her a glare, but the Queen had already returned to her book, inscrutable.
Shirou closed his eyes. "Something grand. A miracle". The words resonated in his mind. He tried to evoke an image of purity, a flash of unattainable light, something that fit his "Miracle" Origin. He visualized the impossible garden he had created, the sensation of breaking the laws of physics. He tried to force that magnitude onto the concept of a wooden spoon.
The result was absolute emptiness. His circuits hummed, but there was no physical manifestation. His brain simply couldn't process the connection. For Shirou, influenced by his very essence, it was a logical blasphemy to imagine something wonderful only to give birth to mediocrity. His magic rejected the idea of being used for the commonplace.
Rin sighed, rubbing her temples with frustration as she saw that not even the silhouette of a spoon had appeared.
— See?— Shirou said, almost apologetically.— I can't. When I think of the grand, the small gets contaminated. It's like my brain can't… conceive mediocrity.
— Your brain is a textbook saboteur,— Rin muttered, running a hand over her face.— Fine. I accept it. You can't do basic projection. Let's move on to something where there's no room for "grandiosity"
She picked up a ceramic cup that was on the table, simple, nondescript, a worn brown color.
— Reinforcement,— She announced.— Reinforcement. The most basic magecraft and, at the same time, one of the most dangerous if executed poorly.
Shirou leaned forward, interested. Reinforcement. He had heard the term in his visions, associated with battles and that other red-haired Shirou.
— The principle is simple,— Rin explained, holding the cup between her hands.— Every object has an internal structure, a conceptual and material "skeleton". Reinforcement consists of sending prana into that structure to… well, reinforce it. Make it more resistant, more durable, more "itself"— Her tone became grave.— But the danger is enormous. If the prana is distributed unevenly, if you find a weak point and overload it, the structure collapses. The object… explodes. And if the object is part of your body, you explode.
Shirou nodded, understanding the gravity.
— You're going to start with this,— Rin said, placing the cup in front of him.— It's a straight path. There shouldn't be room for your Origin to deviate. Concentrate on its structure. Feel it. Then, send a very fine thread of prana, like a caress, not a torrent. Understood?
Shirou closed his eyes. He extended his senses, just as Rin had taught him weeks ago. He perceived the cup: the porosity of the ceramic, the minuscule cracks on its surface, the density of its matter. It was a complex but simple network. A pattern.
His 54 circuits activated with a gentle flow. He identified the gaps in the cup's ceramic and, with a precision that surprised Rin, slid his energy inside. The cup glowed for a brief instant and then returned to normal.
Rin, who had unconsciously held her breath, exhaled with relief.— It worked. You did it.
Shirou opened his eyes, a smile of genuine joy lighting up his face.— Really? I did it right?
— Surprisingly, yes,— Rin conceded, her tone trying to hide her own relief.— The cup is reinforced. You can check for yourself.
Shirou took the cup, weighed it. It felt… the same, but different. Denser. More real. It was a perfect reinforcement, solid and stable. However, on the sidelines, Gilgamesh narrowed her ruby eyes. She noticed something Rin had overlooked: the cup's structure hadn't just been reinforced, it had been altered at a subatomic level, vibrating with a subtle intensity. The "Guide" smiled to herself but decided not to interfere. The spectacle was about to become interesting.
Then, with an impulsive movement, he dropped it to the floor.
The cup hit the wood with a solid, resounding thud. And it didn't break. It rolled a little and lay still, intact.
— I knew it!— Shirou exclaimed, picking it up with a wide smile.— It was so tough that it didn't even…
He stopped. An idea, dangerous and brilliant, had ignited a spark in his eyes. Rin, who was gathering a parchment, didn't notice. But Gilgamesh, from her armchair, did. Her smile widening slightly, becoming more enthusiastic.
'The cup was so tough…' Shirou thought, the idea taking shape with terrifying clarity. 'If I can do that with an object… what if I do it with myself? My body also has a structure. Bones, muscles, skin. If I reinforce it… I'll become harder to break. Stronger. Capable of protecting.'
The excitement of his first real success in magecraft, after weeks of theory and failures, clouded his judgment. He didn't think of Rin's warnings. He didn't think of the danger. He only thought of the possibility. Of strength.
He began to mimic the process. He extended his senses toward his own right arm, perceiving the intricate network of his own flesh. Bone, muscle, nerve, blood vessel. A complex and fragile map.
Then, he sent the prana.
At first, nothing seemed wrong. A blue-green light, soft and controlled, began to glow under the skin of his forearm, tracing the path of his circuits. Rin, who finally looked up, froze.
— Emiya…— Her voice was a whisper, then a scream.— EMIYA! STOP! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!
But Shirou didn't hear her. His eyes, fixed on his arm, had that hyper-focused quality he had when he created the monstrous circle. A restless, almost manic smile curved his lips. He heard nothing but the beat of his own heart and the hum of flowing prana.
— Reinforcement… on myself…— He murmured, as if in a trance.— Stronger… to protect…
— You're going to lose your arm, you idiot! STOP!
But it was too late. The blue-green light began to change. It intensified, becoming brighter, more blinding. And the color mutated, shifting towards a golden hue unlike anything Rin had ever seen in a normal reinforcement.
— What…?— Rin managed to say, paralyzed by horror and confusion.
From the armchair, Gilgamesh sat up slightly, her scarlet eyes gleaming with renewed interest. She had seen something like this before. Not in magi, but in…
Shirou, his arm blazing like a beacon of golden light, raised his hand and struck the table beside him. It wasn't an especially strong blow. There was no karateka's momentum or brute force. It was an almost casual gesture.
The table exploded.
It didn't split. It didn't splinter. It exploded into a myriad of fragments that shot out in all directions like shrapnel. Rin, with trained reflexes, instinctively activated a reinforcement on her own skin, feeling the impact of the splinters against her improvised barrier. Gilgamesh, imperturbable, didn't even blink; the wood fragments bounced off her skin as if it were steel, leaving no mark.
And then, a sound broke the silence after the explosion: a groan of pain, deep and wrenching.
Shirou fell to his knees, clutching his right arm. The golden light had gone out, revealing the aftermath. The skin on his forearm was… not broken, but distorted. There were areas where the flesh seemed to have swollen unevenly, others where it had sunk in. Burst veins drew purplish maps beneath the epidermis. His fingers hung with an unnatural limpness, clearly dislocated or fractured. It wasn't bleeding profusely, but the internal damage was evident, monstrous.
— EMIYA!— Rin lunged towards him, falling to her knees at his side. Her hands trembled as she assessed the damage without daring to touch it.— This… this is…! I told you to stop! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!
Shirou, his face pale and beaded with cold sweat, tried to smile. It was a clumsy, painful grimace.
— I'm… I'm sorry,— he gasped.— I thought… if it worked with the cup… Are… are you okay? Did the fragments hurt you?
Rin was speechless for a second. Of all the things he could have said at that moment, all the complaints, the reproaches, the apologies… he was asking about her.
— IDIOT!— She shouted, but her voice cracked.— Of course I'm fine! You're the one with the mangled arm! Don't move! Where's the first-aid kit? QUICK!
— Second… kitchen drawer…— Shirou whispered, and Rin shot towards the kitchen like an exhalation.
Meanwhile, Gilgamesh rose from her armchair and approached slowly. She knelt beside Shirou, observing his shattered arm with a mix of clinical fascination and perverse pride.
— Fascinating,— She murmured, almost to herself.
Rin returned at that moment, a first-aid kit in her hands. Seeing Gilgamesh so close, her alertness spiked.
— Get away from him!— She growled, kneeling on the other side.
— Calm down, little teacher,— Gilgamesh said, without taking her eyes off Shirou's arm.— I'm not going to hurt him. I'm just… observing. What he just did goes far beyond your simple reinforcement.
Rin, as she began to clean and bandage the superficial wounds with an efficiency that betrayed practice, looked at her suspiciously.
— What are you talking about? It's a poorly executed reinforcement. Structural overload. It's exactly what I warned would happen if…
— No,— Gilgamesh interrupted, and her voice lost all trace of mockery.— Look closely. Structural overload causes ruptures, yes. But the light of his circuits doesn't change color. It doesn't turn golden. And an overloaded arm simply tears apart; it doesn't… do that.
She pointed to Shirou's hand, where, despite the dislocations, the fingers retained a kind of residual tension, as if still imbued with that golden power.
— What he did,— Gilgamesh continued— is similar to what he attempted with projection. He took a basic magecraft and, through his Origin, transformed it into something completely different. This isn't reinforcement. This is… something else.
Rin frowned, her magus mind working at full speed. Despite her concern, curiosity got the better of her.
— So what is it?— She asked, almost against her will.
Gilgamesh smiled, a smile of pure and dangerous satisfaction.
— I've seen similar abilities, girl. In Servants. There is a capability called Mana Burst— She explained.— The ability to infuse one's own body or a weapon with prana and release it all at once, drastically enhancing physical power. The Sabers use it frequently. And there's another, darker one, called Mad Enhancement, which distorts the Berserker's sanity but grants them tremendous strength in exchange for control.
She pointed to Shirou's arm, still faintly glowing with a residual golden aura.
— What this idiot just did is a crude, instinctive fusion of both. He infused his arm with a massive amount of prana, Mana Burst, but without the necessary control to ration it, allowing the power to consume him and distort his perception, a miniature Mad Enhancement. That's why he didn't feel the pain, why he didn't hear your screams. That's why he could strike with a force far greater than his body should be able to generate without breaking.
Rin swallowed.— That… that shouldn't be possible. A human can't…
— A normal human, no,— Gilgamesh cut her off.— But he isn't normal. His Origin, that rubbish of "Miracle", doesn't just distort spells. It distorts the rules of his own body when he applies those spells. For an instant, for that very brief instant before his arm said enough, his flesh became capable of withstanding and generating that force. It was a miniature miracle. A spark of what he could become.
She stood up, looking at Shirou with eyes that seemed to contain ancient stars.
— If he ever masters this, little teacher… if he learns to control this distortion, to apply it consciously instead of by instinct… he could develop an ability that would have nothing to envy in the Mana Burst of the greatest heroes. In fact…— Her smile widened, hungry and proud.— He could surpass it. Make it his own. Something that, by right, could be called…
She made a dramatic pause, savoring the words.
— Mana Overdrive.
Rin stared at her with a mix of disbelief and an awe she couldn't hide.— Mana Overdrive? Can you just name something we don't even know will happen again?
— I can,— Gilgamesh said, with the authority of a queen.— Because I have seen it. I have seen the potential. And because it is I who names things worthy of being named in my presence. You, with your rules and your books, only see a broken arm and a reckless student. I see the dawn of a heroic-rank ability. And I name it so that, when he masters it, he knows whom to thank for the baptism.
Shirou, barely conscious through the haze of pain, heard the words. "Mana Overdrive". A grandiose name for what had been an act of pure recklessness. But deep in his being, in that place where his Origin pulsed like a second heart, something resonated with approval.
Rin, for her part, finished bandaging the arm with a brusque movement. She didn't know whether to feel more furious at Shirou's recklessness, or more frightened by what Gilgamesh had just revealed.
— Listen,— She said, her voice trembling but firm.— Whatever you just did, do not try it alone again. Do you hear me? Next time, your arm won't just be broken. It will be disintegrated. Or worse, you could cause a prana collapse that takes you and half the street with you. Understood?
Shirou nodded weakly, a grimace of pain and a spark of that manic smile still floating in his eyes.
— Understood,— He whispered.— But… it worked, didn't it? For a moment… I was stronger.
Rin opened her mouth to refute him, to tell him that strength wasn't worth it if you killed yourself trying, to scream at him that he was an idiot.
But Gilgamesh spoke first.
— Yes,— She said, with a serene and terrible smile.— You were. And you will be again. But next time, my Wandering Star, you will do it with control. Because a spectacle that only lasts a second before self-destructing is a tragedy. A spectacle that endures… is a legend.
And with that said, she retreated to her armchair, leaving Rin with the task of caring for the wounded and with the uncomfortable certainty that, no matter how hard she tried, she could not compete with the fascination that golden woman exerted over her student's destiny.
Shirou, leaning against the wall, looked at his bandaged arm. It hurt. It hurt like a thousand needles piercing his flesh. But beneath the pain, he could still feel an echo of that golden power, a promise of strength sleeping in the deepest part of his being.
'Mana Overdrive', He thought, savoring the words. He didn't know if he would try it again. But he did know one thing: he had tasted a power he would never forget. And the path to mastering it, no matter how dangerous, had just begun.
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"Mana Overdrive": LONG LIVE JOJO'S SIUUUUUUUUUUUUU XD