Is anyone still here? Here we go!
PS. I divided the chapter into two parts. This is part one of what happens when Shiki receives actual guidance and how other fates collide.
Shiki passed Shirou an iced bottle of sports drink, which the boy greedily chugged down.
Souujurou stood opposite them in his usual clothes; a black t-shirt, a brown leather jacket, and slim jeans.
They had just finished their training with the man and were trying to catch their breath as they heaved and gagged on the floor.
"Shirou...are you a virgin right now?", Souujurou asked casually.
Shirou coughed and involuntarily spat out a huge mouthful of his drink, spraying Shiki's face with a torrent of lukewarm liquid.
"Hey!?", Shiki complained as he scrambled away from Shirou's side.
"S-sorry...", Shirou choked out.
It took another few seconds before Shirou finally got his bearings back.
Tossing over a clean towel to his drenched friend with an apologetic nod, Shirou then turned to the source of his troubles with an incredulous look on his face. Shiki huffed but let out a small sigh as he started to clean his face in silence.
Souujurou stared back at him without the slightest hint of embarrassment.
"Well?", he asked.
"...What sort of question is that!?", Shirou complained. "Of course I'm still a-a-...I'm still 14!"
"A very strong man who Alice called a Demonic Halfblood, one that goes by the name Kouma Kishima if I remember correctly...he said something about the correlation between hormonal growth, masculinity, and sexual experience."
"What-how-what did you ask him to enter that topic!?", Shirou spluttered. Souujurou raised an eyebrow.
"I asked him the best method to non-violently boost the martial prowess of a young boy."
Shirou buried his head into his hands with a groan. Shiki patted his friend's shoulder with pity etched onto his face. Souujurou continued, not once minding his student's antics as he spoke with his signature nonchalant attitude.
"Your growth is quite astounding, even if you take into account the fact a large portion of your body is artificial. So I thought that you might have been, in Kishima's words: 'spreading your strong seed'."
Shirou let out a soundless howl as he replicated Munk's scream.
Shiki winced and asked Souujurou the question that Shirou no longer had the courage to ask as he continued to writhe in mental agony.
"And...what are you planning to do about that...method?"
Souujurou shrugged.
"I do not know about the scientific evidence behind his claim, nor the arcane aspect of it, though I do know that young male animals in heat tend to show aggressive behavior-"
"Oh, no..."
"-so I'm planning to ask Aoko and Miss. Touko about the credibility of Kishima's claim, and try implementing it into your training if absolutely necessary."
Shiki let out a low whine that reminded Shirou of dying cats. To be honest, Shirou felt the same. Same as in, dying cats.
Souujurou was a decent person and a good mentor if not a little too Spartan. Make no mistake, both Shirou and Shiki respected the guy that could easily whoop their asses despite being a completely 'ordinary' person.
However, he was also very...honest. Honest as in, he held no malice nor ill will. Honest as in, he wouldn't outright rebuke any opinion no matter how obscene and outrageous it sounded.
He wasn't stupid. He was just a bit off in terms of common sense.
More off than Alice Kuonji, his girlfriend who was also a pureblood witch in every sense of the moonlit world: an achievement that speaks for itself.
And at times like this was where it showed. Shirou glared at his mentor with dead fish eyes, as Shiki slowly took off his glasses.
"That is a horrible idea and I assure you that your asking would result in the ire of Miss. Alice, Touko, and Aoko."
Souujurou blinked.
"Understood.", he said after a long pause.
Shiki put his glasses back on with a relieved sigh.
"Thank god. I was thinking of 'killing' his stamina for a few hours, the way Ryougi-san taught me. For the greater good."
Shirou nodded gravely.
"I agree, Shiki. I totally agree."
Three years had passed since Shiki and Shirou had first met.
Being the same age, they had both turned 14 this year, making them 2nd-year junior high school students.
When one is living in the supernatural side of this modern world, true friends become a hell of a lot scarce, not to mention how secretive they must be about their upbringing, and how selective they must be in their choice of friends.
Shirou had also learned that from Touko, and had been extremely cautious in his approach so as to not betray his new friend's trust. Shiki obviously thought the same.
Shirou never pried into Shiki's past, and Shiki didn't search for his.
They both instinctively knew that the other had a paranormal past, had experienced surreal tragedies, and shall one day, most likely struggle against insurmountable odds. They could both feel it in their bones, deep down on a fundamental level, no matter their efforts to think otherwise.
However, in each other's company, they could pretend for a moment that they were normal kids, just having a normal day, and training for fun. Trivial and meaningless it may be, but it still brought them comfort.
Shirou and Shiki had quickly become brothers in all but blood within the past few years, and they made the best of what limited time they spent together, including their training.
To the young Aozaki's immense delight, Shiki was not a magus, and like him, specialized in physical combat.
Being adopted into an all-magus family that consists of two sisters that were supremely talented in magecraft,
-like so talented on a historical and global scale that one of them became a True Magic user that could bend time and space while the other became the Desired No.1 live human material aka Seal Designation due to her self-replicated dolls that practically grant her immortality-
Shirou had always felt inadequate and unfilial as he failed to live up to Touko's high standards, though with Shiki joining his training twice a week, he could finally let go of his insecurities and take a more objective standpoint on how he should improve himself.
Of course, Shirou had always known that while Touko demanded a lot from him, her training was always in his interest as the things she taught him always benefited him most in survival/combat situations against arcane foes.
Take his modified custom-made Notarikon for example.
Notarikon, being derived from Kabbalah, an esoteric system focused mainly on mathematically and theoretically interpreting mystical truths hidden in cryptic letters and numbers, was an absolute weapon of mass destruction in Aoko's hands.
You could say that she was a magic Gatling cannon with lasers that had no overheating and reloading issues.
That wasn't the case for Shirou.
At first, due to his body's insufficient control over all things arcane, he even struggled to do anything that resembled magic. In other words, he wasn't talented at all, and that wasn't due to his injuries from the Fuyuki fire.
Indeed, while most of his magic circuits were crippled by the accursed flames, Touko had already done an incredible job at transplanting artificial circuits with her surgeries and regenerating the ones that were harmed.
As a matter of fact, he now had a mindboggling 131 magic circuits in total, 30 main ones, and 101 complementary sub-circuits that were transplanted from Touko's 'debt collection': a vault filled with preserved magic circuits from poor mages who couldn't pay the exorbitant price for her services.
In conclusion, he just simply sucked at magic in general, and not for lack of trying.
Touko suspected that his Curse Origin (the core of his magecraft affinity) had something to do with it, and had tried awakening his true potential but with little to no success.
As a result, Touko and Aoko decided to combine modified primordial runes and Notarikon. If other mages heard of that they would shed bloody tears of envy, and chase Shirou to the very ends of the earth for a single glimpse of its system.
Creating a new system that perfectly integrates two completely different systems with diverse mythical backgrounds was unheard of, and the Aozaki sisters created that from scratch, all for their adopted little boy.
While this chimeric system was by no means his pass to invincibility, it did grant him access to various strategies that involved his magecraft- something he had always yearned for since the first day as Touko's son and apprentice.
Thus, Shirou was always grateful, and his almost pathological drive to surpass his limits has never wavered in the slightest ever since.
Shirou wasn't the only one that was grateful and devoted to hard work.
Shiki frequently visited Touko for his mystic eye killers which were glasses that could partially seal his mystic eyes of Death Perception, a pair of eyes that could (potentially) see the ending of all things, phenomenons, and even concepts in the form of 'lines of death'.
He hated the squiggly red lines that not only inhibited his vision but also threatened his sanity, so it was an immense relief for him when Touko volunteered to help him control his eyes once she saw how he became good friends with her adopted son.
Not only did she design new mystic eye killers for him, but she also introduced him to an old employee of hers that had the same name and same eyes as him: Shiki Ryougi.
While Shirou trained most of the time with Souujurou's questionable but effective methods, Shiki spent most of his personal training with Ms. Ryougi who visited Touko's residence once a week, and spent his other remaining day with Shirou, and occasionally joined Souujurou's grueling combat classes whenever he had enough energy.
For Shirou, Ms. Ryougi was like a senior that had a rough edge but a soft heart. She acted like Touko without her glasses most of the time, though she sometimes let her innate feminine nature shine through whenever Shirou invited her to cook together.
Oh yes, Shirou learned to cook because neither of the Aozaki sisters bothered to, and often referred to takeout as their primary food source and lifeline.
So, like the responsible boy he was, Shirou started to cook. And boy did he rock the kitchen look.
Ryougi found the young Shirou adorable and decided to teach him her culinary skills on a whim.
And from that, started Shirou's Epic Saga of Aozaki Home Cooking.
Every week on Sunday evening, when Shiki was on a medical chair in Touko's study for a regular checkup of his eyes, Shirou and Ryougi prepared dinner for the Aozaki household while Aoko hovered nearby like an excited Siberian Husky.
This week should've been the same, until Shirou noticed that he had forgotten to refill his supply of eggs, and set forth for a mad dash to the supermarket.
Next week was going to be Shirou's first day at Shiki's school, which also meant the first time Shirou was going to attend something truly public since his adoption due to the Aozaki sisters' insistence on home-schooling until the age of 13, and he couldn't wait.
This night was supposed to be a little celebration. A feast with eggs. And Shirou was going to get the damn eggs if that's the last thing he'll do.
Little did he know, that he had terrible, terrible, E- Luck...
Somewhere nearby...
"Oh come on! I didn't get to eat my Udon noodles! Please, at least let me finish my meal before sending me somewhere else, dear Buddha!"
"Oh well...guess it couldn't be helped...I really shouldn't have eaten the divine offering before the temple...but it'll rot anyway...wasn't there a line about how thou shall not let food to waste?"
"What to do...a beautiful swordswoman all on her own...if only there were someone, preferably a cute boy nearby...oh?"
HINT: Aoko-face with twin blades. Random time traveler. Arguably the most famous warrior in Japanese history. Shota lover.
Ah shit, maybe Shirou is gonna pop his cherry after all...RUN, SHIROU! RUN!
Consider reviewing and keeping this alive! Review anyways! Will go into Touko/Shiki's & Ryougi/Shirou's interactions next chapter!
X-kalibuuuur, out.