Chapter 95 — Aura
Chapter 95: Aura
"Right then, Draco, this is your first lesson with me as your teacher, and I need to understand what you actually need from me. So to start with, tell me: what have you taken away from the manuals about Aura?"
Summer looked at me attentively. Nearly a week had passed since I got back from Hogwarts, and in that time I had only managed to check on how things stood in the quarter, not counting studying and the work at Hogwarts, of course. In short, this was our first lesson with Summer, and I had no illusions that they would be particularly frequent. But I simply wasn't prepared to ignore an opportunity like this.
"Well, as I understand it, Aura is the energy of the soul. Everything with a soul has it, while the Grimm, by your world's classification, have no soul and therefore no Aura. Even though everything has Aura, using it requires it to be unlocked. Though that's probably not quite the right way to put it."
I shook my head, and Summer frowned.
"My assumption would be that it's already unlocked in every person in your world; it's just that what you call the unlocking process allows them to begin sensing it, and through that, to take conscious control of it. That gives the individual additional capabilities. Say, if a person with passively enhancing Aura can jump one meter, then someone who has learned to direct that enhancement deliberately could jump considerably higher: two meters, easily."
Summer gave a slow nod, her frown fading. It was clear she had heard me and had no intention of arguing.
"What can you tell me about how it manifests?"
"The manifestation of Aura. It's primarily an expression of color, which can vary enormously. The manuals I had access to mentioned pink, red, gray, white, violet..."
"That's enough. How does Aura's protective function manifest?"
"Primarily as an active barrier."
"Ahem."
Summer raised an eyebrow with a faintly amused expression, as though I had made an error but still had a moment to correct myself.
"I say active barrier because that barrier intensifies once Aura has been unlocked, or activated, as one of the manuals put it. And that is, fundamentally, Aura's primary function: protection. Everything else is rather..."
I waved a hand to indicate it was secondary.
"...Aura doesn't block the pain receptors, so the individual still feels the impact of blows. At the same time, as long as Aura is actively protecting its user, serious injury is unlikely. Minor cuts will close quite quickly. That said, Aura doesn't eliminate the possibility of being wounded; if an opponent concentrates all their force into a single point, they can kill you even while your Aura reserve is barely depleted."
"Very good. What else?"
"The manuals mentioned you'd heard of techniques for manifesting Aura as a shield or offensive technique, but that you don't practice them yourself."
"Exactly."
She nodded.
"My primary weapon against the Grimm is..."
She pointed to her eyes.
"...and my secondary weapon is my actual weapon, which I lost in my last engagement. All the weapons we use have at least two configurations. Mine were an axe and a rifle. My younger daughter prefers scythes, and her second configuration will be ranged as well. My elder had gauntlets that fired too. In essence, our primary method of fighting the Grimm is our weapons. So that means..."
I pointed to myself.
"An axe. I'm capable with bladed weapons, but combining one with a firearm..."
I shook my head.
"...that's unreliable. It would be simpler to carry a couple of pistols, or a carbine. Especially with the option to collapse them for easy carrying. A dedicated carbine will always be more reliable than something that merely transforms into one."
"Well."
Summer looked at me with mild skepticism.
"In general, you're right; we simply didn't have that option, so we went with transforming weapons."
"I'm not criticizing it. I just expected you might suggest I needed something similar. I wanted to let you know we have a simpler, more elegant solution."
"Fair enough."
She nodded.
"But you will need to choose a firearm and start learning to use it. Magic and an axe are well and good, but…"
She looked me in the eye.
"…trust an experienced Huntress: there's either too little weaponry, or too much to carry."
"Perhaps I should start with a minigun, then?"
I raised an eyebrow inquiringly.
"You'll get to that as well, but I think what you need first is something for close to mid-range: pistols, a submachine gun, maybe a shotgun..."
She nibbled her thumbnail.
"...but that choice has to be yours alone. For now, let's get your Aura unlocked. Lean forward slightly."
I did as she asked, and Summer rose from her chair, came around behind mine, and placed her hands on my back.
"Close your eyes. Focus on the feeling of my hands. Breathe in... breathe out."
I felt something like an unknown energy being driven into me all at once, and around me a black-and-white fire blazed into existence.
"Interesting."
Summer walked around to face me and stood there studying me carefully.
"What's interesting about it? You said yourself that Aura is a reflection of the soul, and that the colors can be absolutely anything. It was written clearly in your own manuals."
"Yes... you're quoting correctly, but usually there's only one color. I've never heard of an exception."
"Then I'll be the first."
I stretched with a slight smirk, turning my attention inward and finding, to my quiet satisfaction, that I could already feel it and was beginning to understand how to control it.
I extended my right arm and concentrated a portion of my Aura into it, and the field around it grew visibly denser, while the rest of my body dimmed slightly. With a deliberate effort, the black flecks within the Aura around my right arm nearly vanished, leaving the field there almost wholly white; conversely, when I pushed in the other direction, the black grew more saturated and the white threads became barely visible.
Very interesting. I'll need to set aside some time to experiment with Aura. It might be possible to amplify spells with it, defend against them, or use it in other ways entirely.
I stopped maintaining the concentrated Aura in my arm and it quickly evened out, returning to the same coloring as the rest of my body.
"So?"
I looked at Summer, and she simply smiled.
"From here, the only way to grow is to fight. Fight, and fight again. Experience and exertion will gradually build your Aura reserve and sharpen your control over it. But don't expect dramatic leaps. We were never able to determine what exactly drives the reserve to grow. We simply observe that it does, sometimes."
"Understood. And the Semblance?"
"That I can't help you with. It may awaken, or it may not. It's entirely individual. You'll have to find your own way there. What I can offer is Aura training, and a series of lectures that didn't make it into the manuals."
She gave me a knowing look.
"Agreed."
There was nothing else I could do but agree. Then Summer surprised me by shaking her head.
"Not so fast. I want to learn magic."
I blinked.
"And I want help having a weapon made. There's no Dust here, and none of the alloys I know, so I'll need a wizard who can tell me whether what I want is even possible with the available materials."
I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds, then looked at Summer again and gave a nod.
"No problems there. Well, almost none."
"Almost?"
"Not everyone is capable of magic, so the most I can promise you on that front is to determine whether you're a witch or not, and if you are, to find you a tutor who won't ask unnecessary questions and will simply teach you from scratch, with a focus on combat magic."
"And you won't even try to deceive me?"
"Why would I?"
"Well."
"So that I'd feel indebted to you. So that I'd think I owed you so much that even if you pointed me towards someone's bed, I'd still be in your debt."
I just shook my head.
"That's not how I operate. Deception has its uses, but not in situations like this one."
She gave a small, quiet snort.
"Don't snort. I know what you're thinking, but back then, the options weren't exactly plentiful, not only for you, but for me as well. The Unspeakables are the sort of people you don't refuse without very good reason. I could have, technically. I'm a foreigner, and those particular Unspeakables couldn't have reached me..."
I smiled slightly.
"...but in that situation, you surely understood what would have happened to you if I hadn't used deception and convinced you to work towards my world's benefit, if I can put it that way."
She nodded slowly.
"Now, though, there's no need for deception on either side. So we work on terms that suit us both."
"Understood."
She nodded.
"So?"
"We work."
Another nod.
"Good. Then let's go and have a fight."
I rose from the chair. She smirked and nodded, and together we made our way to the small training ground, where we picked up practice weapons and took our stances.
"Well then, who starts?"
Summer looked at me with a faint smirk, spinning a large axe in one hand.
"Let the coin decide."
I pulled a copper coin from my pocket, tossed it into the air, and immediately readied myself. The coin spun upward, rotating slowly, reached the apex of its arc, and began to fall, turning as it descended.
"Three... two... one..."
Time seemed to slow, and the moment the coin's edge touched the ground, I launched myself forward. Summer stood perfectly still, a knowing, mildly amused smile appearing on her lips. My first strike came, and she sidestepped it elegantly, simultaneously driving her foot into my body. I saw the kick coming. I simply could not avoid it. So I flew backward, rolled twice across the ground, and came to a stop face-down. I got up slowly.
"Hm."
I looked myself over.
"It hurt, but..."
I shook my head.
"...what's strange is that I'm entirely ready to keep fighting right now."
"That's Aura."
She said it simply, then beckoned me forward, and I didn't need to be asked twice. I launched myself at her again. This time I opened with a feint, converting a diagonal axe strike into a sweep attempt, intending to follow through with the heel of the axe, but it all stayed in the realm of intentions. She blocked the swing cleanly, then rotated her axe in a tight movement that ripped my axe clean from my hands, and her foot met my stomach for a second time.
"Kgh!"
And once again I was flying, then rolling, then skidding across the ground on my stomach.
"And once again I find..."
I stood, taking careful stock of myself.
"...that I'm ready to continue."
Summer hooked my axe with the toe of her boot, flicked it into the air, and pushed it towards me. I caught it cleanly.
"Thank you."
I gave Summer a nod, settled back into my stance, accepted her invitation with a glance, and went at her again.
This time I managed to avoid the kick to my midsection, and followed with an attempt to drive the practice axe into that same leg — but in the next instant I was on the ground with the blade of her axe resting against my throat.
"I'll say this: you're not bad."
She smiled down at me.
"Not perfect, but for a twelve-year-old boy, you're genuinely good. That said, we are going to work on your technique. And we are going to work on it very, very hard."
I sighed.
"And I thought I was a decent fighter."
I shook my head.
"But if you're willing to train me properly, I'll be grateful."
"You are decent — you're just comparing a twelve-year-old boy against a professional Huntress who has spent a significant portion of her life killing Grimm and fighting other people in training bouts and in very real engagements against terrorists and criminals."
I looked at Summer carefully.
"Nobody is stopping me from aiming for the ideal. In fact, that's preferable — far better than floating along thinking everything is fine and then dying in an instant."
"Well, you're right there."
Summer nodded.
------------------------------------------
Chapters on Patreon progress: Currently at;
1. Harry Potter: Satan? Nah, Just My Family Crest = CHAPTER 316
2.Marvel: Cosmic Forger of Infinity = CHAPTER 219
3.Harry Potter: Beyond Good and Evil in the Wizarding World = CHAPTER 317
4.Harry Potter: Reborn as Draco Black = CHAPTER 147
support me on Patreon for instant access to the 120+ advance chapters: patreon.com/redofic