Systematic Magus - Chapter 1

His chest ached, his lungs struggling with every moment to exhale just a little bit of breath and then take it back in.

Tears blurred his eyes making his vision blurry. Granted, not that he would be able to see much of anything even if they weren't washing over his iris'. The thick black smoke cloying at his throat and swirling throughout the building in amongst red hot flames.

Fucking terrorists man.

It was sad, pathetic really. All he could do was sit here and moan and groan, dazed and waiting to die.

He'd love to escape if he could, but considering the large weighty pillar pinning him beneath it? Well, that wasn't likely and he was seriously up shit creek without a paddle.

Honestly, it was odd how calm he felt about all of this. But then, it wasn't like anybody would even miss him. He was just a no name orphan, no family, no friends, nobody that cared about at all, not even the orphanage matron.

'…Ah, this fucking sucks.' he groaned internally. The only joy he had in life was working out and anime, not really a pair of hobbies that went together, but hey, one inspired the other.

He had nothing really going for him, but anime had inspired him, made him realise that he didn't need to if he put the work in.

…To bad that wasn't going to amount to anything. Since some dramatic asshole had come to school this morning and decided to blow themselves up for whatever reason.

Probably being bullied, his life was that sad that he would get killed over a cliche like that.

God damnit, he didn't want to die. As pathetic as a reason it was, he hadn't finished watching his favourite anime, surely life couldn't be so cruel as to do him in before that?

He never got to see if Luffy became Pirate King, or if Natsu found his dad, if Ash became a champion finally, If that twit Jaune finally manned up and brought out some sorely needed masculinity, How Solomon would be defeated or the conclusion of the fight between Naruto and Sasuke.

A flame boiled in his chest, not unlike the roaring embers threatening to swallow him whole and burn him alive.

He'd never had anything going for him his entire life and it, It wasn't FAIR!

"…I've gone mad." he gaped as his vision suddenly cleared in an instant and found himself staring at a floating ebony black screen with crimson red writing.

For a moment, he just stared, forgetting where he was.

It took him a moment to shake off the shock. Was he seeing things, hallucinating now that the smoke was getting to him? Was he about to lose consciousness?

He struggled, trying to lift his arms, to no avail, the weight of the pillar pinning him to the ground was just too much.

Seriously, fuck this school.

A derisive snort left his lips, "Of course I want to live!" he spat, losing himself in the delusion for a moment.

His life was shit, but it was his shit life.

Just as he spoke, the crimson red words on the black screen shimmered and a different sentence appeared.

He blinked, "…What?" he uttered.

But that was all the time he had to say anything, because a split second later, the screen seemed to balloon in size and warp around him like an all consuming cocoon of red and black and then butterflies fluttered in his stomach as he felt himself falling.

He didn't even have time to be shocked at being swallowed by the thing or the trippy red and black darkness all around him, because a moment later, a life time of memories crashed into his mind, sweeping through and integrating deeply within his psyche.

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Daiki Galliasta awoke with a gasp, pushing himself up onto all fours and panting deeply.

He stared at the mud beneath him as his mind raced.

"…What?" he swallowed heavily, having trouble processing.

He lifted one hand from underneath him and traced his throat with a finger, feeling nothing but unblemished skin.

That wasn't right. He could vividly remember the feeling of that razor sharp blade slicing through his jugular after his older brother overpowered him using the Primeval Battery, unable to resist after his body was lit up like a Christmas tree with lightning itself and his vision going dark moments later as he bled out and died.

Fucking prick. Atrum had always hated him, at least since it was learned that he inherited their mothers sorcery trait and with it, magic circuits in both higher quality and quantity than him and got special focus from their father.

He could vaguely remember a time when he was small, when the man was a doting older brother, but not any longer, there was only venom left between them.

Especially so considering Atrum murdered him!

He'd not expected it at all, even after father's passing last year. Why would he? They were family despite what had come between them.

Ah but then…he'd forgotten hadn't he?

Family was nothing special to most magi, at best, only a legacy to leave behind to continue the pursuit of the Akashic Records, the Root Of All Things.

Fathers passing was ever so suspicious too, but he'd put it out of mind, he hadn't thought to blame his brother. He should have.

And if he was right, the thing that forced his hand, was their father deciding finally to pass on the Family Crest to Daiki himself.

Atrum had left the family manor in a rage and they hadn't seen him for weeks before he returned, much lighter in mood.

He should have been on his guard right then and there.

"Heh." Daiki snorted to himself.

Not that it would matter much in the end for Atrum anyway, he was destined to get stabbed in the back by a beautiful witch after treating her poorly because she refused to summon a literal uncontrollable dragon.

Wait…what?

Daiki blinked, "…That's not right." he muttered, confused. He did not have a talent for looking into the future or precognition, nor did he possess any Mystic Eyes that would allow him to do so either, or even any powerful mystic code.

He shouldn't know that.

But he did, he knew a lot of things he didn't before all of a sudden, in fact, it was so seamless he almost didn't even realise, that he had the memories of an entirely different life in an entirely different world.

Of a boy that looked just like him, was even the same age, yet came from an utterly different background and pedigree, an orphan, a nobody, worth nothing, caught in an explosion during schooling and waiting, pinned beneath a heavy pillar waiting to either asphyxiate from the smoke or be burnt alive by the flames, whatever came first.

…The second magic!?

Daiki's heart leapt into his throat at the thought. Memories of another him, in another life, that was something only the Kaleidoscope could accomplish. But why would Zelretch interfere on his behalf? That didn't make sense, he wasn't exactly all that special.

He had top notch magic circuits and top notch quantity of them, and his father always praised his talent over his brothers, and even his own, or his grandfathers and many other magi he'd met, but he wasn't exactly some super genius.

'Was it even Zelretch?' he wondered.

He remembered the instigator of these turn of events. It wasn't so much a person, as it was a floating screen in the air, almost like a status screen from some video game.

His father always disapproved of his interest in them t-

Daiki's eyes widened as a very similar screen appeared in front of his vision, yet it was different than before. It really was like the menu from a game system, even displaying a status page for him!

Weirdly, it was displaying his name as hyphenated with Yurei at the end, his mothers family name.

It even had his magic circuits listed, how many he had, how much prana units he could handle per one and even his maximum output! Heck, it even displayed the rankings of his circuits!

He knew well of his magic circuit rankings, his father liked to lord it over his other lordly friends and boast about how great an heir he had gained.

Oddly though, there was even a numerical value for his physical abilities and martial abilities! Human rank D negative. Hmm, and a ranking out of fifty, then, was that perhaps the peak of human ability in this age?

Interesting, very interesting.

Though oddly, his martial prowess ranked fifty out of five hundred in both hand to hand combat and weapon wielding disciplines were ranked at E. Was skill ranked differently then?

His dual element was there as well he noticed as his eyes drifted down. It was quite rare to have more than one elemental affinity, but nowhere close to unheard of, it was much more common than say, the likes of an Average One, who had an affinity for all five, a one in a million, if not more kind of person such as Rin Tohsaka.

Daiki frowned as his mind wandered to the heiress of the Tohsaka family and from there, the city of Fuyuki in Japan, where the Holy Grail War was set to take place.

In 2004.

…It was mid-way through January of 2004 right now.

Brilliant, just brilliant.

He put that thought out of mind right now, he wasn't going to get into that kettle of fish considering the whole possible world ending crisis that could come about from it.

Rather, he focused on the last part of the status screen floating in front of his vision.

Origin: ?

His origin was a question mark? Possibly unknown? That didn't make sense. He already knew his origin, had for years. It was Weather, like most of his family, something that had come about because of their possession and constant usage of the Primeval Battery, an ancient and powerful mystic code, the greatest possession of their family.

…Well, it wasn't like he didn't know that both elements and origins could be changed by outside circumstances that effected the whole.

Sakura Matou was a testament to that.

He forced himself not to think on that pitiful girl and her horrid fate. To think, one of his extended cousins was part of the ones tormenting her now if he was right, Shinji Matou's mother was a cousin of his mothers.

Daiki resisted the urge to sigh. Why were his family members so deplorably pathetic?

Either way, he'd definitely went through changes that would be worthy of his origin changing. He was murdered by his brother and died after all, and brought back by some status game screen thing that was possibly connected to the Second True Magic and if he wasn't wrong, had his soul fused with that of his alternate self, which brought him back to life.

What a busy day.

And it was about to get busier.

"No idea why it's a question mark though, beyond it still possibly forming." Daiki mused and pushed himself up, done thinking. He dusted the mud from his hands and looked around.

And promptly rolled his eyes.

He was exactly where he died. Not a sign of his older brother or anything. "Atrum, really?" Daiki shook his head.

He seriously just left his body laying in the forest surrounding their property like some discarded trash? Sure, there were Bounded Fields all around the land they owned to block off unwanted visitors, but still!

Well, he always was an arrogant idiot.

Daiki closed his eyes and breathed deep, an ominous thrumming sound resounded in his ears and the memory of a child the same age as him when he was but a toddler flashed in his mind, the little girl screaming in agony as her body was dissolved into pure raw mana and solidified into a tiny little crystal of physical magic.

His magic circuits flipped on and his eyes snapped open, his gaze ice cold. He knelt, pressing his hand against the ground, spreading his energy deep into the earth, "Tahawal." he incanted his command, and then pulled.

Energy sparked around his hand touching the ground, looking almost like sparking red lightning and the ground gave away, pulling up into his grip as his hand retreated, the earth flowing into shape, compressing and solidifying.

A moment later, he was holding a simple iron short sword in his grip.

Hundreds of years ago, and for hundreds of years, his family focused on pursuing the manipulation of the weather with their magecraft, they thought to manipulate the natural world itself to force a way through to the root. to that end, they devised their curse magic to sacrifice the living and turn them into raw mana crystals to use as a power source.

It never worked out, even with the Primeval Battery amplifying their abilities with the weather.

One hundred years ago, his family changed routes and decided to pursue the path of Alchemy to augment their curse spell, with the thought to augment the mana crystals and use them as a raw battering ram straight to the Root.

Say what you will about Daiki's family, but, they were quite straightforward and simple compared to most magi families.

Not that they were all that special when it came to alchemy. It had taken them this long just to learn how to transmute physical items of the world, and they weren't even close to the likes of the Einzbern, hell, they'd yet to create even a successful low quality homunculus.

But, he was particularly talented himself when it came to transmuting physical components. Much of that being, due to his dual element of Ether and Void. Ether was all but useless as an element except for injecting and controlling physical objects, while Void itself, was more of an amplifier and like Ether, near useless on its own.

Together though, they made for quite the combo when it came to on the spot alchemy.

Such as changing part of the earth below his feet into a sword.

"Turn about is fair play brother." Daiki bared his teeth and with sword in hand, made his way back towards the manor of his family.

Atrum was due for some payback.

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He made a languid pace back towards the manner, in no particular rush. It was only a few minutes walk even at his pace and it gave him plenty of time to reinforce his blade.

Daiki wasn't afraid of being discovered by his brother. After all, he was still keyed into the Bounded Fields, they did not see him as an intruder.

Exactly the same thing that allowed his brother to get the jump on him and attack him without the Bounded Fields trying to hamper him.

On top of that, he was the one who controlled the Bounded Fields in full. His father had chosen him as the heir after all before his untimely death. When he focused on them, he could see exactly how many people were within the range of the Bounded Fields and where.

If he was within his workshop, he could even get a telescopic view of anywhere within the vicinity.

He knew exactly where his brother was right now.

Celebrating his 'victory' in their fathers former office. Typical.

He reached the main path towards the manor and made his way over the expensive and finely crafted marble pathway up towards the doors of the manor, expertly cut pine trees lining the path behind the railing of the path illuminated by a series of dual lights planted at ten foot intervals along it.

He made his way up up the stairs and below the arch over the main door. With a thought to the Bounded Fields, they swung open, admitting him entrance.

His nose practically drew up in distaste at what he saw. Female clothing littered the main hall of the manor, and two attractive women dressed in sheer harem girl attire were slowly cleaning them up.

Two of his brothers 'women'.

Or rather, two of his massive harem of girls he'd hypnotised into serving him over the years since he was a teenager.

Their dead eyes glanced at him, before getting back to work. They were near enough automatons, no better than lifeless homunculi with what he'd done to them.

He'd always thought it was quite pathetic his brother had to hypnotise mundane girls like this into bed with him. It made him look pathetically weak. What was the point really? They were little more than flesh dolls, attractive flesh dolls to be sure, but dolls all the same.

Perhaps he wasn't one to judge since he'd taken a few of them for a spin when he entered puberty, but, they just bored him after the initial few times and he'd really only used them to practice his technique.

Taking his eyes off of the scantly clad women, Daiki made his way through the hall and up the grand staircase in the middle. He called it a manor, but honestly, it was closer to a castle in size and appearance.

He made a beeline straight for the top floor, where his fathers former office was located and as he approached, he heard the sounds of low feminine moans, the sound of flesh slapping against flesh and the grunting and groaning of a familiar male voice.

Daiki stood in front of the door and focused for a single second, filling his body with prana, enhancing his body to the limit it could reach before it would break, his veins lighting up with bright energy visible on his skin, almost like blocky tribal tattoo's.

Reinforcement complete, Daiki lifted his leg up and kicked the large double doors.

With a crash, they came flying off the the hinges, shooting across the large room inside and smashing into the opposite wall, a yelp of fright echoing alongside it.

The teen stepped in after the door, finding his brother, naked as the day he was born, clasping onto the large rear end of an older, pretty pale skinned lady, his brother sheathed inside her, while all around the room various girls of different figures and ethnicities were spread about, naked, half dressed, slumped over, one even beaten unconscious and bruised over her face quite badly.

"D-daiki!" Atrum gazed at him, eyes wide with horror as if he'd just seen a ghost.

"Hello brother." Daiki smirked at him, eyes gleaming with the desire to cause harm.

"No…but you're dead!" Atrum trembled, "I killed you!" he screamed, pulling away from his harem slave, his dick flopping free.

Above average in size and girth.

"I got better, maggot dick," Daiki snorted, his eyes flickering briefly to his fathers desk were a familiar tiny little pot, barely of size wit his palm sat, the Primordial Battery, beside it, a clear orb, green strands floating and intermingling within it, keeping it contained and untouched from the outside world, "You won't though." he promised, lifting his reinforced iron sword up and pointing it at his brother.

Atrum stared at him, terrified, not saying a word and trembling on the spot. After all, they both know how a real fight would end between them. It was common practice for all magi of a family to be trained in combat. Atrum, wasn't interested in that kind of thing though and wasn't anything special.

Daiki on the other hand, he found he had a real talent for fighting, loved the rush of combat and enjoyed pushing his body to the limit and getting stronger physically, and was even trained by an Enforcer that owed their father a debt.

Atrum was a researcher through and through, while Daiki leaned more towards being a combat mage.

It was the exact reason he'd allowed him to have the Primordial Battery when their father passed it on to him as the new heir, because he didn't need it to protect himself while Atrum did.

More the fool was he.

"SCREW YOU! YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED DEAD YOU LITTLE BASTARD!" Atrum finally found his voice and howled in a rage, "YOU'RE NOT BETTER THAN ME! NEVER HAVE YOU EVER BEEN! FATHER WAS JUST TOO MUCH OF A FOOL TO SEE IT!"

"So you murdered him for choosing me over you then?" Daiki probed, though he was ready to act at a moments notice. He was already sure of it, but some confirmation would still be nice.

His brother sneered at him and lifted his hand up, clenching it into a fist and displaying the back of his hand to Daiki, "Of course I did! As if I'd ever allow a little piss ant like you to have my birth right! It was only when I gained this though I realised how much more special I am than you!" he proudly boasted of murdering their father and boldly showed off a marking on the back of his hand. It was a crimson red tattoo, of a pair of double sided curved blades, fencing around an eight pointed star, "The Holy Grail chose me! Not you! I'm your better Daiki! It is my right to claim what is mine, the Family Crest!" he savagely snarled and pointed at the orb filled with glowing green strands.

Their Family Crest.

He'd taken it out of his workshop earlier because he was in talks with someone to help with the implantation process now that his father was out of the picture.

Possibly the reason why Atrum attacked him today, it presented him an opportunity to take it without having to break into Daiki's workshop and deal with his defences.

'He has the command seals already, huh?' Daiki thought, and going by his statement, he'd had them for over a year now.

Now that he thought about it, his brother had taken to wearing expensive gloves around all the time when he returned from his temper tantrum after Daiki was named the heir of the family.

He just thought he was being a vain fop as usual.

"You've been planning all this for a while, huh?" Daiki acknowledged, and dare he say it, he was actually a little bit proud that his brother managed to keep his cards so close to his chest for all this time.

He wasn't exactly the brightest guy out there, researcher or not.

"Of course I have!" Atrum laughed, palming his forehead and giving him a mad look, "I would have done it sooner if not for that bitch Touko Azaki destroying the catalyst for Siegfried I got my hands on, but it's fine, I've got another catalyst, if I can't have the dragon slayer, I'll have the dragon user!"

So did that mean then, he already had a catalyst for Medea of Colchis? And he already had the command seals.

Which meant the only reason he hadn't summoned already was because the grail wasn't supporting servants yet.

And he couldn't support one without it himself, not with a paltry C- in both magic circuit quantity and quality. Well above average, but nowhere near enough to support a servant.

"Good to know." Daiki nodded, and then pushed off, dashing across the room towards his older brother, his Reinforcement allowing him to move at a speed an Olympian athlete would have trouble following and he swung.

His blade cleaved straight through the wrist of his brother, sending his hand flying, a gout of blood erupting in a fountain of red splatter.

For a moment there was silence. A silence only broken by the thump of Atrum's hand slapping meatily to the ground, the command seal emblazoned proudly on the back of it.

"My…hand?" Atrum stared at it, almost confused looking for a moment, before his eyes widened and a scream of terror and agony erupted from his lips, "MY HAND! YOU CUT OFF MY HAND YOU LITTLE BASTAR-"

Daiki cut his brother off by slamming the butt of his sword into his temple. He dropped to the floor, out like a light and laid there bleeding out.

All around him, harem of enslaved girls jumped to their feet at the sight of their fallen master, tense, ready to attack.

They hadn't even had time to react really before Atrum hit the ground, it happened that fast.

They were Atrum's final hope for survival.

"Stay." Daiki commanded forcefully.

They froze at his words.

It was too bad for his older brother, that Daiki had long since established his own dominance over his little slave harem.

Just in case.

"Turn about is fair play brother," Daiki smirked. He dropped his sword and reached down, grabbing his brother by the neck and lifting him up, hefting the older man over his shoulders and left the office behind, though not before calling out to the assembled slave harem, "Clean that office up and get that hand preserved." he ordered,

They were quick to jump up at his words and do as told. They weren't exactly useful as a harem, but he supposed they could do as maids to keep the place cleaned up.

He was going to be very busy from now on after all.

Carrying his unconscious brother like a sack of potatoes, Daiki made his way down to the middle floor of the building and made a beeline for his brothers workshop.

There was a dna scanner outfitted into a reinforce steel door blocking the way. It would only open after being exposed to his brothers blood and that was after going through the Bounded Fields.

Good thing his brother was lazy and just used the manor Bounded Fields, and he was carrying a big ol' potatoe sack of his brothers dna right now.

Angling Atrum's body, Daiki pressed his bleeding stump against the dna scanner and it lit up green, the reinforced steel door sliding down and allowing him to enter.

"Doesn't he ever get a headache in a place like this?" Daiki wondered to himself as he entered. As usual, the place was blindingly, clinically white.

It honestly looked less like a workshop and more like a futuristic laboratory.

His eyes drifted up to the screen at the far end of the workshop, where usually those his brother used as sacrifices were kept, but there were none in the sealed container bags. He'd already used them all up it seemed.

He made his way into the middle of the work shop, onto a circular platform with six empty cylinder containers big enough to hold grown men.

He popped one of them open and dumped his brothers body inside it, then sealed it shut again.

Then he stepped over to the middle of the platform where the control system jutted up. He booted it up, quickly input the commands and then focused his prana, "Tamziq." he incanted.

A wooshing sound, akin to a hydraulic press echoed and Daiki looked towards his unconscious brother, just in time to see the container he was in, sink down into the platform out of sight.

"Goodbye brother." Daiki bid his older sibling farewell.

He rushed this so he didn't have time to hesitate. And even though there was no love lost between he and his brother now, he felt a little forlorn.

It was too late to change anything though, or rather, he refused to. He stared at the spot his brother disappeared down into and stayed there, eyes not moving an inch for over an entire minute until he heard a loud heavy 'thump' noise coming from behind him, emanating from the control system.

Usually, even with six people, it would be done within five seconds. He'd give Atrum that, he'd went all out on this machine.

There was a vast vast difference though, between the amount of energy a few mundane people produced, and how much a magus did.

Walking over to the control panel, Daiki hit a few buttons and a buzzing noise came from it, the top sliding away a second later to reveal a fist sized purely see through crystal.

Daiki picked it up and examined it, it was all that was left of his brother, his body, magic circuits, mind and soul all converted into this, "You really outdid yourself with this brother." he praised what was left of Atrum, he knew of course now that a lot went to waste in this process, but breaking down even one person before this had taken his father minutes of intense concentration, his brother had streamlined the process massively and made it incredibly easy, done with a push of a button and a single incantation only known by their family.

Medea of Colchis had shown how inept they were in comparison to her, even with a mundane person she could produce a crystal almost half the size of this one.

But even still, this wasn't at all useless. After all, this was a self recharging battery of mana. It was akin to a person crystalized into a physical magic circuit, using the body and soul as the raw material and working on the theory of turning body nerves into magic circuits.

This crystal in his hand, had a total output of prana greater than his brother had in life, and he could draw on the power within it as fuel for his own purposes, and then it would recharge over time by taking in mana from the air.

That was what the path of his families true research was. Stockpiling enough of these to compile enough magical energy to use as a battering ram and punch straight through reality right into the Root itself.

It was funny actually, it was basically a much more crude and sloppily put together variation of the grail war really when one thought about it. And technically has a chance of working.

Though it would probably take hundreds of years to gather up enough energy.

"…Not that I have anywhere near a few hundred years." Daiki mused, idly admiring the new form of his brother.

Because apparently the Grail War was fast approaching. The Grail War with the Holy Grail that was being used as a hot tub by Angry Mongo. Who if he got out would more or less end the world.

Sighing in annoyance, Daiki made his way off the platform and around to where his brothers desk and main computer sat, an opaque cabinet hanging on the wall behind it, showing off rows and rows of shelves, each with dozens of much smaller crystals reminiscent of the one he'd just turned his brother into.

There was probably about a hundred or so of them in total, which in total would probably be a match for his brother crystal in output all together.

He placed the larger crystal on the desk and drummed his fingers on the surface of the workstation, "…Not exactly a lot to work on." he hummed idly.

He didn't have a lot of time to go about making more of these. He didn't have a lot of time to get much better personally, and strength was hard to come by in this world without knowledge.

What he had was his families resources, the Primeval Battery, his abilities as a magus, his family crest and his former brothers hand with three command seals on it.

Somehow, he would have to turn that into a force strong enough to beat down Gilgamesh, destroy the god of all evil and save the world.

After all, he'd get a sealing designation if he even brought up any of his thoughts about the grail to any higher ups at the Clock Tower.

Fuck that noise.

"…I'm totally doomed." Daiki groaned, face falling to the desk with a loud thump.