Akashic

"So, what you want to do now? We could head back to Beacon, or I could guide you on a tour of Vales nightlife?" Coco asked as she slumped into her seat and began to pat her belly in contentment after their delectable meal.

"I was actually hoping we could go back to the orphanage, it's been a few days now and I's like to actually take a look at the flames, I didn't really get a chance to get a proper look at them, and now seems as good a time as any to actually inspect it" He said, smiling as Coco gave a light hiccup due to her last sip of the Amberry wine from her glass.

"Sure, sounds good…" She muttered as another hic escaped her lips, which in response she began to hold her breath, her body bouncing as muffled hics came from her, eventually stopping after nearly a minute of her holding her breath, "I hate it when that happens" she muttered as she held her hand up to a passing waitress to bring their bill.

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"That…that was the most expensive steak I have ever had, 150 Lien for a steak, And 100 for two glasses of wine!?" Arthur nearly screamed as he stared at the bill in horror while he and Coco were being driven to the orphanage.

"Well, what did you expect the Aurora's one of the more high-end restaurants in Vale, that and the specific type of meat they use is imported from Menagerie, I hear the cattle there are more hardy than the ones around here or the four kingdoms, also apparently very temperamental." She mused, "And the Amberry is also one of the more 'high-end' wines from Mistral, mostly just because the blend they use is something of a family recipe, and the family that makes it is very, very secretive, only making a thousand bottles every year. We had one from a batch from last year, and honestly anything older than that tends to get ludicrous in pricing" Coco explained, "Also very rare, it practically impossible to find a three year old bottle, and those can go for anywhere from 1.000 Lien to 10.000 Lien."

"I noticed this while we were eating, but you know a lot about dust and now wine" Arthur said, "You're not an aspiring Alcoholic are you?" he asked with a teasing yet concerned voice, earning a chuckle from Alf while Coco rolled her eyes.

"Well, first off, my semblance is literally glued to dust, so knowing a lot about it is useful, plus, I'm also taking dust weaving classes from my mom, and she made it a law that I was to ace my dust studies in the first year, else she wouldn't let me even touch dust infused fabric, and to even learn how to infuse fabric I needed to complete a test from her revolving around ten dust types, their effects on the fabric, their uses outside of fabric, how they affect the human body, How hunters can use said dust, etc. Luckily, I did all of that and I can finally learn how to do it, though, I am only to try it whenever my mom is there, at least until I graduate" she shrugged her shoulders, "And my dad's a wine lover, so I just picked up a few things from him", she said as the white glow of the fire of the orphanage appeared down the street attracting their gaze's.

"It really is still burning…" Coco muttered, "And it really hasn't damaged anything else" she noted, seeing that the building still held its basic shape, still having the odd wooden pillar and wall standing, even after nearly a half a week of burning, the only difference being that the building was covered in a layer of black flames that shone a white light.

But as the car got closer a man in a police uniform came out from a small building, the man waving to them to stop, causing Alf to bring the car to a stop next to the man.

"Hi there, sorry to say but the road ends here, safety precaution until they can figure out how to put the fire out" The officer said, leaning on the door frame opposite Alf.

"Oh, would we still be able to go to the actual fire on foot then? We're from Beacon, so we can take care of ourselves, would that be okay?" Coco asked the officer, whose eyes widened in surprise.

"Actually, yeah, give me a moment" the officer said as he ran back into his booth, now coming out with a small note pad, which he then began to read from "Arthur Fielder? I'm guessing that's you then?" he asked looking to Arthur who gave him a nod, "And, Coco Adel?" he said looking to Coco who also gave a nod and waved to him saying "Yo!"

"Right, two are allowed to approach, so you'll have to walk it from here, but you'll have to wait here until they get back, that okay?" he asked looking between Alf, Coco and Arthur.

"That's fine by me" Coco said as she opened her door and stepped out of the car, followed by Arthur, both waving to Alf as they walked towards the orphanage while the officer returned to his booth.

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"It's quite… ominous, now that I get a better look at it" Coco muttered staring up at the strangely quiet black fire in front of her, her body shivering the closer she got to it due to the strange chill that the flames seemed to exude, her body soon warming back up as her aura kicked in.

Arthur didn't respond, instead he just stood there staring up at the flames, watching them as his eyes scanned the building, eventually coming to a stop at a small chunk of wood laying just outside of the main blaze. Arthur began to walk towards it, eventually coming to a kneel next to the small burning wood piece, yet unlike Coco he didn't feel a chill coming from the flames, instead he felt warmth, one strangely comforting to him. Coco watched him silently from the side, also intrigued at what Arthur might be able to learn from them, eventually her eyes widened in panic as she lunged to Arthur, who had raised his hand and slowly began to push it into the fire.

Yet she soon stopped in her tracks when Arthur's hand was completely engulfed in the flames, but instead of screaming in pain, Arthur instead turned his palm upwards within the fire, feeling as if he had just placed his hand into a bath of lukewarm water.

"It… doesn't hurt at all, I don't even think it's doing anything to me…" he muttered as Coco stood still in awe, she soon kneeled next to Arthur, her own hand also going into the frame, yet unlike Arthur she found that the closer her hand came to the flames the colder it seemed to get, eventually to the point where she could see a light layer of frost building up on her skin, at which she pulled her hand and began to slowly warm it up.

"It's not cold? at all? I mean it felt like I threw my hand into a frozen pond, and your just there as if nothing's wrong at all, not like you got your hand shoved into a strange black fire that ISN'T BURNING!" she cried out, while Arthur chuckled and shrugged his shoulders, amused at her outburst.

As he pulled his hand from the flame he noticed that there was a thin layer of dark blue liquid covering his hand, "Hey, Coco, can I see your hand quickly?" he asked, getting a confused head tilt from Coco who held her hand out to Arthur while muttering "Sure?".

Using his clean hand Arthur grabbed Coco's wrist and began to inspect it for anything like what he had seen on his hand, instead all he could find was small red glimmers on her hand, "Dust?" he muttered wiping over her palm with his thumb, then bringing it to his mouth, immediately feeling a slight burn on his tongue like you would get from spicy food.

"Hmm…", he looked back to his palm, now finding that the dark blue liquid was beginning to disappear leaving tiny light blue crystals over his hand, rubbing over his palm with his thumb like he had done with Coco he collected a few of the small crystals, placing then into his mouth, as a refreshing sensation assaulted his tongue.

"So, that was dust? Liquefied dust? Is that even possible?" he thought aloud. Staring at his palm again he returned it back into the fire, this time his eyes watching the dust crystals rapidly turn into the same dark blue liquid that coated his hand the first time, pulling his hand from the fire he began to clench his fist to see what would happen, expecting the liquefied dust to pour from his finger, yet that didn't happen, the liquid did indeed crawl from his fingers but instead of falling to the ground it simply coated even more of his hand, not even looking as if it were going to fall from his hand.

"Interesting…" he muttered as a thought came to his head, 'if it's dust, does my aura still work on it in this state?' he thought as he quickly began to push his aura into his hand and through the liquefied dust, just as his aura filled it, the liquid began to change, instead of returning to their crystalline form it instead began to multiply as a dark see through blue water began to form on his hand, only in small insignificant droplets, but it proved one thing, that it was indeed water dust on his hand, and that the fire had done something to it.

Curious, Arthur brought his palm up to his mouth, holding his palm in such a way that the water would drip onto his tongue.

"Is that a smart idea?" Coco asked concern evident on her face as she watched Arthur drink a strange substance that just appeared on his hand that shouldn't even be possible with the amount of dust he had on his hand.

Before Arthur could reply he felt a droplet of water fall onto his tongue, "It's… Water?" unlike with the dust, the water made from it didn't have the same refreshing feeling, instead tasting like plain water, albeit with a slightly stronger taste.

"Maybe it's not enough? I mean it was just a thin layer of food grade dust, not the strongest thing out there" Coco added, "So maybe with a bigger chunk it'd do something else" she suggested her eyes flickering as she realized something strange, "Uhh, Arthur" she said, indicating to the fire he had stuck his hand into twice, which had now once again changed its colour, from its 'original' black now returning to the orange glow they had been in just a few days prior.

"That, actually makes sense…" Arthur muttered putting his hand next to the flame, feeling the regular burning heat of a fire.

"How does that make sense!? Wait, no it does… That black mist you exuded? I remember that exploded out of you, then the fire turned black, so is it like an infection then? That mist being the bug and the fire being the host? And then when you put your hand into the fire the bug moved into the dust on your hand? Then is that mist your aura then? And would your semblance be something like powering stuff up and giving it an upgrade of sorts?" Coco rattled off, causing Arthur to smile awkwardly.

"Coco, I have no idea, but that sounds the most logical for now until we can actually figure this out" he said as he stood up, staring down the orange flames, "There one way to figure that out…" he muttered, as he willed his aura to activate, around his arm two auras appeared, wrapping around his arm, black and white, each perfectly halved but not fighting with each other.

"You have two auras!?" Coco screamed in realization after nearly a minute of silently staring at the black and white swirls on Arthur's arm, her scream causing Arthur to falter.

"Coco, trying something" he said in frustration as he glared at Coco, causing her to silence herself, letting Arthur focus.

"Thank you", now that he could concentrate Arthur looked to the two auras enveloping his arm, 'I only want the black one…' he thought as he began to will the white aura to sink away and let the black one replace it, eventually covering his entire forearm in a pure black veil while his upper arm was covered in white, and around his elbow the two auras returned to intertwining.

Just then an idea came to his mind as he turned to Coco and asked, "Coco, could you write down everything I say? I have a tendency of speaking to myself when I focus like this, so it'd be really helpful if you could log it for me" he asked, leaving Coco dumbstruck and chuckling.

"Sure, I'll call it Coco's Arthur Experimentation Log, just for you" She said with a teasing chuckle causing Arthur to roll his eyes with a small smile, as she pulled her scroll out ready to begin to type, "Why do I keep getting surprised at everything he does…" she muttered.

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Alternate Chapter names: [73 Chapters and 164.46k words later, training begins!] [Ice to meet you] [What killed the dinosaurs? the fireage! (Honestly I'm not sure why I keep doing these, I'm not very good at being Puny)]

Yay! Finally getting to actual training!, yeah, this volumes meant to mostly be Arthur getting stronger, not OP mind you, I like the odd OP MC but Arthur ain't one of them, at least not yet.

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