D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

Chapter 1725 A Hand-le on things

--- Kat --- (Monday)

Kat stared at her right hand. Now simply made up of water and black bones… and for once it wasn't causing her a massive amount of pain. She'd been messing around in the backyard with this for a while now and she was pleased to see her first success. "So… did you manage to get the mental partition working or figure out the technique properly? Well not properly because you've still got the bones…" Lily trailed off as Kat jumped in place and spun around.

"Oh… um… hi Lily I didn't realise you were watching… and I thought I got that right a while back…?" offered Kat.

"No, I'm afraid you didn't. I just stopped reacting to it because… well I guess I was being stubborn but I did want you to keep practicing and stuff without being overly worried about me," explained Lily making Kat wince. Find your next read at My Virtual Library Empire

"Yeah um… sorry…" said Kat.

"It's fine," said Lily as she moved in to hug Kat, careful to stay away from the water hand just in case it messed something up. "So, you've got that working now?"

"Not really," admitted Kat. "See, the technique was meant to be my whole limb and the bones are a real issue. I can change quite a lot of my skin in sections… but my skeleton seems to be a very much 'all or nothing' type of deal. Plus this… well it looks cool but it doesn't actually work,"

"What do you mean by 'work'?" asked Lily.

"Well…" Kat stepped away from Lily and put both hands out in front of her, palm facing up. Kat then started to open and clothes her left hand… from the outside. 'Internally' she was attempting to move both. "I'm not sure if you can tell but I'm trying to clench both hands here… something I can't actually do. There's no muscle or anything there to close the hand. I can maybe figure something out with the water… but I haven't done that yet either. Still not being in pain to test this is a nice step forward,"

"Well how did you figure it out?" asked Lily curiously. She'd been helping her mother with some cleaning. Not the most glamorous job but her shadow manipulation meant that cleaning the fans and the ceilings was now possible without a ladder and Evaline had taken full advantage of that. It was good practice but a touch annoying to actually do. Normally it wouldn't be so bad but on earth keeping the shadows 'tangible' had taken a fair bit of brainpower.

"Ah… so… the trick is that I need to keep the edge of my arm in this… sort of weird half between state. Take a close look," Kat moved so that her elbow was right in front of Lily. Now that Lily had the limb in question right before her eyes it was easy to see. There was a thin strip of skin, and probably muscle and nerves, that looked sort of hazy. It wasn't even a finger-width big and could easily be overlooked… but knowing about it and having it right here?

It was clear that something was different. "So… what does that do exactly?" asked Lily. Sure it was visually obvious but what practical different did it make?

Kat wasted no time before beginning to explain. "It provides a buffer between my water form and the rest of my body. See the issue is that the nerves and muscle were just exposed to water or air before and that obviously stings a good deal because they're perfectly working nerves and stuff. They're just… not connected to anything. It's just like cutting your arm off in terms of pain.

"What I've done instead is added this buffer… and it sort of… helps the nerves connect to the water? I think that's the best way to explain it. It's a little… kludged together, or janky I suppose. See what I've done is… well… I haven't suddenly given the nerves additional connections but… the not-quite-water nerves don't work, they don't have feeling… but they DO connect to the other nerves. So they don't freak out and send pain signals meaning no pain!"

"Is that… dangerous at all?" asked Lily.

"Eh…" Kat made a so-so gesture. "Maybe? I asked D.E.M.O.N.S and it replied with something like 'User Kat is likely safe from permanent injury and no immediate issues are viable. If issues appear please seek medical help' which I guess is the right response but not particularly informative,"

"D.E.M.O.N.S has never been great at the specifics of abilities. I wonder why that is? I mean, I can think of a whole bunch of reasons so I guess I want to know which one is 'more' or 'most' correct. Still… that's only somewhat comforting," answered Lily.

"I can see why. I'm not the happiest with it either and I still don't know what I'd use this for? Getting hit would still hurt because letting whatever attacks smack directly into bone is still going to rattle it further up my arm. Then there's the fact that there just isn't any power behind attacks with it because… well I'm missing half of the muscles in my arm and…

"Feels kinda like a failure. I think if I can make my bones cooperate better it could be a great way to dodge… but for now it's just a scary gimmick that I'm too scared to use on my more… sensitive areas like my face. I'm sure if I did it right it could be really scary and cool… in theory. I'm not sure it'd ever let me talk and it's just a bit too risky to be playing around with my brain like that," explained Kat.

Lily shivered as she remember something Marigold had said. "Yeah… it takes a special kind of person to make sure your brain can regenerate. We could perhaps talk to Kamiko about places to practice more dangerous moves like that? Surely somebody would have set something up?"

"Hmm… yeah probably Wrath? Maybe Pride… though I doubt they'd let outsiders in. The hospital… might have a spot as well but I'm guessing they'd want it to be a separate facility or just for people to not get hurt when they practice," said Kat.

"Ah yes. Not hurting yourself intentionally when practicing. Truly a novel concept," Lily added dryly.

Kat looked a touch sheepish at the admonishment. "Yes well… there are risks to everything and pushing the boundaries of special abilities is bound to cause issues sometimes. What about you? What have you been working on?"

Lily sighed at the deflection but let it pass, "I've been interested in working on my space sense more but it's hard. If 'fabric of space-time' is a decent descriptor for other worlds here on Earth it feels more like the 'concrete wall of space-time'. I mean, scientifically it might still be a fabric I don't know. For me? It just… it feels very hard. Not pliable in the way it feels like it should be.

"I'm guessing its due to the lack of higher energy keeping things in order and it's almost certainly felt that way my entire life. Now though? It feels… wrong? Stifling? It's weird. Not sure if that's because I awoke this sense on a mana-rich world or if it's the fact that it's still a mana-based sense and it's getting supressed like my other abilities,"

"Hmm… is that why so many of those expanded spaces had issues when we tested them for time?" asked Kat.

"I'm guessing so? The issue does seem to be 'punching' a hole into the 'not-quite-normal-space' they occupy. I'm sure you CAN do it but I don't think it's part of the standard design doctrine for stuff like that. Perhaps the demon stuff is 'sturdy' enough, or maybe they just plan for it. Not sure… though that would mean looking for an expanded ring of some sort for ourselves got a good deal harder if they won't work on earth," explained Lily.

Kat grimaced. "Yeah… and I don't really know how else we'd store them. It's looking like using a favour token might not be quite so overkill. Especially if we need to make it a special commission. I wonder if just having it shut down on Earth would be safer and cheaper?"

"No idea. I mean… if we do well in the next tournament round and have time offer us a reward we could go for book on how to make them and perhaps I could figure something out… but I have no idea how enchanting anything works. Honestly might be best to ask for a teacher… which could lead to contract issues if we kept being pulled away during lessons,"

Kat let out a long breath. "I… I wouldn't be against it. I might not want to give up on answering summoners anytime soon but… I think I could be talked into taking a break if you wanted to learn enchanting. I'm sure I could do something with my time. Not sure if it's allowed or what sort of rules lawyering would be best… but it's certainly doable,"

"Huh… alright I'll think on it more and decide if that's something I'd be interested in… now please find something less painful to test?" said Lily.

Kat barked out a short laugh and held up a skeletal hand. "Technically this doesn't hurt anymore!"