Double Critical - 2

The gym truly was a holy place.

How could it not be? Only twenty minutes after entering, all the thoughts and worries he had over the devils at his school, faded away.

What else but a place of holy worship could do such a thing? Pretty ironic actually considering his other self was a catholic.

"….9…." Kaito grunted, pushing the bar up above him, extending his arms as long as possible and holding there for a few moments, before slowly lowering the bar down to his chest and then starting all over again, "…10….!"

He was currently laying on his back, doing some bench presses after warming up. Currently, he was benching four hundred and fifty pounds. Though, he could go higher and was aiming to go for hour hundred and fifty today and set a new record for himself, push to a new level.

He could lift a good two hundred and twenty pounds above his head now, just using his arms and nothing to alleviate the weight like using his shoulders or squatting. He wanted to see about benching double that at least.

At base that is. When he used his Sacred Gear, he could easily lift that without much issue.

The problem was, he was a teenager, and it was quite odd for someone his age to be able to lift anywhere near that. He had to be careful in how he presented his 'growth' at the gym, because lifting heavy weights, always drew eyes.

He continued on his current set to fifteen reps, before setting the bar on the holders and sitting up and stretching his arms out.

He looked around as he did, noting that a few people were eyeing him, a few giving him nods of respect before turning away. All of them were male, and round about middle age, it was rare to see young guys his age at a gym in Japan, or at least it had been so far for him, and even rarer to see women.

He waited until none of them were looking, before standing up and grabbing two more roughly twenty five pound weights and added them on to the bar.

Smiling and nodding to himself, Kaito made his way back around to sit down on the bar.

But just as he was about to lay down on his back and get back to work, a voice called out, stopping him, "Kaaaittooooo-kuuuuun!" a manly bellow that stopped him in his tracks.

Kaito sighed and sat back up, just in time to see a a muscular black haired man dressed in black shorts and a plain white t-shirt bounding over towards him.

"What have I told you about lifting such heavy weights without someone to spot you?" Uzaki Fujio, one of the main trainers for the gym and a big advocate for fitness admonished him.

Spoiler

"Hello Uzaki-san." Kaito replied drolly, with a roll of his eyes.

"Ack!" he grimaced, "Don't call me that, I've told you tons of times to call me Fuji-niisan haven't I?"

"Lost count." Kaito shrugged. Fujio was his main lifting partner, who volunteered himself and didn't give Kaito the option of saying no. Kaito wasn't really complaining, since the man had happily taught him all the proper lifting forms and such, but he did make it a bit hard when he wanted to see what his real heaviest weight was.

He usually had to wait until the dead of night to check that out.

Fujio pouted at him, "You're so mean Kaito-kun." the man, husband and father of three children, two of which that were older than him whined.

Kaito rolled his eyes again, before laying back on the bench and grasping the weighted bar. Fujio, took that as his cue to hop around the other side of the bench and hold his hands out, ready to support the weight if he couldn't lift it.

"…Four hundred and fifty huh, you sure you can do this?" the man visibly bit his lip. Despite his muscular build and rough looks, the man was such a mother hen, "You're crazy strong, but it wasn't long ago you got to four hund-"

Kaito cut him off with a grunt as he lifted the bar up into the air off of the handles. His arms shook a bit before he got used to the weight and he held it there for a bit longer in the air to adjust a little more.

Before slowly lowering it to his chest, "Alright never mind then!" a big grin spread across Fujio's face, "You've got this Kaito-kun, let's start with five!"

His tune changed pretty quickly. Because as Kaito mentioned, he was a fitness loving nut and he especially liked weight lifting and muscle building. If it weren't for the fact that the man topped out at five foot seven as a pure Japanese man with a tendency for being short, he would have probably been a hulk-like behemoth, as it was, he was already ripped and looked like his muscles were carved from marble.

He totally didn't look forty six years old.

As Fujio suggested, he started with five reps, in three sets.

And as he did so, the man decided as always, while he was lifting, that it was a good time to start some gossiping, and as it was eighty percent of the time, it was about his kids.

"Y'know I totally don't know what to do," the man huffed, "My oldest apparently has some guy she likes and is totally in love with him!"

"Uh-huh." Kaito grunted, barely paying attention.

If it wasn't his daughters he was gushing about, it was whining about his son being in his rebellious phase and not coming to the gym.

"Even worse, she's totally cooking food for him and stayed over at his place a bunch of times and he's not even made a move on her!" he added in complaint, "How could he not make a move on her, my daughter is super cute!"

The only reason Kaito didn't face palm, was because he was busy lifting four hundred fifty pounds right now, 'Now that I think about it, knowing what I know now, it explains why I've been able to get to this point so young.' he mused. Sacred Gears apparently heightened the potential and growth rate of those who had them.

Also, "Are you mad at him for possibly making a move on your daughter or not, make up your mind." Kaito huffed.

"Both!" Fujio shamelessly declared, despite the stupidity of it, before giving him a suspicious look, "Now that I think about it, should I worry about you putting the moves on my youngest with those amazing muscles of yours?"

Ah yes, how could he forget. Fujio's son, was a third ear at his school, while his youngest daughter, Yanagi was in his year, in his class in fact.

'Here we go again.' he resisted the urge to sigh. This was a regular topic between them, "Unlikely," Kaito gave him a flat look as he continued his reps, "Yanagi is cute for sure, but I'm too busy to focus on dating right now." she was cute indeed, with huge tits to boot.

Which apparently ran in Fujio's wife's family. Because he'd seen her a few times when she dropped off lunch for Fujio and she was crazy stacked.

"Hmm…" Fujio gave a suspicious hum, "I suppose I'll believe you, for now Kaito-kun, but don't think I don't know the lure muscles like yours have on cute girls, how'd you think I attracted my lovely Tsuki-chwaaaaan in the first place?"

And then he started babbling about how amazing and beautiful his wife was. Changing the topic completely.

Kaito snorted, but listened on as the man rambled, it was good background noise when he wasn't listening to music, 'Not that dating would go all that well for me anyway.'

He was a poor orphan living in a tiny one bedroom apartment, with very little amenities. He couldn't even afford to take girls out on dates right now.

___________________________________

Two hours later, Fujio's shift finished and Kaito decided, it was a good time to take a break.

He found himself much more relaxed now after getting a nice good decently long work out in and chatting with Fujio. It helped him calm down and relax a bit.

And not to mention think things through more clearly.

For his break, Kaito made his way into the male changing rooms, which was blessedly empty beyond him. The gym he was a part of, despite being a really great place and pretty high tech facility with a bunch of features such as a swimming pool and sauna, didn't have much members.

And best of all, since it was a changing room, there were no cameras.

He took a seat on the bench in the middle of the room and stretched out his legs with a sigh of relief. It felt real good.

He held out his hand and focused for a moment. There was a rippling flash of light that surrounded his arm for a moment, before a black gauntlet materialised over it, enveloping his fist and reaching up to the end of his forearm, though leaving his fingers mostly bare after the knuckles. The knuckles of the black gauntlet were a shining gold colour, while a gold bar spread across the back of the fist on it, while in the middle of the gold bar, a deep ebony black gem sat proudly.

His Twice Critical.

He focused on the Sacred Gear for a moment, before with another flash, his school backpack formed into existence, being ejected from the storage space he had within the Sacred Gear.

Something that was so convenient and had to be just as useful as the ability to double all of his abilities just from that sheer convenience.

Grabbing the backpack, Kaito opened it up and pulled out the second bento he'd made from his leftovers from last nights dinner.

Once he had it, he stored his backpack back within his Twice Critical and opened it up.

Though just before he began eating, he paused, "May as well do this as well." he mused and focused on his left arm.

There was a flash of light, before a second identical gauntlet appeared on his left arm.

The greatest benefit of his other self. Last night, it wasn't only the memories he gained, or the magic power boost.

But a second Sacred Gear as well.

A second Twice Critical at that.

"[Boost!]

"[Boost!]

The gems on each of the Sacred Gears gleamed with a golden light as he doubled his bodies physical abilities and then doubled them again, and a deep male voice echoed out from each. Maybe a waste of magic power to some while he wasn't actually using the boosts for anything.

But not to him.

Right now, as he rested, his body had four times the recovery rate as it did before.

If not more so.

And here, in this moment, he couldn't care less about all the other crazy shit he'd learned. If Gremory or Sitri approached him, fine, he'd deal with it then.

But for now, he was going to do as he always did, focus on himself and becoming his best self.

Come what may, it was all he needed to do anyway.