Intent, and Well Wishes

{I spent two hours setting up and trying to activate my new phone with no success, and being a night shifter I couldn't get a goddamn human on the line, only to put the damn thing down and LITERALLY get a text the very next moment from an earlier confirmation. AAAAAAAAHHHHH, alright, where was I?}

Hohenheim was etching out letter by letter with pencil on paper at a modest but pressured pace. If he could sweat, he would, but it would ruin his penciling. These letters were arriving to him one by one at a pace that was dizzying considering where they were coming from. Every single letter was coming from a separate marker he had set in his grand UNO Reverse Card, or Countrywide Reverse Human Transmutation. He had to decipher this when it came up since it involves his plan to save Amestris, but it was more of a waiting game than a cipher.

'These letters are coming from marks halfway across the country in linear order, so he's either mastered the art of teleporting somehow or he's divided himself by the hundreds.' He really hoped it was the former because the latter is even more ridiculous. Every marker sends the same mental image of the same person, after all. A young, lean, Olympic-built, golden-eyed, and raven-haired man.

'He's not performing Alchemy on the markers, just "foolishly waving his hands about", but is all he wants my atten-' He was interrupted by another message. 'WHAT DO YOU MEAN A HYPHEN?!'

'I HEARD WHAT I HEARD, HOHEN!! BUCK UP!!!'

'You're right, I'm sorry, I'm just stressed.'

'Y'

'Y? Hmm...'

Hohen knew the last mark was coming up, and thirty seconds later, he was so excited to read the message in its entirety that he forgot the last two symbols.

'F.E.A.R. N.O.T. Y.O.U.R. C.I.R.C.L.E. S.T.I.L.L. W.O.R.K.S... I A.D.M.I.R.E. Y.O.U.R. W.O.R.K... W.E. W.I.L.L. M.E.E.T. S.O.O.N... G.O.O.D. L.U.C.K. F.R.O.M. O.N.E. S.A.C.R.I.F.I.C.E. T.O. A.N.O.T.H.E.R. - Y.U.R.I. N.I.G.H.T.I.N.G.A.L.E. "I.S.H.V.A.L.A." <3'

Hohenheim nearly choked on the symbol he pulled on him at the end. 'Wait a second, Yuri Nightingale... I know that name from Trisha's old letters...' A haze of melancholy rose from his chest when he thought about his wife, who he unintentionally left to die. He shook aside those thoughts. He must complete the circle before all else, there is no time. 'He's that Alchemist my sons are studying under. Ishvala? Does he mean to take claim as the character who pulled a country from its roots? He's like me and the Dwarf, then, but I can't be sure of his past, or his motives. Damn, this really fell into my lap at a bad time. Where did this guy come from?'

Hohenheim closed his eyes and looked inward. 'My friends, if this character stands in our way, please forgive me for leaning on your strength should the need arise.'

'You have our blessing, Hohen, do what you need to do. Make sure there are no more of us' The collective spoke, and it drove him forward ever still. He opened his eyes and clenched his fist, staring out the window of the train. He clapped his hands and burned the message he scribbled.

'Still, Trisha has... had great intuition and she spoke glowingly about him. The Dwarf must have a way to hold my sons hostage if need be, it would be good to have a man like him near them since their mother is gone. Tch, I'm the father of the year, aren't I, relying on a stranger?'

Little did Hohen know, his next visit to the post office would be quite eventful.

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Yuri looked out over his large property, finding a wide gap between the land he was using for cultivating strawberries and the land of their next-door neighbors, the Elrics. It's a waste of space, isn't it?

"You've got that 'I'm gonna do a thing' look," Toni voiced from beside him while the usual beating trilling of tools sounded out from the garage, the pounding of a heavy hammer and the rhythmic churning of a geared wrench.

"About time we used this space."

"Gonna make that pool Ally wanted?"

"Not so much a pool, something more natural," Yuri stretched his arms and cracked his neck.

He flared his hands and the golden lightning flickered from beyond the hill they were staying on and thoroughly traipsed through the thick grass all the way through his property. The dirt was displaced, and the grasses went from carefully cultured to wild and darker. Dirt was transmuted to wood as trees with easy climb holds and wide canopies provided ample shade and play and rest room for child and adult alike.

Many of the workers down in Yuri's fields stood watching as the land beside them was terraformed for more than several acres and couldn't help but get a sense of pride that they have a boss like that, while others felt only fear or envy. The forest grew darker but the noise of rustling and the friction of dirt and stone resounded for a while.

Behind the clearing which hid the continuing results, a clearing was smoothened out with perfect marble tiles. In its center, a perfectly smooth bowl was cut out and condensed into soft stone while several seats began to jut out just under the lip of the bowl. A small cliff was formed beside the bowl, overlooking it with a smooth and curving overhang as a divot led towards the corner edge of the bowl aside from the overhang. Stairs were carved in areas of the bowl and towards the top of the curved cliff, Beside the large bowl, a smaller and more shallow bowl was also formed and it contained a ring to serve as its seat. From the bowl, a curved trench over ten feet deep and five feet wide was cleared and pushed forward away from the Nightingales and towards the Elrics until it reached the edge, displayed itself, and wrapped back around to take a winding and meandering path back to the large bowl.

Yuri and Toni flashed away from Ally and Winry and appeared before the bowl. Yuri nodded and pressed his hands out creating a small inventory portal that let pure water from the sea around New Ishval fill the central bowl as Toni and He started creating formations.

Toni was a much better enchanter than she was a smith, most likely because it was closer to her art than smithing was. Studying the languages Yuri uses is still an effort for her, but she gets closer to reaching the peak Yuri did before he became the Amaranth every day.

Of course, that was before he finished his most recent artifact. When the effects of the Enchantments in Tear of the Cycle sublimated into its core, much like Yuri's own efforts did the day he sublimated, he got a glimpse into how artifacts are made without any language or inscription and instead with pure Intent.

Of course, in the pursuit of the obviously much more flexible and powerful Intent Enchanting, increasing his Spiritual Energy will only increase the weight of the tool he is using and not its deftness. Hell, it might make skillful use even harder if he took a guess. Aside from helping in this kind of enchanting, there is Intent in everything and wielding it better makes you better. Period.

Killing Intent, for instance. Every killer gains that after their first, but it feels and behaves differently for everyone. Wielding it like a weapon instead of like a dense fog is the difference between predator and prey. Making your Intent reliable and capable no matter what shape or flavor it takes on is the mark of a true master, and from the number of books he has seen it in, he was betting that it played a serious role in everything that meant anything the further he got.

"Earth to Yuri?" Toni prodded his side gently as he stared at the curved wall of the bowl they had jumped in.

"Ha, sorry, lost in my thoughts."

"Mind sharing?"

Yuri raised a brow and mulled it over. "How about showing you instead? Might as well try something simple." Yuri placed his hand on a side of the bowl, breathed in and out a few times as Toni felt his spirit move thinly and coat that portion of the wall, and retracted it. Later, they had completed covering the pool, its connecting river, and adjacent jacuzzi with formations designed to purify the water continuously, some while sucking in water at one end of the river and blowing water out at the other. The jacuzzi had heat functions that reached normal temperature for humans and could climb to let the water reach unnatural temps of boiling lava while remaining a liquid, for the Nightingales. Underneath the curved cliff, a swim-up bar had been set and only needed to be stocked. cabinets in the wall behind could hide the adult stuff for now, however. Over the cliff, the water in the main pool defied gravity and climbed the curved hill only to fall a little ways behind the bar and wrap around to the edge of the pool with its width.

Yuri looked at the soon-to-be popular summer spot for the three families and smiled, looking down to his Intent spot only to find a small whirlpool had formed at the surface underneath and was rotating quickly and without a clear purpose.

"I wouldn't want to sit on that..." Toni commented. "Is that what you call a wash cycle?"

"I should invent a washing machine, Light magic doesn't have that home feel. Anyway, it was supposed to circulate the whole pool like a lazy river. Though I would've had to turn it off unless I wanted to sweep away the bar guests."

"You were checking if a single spot could affect the whole pool?"

"Or all the water in it, the same way an enchanted item could if I made it that way. Looks like its a fine tool so it needs the entire subject in frame to do something."

"I should get good enough to do all my spells with just my Intent, in case I lack mana. Baby?" Toni waved at Yuri who seemed distracted again.

"...Yeah, that would be difficult though. I think I figured out something." He raised his hands and used his Spirit power like he did back in the Soul Cairn. A clod of dirt was lifted from the ground and rotated in his grasp.

"This... isn't spiritual Telekinesis," Yuri murmured.

"It's not a basic action?"

"It's Telekinesis Intent. I was using it subconsciously so I confused the two, I imitated a feat I could understand and perform using soul power. Intent powered by the Spirit."

Toni frowned and pondered, then looked back at Yuri. "Is your Domain Intent as well, then? You said it leans on your Spirit?"

"You mean to say that since I wield the force of an invading Record and it leans on my spirit power, my skill is helping me wield the Intent of an entire Record and throw it around? I wouldn't be capable of doing that without the skill at all... but what if I don't have to wield the whole Record's Intent? Just parts of it?"

"...Maybe you would start to understand what Intent is much easier that way?"

Yuri grinned, eager to get to work on that later. 'Why does the Omniverse that seemed so complicated begin to boil down to less and less elements, like its mostly white noise? Curious.'

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Yuri and Toni arrived behind the blonde duo they loved, finding them hard at work but in a moment of learning.

"Temperature?"

"Indeed! Resisting temperature is an important part of any mechanical piece, let alone a prosthetic attached to living flesh! What happens if Ed and Al find themselves in a burning desert or a freezing wasteland? Their arms will suffer the consequences and perhaps they'll damage important nerves they need to operate the Automail!"

"Friction, rust, cutting, deforming, and now temperature! What's next, it has to resist Alchemy?!" Winry raised her small fists in defiance but held tightly to her tools as Ally told her to.

"Well, the fact that we're using a special alloy means nobody can Alchemize it, since they don't know the material."

"Not even I know the material!"

"And someday, I will tell you how to do that stuff too," Ally gently patted her head and brushed her hair. "For now, let's make sure your brothers are in tip-top shape!"

Winry ignored the comment about brothers since they practically were, flexed her big ol' arms like her aunt and the two got back to work.

Yuri smiled at the scene, reminiscing about the brother's reaction to their arms. They had woken up not long after the conversation with their mother Yuri had and he took the chance to broach the subject.

"Boys, I can bring your arms back in perfect health any time you want. It's the least I can do for your efforts, even if your success was bordered by far too much risk."

A hint of desire flashed in the midst of their eyes, but they shared a glance first. A smirk escaped their lips, they looked at their mom who gave a kindly smile and prayed they would make the right decision, and they were assured of entirely the wrong thing.

"HELL NO!" Ed rose from the couch and pointed his finger up in the air while his brother smirked on the side and gave an approving stare. Their mother's gentle smile twitched and her eyebrow quirked, but she gave him that one and sighed.

Ed sat back down and both brothers grinned with a hint of challenge as they looked at Yuri who was smiling coyly. "We brought our mother back! We can bring our own arms back or fucking deal with it!!!" It was Al's turn to point and shout.

Trisha's pride morphed into a grimace and she clenched her fist. "Alright, enough swearing!!!" She reached out and twisted their ears.

"Aaah aaah, Mom!"

"We were being self-dependent!"

"You didn't have to be brutes about it! Now don't start swearing under my roof like a bunch of no-good delinquents!!!"

"Aaaagh, alright! Alright!"

"I give!"

Trisha flashed an accusatory glance at Yuri, the man who did not hold back on swearing, and he tilted his head and whistled as any innocent man would do... She flashed a grin of joy beneath her stern face and started holding the brothers to her chest once more.

It was good to be back...

When they asked about moving, Yuri informed them that he had already transported their belongings back to the house and didn't tell them he gave their house some TLC as well. It has a few extra rooms and more space, putting it lightly. But they would figure that out.

As Trisha was about to be the last one out, Ally and Toni didn't hesitate to remind her.

"Trish, you've seen what we can do. Either I, Ally, or Yuri would find it abysmally easy to handle anything you have issues with."

"Drop in the bucket! And we will hound you until you spill, so don't think about hiding any troubles either!"

Trisha laughed, giving the two ladies that she was glad to have entered her life the most a warm hug while hiding a single tear. "Visit often, I know I will!"

"See ya' around, girly!" "Bye bye!"

As the door closed, the three were left with a small feeling that the house got more empty than ever.

"I'm gonna miss having them as part of the house," Yuri admitted.

"Punks knew how to rile me up," Toni acted the tsundere.

"Me too, we need to bring them over more often. Make a pool or something here!"

"Haha, I wouldn't mind that," Yuri leaned over and stole a kiss. "But the house won't be empty for long. Little Nina Tucker was just born this year."