13 Secrets of the old Alchemist.

Karin sat across from Harry and watched his every move attentively throughout the meal. The girl could not understand what had happened, but the young Hero looked... Too happy. He did not even notice her glances and spoke animatedly with his peers... He never speaks to them.

So when the teenager was washing the dishes, she came up to him. After a couple of seconds of silence, Karin seriously asked.

"Harry, did something happen?"

"Hmm? What are you talking about? Everything's fine."

"No, you are far too social today. For you this behavior is completely atypical and illogical."

Harry looked at Karin with a raised eyebrow and set another plate on the top floor with Pride.

"That was a couple of tricky words for a kid your age."

"Don't sway away from the answer, Harry Potter."

He laughed and went back to doing the dishes.

"I met the girl who created my costume. And you have no idea how many ideas she had! If I had used them earlier, I would not have gotten into such a mess during USJ..."

Luckily Karin ignored Harry's words about the attack on USJ and focused on the other part of his sentence.

"A girl?" an obvious smile was heard in the girl's voice and the teenager mentally swore "Harrrrrrry~ tell me the whole truth~!"

He sighed heavily and put the last plate on the shelf. Harry dried his hands with a towel and squatted down to be at one level with the girl.

"...I am actually a time-traveling wizard from another world. And in England I can use the title of Lord Potter to vote."

The smile on Karin's face grew even wider. Her eyes began to glow from the use of her Quirk.

"Harry got himself a girlfriend!" she laughed loudly and ran out of the kitchen.

The teenager could swear that he heard a couple of disappointed groans within the walls of the Orphanage, but wrote it off to his imagination.

"Cute little rascal..."

---

Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi looked at the report on the number of captured villains and frowned. Many were seriously injured, but only one villain was in a terrible state. Jay Guile, villain name Gluttony. His back was completely destroyed and his stomach was pierced with a pipe. The detective had no sympathy for the villain, but the report contained information that made him stop and stare at the page.

The villain has lost his Quirk.

That was weird. Sometimes villains are injured and lose control of their Quirks, but this was not the case. Naomasa scanned the report once more, memorizing every detail, and came across the names of two students who were in the same zone as the villain. Harry Potter and Mashirao Ojiro.

The detective turned on the computer and tried to find the name of Potter in the system, it seemed familiar to him even during the USJ. A link to a case two years ago appeared on the screen and Naomasa frowned even more.

The first villain who was hurt badly after trying to attack Potter. Nothing was known about the state of his Quirk, Envy still hasn't woken up from a coma. The detective rubbed his eyes and took out his phone.

"Nezu? I have a couple of questions about Harry Potter."

---

Harry took off his pants and threw them over the back of a chair, they fell on him with a strange thump and the teen frowned. He lifted his pants and examined his pockets, in the left was a phone... He stared blankly at the burner phone without blinking.

"And what the hell is this?"

Harry turned on his phone and checked the contact list, there was not a single number inside. He looked at the incoming messages, but there was nothing. Then Harry went into the notes and found only one, called "Sins." The teenager immediately tensed, but opened the note.

'Pride. Envy. Gluttony. Greed. Lust. Sloth. Wrath. You have three. We have only four. Ouroboros will come to collect the tribute.'

The phone cracked in Harry's hand and fell apart with the force with which he squeezed it. Well, his life has been too simple in recent years, huh? The teen threw the phone into the trash can and pulled out a black tome from the shelf.

The book was updated daily with new information about alchemy, the Philosopher's Stones, Homunculi and Ouroboros. Now he needs to add even more. Harry opened a blank page and began to write.

'The existence of seven Philosopher's Stones has been confirmed, three are at my disposal.'

'The existence of a person named Ouroboros has been confirmed. Targets unknown.'

'My possession of the Philosopher's Stones has been revealed. Method is unknown.'

The sound of a pencil writing on parchment did not stop until midnight. Harry went to bed only after he wrote absolutely all his thoughts in the book.

---

Harry had one important meeting scheduled a week before the start of the Sports Festival. Old man Shu gave him a two-week time range and the teenager did not forget about his promise to return. So right now he was heading to his favorite store. Harry turned into the alley where the bookstore was located and stopped abruptly.

The once cozy building was burned to the ground and fenced off on all sides. Apparently, this happened recently, since the neighboring buildings were not yet cleaned of soot. Harry walked over to the former building and found the nearest police officer.

"I'm sorry, do you know what happened to Old Man Shu? He's the owner of this store."

The officer looked up from his phone and stared at the teen for a couple of seconds.

"Huh, Shu Tucker? I'm sorry kid, but he died in the fire. Did you know him?"

Harry staggered and looked at the burned building.

"...yes, he is my friend... was... damn... what the fuck..."

The officer glanced at his phone and thought for a second.

"Hmm kid, is your name Harry Potter?"

"What? Yes, it's me. Why are you-"

"The old man left a package for you in the safe. It is not important for the case, so I think I can give it to you. If you have an ID, that is."

The policeman waved his hand in the direction of his colleague and he carried out of the car a small box signed with Harry's name. The teenager nodded automatically and put it in his bag.

"Thanks..."

The man smiled sadly and patted Harry on the shoulder.

"I am sorry for your loss, Shu is in a better world right now."

Harry nodded again and walked briskly back to the Orphanage. A hundred thoughts and theories flashed through his head.

'Fire? How could this paranoid fuck have a store on fire?! I would have believed it exploded, but fire?! Something is wrong... Something is very wrong...'

The teenager's breathing quickened and he leaned against the wall of a building so as not to lose balance.

'Was it a murder? Who wants to kill the bookstore owner?! It doesn't make any fucking sense!'

Harry slammed his fist against the wall and it cracked. He felt blood begin to run down his hand.

"Shize (Shit)... Calm down. Quiet. It's okay."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Shu is dead. The store is burned to the ground. I only have a weird package... Okay... I can work with that."

The teenager just stood there and breathed deeply for a couple of minutes. Now he can go home...

---

From the safety of his room, Harry opened Shu Tucker's package and pulled out three books from inside. Two books were familiar to him, 'The History of Alchemy' and his notebook with the beginning of the deciphering of this insane text. The third book was signed in the old man's handwriting. He looked at the blank cover for a couple of minutes and began to read.

'Alchemy, It is the scientific technique of understanding the structure of matter, decomposing it, and then reconstructing it. If performed skillfully, it is even possible to create gold out of lead. However, as it is a science, there are some natural principles in place. Only one thing can be created from something else of a certain mass. This is the Principle of Equivalent Exchange.'

'There are many paths by which alchemists can transmute the various substances of the world, with some alchemists being said to transmute by way of the Four Classical Elements (Water, Earth, Fire, and Air) and some by way of the Three Essential Principles (salt, sulfur, and mercury), but the basic tenet at the very foundation of all alchemy is that of Equivalent Exchange.'

The next section was devoted to the laws of alchemy and the use of the transmutation circles. Harry decided to skip it for a while, since at the moment they were useless.

'...Whether out of despair, malice or inquisitive hubris, several alchemists have been known to attempt the application of transmutation to the human body and/or soul, in essence, playing God with human lives. But, just as the Law of Equivalent Exchange applies to the transmutation of non-living matter, devastating rebounds can occur in Human Transmutation because human lives and souls are priceless according to the flow of the world.'

'Attempts to bring deceased human beings back to life are the most common practices to be called Human Transmutation. Using various experimental theories and methods, multiple alchemists have endeavored to resurrect dead loved ones, but such pursuits are always failures, forbidden by the flow of the universe and alchemy itself. The process...'

Harry's eyes gazed over the words with incredible speed and then he saw one very interesting title: 'Artificial Humans'.

'The next most referred-to form of Human Transmutation is the concept of an alchemically created artificial human, called a "Homunculus". Though largely considered impossible due to the fact that all recorded and reported attempts to make one have been failures, this act is one of those specifically noted in the Amestrian nationwide prohibition of Human Transmutation.'

'Chimeric Alchemy is a branch of bio-alchemy that seeks to alchemically "marry" two dissimilar life forms into a new creature, but even though this science skirts the line of playing God, the prohibition of Human Transmutation forbids alchemists from incorporating human beings into the practice of chimera production. However, there are alchemists who flout this decree and step across the threshold into monstrous experimentation. Shou Tucker, the Sewing-Life Alchemist, was the first recorded alchemist to successfully create a Human Chimera-'

Harry stopped immediately when he saw the name of the Alchemist. The name was changed by one letter, but... It's impossible, right?

'The Homunculi were created by injecting a Philosopher's Stone into the body of a living being. Five of the known Homunculi are based on humans, which were either artificial bodies of transmuted or naturally occurring humans. If the Homunculus is based on a natural person, the stone and the body of the human clash until one overcomes the other. Most often than not, the stone wins, and the human dies, though sometimes the human wins.'

'Human-based Homunculi die if their Philosopher's Stone is depleted; however, Homunculi based on non-humans may survive the depletion of their core stones, transforming into their "true form", a physical amalgam of their deepest, innermost, pure, and true desires and wishes. All Homunculi dissolve to dust whenever they reach their ultimate death...'

The more Harry read, the more he wanted to puke. The book listed experiments and theories of alchemy. Some of them were harmless and even useful, but... Countless victims, crippled lives and all for what? For the sake of science. The victims didn't even have names, only numbers.

The very last page included an envelope signed 'Sewing-Life Alchemist'. Harry opened it and began to read the note that was inside.

'Harry, I hope that by the time you read this book, I'll be dead. You now have many questions to which I have answers... But the price of truth is too high. So I will only tell you what I think is necessary.'

'For hundred years I have not been a human being, but a Chimera with the face of an old man. My life has been devoted to the study of alchemy, namely Chimeras. Over the long years of work, my consciousness... has become clouded.'

Harry read the story of the Alchemist and his research in shock. The old store owner used his own wife and daughter in the experiment only to understand the limits of science. After the death of his daughter, the state was able to fake his death and lock him up in the laboratory.

For fifty years, Shou Tucker continued his work and was only able to escape from the clutches of the government because of the beginning of the era of Quirks. So, after a while, Shou Tucker died and old man Shu, an ordinary bookstore owner, appeared.

The teenager read the last words of a broken and possibly insane man. He didn't know what he should think about it... What he could think about it.

The man who helped him find the most interesting books in the world turned out to be a bastard. The man who helped him with his lessons when he escaped from the boring walls of the Orphanage killed and experimented on people. The man... Chimera lived for over a hundred years and killed himself.

Harry put all the books neatly back into place and quickly changed into his gym clothes. The teenager jumped out of the window onto the ground and headed towards the forest. After tonight, he would need a new place to practice. The old may not survive his rage.