Tales of a Lost Sword 10

Episode 10 The Failed Fusion
The sun shines brightly as the day begins to wane in New Leaf City. Numerous people still continue to walk the streets of the city, wandering about towards their infinite destinations. A small alley in New Leaf City lays dark and obscured, hidden behind the shadow of a particularly long avenue of skyscrapers and towers. Several shady looking shops and emporiums line this alley.

One such store stands out from the rest. Its roof is partially collapsed, leaning forward over the doorframe in a dangerous fashion. Its windows are either cracked or boarded up. The ones that aren’t boarded up are dark and dingy with the grime of years of dust. No flowers grow outside this store, just weeds, sprouting up stubbornly through the uneven pavement outside. Behind one of the windows is a sign: HYBRIDS WANTED.

A pair of footsteps disturbs the relative silence outside this street. Kunai and Mira appear in front of the store, staring into its unwelcoming windows.

Mira glances over her shoulder nervously. “I don’t like the feeling of this place…” she mutters. “I feel like we’re being watched.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” Kunai mutters back, his voice even.

“I wasn’t worried!” Mira shouts, folding her arms.

“Don’t be so loud,” Kunai replies, “we’re going in.”

Kunai steps straight up to the door of the shop, placing a hand on its handle. He wrenches the door open. A bell tinkles from somewhere above. Without hesitating, Kunai enters the store. A twitching Mira quickly follows him in.

Another set of footsteps sounds in the alley just as the two enter the store.

Meanwhile, in a brighter corner of the city, Zack and Ophelia continue to scour the larger shopping districts, packed with crowds of people.

“Yo!” Zack howls irresponsibly, callously grabbing a random stranger by the collar. “Ya ever heard of a thing called ‘Anti-Paradox’ before?”

“N-No!” the highly distressed man replies. “Please let me go! I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“Ah right, I’ll believe ya,” Zack growls, relinquishing his grip and letting the man fall to his knees. He whistles, leaning against his Kage. “That’s gotta be the hundredth guy I talked to today and still nothin’!”

“Um…” Ophelia murmurs tentatively by Zack’s side, “are you sure this strategy is working, Zack?”

“Why not?” Zack shouts confidently. He narrows his eyes, searching for his next victim from the crowd of people around him.

“I really don’t think this is going to work!” Ophelia exclaims suddenly.

Zack glances at Ophelia. He pauses for a moment, then bursts into a grin. “Hehe, I guess you’re right. I didn’t really think it was gonna work either!”

“Then why did you keep doing that?!” Ophelia shouts, causing several passersby to look at her strangely.

Zack continues to grin stupidly, rubbing his head. “S’pretty tough to look for something without knowing where to begin. We don’t really need t’try, though. I figured if one of us is gonna find something, it’s gonna be Kunai.”

“Kunai, huh…” Ophelia sighs. “I wonder if Mira and Kunai are all right.”

“You’re quite the type to be always worryin’ away about others, aren’t ya?” Zack notes observantly. “Your sister though…she’s quite mean to that Kunai. Always teasin’ him and such.”

Ophelia opens her eyes wide in surprise. “Oh, but that’s just who Mira is. She doesn’t like to show weakness to others.”

“Nah,” Zack replies. “I bet she likes him.”

“No, that’s not it!” Ophelia shouts forcefully, surprising even herself. “At least…I hope not…”

“S’okay, if he’s your type your sister looks like the type’ll let you have him all to yourself,” Zack says, a smirk still on his face.

“Th-that’s not the case at all!” Ophelia howls, blushing heavily. “It’s just…Kunai always looks so sad. I can see it in his eyes.”

Zack’s smirk disappears, as he grows serious. He sighs, staring up at the sky. “’Course he is. He still hasn’t gotten over those two.”

“Those two?”

“Ivy and Lily.”

Ophelia looks at Zack wonderingly, attempting to decipher the mysterious expression now on his face. “Who…who exactly were they?”

“Two very important people to him,” Zack smiles. “The fates of those linked to Paradoxes are never happy ones.”

“Mira isn’t the type to try to comfort people when they’re hurt,” Ophelia sighs, “she’s the type that tries to hide her feelings.”

“Kunai’s the same, I think,” Zack replies.

“I just want to help the both of them smile again and be glad.”

“Then ya better hope you never get too caught up in the affairs of Paradoxes,” Zack answers.

Kunai and Mira stand together alone in a dim, dirty room. Inside, the store is rather small, with a counter at one end, a doorway behind it leading into a stockroom inside. Multiple shelves and tables littered with all sorts of junk and objects fill up the rest of the store. Even the floor is covered with all sorts of strange objects.

“There’s no one in here…” Mira whispers, unconsciously taking a step closer towards Kunai.

Kunai remains silent. He glances around at the innumerable objects scattered about the room. On one particular table sit several glass jars and tubes, some filled with strangely colored fluids. Several shelves are stacked to the brim with strange objects of different shapes and sizes. Some are rocky and dense, others are shapeless masses, and still others seem to be more geometric, such as wooden blocks and rusted old necklaces.

“This place looks dangerous,” Mira says, “why did you tell us to split up? After you took all that time to create a battle formation for us, you go and split us up…what if we get in a fight?”

Kunai turns to Mira, whispering in her ear. “Follow my lead, and don’t try to do anything on your own.”

Mira narrows her eyes angrily. “What do you mean—”

“Hello!” Kunai shouts, his voice echoing in the tiny room. “Is there anybody in here?”

From within the storage room comes a shuffling of feet. Suddenly, an older man with a rat-like face and balding hair emerges into the main room. He is dressed in a white lab coat. He peers at Kunai and Mira suspiciously behind a pair of dirty spectacles.

“Yeah?” he grunts unpleasantly. “How can I help ya?”

“I noticed your sign outside,” Kunai says slowly, “the one asking for hybrids.”

“I’ll pay ya 100,000 mesos per hybrid,” the man replies tartly.

“Very well,” Kunai replies. He suddenly shoves Mira to the ground in front of the man, forcing her to her knees. Mira glances back at Kunai in rage, but Kunai holds her firmly in place with his knee. “This one will be fine, right?”

“Sure,” the man says, kneeling down to the ground to inspect Mira. He grabs Mira’s chin with a set of stubby fingers, staring into her right eye. Mira shudders. “Two pupils, huh? All right. This will be fine for my work. I’ll get the cash for you right away.”

He stalks back behind the counter, and snaps open a cash register. The man begins counting the bills out to Kunai.

Kunai narrows his eyes, opening his mouth to speak once more. “Um…if I may ask, what exactly do you need hybrids for?”

“The hell do you wanna know for?” the man shouts, displaying his bad temper for the first time. “I’m givin’ you the cash, aren’t I? You don’t need to know what I want her for.”

From the floor, Mira narrows her eyes and grits her teeth. ‘Quit talking about me like I’m some sort of product…!’

Kunai’s eyes darken even more as he prepares to say something else. His voice is low and dangerous when he speaks again. “Are you experimenting with an Anti-Paradox?”

The man freezes in the middle of his counting the money. His hands suddenly begin shaking slightly, as he raises his head to glare at Kunai with renewed suspicion. “Dunno what the hell you’re talkin’ about.” His right hand slips behind the counter.

Kunai raises a Steely, using it to deflect the bullet with blinding speed. The man lowers his still-smoking gun with shocked awe. Kunai stomps straight up to the man, narrowing his eyes even further. “I’m gonna be blunt. I want you to give me all the information you have about the Anti-Paradox.”

The man takes a step backwards, his eyes bulging. “Who…who the hell are you?”

“I’m with the ARES Project,” Kunai announces icily.

“Y-You guys tracked us down all the way here?!” the man bursts out, taking several more steps away from Kunai.

“Yeah,” Kunai replies, having not moved a single step in contrast. “Tell me everything you know about the Anti-Paradox. Now.”

“F-Fine!” the man shouts, relenting at last. “I don’t know much about it anyway.”

“How are you related to the development of the Anti-Paradox?” Kunai asks, as Mira returns to her feet.

“My name’s Benton. I wasn’t involved in the original Anti-Paradox project, but when they moved it here to the Maple World I was contacted with a commission from some wealthy family to aid in the research for creating one. I was one of the few left who knew how to write a hybrid seal, see. So naturally they wanted me to look into creating an Anti-Paradox. I must say as a scientist this has been one of the most interesting projects I’ve ever worked on.”

“Well?” Kunai presses. “What progress have you made in creating one?”

“Not real good progress,” Benton replies, “since Anti-Paradoxes, like Paradoxes, aren’t made of real matter, I had to figure out a way to contain it in a way that could be used. I finally managed to contain it in a pendant I bought, but even that was a pretty poor job. Once I found a container, I obviously had to figure out how to get a Paradox to perform soul fusion instead of soul fission. Eventually I figured out that if I fused two Paradoxes together, the resulting crash in their matter created a white Paradox. I thought I had created an Anti-Paradox at that point, so I stuffed it into the container. But the Anti-Paradox failed. The hybrid I worked on—he ended up a complete mess, see. The fusion worked, but there were so many problems with it I don’t even know where to begin.”

“I see,” Kunai sighs, “well then, you mentioned a wealthy family that was sponsoring you. Who is this family?”

“I wish I could remember…” Benton says, scratching his head. “They last contacted me more than two years ago, see. I haven’t even heard from them since. I think their name started with a G…or maybe it was a K… Dammit, I can’t remember. I believe they were from Showa Town though.”

Kunai sighs impatiently. “Fine. You don’t remember. What happened with your first experiment? Why did the first Anti-Paradox fail?”

“The soul fusion worked, see,” Benton says, his eyes glinting mysteriously, “but I didn’t anticipate that the fusion of the soul processes wouldn’t. Multiple personalities in one soul, see. When you become a hybrid using hybrid seals, you seal part of your donor’s soul into you. Usually there’s no problem there, because the soul fragments are split and one soul process is dormant and there’s no personality conflict. But when I fused the soul pieces back together in Subject A, he ended up with double personalities in the same soul. It was a complete disaster.”

Kunai nods. “Very well. In that case, what did you do with the Anti-Paradox you created?”

“Unfortunately when Subject A failed, he went nuts. He ran off with the Anti-Paradox. It was a complete disaster. I’ve had to start all over from the beginning.”

Kunai closes his eyes, digesting this information. He nods again. “Fine,” he sighs, turning back towards the door. “It looks like we’ve got to look for this Subject A then. Thanks for the valuable information.”

Benton suddenly snaps his fingers, just as Kunai places his hand on the door. “I’ve got it!” he shouts. “I remember what that family’s name was now! Kimura! It was definitely Kimura!”