Tales of a Lost Sword 34

Episode 34 Training Recommences: Return of the Blue Screamer!
Kunai’s eyes narrow with hatred as he spots the man now standing in front of him. He clutches the Steelys in his claw more tightly, snarling.

“What are you doing here?!” he demands coldly.

“Enemies though you were in the living world,” Azuma begins, “you are no longer enemies. Lord Kimura is no longer an enemy. He has personally repented to me and has agreed to cooperate in whatever way he can in our war against the Fatalists.”

“I don’t believe it for one second,” Kunai barks. “After all he did, all the people he hurt, he’s just gonna switch sides, just like that?!”

“Yes,” Azuma answers simply. “As difficult as it may be for you to understand, my brother-in-law was never truly on the side of evil. Why do you think he is currently here with us in this region of the Underworld, and not with the forsaken sinners in Idavoll?”

“Well…” stutters Kunai.

“Kunai,” Lord Kimura says suddenly.

Frowning, Kunai turns to his former enemy. “Wha—” Kunai raises Myou to guard himself, as Lord Kimura brings his Blue Screamer crashing into Kunai.

“Forget our past and let us now do battle!” Lord Kimura cries. “I am here to help you now! I will be your key to defeating the Fatalists!”

Struggling to fend off Kimura’s sword, Kunai leaps back, breathing heavily. He raises his claw, but Kimura jumps at him again, swinging his Screamer swiftly and with precision. Yet again, Kunai is forced to retreat, away from the sword.

“Fools!” Azuma scolds. “Kunai, your training is worthless if you have come here merely to evade attacks. Release your sword at once, and show us the power you have reclaimed from your clone!”

Kunai pauses, as Lord Kimura lowers his sword correspondingly. Taking a deep breath, Kunai raises Myou into the air. “This would be the first time I’ve released Myou since getting it back…” he whispers to himself.

Azuma shuffles impatiently. “Hurry up!”

“Here goes nothing…” Kunai sighs. He grimaces suddenly, as a flash of pain crosses his forehead. “D-Dammit, this headache’s making it difficult to concentrate…”

Both Lord Kimura and Azuma watch in awe, as a massive tornado of black light and energy surrounds Kunai, spinning rapidly in place. A frantic gust of wind emerges from the tornado, ruffling the hairs and clothes of all those standing nearby. The energy generated by the whirlwind of black energy diffuses into the air, actually causing some of the smaller stalagmites nearby to crumble into tiny rocky fragments.

Just as suddenly, the tornado of energy explodes with a bang. The whirlwind collapses upon itself, and the black energy slowly vanishes into the air, as Kunai’s shadowy figure is the only thing that’s left standing in its place.

In his hands, Kunai holds a brand new sword, different from the one used by his clone, but also different from the one he first created in the Underworld. Instead, this new sword is jet black, with sharp, uneven edges, impossibly thin but wide in girth.

The sword glimmers in Kunai’s hands, its smooth surface reflecting Kunai’s face as he stares into its cool, metallic blade. Kunai gives the sword a swing, and it cuts finely through the air, creating a satisfying sound, powerful, but nimble and light at the same time.

“It’s a perfect combination of the first two incarnations of his sword…” Azuma mutters to himself. He turns to both Kunai and Kimura. “Very well. You may now fight. Do not hold back, I want to see the full extent of your powers!”

As both Kunai and Lord Kimura rush into battle, yet another figure now wanders into the battlefield behind Azuma. Standing still, Azuma speaks to this new figure. “Do not worry. His skills are still raw, but he definitely has the potential to defeat Arai…”

Yttrius steps into view from out of the fog, a smile playing about his lips. “My, my, I hope so. Arai may have been my best friend in the living world…but I hope with all my heart that Kunai can defeat him.”

Azuma grunts in agreement. “Indeed.”

Kunai skids backwards, digging his heels into the ground to regain his footing. Lord Kimura approaches calmly, sword in tow. Kunai bounds forward, his own sword singing through the air.

The two swords clash with a high-pitched clash of metal, scraping against each other as they battle for supremacy. Lord Kimura grins with satisfaction. “You are definitely much stronger than the last time I saw you, Kunai! But…!” Kimura unleashes a blast of frozen ice at Kunai with his sword.

Kunai bounces backwards, cutting down the blast of ice with his sword. He waves his hand, and redirects the rest of the ice away. “Refract!”

“Take this!” Lord Kimura cries, waving his sword and sending a wave of lightning hurtling towards Kunai.

Kunai flies into the air again, landing on top of a stalagmite. The beam of lightning crashes into the base of the rock, causing it to tumble and collapse into pieces.

In response, Kunai leaps off the crumbling rock, but not before he fires a powerful beam of white mana at Lord Kimura.

Kimura deflects the blast with his sword, absorbing the attack. Kunai lands lightly on the ground again, but Kimura teleports right behind him, pressing his sword against Kunai’s back.

Kunai spins and meets Kimura just in time, countering the blow with his sword. Sparks fly as the two blades intersect once again, neither willing to give way to the other.

“I’ve got you now!” Kunai cries victoriously. “Mana bullet!” He fires a blast of white hot mana from his sword at point-blank range.

Lord Kimura’s eyes widen as the blast explodes in front of him. Kunai slides back from the momentum of the blast, coming to a stop as smoke and debris fly into the air from the blast.

As the smoke begins to clear, Lord Kimura cuts the air with his sword, waving away the haze. “You’ll have to do better than that, Kunai!” Lord Kimura taunts. “Shadow Partner!”

Kunai turns in surprise, as a clone of Lord Kimura appears out of the shadows behind him, flying straight at him with a duplicate Blue Screamer raised.

The real Lord Kimura flies straight at Kunai from the other side in a pincer attack as well. Cornered, Kunai jumps straight up into the air, allowing the two enemies to crash into each other. Lord Kimura’s clone disappears in a haze of confusion and smoke, as Kunai leaps away from the scene onto the top of another stalagmite.

“Hmm, I remember when Kunai battled Arai in a situation just like this,” Yttrius reminisces longingly. “It seemed like just yesterday.”

“Do not be fooled,” Azuma replies sternly, “time passes differently for the dead than for the living. Whereas the living live in a world of constant change, the dead simply linger in an unchanging space.”

From the top of his stalagmite, Kunai charges up another mana bullet attack. He takes aim, firing with his sword at Lord Kimura.

The latter forms a massive wall of ice with a wave of his own sword. The wall of ice reflects the attack, dispersing it into the air with a mighty explosion.

“Still not enough, Kunai!” Lord Kimura cries, leaping into the air and joining Kunai. He swipes at Kunai with his sword; Kunai parries the blow, but loses his balance atop the stalagmite.

Kunai begins falling toward the ground, the wind whistling through his ears. Kimura flies after Kunai, his sword drawn and poised to strike Kunai.

Kimura’s attack occurs at the same time as Kunai collides with the rocky ground. A massive explosion ensues, momentarily covering the entire field with dust.

Lord Kimura steps back satisfactorily, eyeing the still-smoking crater around where Kunai had fallen. However, he tightens up, as he notices a shadow emerge from the haze of dust and debris.

“Power Assaulter!”

With a blinding flash, Kunai appears out of nowhere and brings his sword crashing into Lord Kimura’s. A violent explosion of energy erupts as their swords clash, throwing Kimura back.

He slides uncontrollably back, until he crashes into the wall of a stalagmite with force. Kimura falls to his knees, temporarily stunned by the force of the attack.

Wiping his face of grime, Lord Kimura returns to his feet, eyes narrowing darkly. “Such speed and force at the same time…impressive!”

“What was that just now?!” Yttrius cries from the sidelines, his jaw dropping.

Azuma watches Kunai stoically. “He’s awakened his Fatalist powers…”

“What?!” Yttrius gasps.

In another flash of light, Kunai appears right by Lord Kimura’s side, swinging his sword. “Mana bullet!” The blast strikes Lord Kimura at point-blank range, sending him flying through the thick base of the stalagmite.

Kunai jumps up and skips his way through the tunnel created by Lord Kimura’s body flying through the rock. He crosses to the other side, swinging his sword at Lord Kimura, who still remains on the ground.

Kimura is knocked back another several yards, his body rolling violently backwards. Kunai charges up another mana bullet, lining up his attack with Kimura’s body.

Suddenly, Kunai loses control. The burst of energy in his hands dissipates, as he holds his hand up to his right eye, grabbing both his eye and forehead. Kunai doubles over, writhing about violently. His sword begins losing its shape, as it transforms into one eerily resembling the sword used by his clone.

At once, Kunai feels the cold blade of another sword tighten against his side. Kunai looks up, and finds Azuma standing in front of him. Azuma grabs the front of Kunai’s face with his hand, restraining him.

“That’s enough,” Azuma hisses.

The transformation stops just as abruptly as it had begun, and Myou suddenly shifts back to its regular form as a claw. Kunai goes limp, as he falls to his knees.

With a flash of blue light, Yttrius appears next to Lord Kimura, leaning over him. Yttrius engulfs Kimura with a cool glow of green light, healing his injuries.

Lord Kimura rises into a sitting position with a gasp, grimacing painfully. “I know the dead don’t experience any real pain or injuries…but that was the most realistic battle I’ve had since coming here….”

Kunai leans weakly against Azuma, his body suddenly limp and weak. Azuma helps Kunai stand. “That is enough for today, Kunai…your first lesson was a success. You’ve now awakened your abilities as a ‘Fatalist.’”
—END THIRTY-FOUR—
Insight Special 2: Pen to Paper
As I mentioned last time, today I’m going to talk about the process of how the ToaL series goes from my mind to word document to your computer screens.

It’s a fairly simple process, actually. A lot of writers like to do all sorts of fancy writer exercises, but I don’t really bother with that. At least not with ToaL.

ToaLP was even simpler than ToaLW or ToaLS. As I’ve hinted at, much of ToaLP consisted of me ‘winging’ it. I did not even know how ToaLP was going to end quite far into the writing process. But that is typically the case, even with ToaLW and ToaLS (I currently do not know how ToaLS will end). Since pretty much all of ToaLP was written during the summer of 2006 back when I was still in high school, I basically spent the vast majority of time in summer school that year working out the plot of ToaLP in my head. (Due to inept teachers, I had basically two hours a day of absolute zero productivity as far as school work was concerned.) So for the most part, the plotline of ToaLP was conceived almost entirely in my head, stored there, and transmitted to word document as I wrote. There was really no danger of losing track of information, since (for those of you that remember anyway) I wrote at probably the fastest pace you’ll ever see me write that summer.

ToaLW and ToaLS had/have slightly more complicated writing processes. Starting with ToaLW, I moved to an actual word document that I call an ‘episode guide’ that is basically a list of every single chapter in the series with a summary of what goes on in that chapter. Occasionally I throw in some actual lines that wind up in the chapter itself in the summary. For example, the infamous line revealing Ice’s identity at the end of ToaLW had been written for ages long before the chapter itself was finished. Since ToaLW was considerably longer than ToaLP (and written over a much longer period of time, from late 2006 to spring/early summer 2008) keeping a guide to keep track of the plot was necessary. It also made it easier to avoid plot holes or contradictions, while also keeping track of what direction I wanted the story to go. I currently am working under pretty much the same process with ToaLS.

That said, I always like to wait several chapters into writing the story before I start writing the episode guide. This usually applies to everything I write. I prefer to wing the first few (or couple dozen…) chapters to get a good feel for the direction of the story before starting on the episode guide. For example, I waited until somewhere around chapters 5-7 to really start writing the episode guide for ToaLS.

And even then, I don’t usually write the entire episode guide at once. As I’ve said, I usually wait far, far into the writing process to decide on an ending. Even now I do not know how ToaLS will end. To compare, I didn’t know how ToaLP would end until the chapter 40s (it ended at 56 chapters). Similarly, the plot twist revealing Ice’s identity as Arai wasn’t conceived until fairly late into the series. When, I don’t remember. Probably somewhere around the 90s-100s.

Let’s look at an example of what goes into the episode guides:

This is a sample of three chapters from the ToaLW episode guide. We see a bare points outline of what occurs in the three chapters discussed (many other chapters don’t even have summaries). This was probably written around the time I was working on chapters 50s. We can see that the names for the two characters that eventually became Lord Duncan and Ice have not been come up with yet. You can also see that I have a line or two written for characters. Typically episode guides were written for my own benefit, that is, to remind me of what I had planned to happen in that particular segment of the plot. Usually I already had an idea in my head of what would happen in the chapter that didn’t get written down. So these summaries essentially served as reminders so that I didn’t lose track of where I was going.

Compare the above example to an early draft of an episode guide for ToaLW:

The first 19 chapters or so look like a rough outline of what actually ended up happening in ToaLW, but what about past that? Chapter 20 onwards looks totally different. To be honest, I don’t even remember what I was planning with those chapters.

The actual writing –
So we know now how I planned the chapters, but how about actually writing them out?

With ToaLP, I blitzed the entire writing process, writing 56 chapters in basically two months. Why? The simple explanation is that I was just used to writing a lot more. Prior to delving into ToaLP, I’d been writing another MS fanfic. But before that, in middle school, I was writing my own original fiction, with chapters that went about 7000-12000 words long. A typical ToaL chapter usually runs 1200-3000 words long in comparison. In other words, I was used to writing chapters a helluva lot longer than ToaL. So I was able to churn out chapters for ToaLP with remarkable speed. I was “in shape”, so to speak. What I usually liked to do with ToaLP was write one chapter in the morning (I had summer school at around 10:00AM) then come back from school and write another. That was the usual pattern I settled into with ToaLP, and it allowed me to keep a pace of about 1-3 chapters per day. As the plot got more complicated I started to slow down because I had to actually figure out what was going to happen next though.

Needless to say, I definitely could not keep up that pace with ToaLW. It was written between late 2006-late spring/early summer 2008, a span of nearly two years. Those were my middle two years of high school. Life kinda got in the way. With ToaLS, I started it in late 2008 (senior year) and well…it kinda got stuck until winter 2010 when I really started writing it again.

When I write, I write while listening to music. Sitting in front of my desktop (but with ToaLS, I’ve been working a lot more on my laptop since I’m living in the dorms). What kind of music? Yeah, you guessed it…anime music. Or Jrock/Jpop. Whatever fits the current mood of the story. That might be another explanation why you might see similarities in ToaL with some other anime series. Cough. Usually the music I listen to has changed from sequel to sequel. Or even within a series. For example, I started out listening to the theme songs from Tsubasa Chronicle and Naruto when I first started working on ToaLP. But then by the chapters 40s, I switched to Nickelback. What the hell. I know, I know…I don’t even like Nickelback anymore. I’m not sure if I ever did.

Writing plot development scenes come more naturally to me than do fight scenes. I know I’ve kinda been known for violent bloody scenes where characters get more holes poked through them than swiss cheese, but it takes more effort for me to write those kinds of scenes than it does to write chapters where the plot is moving on and being developed. That’s why, if you’ve noticed, chapters devoted entirely to fighting are a lot shorter than plot development chapters. That’s also why, especially during ToaLW, whenever I stopped posting new chapters for a significant amount of time, it was often just before or during a fight scene.

Well, that about does it for this IS. It was a lot longer than expected. To be honest with you, I haven’t decided what I’m going to write about yet for the next one. But I do have some character profiles planned down the line that you might look forward to. Until next time, then–AznRiceFan, signing off.
—
Double dose, with a new chapter and a new IS to boot. I’m officially on spring break, which is basically an excuse to ramp things up and write faster. For the uninformed (or forgetful), the chapter’s name is a reference reaching wayyy back to chapter 43 of ToaLW.