Tales of a Lost Sword 84

Episode 84 Manifesto of the Doom Bringer
A youth with his dark black hair tied up in a ponytail scrambles breathlessly through a narrow ally. He bumps into a man carrying a basket of apples, causing the entire basket to tumble to the ground with a crash.

“Hey, you bastard!” the man shouts after the youth, but the youth has already disappeared from range of earshot.

He comes to a panting halt in the narrow space between two run-down buildings, his breathing heavy. A plastic bag filled with fresh tomatoes hangs by his side. Taking a peek out from within the alley, the boy gulps as a couple of older, gruff-looking men pass him by.

“Where’d he go?”

“Dunno…that damn kid! That’s the third time this week that little bastard’s pulled this crap.”

As the two men stalk off, the boy skirts out from within the alley, dashing in the opposite direction. He takes a deep breath, attempting to look casual as he walks off with the bag of tomatoes.

The sun peers down on the shanty town at an angle from above, as it prepares to set over the building-decorated horizon. Its orange rays bathe the crudely-constructed buildings with a warm glow.

The boy from earlier hurries up a rundown, rickety staircase at the side of one of these buildings, still cradling the bag of tomatoes at his side. He rips open a door at the side of the building, screaming brightly into the room within.

“Hey! Everyone! I brought tomatoes!”

A middle-aged woman steps into view from within the darkening room, a bowl of batter in her arms and an apron over her fading dress. She peers at the still-panting boy standing on the threshold, sweat dripping down onto his white t-shirt. “Recelo! I told you, you shouldn’t keep doing this! One day you’re going to get caught and get sent to work in the dungeons under Bigger Ben!”

“I won’t, Mom,” the younger Recelo retorts. “Those idiots are way too slow to ever catch me. Besides, they don’t exactly have clean records either. They’d never dare to call the police on me.”

“You be careful what you say, Recelo. The police in New Leaf City may not care, but King Grendel has his men everywhere these days. One wrong word and you’re dead.”

The sound of children laughing rises into the air, as two younger children, a boy and a girl, enter the cramped house behind Recelo. They stare up at Recelo with awe.

“Big Bro’s back!” they cry with joy.

“Yeah! And I brought tomatoes, too!” Recelo grins. He holds out the bag for his younger siblings to see. They cry with joy and reach into the bag, feeling the ripe tomatoes in their tiny hands.

Recelo’s mother sighs, shaking her head wearily. She returns into the adjacent kitchen without another word.

The night remains quiet, the sun having disappeared over the horizon long ago. Recelo lies still on his back, staring up at the ceiling with a frown on his face. He turns over to his side on the lumpy mattress, sighing slightly.

On the other end of the room can be seen the faint outlines of his younger brother and sister, huddled together on a single bed in the darkness. Their tiny figures rise and fall slowly as they sleep in peace.

‘If only we had some more money…’ Recelo thinks to himself. Shaking his head, he clenches his eyes shut, biting his lip and clutching the thin blanket draped around him more tightly.

‘All Mom worries about is getting by…but I don’t care what anyone says. It’s the King’s fault we’re poor. He doesn’t care about us at all, or else he’d do something about this dump. Maybe if he weren’t king, if someone else were king, we wouldn’t be poor.’

Gritting his teeth angrily, Recelo pounds the bed with his fist. He gets up, staring about in the darkness. Without another word, he reaches for the jacket strewn on a table nearby and puts it on, stealing out of his room and into the night.

Recelo trots slowly down the unpaved road, sand getting into his battered old sandals. He stops momentarily to shake the sand out of them. “Damn sand…” he curses under his breath, throttling his sandal vigorously with his bare hand.

Without warning, a rough pair of hands reaches forward from behind and grabs Recelo, one restraining him while the other searches his pockets.

“Give me all your money, kid!” a gruff voice growls in Recelo’s ear.

“Get off me!” Recelo cries, struggling. “I ain’t got any money!” He elbows the man behind him. A loud thud sounds. With a cry, the man doubles over, coughing violently.

“You little bastard!” the man shouts, producing a knife. It gleams brightly in the moonlight.

Recelo’s eyes widen at the sight. He quickly reaches into his jacket, drawing out a set of Steelys of his own.

Before either of the two has a chance to act, a bolt of silver light flies forward from down the street. Recelo watches with silent awe as an arrow pierces the thief from behind, going directly through the stomach. Another shoots straight through his head from behind before he even has time to land.

The thief falls to the ground dead with a thud, blood streaming out onto the ground from both of the points in which he’d been hit. The blood quickly begins to pool beneath him.

Recelo stares with horror as a man in a dark trench coat saunters smugly into view, his face obscured by a hat hanging low over his eyes. The man lowers the Dragon Shiner Bow held in his gloved hands, stealthily putting it away over his back.

“Who…are you?” Recelo asks nervously, taking a step back.

“My name is Fain,” the new arrival answers in a low voice as he continues approaching.

“D-Do I know you?” inquires Recelo, taking another step back. He quivers slightly.

“No,” the man drawls, “but I know you. Recelo Sanchez. You are guilty for petty thievery, having stolen goods from your local grocer multiple times this week alone. Upon recovering the stolen goods, you always use them to help feed your family, which is so poor that they cannot survive on their own without the food you steal from others. You also recently became an Assassin, same as your father who died when you were six years old.”

“Bastard!” Recelo howls, his face growing angry. “Who the hell are you? How do you know so much about me?”

Fain does not answer, but merely continues sauntering steadily towards Recelo. Fear overcoming all other instincts, Recelo quickly turns around and runs, but does not even go forward two steps before Fain seemingly teleports directly in front of him, making up the distance with miraculous ease.

Recelo bumps into Fain and falls backwards onto the ground. He blindly scuttles backwards on the ground like a crab, attempting desperately to flee, but Fain lets fly an arrow with remarkable speed. The arrow pierces the ground right by Recelo’s feet. He gulps, staring fearfully up at the mysterious man standing in front of him.

“What…what do you want?!” Recelo yells, trying and failing to inject a sense of aggression into his voice.

“I am a Fatalist,” Fain says in a low voice. “I am one of His Majesty’s most trusted men. I have come for you, Recelo.”

“One of His Majesty Grendel’s men…?” Recelo repeats softly, his eyes bulging wildly. ‘They must know…they must know that I want the King dead!’

“No, not that His Majesty,” replies Fain almost lazily. “Grendel has been incapacitated, though only for a moment in time. The new king, His Majesty Arai, needs you. Come, Recelo. You will serve His Majesty faithfully as a Fatalist. There is nothing in this city for you but destitution and a life of petty crime.”

“I don’t understand…” Recelo whispers fearfully.

“I am not a patient man,” Fain scolds. “It is not complicated. Your country needs you. You must leave everything behind for the sake of those you love and for your country. You will become powerful, and you will serve His Majesty in purging the world of the evils left behind by the former king Grendel.”

“Leave everything behind…?” says Recelo. He quickly glances back in the direction of his home, locating its faint shape in the glimmering moonlit darkness. As he turns back to stare at Fain, Recelo finds that the Fatalist has disappeared.

Frowning as he puts on the black robe uniform of the Fatalists, Recelo raises his arms as he inspects the robe’s dark sleeves, poking at the fabric with his hand. He turns curiously to the mask lying on the bench in front of his locker. He picks it up, staring at its ghostly contours and blank, hollow eyes.

With a sigh, he puts on the mask, obscuring his face from view. He faces his locker again, staring at the photograph of his family pinned to the door. ‘Mom…you always told me I should walk around and hold my head up proudly, because no one would be able to look down on me that way. If only you could see me now, hiding my face behind a mask like this…’

Through the hole carved out for his eyes, Recelo peers more closely in the mirror above the photograph. Two black pupils gleam brightly in his right eye.

Sighing again, Recelo follows the boy next to him out of the locker and onto a massive green field outside under the sunlight.

Joining the boy’s side, Recelo lines up in formation with a number of other children and teenagers dressed in the same austere Fatalist uniform.

A teacher stands at the forefront of the group, gazing at the assembled students with a frown on his face. “All right, listen up, you new students! The fact that you’ve made it this far already is impressive. However, now that your souls have been split and you have been turned into Fatalists, the real work begins. You must learn to train your Fatalist powers and master your newfound abilities. It will not be easy—”

Recelo’s attention abruptly wavers, as something catches his eye. He stares as a girl with beautiful green hair follows another master away from the group. Her face is hidden behind her Fatalist mask, though her vivid green hair trails behind her as a gentle breeze blows by.

Recelo nudges the boy standing next to him in the ribs. “Who’s she?” he whispers.

The boy cranes his neck a bit to look at the girl. He shrugs. “Beats me. I heard she’s the daughter of some rich Orbisian.’

“Orbisian?” Recelo wonders out loud. “I wonder what that kind of person is doing here…”

A few crows cackle and caw across the orange sky as the sun dips below the horizon. Gazing up at them, Recelo stretches and yawns widely, the day’s activities having finished. He joins the throng of new Fatalist students slowly making their way back up towards the Fatalists’ castle for dinner.

Inside the dining hall, Recelo blinks awkwardly as he looks for a place to sit among the numerous tables already filled with students chatting cheerfully amongst themselves. A group of four or five students pass by, completely ignoring him.

Recelo scratches his head, sighing to himself. “I’ve never really been the type to make friends…”

Suddenly, he spots the green-haired girl from before, sitting by herself at an empty table. Though her mask has been removed for the break like with all the other students, she sits with her back facing Recelo. Encouraged by a strange impulse, he begins approaching her.

Yet before Recelo can even reach the girl, a dark-skinned boy with a ridiculous green afro slides into the seat next to her with quite a bit of flair. “Last second ninja slip-in sneak attack!”

“Hello there, beautiful one!” the boy says loudly and brightly. “How would you like to go on a date with me?”

Recelo’s eyes widen as he stands still, awkwardly spying on the conversation from afar. “He went straight for the jugular!”

However, the girl completely ignores her only companion as she continues eating silently. Undeterred, the boy resumes speaking. “The name’s Damon! As in, hot damon! I want to get at that hotness with a quickness!”

Recelo watches with a twitching eye, his hands clenching tighter around his dinner tray. “He even does bad puns!”

Clearing his throat, Recelo steps towards the two, slamming his tray of food down on the table next to Damon. The latter swivels around in his seat, staring at Recelo with a look of confusion at this sudden interruption. “Hm?”

“Yo, Treeface!” Recelo howls with a wink. “Don’t bother a girl if she’s not interested.”

“T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-Tree face?!” Damon spits. “What is it about this majestically carved visage that reminds you of a tree?!”

Frowning, Recelo glares lamely at Damon. “Well, for starters, your hair is green, and you’re kinda br—”

“But her hair’s green too!” protests Damon, directing a finger at the green-haired girl behind him.

Recelo glances for the first time at the girl’s face, noting her pale face and beautiful features. A pair of bright green eyes complement her same-colored hair.

“Shut up,” she speaks for the first time, drawing both the attention of Recelo and Damon. “You morons.” Without another word, she rises, picking up her tray and walking away.

“Hold on!” Recelo cries, taking a few uncertain steps after her. “We just wanna make friends with you!”

Midori stops for just a brief moment, glaring back at them over her shoulder with her poisonous green eye. “I did not come to this place to make friends.”

“And my first love walks out of my life…” Damon whimpers, flailing about as if he is having a seizure.

His frown only growing wider, Recelo stares sourly at the boy next to him. “There’s no possible way you’re gonna make it as a Fatalist, right? They’ll definitely never accept a ridiculous guy like you. Why did you even join in the first place?”

“Because I was bored, and wanted to meet some chicks!”

Recelo twitches with impatience at Damon’s words. Glancing curiously at Recelo, Damon returns the question. “So why did you join then?”

“Hm? Me?” Recelo mutters, looking at the way at where Midori has disappeared out of the hall. “Because I love my country.”

‘Yes. I joined the Fatalists because I realized that in the end, I had no other choice. To refuse Fain’s offer was to return to a life of petty crime and juvenile delinquency, just as he said. There was no future for me in the slums of New Leaf City. The only way up was to become a Fatalist, and hopefully I could help make the world a better place for simple folk like my mother and siblings as well. That was all I hoped for. Ultimately, that was the reason I became a Fatalist. So that I could have a better life for me and my family.

‘I suppose I should be glad that I was one of the success stories. There were so many people who joined around the same time I did but never made the cut. The rigors of becoming a Fatalist apparently were not for those with weak souls. Those failures were the ones met with the punishment of death, because the sin of their continued existence as Fatalists could not be allowed. Knowing all this, I somehow managed to hold on…’
—END EIGHTY-FOUR—
Because everyone likes flashbacks.