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JULES
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After some time, Jules had gotten the dagger bright yellow a few times, tuning it to himself. Next he got the blade to alternate between white hot and crimson red by tuning it to Rukia’s spirit. Still, Jules grew frustrated and groaned.
“I’m just tuning spirits, not Integrating them. Not how I imagined this would be.”
“How did you imagine it would be?” Rukia asked. "I imagined we'd kill some squirrels…or cats… Black cats… Kittens, even…"
“Kinda like your soul gets sucked in, and it’s more powerful than an Enchanted blade, I guess.”
“Ha! Not too far from the truth, I think," Kaizen said. "Still, we won’t Integrate tonight, Jules. You’re not ready for the Sound, yet.” Kaizen paused to study the stars. “But they’re telling me it’s time to move on.”
Jules titled his head. “Who’s telling you?” He felt sadness overcome Rukia through their attuned spirits, but Kaizen maintained his smile.
“The stars of your world are the lights from mine.” Three shooting stars flew past, and Jules felt a tinge of nostalgia, or deja vu.
“So move on, we will,” Kaizen said. “Next is body Integration, which we’ll only talk about tonight, and briefly at that.”
“So you and Rukia would…share my body with me?”
“You share your body, we share our power.”
“Seems a bit invasive,” Jules said uneasily.
“Ha! It does, doesn’t it? But it’s fine. It’s only invasive when he does it.”
“So, does the reverse work as well?” Jules was pretty excited at the premise. “Could I spend the day lazing around like a fox?”
"I do not laze around!" Rukia protested, laid out on her back. After a moment, she waddled her hind legs around in every-growing circles until she wriggled back up to her feet.
“Of course not," Kaizen said. "You can host me, or Rukia, or both together. Same for objects, and for Rukia as a host.”
“So Rukia, you could be in me, and Kaizen, you could be in my sword?” Jules grew confused and whispered, “Would that make me a chick, or would she be a dude?”
“Now you’re learning. There are tons of possibilities. Even three-ways!”
“Uh, yeah, don’t say it like that, but I see what you mean. You and Rukia could share a host simultaneously.” The endless possibilities excited Jules. He felt like he could truly become unstoppable, but after non-stop training with friends for a long time, that constant feeling of comparison crept up. “How old were you?”
“What, when I had my first three-way?” Something tells me that’s not a joke.
“When you Integrated for the first time.”
“Ha! I was sixteen.” Kaizen proudly pounded his chest, where his Seal also lay. "By eighteen, I fully assembled the Sound and Integrated with Rukia and—" Kaizen's hand fell from his chest. "My master…"
Assembled? “Wow. You were a lot stronger than me…”
“Way, way stronger. Still am, in fact.”
“Master Kaizen’s the best!”
“I can’t wait. To be that strong.”
“Too bad, because you’ll have to. It’s a long journey to mastering the Sound.”
Guess that’s connected to Integrating. “So is Integrating bodies the same as objects? Just attuning the frequencies?”
“They’re similar. It works like this: You harness the raw energy of a soul, and each soul has a certain imprint. Like a fingerprint, or the frequencies you felt earlier, but with added dimensions. You harmonize that imprint with the engravings of your own soul, or object, and match the lines up as best you can. Trying new combinations of Integration is how you improve over time, gaining experience of what works and doesn’t work. But you have to be careful, because while searching for harmony, it’s easy to fall out of sync. And fast.”
Jules abandoned his working meditation to lie back and gaze at the stars.
“Rukia and I won’t try to take over your body, but Wrath will. So if you Integrate out of harmony, you create the opportunity for him to slip in, and you don’t have the competency to overpower or resist him.”
“That was blunt. So what, he’ll take control again?”
“Almost a given,” Rukia said.
“I can’t kick him out?”
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“You can certainly try,” Kaizen said. “You’ll either succeed, or he will possess you as long as he wants. Or until you die. The connection will be severed upon revival.”
“No offense, Jules,” Rukia said, “but it didn’t go so well for you last time.”
“So that’s what happened before? It seems dangerous to even risk Integration, then.”
“No,” Kaizen said. “What happened last time was that you were too emotional and too close to a piece of the Sound.”
“And it only matters if you Integrate,” Rukia added. “If you’re feeling it out and you can’t line things up, you don’t have to take the shot. Relax, you put the collar on me, so now I’ve got you covered.” Rukia scratched an ear with one foot, that triggered a reflex in her other foot. She lost her balance and tumbled into the Fountain.
“Well great. There’s another way for him to possess me.”
Kaizen laughed. “Jules, you have no idea how fucked you really are, do you?”
Rukia joined in the laughter, but Jules did not. She got out of the Fountain and shook off the water.
“Who was your previous incarnation, Kaizen?”
Rukia stopped shaking and froze. Kaizen looked away. Well, that was certainly a killjoy.
“Jules…that’s a story for another time.” Kaizen looked back at the stars.
“I’m sorry, I—”
“It’s OK. I know you’re curious. I told you there are some things I can tell you, others that I can’t. But there are also some things that I just won’t tell you, of my own accord.” Kaizen skipped a rock across the Fountain. “That’s the only way you’ll make it through this life, by learning some things for yourself.”
“Cryptic.”
“Just know to always beware of Wrath. If he ever tells you to open a door…" Jules studied his predecessor. "Run the opposite direction.” Surely you didn’t open the door.
> [Quest Reminder: Shut the Damn Door is still available.]
"Yeah. OK, Kaizen.”
The ghost snapped out of it. “Let’s begin my removal.” Kaizen stood tall with outstretched arms.
“Right. In the dagger?”
“Unless you have a better place to put me.”
> [Seeketh Patience — Quest Objective ADDED: Remove Kaizen from Patience's Altar and Integrate him into your dagger.]
Jules closed his eyes and meditated. He focused on the vibrations all around him—his, Rukia’s, Kaizen’s, the crowd’s, even the marble of the Fountain. And of course Wrath’s. He focused on the blade now. Without touching it, he felt its edges, the handle, its hilt, its core components.
Shoddy craftsmanship. Damn Painter is a cheapskate. Focus, focus.
He found a pattern on the sword’s metallic structure he thought could mesh with Kaizen’s steely resolve. He aligned them, and they felt harmonious enough to him.
“Jules…” Rukia cautioned, though he could only hear her through a muffling fog.
“Jules—Stop!” Kaizen shouted.
Jules tried to stop, but couldn’t—he laid the metaphysical mesh over the top of the dagger, and then opened his eyes in terror.
Jules sat meditating on the ground alone. Fire burned the landscape all around him. A voice called to him beyond the flames; it sounded like metal grinding against metal. He looked around for its source, for Wrath, and noticed the entire area was crafted of steel. Jules glanced down and realized he sat on the edge of the sword.
Fear caused him to falter, and he slipped down the edge and gashed his leg on jagged metal. He slid down the side but caught himself by grabbing the blade. It sliced his fingers slowly, and the world, or whatever he was in, turned sideways so gravity pushed him down on the flat of the blade.
The demon approached him. Its eyes froze Jules’ soul.
Wrath was far away, but Jules could see an image in its eyes—a dagger levitating just before Jules’ throat in the real world. Jules tried to stop the point from piercing his throat as best he could, but the weapon slipped through his grip.
Wrath drew a serrated katana, dripping with blood, and went to attack Jules’ spirit—
WHACK! A blunt object struck Jules' back.
“Wake up, lad. Yer having a nightmare!” The man shook Jules’ body, his real body, awake.
The demon faded from Jules’ vision and was replaced with the blind beggar to his side, back in the world of the living. The dagger still floated before Jules’ neck. He felt the dry heat from it, and wondered if the old man could too, though he figured he couldn’t see it.
The floating blade pointed itself at the intruder. Jules struggled to hold the weapon back with his mind.
“Jules,” Kaizen spat, “he’ll possess that man if he’s stabbed!”
Jules reached out for the handle, but the grip slipped from his hands and pummeled towards the blind beggar’s throat. The man tripped and fell, avoiding it. Jules leapt for the dagger and sheathed it. He instinctively activated his Seal to absorb its searing heat against his body.
“Oi, why laddie? Why would you knock down an old and blind man?”
Jules sighed with relief. “You fell on your own accord.”
“Hmph. Felt you waving a torch at me. It was so damn hot, I just couldn’t hear any crackling flames.” Something tells me otherwise. “Anyway, I recognize yer voice, though mostly the edgy tone, and the Coralhaven accent. Where the hell've you been with that little she-devil?”
You show up and save me, mention Coralhaven, and now you're asking about Kat. Or are you asking about Envy?
“Kat is fine. She’s fine.” Jules waited to help the man up.
“I miss her cussing out the mangy vagrants at the inn, those ill-bred, intolerant…" The blind beggar shifted his gaze to Rukia, then to Kaizen, and back to Jules. "Anyway, what’s a sinner like you doing at the Virtues this late?”
Jules squeezed the dagger's handle.
“Sinner, huh?" Jules glanced at the others. "Well, I must have fallen asleep. You know, you have a habit of finding me at my most vulnerable moments.”
“Bahaha! I tell ye, fortune follows me wherever I go.” His voice deepened. “But now she’s a’leading me far from here, away from Coralith. She must have made you a pit stop along the way.”
Should we kill him? Rukia thought. Let's kill him.
He just saved us all, Kaizen snapped back.
Let's keep listening, see if he trips with his words this time. Jules reached out an arm to help the man up. “Oh, and how’s that?”
The blind beggar gripped Jules' forearm and pressed his thumb into the new marking. Jules winced.
“Few years ago, that lassie, she stopped by to say goodbye to me. Met a lot of folks in my day, and not one has ever bothered to give me a farewell in this hellscape of a city. Her kindness touched me deeply. It isn’t the same, and it isn’t enough, true, but I hope you will tell her that I wished to tell her goodbye as well.”
“I’ll be sure to let Kat know you were thinking of her.”
“Thank ye, boy. Take these as a token of my gratitude.” He handed Jules a necklace of tacky chakra beads.
"Oh, uh, thank you?" The man lingered around. "I'm sure these meant a lot to you?" Jules shifted in discomfort. "Is there anything else?"
The old man rubbed his hands together. "Any coin on ye?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Baha! Ye'll be on the streets yet, just you watch." He hobbled off into the mist with his cane, waving behind him with his other hand. “And maybe next time we meet, you’ll listen to my fortunes.”
Jules watched him recede into the mist. The next time we meet…
“Always showing up. What’s your read on him, Kaizen?” The ghost remained silent. “Oh, wow—The readings for these beads, they’re off the charts!”
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