Paradise Lost: Kill the Memory

Anime Con was more than anyone could have bargained for. The people were cheerful, the sights were colorful, and the souvenirs were top tier. Too bad four of the convention's attendees were all but dead broke.

“Damn it!” Jeremy muttered as he and his friends, John, Itachi, and Clayton, passed by another booth. “All this good loot and we have to pass it up….” Jeremy was dressed in combat boots, army green cargo pants, a tight fitting, sleeveless black shirt, and long, fur lined hunter’s coat. A pair of custom made bracers sat on his wrists while a secured survival knife and tristaff sat on his belt, covered by the coat.

“Dammit Jeremy, We already got here which is cool enough,” Clayton said, a bit annoyed as he stood there with his arms crossed. “I really don’t think we need more shit...not like you guys need it or anything…” He added before he sighed. Now, unlike his friends, Claytone wasn’t into dressing up or anything like that, not that he was against it or anything. He simply wore a tan shirt and some jeans, which he regretted as his shirt was soaked with his sweat from a combination of not only the fact that he’d never been in America before, but also because it was summer and the inside of the building was...Hot. As. Balls!

“You say that, but my costume is incomplete: I'm still missing the horns,” was John’s response. For weeks before the convention, John had been letting his hair grow out so that he could pull off this cosplay as perfectly as possible. He had a purple contact in his left eye, and a crimson contact in his right eye. He was wearing a white dress with a blue, stylized electricity pattern all over the skirt, and had a custom ribbon (made by sewing the end of a blue one to the end of a red one) wrapped around the waist and tied in a bow on his back. In the pocket of the dress, he had a small doll with long blonde hair, blue eyes and a black dress with white frills on the hem and a white apron-like piece of fabric attached to the front. Finally, on his feet he wore some Geta, one with a red strap, the other with a blue strap. With his hair down to his shoulders, his tall, slim physique, his surprisingly high pitched voice (for a male) and the outfit he was wearing, it's no surprise that most of the people at the convention mistook him for a girl.

“You think missing such a small detail is so bad, try missing an essential thing like the plate with the scratched through village insignia that identifies my character as a Missing-nin from Kirigakure!” The last of the four said, before proceeding to curse his luck in words his friends did not understand. “Dare ga kiri no naka ni kakusa reta mura no kishō nashide watashi ga kakurete iru mura no dore o shitte iru to omowa reru nodesu ka?”

“Yes James we know you can speak Japanese, it’s a very good life skill to have..” Clayton sighed as he looked at his friend. “...In like...one of the places that doesn’t speak English at all..” he added sarcastically.

“I'm sorry if my family speaks my mother's language at home, you know she can't speak English!” He said to his French friend. “And for the last time, when not at home or with Hahaoya no family you can call me by my given name not my father's family name.”

“And I’m sorry if I don’t see the point in trying to find stuff for our made up characters that are not even remotely a part of the shows they’re suppose to be from,” Clayton said with a frown, his patience dying. “...Sorry..”

“At least we’re all missing something generic,” Jeremy said. “Horns, a headband, some contacts and… what was it you needed Clay?”

“A Cowboy hat…” Clayton said quickly. “Doesn’t matter the colour.”

“It is more than a headband, it is what identifies my character as a Shinobi in the first place! Watashi no seikaku ni wa fukaketsudesu!” He gestured to the place on his hood where his left eye was hidden, anger clearly visible, even through the light grey contact he wore on his right and the cloth mask over his nose and mouth. On his back the Wakizashi he was wearing clanked in its sheath and the fang shaped dagger sheathed on the right side of his abdomen shook, the tiny vial of liquid in the hilt sloshed the stand in snake venom as it moved. The false Kunai on his right leg and foam Shuriken in the pouch on the left side of the belt around his waist and Tanto on the back of it staying relatively still as the leather boots he had on showing the wear of actual use.

“Oh...another bunch of lonesome wanderers lost in clouds of greed…” A voice said with a tone of amusement from the right of the group. “I think I have just what you’re looking for, cool cats...” This caused Clayton to snap his head in the direction of the voice, revealing a man clad in a robe of fur, the robe being so thick that it hid not only his build, but also his face.

John turned to look at the person who spoke. When he noticed what they were wearing, his eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Aren't you hot in that coat?” he asked, the surprise in his voice painfully obvious. “It’s the middle of Summer!”

“More importantly, Anatahadare?” Itachi asked.

“Oh..I can assure you sir,” The man started, looking over at John as if he didn’t need any help to know he was talking to a guy. “I am rather cold..and to answer your question, I’m a..” he then throws off his coat to reveal a man with blue skin and tight looking clothes, a yellow hat on his head. “MAGIC...MANNNN!”

After a few moments of stunned silence, John regained his composure somewhat. “Well, it would take some kind of magic to tell I’m a guy through such a perfect cosplay, I guess,” he said, not realizing he was speaking his thoughts due to the lingering shock, “but you said something about having what we're looking for? What do you mean by that?”

“Yeah Papa Smurf, what’d ya got?” Clayton asked, very impressed with the man’s costume as he was a big fan of Adventure Time. “Got a cowboy hat?”

“Why, of course!” Magic Man said with a smile as he unrolled a bundle of fabric to reveal the exact items they were all looking for. “How much are you willing to pay?”

“Wait, that's right. We’re flat broke,” John said, suddenly remembering the argument a minute ago due to all the stalls that they had passed from their lack of funds.

Itachi reached into one of the pouches on his costume and pulled out his wallet, “It may not be as much as it is worth, but would 50,000¥ be acceptable. I only have Yen left.”

Magic Man took the wallet and inspected the money. “My...My...using all of your money for a chance to play dress up more...It is acceptable..” He said, tossing the wallet back, the money being gone even though none of them saw him take anything.

Itachi reached out and grabbed the symbol of Kirigakure, and ran a finger across the carved in groove along the centre of the symbol, just by touch he could tell it had been put there by an actual Kunai knife. It was as if it had lept off the page of an issue of Shonen Jump’s popular Manga series, Naruto.

Jeremy had fallen silent when Magic Man had spoken out to them, and had grown even more suspicious when the merchant had pulled out the exact items they needed. However, the lure of the green contact lenses and survival knife that looked far more accurate to his cosplay got the better of him. “I’ve got a hundred and fifty bucks for the contacts and knife,” he said as he reached into his coat for his wallet.

The magic man smiled as he nodded at Jeremy. “That will do, price is not a bother to me,” he said with a small hint of a joke in what he said, even though what he said was not funny..at all.

“I might have a little money for the horned headpiece,” John said as he removed the doll from his pocket so he could check it freely. “Here we go, some loose change,” John said cheerily as he pulled out a few coins, before taking a moment to count them in his head. “one-fifteen… one-forty… I have two dollars and forty cents. Is that enough?” With a nod from Magic Man, John put the coins on the counter of the stall and picked up the headpiece he had just purchased, admiring that the horns were just the right length for his cosplay, and the slight padding on the inside of the band making them comfortable to wear.

Clayton, who stayed quiet when his friends were talking, inspected the hat, it had a wide brim, but not overly wide, something he liked and knew he would need. It was made of leather, not cheap leather either, real good leather. The best part he would say was it was brown, so he didn’t have to paint it and then mess up the material. He took a look into his pocket and cursed as he had literally no money at all. “Shit…”

The Magic man nodded at all of them before he smirked. “Now..here is my gift for you,” he said in a chipper tone before he snapped his fingers. The Kirigakure symbol attached itself to Itachi almost magically; the contacts and knife flew at Jeremy, the contacts flying into his eyes and locked in place, a process that was very painful, while the knife attached itself to his belt. The horns on John locked in place, being unable to be taken off while the same was for Clayton’s hat, which had flew onto his noggin. “What the hell?!” Clayton shouted as he tried to pry it off, the hat not budging in response.

Itachi screamed in pain as he pulled the part of his hood covering his face and grabbed at his left eye as he felt it be gouged out as a long jagged scar seemed to rip itself into existence through it, the contact he wore sliced and sunk its way into his cornea and became it and as it finished and the scars rapidly healed he lost the vision on his left side, before he fell unconscious.

“Gah-” John gasped in pain as he felt his contacts burn into his corneas. He willed himself to think through the pain and realized he couldn't feel the headband anymore. He went to take the headpiece off to see what was going on, but no matter how much he dug under his hair, he couldn't find the band. He quickly realized that the horns were still there, but they were fixed in place.

Jeremy didn’t fare any better than his friends, yelling in pain as it felt like the contacts were burning into his eyes, fusing with them. “What’re you doing, you son of a bitch!?!” He yelled out, clutching his eyes even as he felt as if something were invading his mind.

As all these events were coming to an end, the three that were cosplaying started losing consciousness. The last thing the three heard before blacking out completely was Magic Man’s response: “Since you all seem to like dress-up so much… I thought you'd like to play the ultimate dress up: becoming your costumes.”

“I don’t fucking dress up you son of a bitch!” Clayton shouted as he rushed for the Magic Man, the only thing happening to him was the fact that he was wearing a red vest with a white shirt, the sleeves folded at just after the elbow. On top of this was a brown trench coat with many different pouches and holsters to hold equipment. But before he could land a punch, his face had met the floor as he too went unconscious.

End of Prologue