The Fruit of Tito

Chapter 3: Me & You

     Tito felt himself falling in a pool of darkness for what felt like hours before he hit a hard surface that shook him awake. He sat up and tried to scan the area but the area was pitch black, making Tito sighed at realizing this and said a certain name that was all too familiar, and Tito knew saying this name would bring out his intended target. 'Hmmm.' Tito pondered while grimacing. 'Ugh this is going to hurt, what a pain.' Tito said while shrugging and said in a higher pitched voice. "It's me. . . Nancy-" in a flash the space complete lightened up leaving Tito in awe before his head was smashed into the floor. His real body outside of the mirror spit out blood and blood gushed out from his nostrils. Tito felt his throat being gripped with no signs of it being released any time soon; Tito tried kicking the assailant off of him to no avail. Speaking was out of the questions since his throat was in a death grip, he only had one option and that option was going to drain every ounce of energy he had. Tito's body became near translucent and slowly but surely the grip on his neck loosened until he was able to breathe again; Tito coughed and spit some leftover blood out of his mouth. The attacker suddenly noticed he couldn't feel his arms anymore nor could see them, Tito took advantage of this and kicked him off. "LiSteN DumBAsS, yOu CoulD'Ve broKE mY WiNdPIpE FalTeAr."
     Tito tried yelling at Tito? But it wasn't Tito: it was Tito Faltear, his hair was locked in a similar fashion except his locks were more messy and thicker in each individual lock. The black gunk on his body receded to a teardrop engraved on the pupils of both of his eyes making the pupils themselves teardrop shaped. His eyes frequently leaked the gunk when feeling strong emotions. He had deep bags under his eyes and his body seemed to still be in shape, meaning he kept training somehow. "Oh, it's you, Mr.Body snatcher." Tear said to Tito while he was massaging his throat, Tear gave a "what do you want" look to Tito while he sat down. "See what did I tell you about saying that name; you totally deserved that shit man." "Ack! Didn't you say she was dead, so why are you still freaking out." Tito screamed while stomping his foot on the floor; Tear beckoned Tito yo sit in front of him by shifting his eyes to the space in front of him. Tito scoffed and grumbled while sitting down, when he did Tear cleared his throat and and began speaking.

     "First things first, what the hell did you do to my arms?" Tear questioned while looking at where his arms should be. Tito snickered then responded. "Listen parasite, I materialized you inside this mirror world, so don't you think I can do the opposite?" "You've never done this before. . ." Tear's eyes lightened up and some black gunk spilled from his eyes. "Is this it??!! OUR ABILITY-" "No idiot, I can only do that to you and myself while we are in here." Tito sighed and Tear let out a disappointed 'oh' in response. Tear cleared his throat and began talking again. "So, you seem to have a
misunderstanding: about Nancy. She's not a regular person, from my knowledge she's a demon of sorts she told me this herself one day, and I didn't believe a word that crazy girl had to say. . . Until now. This black stuff, it's a curse left by her. An imprint if you will, she continues to live on. . . Inside of me-you-us." Tear's usual carefree expression turned sour and more serious. "Nancy was originally from this world Tito, but a hero named Ian Greyhound banished her soul to my world. Somehow she obtained a vessel and said vessel was a classmate of mine, that's essentially how it started. I already told you how I was relentlessly harassed and bullied by Nancy and her friends but what I didn't tell you: was the reason." Tito started to sweat a bit in anticipation for Tear's next words. "She deemed me suitable to be the next host body for her, I was trained to her liking and shaped my body and physic to her liking, and in some way she was able to corrupt my soul. Luckily Ian came at the perfect time and saved me before I was fully converted into Nancy. This black gunk is all that's left of her, it IS her. I'm having trouble controlling it sometimes but the more I try the better I get at it, I bet you could use this stuff to if you wanted. But anyways why did you come by? You usually don't want to talk to me." There was a moment of silence before Tito began talking. "I came to talk about what happened during my training. You know I don't want to go to the Academy but you." "Look is this all you wanted to talk to me about?" Tear interrupted. He sneered at Tito after finishing, Tito looked away with a hint a shame before nodding his head.
The two always had disagreements when it came to the Academy and getting stronger. After finding out the truth about his godparents Tito didn't want to go the Academy nor train, he saw it as a waste of time and slacked off any time he could. Tito just wanted to be an average person with an average job and to die in mediocrity. On the other hand Tear did not want to die weak and a nobody again, he trained in whatever way he could when he could, even though he was just a co-pilot in his body. It tore Tear up to not be able to become stronger on his own accord, so when he saw a chance to: he took it. Getting both of them a one way ticket to the Academy. The two stood in silence, staring at each other before Tito looked away and spoke up. "Look man, let me live my life. You lived yours, and so what it ended badly? It gives you no right to choose my destiny for me! Don't forget: you're just a parasite in MY body! Know your place and take a backseat like you have been." Tears face went blank before he stood up and nodded in simple agreement. He walked away a few feet before turning around and staring at Tito; black gunk came rushing out of Tears eyes, mouth, and nose. He opened his mouth to give Tito a simple warning. "I'd get my ass out of here if I were you." Before the gunk came busting out of Tear, completely destroying his body and covering the room heading straight for Tito. He tried to bite his thumb to start the ritual to escape but the gunk quickly surrounded Tito, and began to drown him the fluid was too thick for Tito to move in. He decided to bite his tongue instead and said "End connection! Return!" In his head.

Tito woke up and instantly felt a wave of agonizing pain, he tried his best not to scream and alert his family. The pain started to ease a bit but suddenly a wave of black gunk cane flowing out of Tito's mouth covering his clothes. He waited a minute to see if anything else was going to come out of him, to his relief none did. Tito pulled a first aid kit that was sitting on the top of his bed and started patching himself up, it was relatively easy except when he had to set his broken nose. He gave a few grunts of pain while setting it before it gave a small 'pop' noise and Tito let out a sigh of relief. He started to think about the exchange he had with Tear and got lost in thought. 'Maybe I went a bit too far, but it wasn't like I was being mean. I was simply telling him the truth he needed to hear.' Tito told himself to relieve himself of the guilt he felt, Tito started to take off his gunk covered clothes and put on some fresh new ones that looked identical to the ones he was previously wearing.
Tito had noticed the mirror had shattered, he groaned in frustration and threw the mirror against a nearby wall further damaging it. The mirror was an old soul reflection mirror Rose gave Tito when they were younger; it allowed anyone to view their own soul without having to use it. Usually people can't see a manifestation of their own souls, only those around them. The mirror allows the user to see the color and full shape of the manifestation of their soul, but when a twelve year old Tito used the mirror instead of seeing his soul manifestation his mind was dragged into the mirror and was met with a vision of himself? Or someone that looked like him? From there Tito Faltear called himself Tear as to not cause confusion between the two. Almost immediately the two didn't get along, this was around the time Tito was informed of the situation they were in with his Godparents. Tear tried to inform Tito of why he was in his body but was met with insults and threats from the distressed boy, immediately annoying Tear to the point where Tear chopped Tito in his head to calm him down. It was effective and allowed Tito to explain everything; Tito was still confused and didn't like nor completely understood the situation he was in. From there the two would meet every so often letting the two get comfortable with each other but never actually liking each other.

"Tito honey." A soft knock accompanied the sound of Lou Ann's voice. Tito got up and opened the door  to barely reveal his face. "Yea mom, what do ya need?" Tito asked with a brow raised. Tito's family never bothered him when he was in his room unless they needed something from him or needed him to do something. Ann pressed her fingers against each other while smiling and said. "It's time for me to train you, for whatever reason your father can't seem to efficiently and effectively awaken your soul energy. So I will, and we'll start now." Tito's face sunk and he was silent for a moment before sprinting out of his room slightly shoving his mother out of the way, but was stopped before he could make a turn to the stairs by Ann. Tito turned his head to look at the Lou Ann that was at his door, the first Ann looked at Tito and smiled while walking toward the Ann that was blocking the stairs. The two merged with each other leaving Tito defeated; he knew that if his mother planted her mirages in advance he'd have no way of escaping.

Lou Ann wasn't born with a soul ability, she was taught the mirage ability by her now deceased mother Sue as a parting gift, Ann worked harder than most kids her age to perfect and master the mirage ability. A technique that almost completely erases the user's presence and creates copies that are almost as equally hard to detect. Usually an average user could muster up to 4 mirages or so with the best of the best managing close to 20, by 25 Ann could manage 35. Now, at her limit can create up to 50 without breaking a sweat, so Tito knee there wasn't much point in trying to get away. He had heard from Rowe that Ann's training was way worse than their father's, leaving Tito a little startled since he had trouble with doing Domo's training. Before Ann could speak Tito cut her off by saying. "Look, uh. . . I'm ready to do your Mom." Tito said while scoffing and looking away. "Oh~ so you trying to run away was just because you were so excited to start training? That's the spirit!" Tito let out a scared laugh and replied.

"Yea, guess you can say that."