Disclaimer: Tekken and its characters are property of Namco. This story fortunately has nothing to do with canon.
Once upon a time, there lived a demonic king who sat on a darkened throne beneath a sky weeping at his heart's demise. War was brewing, an apocalypse was imminent. In the distance, you could hear children scream as they were torn from their mothers' desperate grasps to be made puppets of the new regime. Far away over the horizon and in a dream far off were the past images of hope and innocence. The land had been plunged into an eternal night, where the visions of your worst fears were realized and nothing could save you from yourself. Miracles were like fairy-tales, sparkling and fake. The land that once burgeoned life from beneath my feet had begun to excrete the toxins as befits a world which no longer cared. His 'Majesty's' soul was an apparition not even his own mother could hide behind a lie of true promises.
The past? That was only a dream.
The future? It's a nightmare, a ticking human time-bomb ready to explode into a bloody mass of cells and bones.
The white angel? I shall tell you about her later…
At this time, lived a man, a soldier if you like. Unlike the rest of his comrades who fell like paper planes caught in a wildfire, he stood tall amidst the burning chaos surrounding him. He was nothing special, only a man who thought he could do better. Much better than his lineage suggested. His father was a murderous thug who preferred to attack from the shadows, his mother lay dead and rotting in an unmarked grave. He had eyes that could burn holes right through your own and, let me tell you something, but he knew that it was better to die with a bullet stuck in your brain than with a blanket around your cowering body.
It wasn't evitable. This isn't a fairy-tale, remember? There is no good and evil in this story, only forces we can suppress and redirect if we choose to. And even if we don't, the natural state of human nature is chaos, an unfathomable depth of colors that make up our entities. The names we give the outward appearances stitched on our lips and eyes are just a pathetic attempt to cut through the surface.
It was anythingbut evitable that the king and the soldier meet. It was anything but possible that a cocky young upstart fulfill any sort of destiny by taking down Goliath with as little as a slingshot and the giant's own sword. Such things were the stuff of legends and legends were only legends. Stories fabricated by daydreamers with little else to do but conspire against Fate.
The king commanded an army of soldiers wielding guns as long as your arm that could shoot bullets as thick as your thumb. This army was an assortment of brain-dead young men, cruelly deployed to engineer a tyrant's bidding. Had I been younger and weaker of will at that time, I most certainly would have been counted amongst them. Still, there existed a few of us who had not given in to the king. Those of us who were older and wiser were tired of fighting a war that showed no end in sight. The youth of the new generation, on the other hand, yearned to head into a battle for the innocence they had once taken for granted.
One of them wanted more.
Now shall I tell you about the white angel. A pretty sharp little thing she was…
Indeed, she could have been painted by a love-sick fool with his sights on the heavens. She with her fair hair, blue eyes and white lace was a picture that could bring a man to his knees and praise the Lord for the gift blessed on his sore eyes. But she was no ordinary angel. She had smooth pink lips that could spit venom and hands that could break those same men into two if she wanted them out of her sight. The soft curves and sweetness were concealers for the sharp lines and jagged edges of her true form. Behind those baby-blue eyes were pools of acid ready to incinerate those who dared misjudge her. Within the ruffles and bows was a heart of steel… hard, strong and unwilling to yield.
The poor soldier didn't know what was coming and before he knew it, he'd been struck faster than a drunk on a train-track. A piercing glare from her cold blue eyes sent his way and he was soon reeling from the impact. To his dismay, she only tossed her golden head and laughed.
For the first time in his twenty two years, he'd been dealt the same hand that he'd reserved for the many girls before her.
Perhaps she may have seemed like an angel to him but she was just another little girl to me. And a hindrance to the king.
The king was a devil, plain to see for anyone who had a modicum of reality. The natural order dictated by higher powers affirmed that the angel should despise the devil. The feeling was mutual especially when the devil sensed her sneers at the fear he instilled in all those who opposed him, that which he called 'power'. Another rebel who wanted what he'd taken from her… her dignity, the honor of her family name and the power she'd once wielded in her little glass globe of eternal bliss.
I remember the soldier straining to push himself to his limits as he'd train to fulfill her wishes. He assumed that the stronger he got, the closer he'd get to killing two birds with one stone: his rival, the king, whom he despised to the core as well as his angel's contempt of him.
Heh, doesn't it seem like another fairy-tale? The street rat in love with the unreachable princess. The evil king who wants them both destroyed. And me, the narrator who has no choice but to watch the story unfold.
The clock on the time-bomb had started to tick faster and louder. The end was fast-approaching, you would have sworn you could have heard its heart pounding in your ears. But still, the soldier's fierce determination remained intact and his will to win grew with every fight he won. Regrettably for him, the day he had to face his haughty sweetheart came too soon for him to catch his breath from the very first time he'd set his blazing eyes on her icy stare.
As soon as the match started, she swooped over him, white lacey wings disguising her talons but this time, he saw through them clearly. As he dodged her strikes and returned the attacks, blow for blow, he smelt it. The sheen of sweat beneath her jasmine-laced perfume and a vicious aggression that belied her champagne-sweet charm. To make sure, he stopped holding back on her, instead deciding to smash that porcelain mask she wore as a front for the mortal she really was. It was amazing to watch, almost like a spectacle of violence, a display of showmanship wherein the hawk descended upon the kestrel in dove's plumage. With a spine-numbing rip, the lace was torn and her façade was now shredded in pieces. Wiping the bloodied spittle from her cracked lips, she lunged at him, prepared to exact her revenge from him. Using her loss of momentum against her, he grabbed by the arm and had his foot positioned to crack her delicate neck in seconds.
I know it must have pained him to find his angel was nothing more than a spoilt little girl.
What I don't know is how he could have continued loving her as if he didn't know any better. He'd been used as a toy before and had used women higher above her in the same way. Yet I watched him with disbelieving eyes as he released his grip on her, choosing to knock her out by a strike to the head. The blaring voice of the announcer declared him the winner and challenger to the king's reign. All I recall of her that day was how lovely she looked as she lay unconscious and half-submerged in the murky waters of the bog they'd fought in. I watched him watch her as they carried her limp body to the awaiting ambulance. Just when I thought he couldn't surprise me further, he runs off and forces himself inside the vehicle to be with her. Imagine that, eh?
What happened between the two of them from that time onwards to when I found him leaving her room in a thoughtful daze at the hospice is something that I couldn't pry out of either later on. The next few days, he trained and trained until he seemed ready to collapse from sheer exhaustion. But never have I before seen that fire in his eyes burn so bright nor have I seen such brazen courage in world that grew so weak with each passing day. If I have to speak the truth, he was an incredibly foolish soldier, not unlike those who have never set foot on a battlefield or men who call themselves fighters but have yet to taste the foulness of defeat in their mouths in order to know what adversity is. He was an incredibly foolish soldier who was prepared to give everything he had for a girl who regarded him as mere street trash and a world that labeled him the scum of society.
When that dreaded day came, he turned around to face me, flashed that grin that I'd missed for so long and assured me that he'd bring an end to the destruction that had already been foreseen. He then thanked me and left.
That was the last time I ever saw my student alive.
The day I laid him to rest, the sky glowed a sorrowful, eerie red over a dry, cold earth. Her eyes looked up at me, expressionless and unspeaking, as I wondered if she knew of the lengths he'd put himself through for her. The goggles she wore around her neck were his. They appeared sadly out-of-place against her pure white ruffled bodice and golden locks. I watched her place the cream-colored lilies onto the mound of dirt over his lifeless body. To anyone who would have seen us, she could have been a princess mourning for her fallen knight in shining armor or an angel watching over one of the many who had worshipped her light.
She was no angel. Only a little girl who was shattered at the consequences of her coquetry. The ice in her eyes melted to hot tears which flashed momentarily in the fading light. In an instant, I saw the future in those eyes. I saw a tragic cycle being repeated, hearts breaking, a thirst for vengeance which would be quenched only with the annihilation of an evil greater than any of us could comprehend. She would fight his battle, pick up from where he'd left off and return the favor he'd tried to do for her.
He was no ordinary soldier. Not even the most hardened of warriors would fight for what he fought. The king's reign would continue until someone could summon the fire to burn down the pillars of his self-destruction. The past still is a dream, the future remains bleak.
And me? Unlike them, I am only an ordinary narrator, destined to watch Fate take flight as I stand in the background… hoping for the best…
How ironic. The day I happen to publish a story featuring two of Sei Honou's favorite characters, it happens to be tragic and miserable. Not to mention the fact that today is her birthday so GO WISH HER!! Anyways, if you do happen to read this, Sei, Happy Birthday and I hope you have a great day, hon :). Constructive criticism please. Reviews aren't necessary but appreciated nonetheless.