It was the sounds of beads hitting the floor that woke her up.

Jun Kazama had been meditating, and admittedly dosed off, leaving her three-year old menace to his own devices.

Not her brightest move, by any means.

Jun tried to force out the irritation that filled her suddenly. She heaved a sigh and forced herself to her feet, trying her best to reign in her temper. Meditation wasn't working the way it used to. She supposed that was a result of motherhood. The wooden floor was cool underneath her feet as she walked to her bedroom. The door was closed, not like she left it. Behind it, Jun heard little feet scrambling to clean up whatever mess he created and failing miserably at it. Jun heard more beads hit the floor before the scrambling stopped and was replaced with a loud thump. The crying started three seconds after that.

Jun opened the door to a red-faced little boy clutching a fine string and surrounded by scattered pearls. It took only nanoseconds for her to figure out what happened.

"What did I tell you about going through my things?" Jun said as she lifted the boy by his collar and forced him to look at her in the eyes. She would not comfort him. Not yet, at least. He had the decency to pause in his sobbing and look guilty. It was different from the looks he often threw at her when he got in trouble lately. This time, he looked genuinely remorseful. Her heart ached a little at having to be so stern with him but he would never learn any other way. He reached out to hug her and she held him even farther back.

"What did I say?" Jun repeated. Jin put his arms down and looked to the floor that he was currently hovering five feet above.

"To not do it." Jin muttered out in his high-pitched voice. Her boy had learned to talk later than normal, causing his voice to be incredibly high and raspy for his age. Jun swiftly set him down, causing the toddler to stumble slightly before gaining stability.

"Corner. Now." Jun ordered. As the toddler marched downtrodden to the dreaded corner of sulkery, she turned to assess the damage he had done. Jun swept up a few pearls in her hands, rubbing them slightly. She had only ever owned one set of pearls.

He had gotten them for her.

Jun heaved a sigh and forced the thought far from her head as another clashing resounded from across the house.

Now was not the time.

"I don't want to go!" Jin screeched as his mother forced him into his clothes. As she held him up and was forcing him into some pants, one of his legs shot out and kicked her in the stomach, causing her to drop the boy back onto solid ground. White spots danced within her vision as Jun Kazama recoiled and double over, forcing herself not to swear, which was sadly becoming a common occurrence these days. Her son was definitely stronger than the average four-year old boy. Maybe even stronger than the average fourteen-year old.

While part of her bloomed with pride, the rest of her, mainly her abdomen area, ached.

"Everybody that wants to be important goes to school. Don't you want to be important?" Jun asked exasperatedly as she slowly straightened herself up to normal height.

"No!" Jin screamed as he again attempted to rip off his sweater. His long finger nails were snagging the material, ripping it slightly in some areas. A pity, her sister had just sent that to her sweater for her darling boy. She made a note to mend it later so that she could take a picture of Jin in it and send it to her.*

"Jin, all the other little boys will be at school. Don't you want to be like them?" Jun made one last attempt to reason with her son before she started pulling out her hair. Her little boy, the angry little man that he was, glared at her and something inside of her knew that it was also going to be a common occurrence as the days went on.

"Fine," Jin reluctantly conceded.

"Good," Jun said, she grabbed a brush from on top of dresser and handed to him. "Now, go brush your hair."

As her son angrily stomped away with Jun pink hairbrush, the embodiment of masculinity, she wondered if she had made the right choice. While she did not want to deal the struggle of taming Jin's unruly mane, inclined to stand up like a science experiment gone wrong, it had occurred to her that Jin was capable of messing up his own hair out of sheer pettiness. She had never let him do his own hair before. Maybe trusting her son would help him with his responsibility issue, she decided after heavy thought.

When Jin came back from the bathroom, Jun felt as if she had been kicked in the gut again.

Her little boy, with his long and unruly mane, had somehow gotten into some form of hair gel she never even knew she had. He pulled out little wisps of hair around his hair line to mimic her bangs, and while Jun would have been flattered about that any other day, that wasn't what floored her. Jin had somehow tamed his hair with hair gel, (And certainly a lot of yanking.) into an upwards duck position without a hair out of place. Her little boy didn't look like he belonged to her anymore.

He looked a carbon copy of his father. It made her heart hurt.

Jun couldn't even understand what made him do this. Jin had never asked the dreaded "Where's Daddy?" question. Jun kept the only photos she had left of Kazuya locked away from her curious son, only to be pulled out when nights got a little bit too lonely.

"Sweetie, what made you want to do your hair like that?" Jun had to ask, when her little boy just shrugged before moving out of the room, still lacking pants, she had more questions than answers.

Jun could never figure out where Jin's temper came from.

Kazuya had been a mild-mannered man, cold at times, but never blatantly angry like Jin was. Jun herself had been a calm and well-behaved child and it persisted well into her adulthood, save for some lapses.

JIn, on the other hand, was a walking hurricane on little legs.

As he grew, his knack for breaking things only grew with him. If he were uncoordinated or clumsy, that would be one thing. But he wasn't. Jin just had a special affinity for destruction and reveled in it. By the time he was five, he lost the guilty and apologetic look he used to have. Now, Jin just got annoyed with her when she got angry with him, giving her looks that just said that she should be used to it by now. Maybe she should be, but she wasn't. Not completely, at least. She had long since hidden away the good china and glass decorations. Every time she went into the mainland for shopping, she picked up more durable decorations. Jun was one of the younger mothers in Yakushima, the older women would smile at her after Jin would break glass after glass during gathering and promise that he would outgrow it. Jun wasn't too sure.

Maybe she was just being too hard on him. Maybe this was just his way of lashing out at her. Jun tried to be as nurturing to Jin as she could, it just got more difficult as he got older. And he was only six. Her voice was in a constant state of rasp from yelling at him all the time.

The grandfather clock, miraculous protected from her world-wind son all these years, chimed.

It's getting late, Jun thought, He must be hungry.

As Jun hoisted herself up from the half lotus position she had previously been sitting in, the quiet within her home finally hit her. Her house had never been quiet, not since Jin was born. Even when the devious little boy was up to something, his snickers and 'light' footsteps could be heard from all around the house. A sense of dread overwhelmed her as she entered Jin's room confirm her suspicions. The room looked like it had barely survived a storm. Chairs were tipped over, the bed unmade. Papers, drawings and books lay all around the room. The ruins of toys were scattered across the floor.

But that was normal. Sadly.

The lack of a six-year old boy, on the other hand, was not.

He snuck off again. Jun sighed. More and more, after arguments or in an effort to get out of chores, little Jin had taken up sneaking out of the house to play with his friends. Jun felt heat rush to her face in embarrassment as she mentally prepared herself to drag her son back home. He would not go quietly, she knew that much. As she absent-mindedly rubbed the scratches and bite marks on her arms from the last time she had to forcibly bring her son home, Jun tried to narrow down all the places he could have gone off to.

The Chens worked on Saturdays, so he couldn't be there.

The Lapis were visiting the mainland for the next few weeks, so that leaves the Smiths.

The Smiths were an Australian family that moved to Yakushima about a year ago. Jin absolutely adored them and they loved him. He was often invited over to sleepovers and they began to top the list of people that Jun could rely on to babysit and vice versa. Their twin children were absolute darlings in Jun's eyes and she loved babysitting them. On the days that Jin snuck off to them, the most likely place for him to go, Mr. Smith always waved off her sheepish apologies as she struggled to round up her screaming child.

"Kids." He would say, and she couldn't agree more. And to think the elder women thought the Smiths were crime lords.

Intuition told her to take the back door and she listened. Oddly enough, she found Jin mere seconds later in the back garden. In the most pitiful excuse of a lotus position, her six-year old was obviously concentrating on something heavily, hence the near constipated look on his face. All annoyance drained out of Jun as she watched the adorable sight of her son trying to imitate her. How could she ever be angry with him when he looked like that?

He hadn't heard her yet, she had always been quiet by nature, so Jun snuck up behind him. She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. Jin jumped about a foot in the air before hastily wiping the cooties off of his face. He glared up at her and Jun's smile grew. She held out her hand.

"Come," Jun said. "It's time for dinner."

"I did not teach you our family's sacred martial arts just so that you could go around getting into fights with any child that you please!" Jun screamed as she hauled her little menace away from a crying boy and his irate parents.

"I know Mama, but-"

"No buts! Someone could have gotten very hurt! Did you even consider that? What gave you the notion to start a fight with an older boy in the first place?"

"It's not my fault. Mama, he made fun of my hair!" Jin yelled indignantly. In his nine-year-old logic, the altercation was completely justified.

"So? In what world is that a good reason to sucker punch someone?" Jun felt migraine coming on.

"But the man in my head told me to!" Jin shouted, feeling attacked. This made Jun stop cold. Her boy was way too old for imaginary friends.

"What man?"

"The man in my head told me to." Jin puffed out his chest and began to strut around in a macho man-like manner. "He said 'No heir of mine is going to get picked on by soon schmuck. Punch his ass." Jin even went as far as dropping his voice considerably. Jun took some time to process everything her son had just said to her, completely ignoring the profanity that spilled from her son's mouth.

Heir?

It couldn't be...

"Mommy, what's a schmuck?" Jin asked curiously, he assumed that he was off the hook.

"Nothing, honey."

"What's an heir?"

"I'll tell you about it later." Jun waved the question off. "Have you ever heard this man before?"
"Yeah. Lots of times. All the time, actually. Also, what's an ass?" Jin said cheerily, happy to have no longer been in trouble.

"Since when?" Jun persisted, again ignoring his question. Jin stopped and looked at her as if she was truly stupid.

"Since... Always. Sometimes he even visits me when I sleep. Doesn't he do the same to you?"

"He sits with you when you sleep?" Jun said, her son was a lot of things, but never a liar. And he did not have that active an imagination

"...Sometimes..." For whatever reason, Jin began to look cautious, as if spilling a secret that was none of his business to tell.

"Is the voice nice to you?" Hope began to bloom in Jun's chest, she tried her best to force it down.

"Yes, but sometimes he tells me to do bad things."

It was after dark, Jun had somehow managed to get Jin to fall asleep in a timely manner and now sat beside her little boy, just watching him sleep. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, she turned and face the silhouette looking at her through the open window. She'd know such a frame from anywhere.

"Hello, Kazuya." Jun was met with a painfully familiar chuckle as the window pane was raised higher to accommodate the large man. No words were said until he slowly approached his former lover and place his hands around her shoulders. He was ice cold.

"I could never hide from you for long." Kazuya said as his hand ran in circular motions on Jun's shoulders. She tried to ignore the chills running up her spine.

"Ten years isn't long?" Jun said quietly, she could not look at him. She would not look at him. Part of Jun was still certain that none of this is real.

"I've had quite a decade, my love. Not all of it was spent living." Kazuya quietly said. He lowered his head until it was resting fully on Jun's. Jun, still refusing to look her long lost lover in the face, noticed the bandages that covered his arms and, she assumed, the rest of his body, save for his hands. The separated lovers took a few moments to fully breathe each other in again.

"He is quite a child." Kazuya broke the silence, several minutes later.

"He is quite the handful." Jun wryly answered back

"He's spirited, rebellious. A given, considering..."

"How long have you been here?"

"Physically, you mean? Today. I can't stay much longer." Kazuya said.

"Why?" Jun asked.

"Let's just say that I... snuck away." Kazuya half-answered

"From where?"

"Not important, my love. You've felt me for a long time, haven't you?" Kazuya asked. He felt Jun's head lightly nob underneath his.

"All these years. Sometimes I'd see you and think I was going crazy..." Jun started to choke up and lower her head. Kazuya merely held on to her tighter.

There was not much said when the couple retired to Jun's bed for the night, Jun still never looking at Kazuya. Just as Jun was expecting, Kazuya was gone when she woke the next morning.

Leaving behind a perfect pearl necklace in his place

Page BreakHe wasn't a little boy anymore.

Jin could also argue that he wasn't necessarily her's anymore. If he ever was.

He was freshly fourteen, tall, wiry, with a look that screamed defiance. And there was no one Jin defied more than her. His mother was calm, too much so for his tastes. He could never understand her, never understand the impregnable silence that that haunted his house -never a home- since he could remember. There was so much of this world he wanted to speak about, that needed to be spoken about. How could anyone ever be silent? The voice was a thousand times more powerful than the hands the struck him down at training every week. As he grew up, he grew out and away from her. Seldom was he home, and he loved it that way. He had places to be and people to see. Jin refused to be stay stagnant about in a world designed for moving forward.

She just couldn't get behind it. The days in which they were around each other longer than a few minutes were filled with his musings. His passionate speeches about the injustices in the world he had read about but never experienced. Jin wanted to be a part of a greater cause, and that often lead to him talking of leaving the island. His mother never said anything. She never said a word. She just gave that stupid, understanding look.

When she did speak, it was always so disapproving. She was never satisfied with him. Silence and calm and virtue and morals and integrity and faith and tranquility and 'minding others'. It was all bullshit. Life was not meant to be lived passively the way she wanted. Anything you wanted, rights and power and gold and glory, maybe even love, was meant to be taken by force. Glorious rapture and revolution. Jin was meant for bigger things than his mother could ever conceive of. He knew that much.

He walked around the island, his small little world, and felt like a fraud. Over the years, he had managed to tame the wilder side of him in public. But that didn't necessarily mean that his mother liked who he was becoming. Jin had a better grasp on subtly and deception. He had taken to snarky quips instead of arguing, sneaking out instead of outright destruction. Most times, Jun would never even know he had left until she caught the faint smell of alcohol on him in the morning. When she would go to scold him, he shrugged and that was that. Sly comments instead of blatant defiance. Jin thought he was turning out just fine, and that was all that really mattered.

Lately, he couldn't help but notice women more. While the female population as a whole was enticing to him, there was one that was standing out to him more and more. It troubled him, one of his closest friends that he loved like a sister. Maybe it was because she was from the outside, she looked so different from every other girl on the island. Her light brown hair fell into soft coils that he loved to tug in his younger days. Jin often found himself trying to recall the days in which she still had an Australian accent. He missed it, it was so foreign in a place where everyone was expected to only exist in the mundane. She was a fascinating specimen to him, Jin wanted to study every curve of her soft skin, map every area on her body.

His mother had given him the talk. The "This Is Sex, Please Don't Do It" talk, but much like everything else his mother told him, Jin took it with a grain of salt. How could a simply action that was meant to be enjoyable for everyone ever have so much weight to it? What was the point of saving yourself for just one person? What was the point in putting any weight in relationships anyway? That's what his mother preached about and she is possibly the only adult he knew that wasn't married or in a relationship. She brushed off admiring men without a thought his entire life. He never bothered to ask about his father. Jin didn't even understand how anyone could put up with her long for him to have been conceived.

The biting March chill made him shiver. Winter was more severe this year. Jin estimated that he only had an hour or two before the sun rose. But he didn't mind much. He pressed forward, no intentions of going home just yet. Maybe he could catch a ship leaving the harbor.

It had been his favorite place since he was a little boy. The restless child could sit at the docks for hours, hoping to catch glimpse of ship coming in. To this day, Jin still entertained fantasies of stowing away and leaving his small little world behind. Maybe he should do that. He knew he wanted to, he just wasn't courageous enough to do anything like that.

Jin held on tighter to the flask in his hand as he sat of the deck, dangling his long legs over the side to let the frigid water below soak his shoes and kiss his feet. He forced himself to swallow the contents in the flask. He hated it. He hated it so much because it burned him so badly. But it made him feel good. It did, but it didn't. His life was nothing more than him trying to prove a point to everyone he knew. He just didn't know what the point was, yet.

Jin did not address the figure sitting beside him until it started running its hand on his thigh. The alcohol had numbed his reflexes significantly, he merely turned his head to look at the scantily-clad woman beside him. Jin had never seen her before, and he knew everyone on his small little world. She smelled of cheap perfume. This must be one of the prostitutes from the mainland that his mother had told him about. Women that sold themselves for money. Jin thought she was just making it up to scare him away from women. The invasive hand slowly traveled from his thigh, up his side and started slowly stroking the hair above his ear. He felt chills rake his body, none of them good. Jin felt cold, and he was certain it wasn't from the night air. How could he get out of this? How could he, without looking like a coward? He was not his mother. He was not a coward. Maybe he had the wrong idea about her. Maybe people from the mainland were just very handsy. Jin was forced to throw that thought out when another hand placed itself on his thigh, though he could tell it was headed a different direction. His voice had disappeared.

"I-I-I I don't have any money." Jin tried to think quickly. He said it so fast that the words came out jumbled and possibly out of order. The woman next to him chuckled and continued moving her hand to a sensitive region, she pressed her mouth against his neck and started nibbling on his jugular before kissing his ear. His lack of funds clearly meant very little to her and she pressed forward in her invasion. Against his will, his body started to react Jin's mind went back to his mother, he understood now what she meant about there being a right place at the right time with the right person. This was none of those things. Call it stupid, but Jin was too prideful to go with his gut instinct and run away. A murmur in his head assured him that it wasn't cowardly thing to do. He ignored it. He was a man. He could force himself to be a man. He would force himself to be a man.

It was around noon when Jin had woken up beneath the docks and stumbled home. His mother was waiting for him in his room. Her eyes widen considerably at Jin's obviously disheveled appearance. She knew what he had been doing. Jin sank to his knees and collapsed in tears. It felt as though he had lost a limb he never knew he had. His mother was on him not second later, wrapping her arms around her wiry boy and pulling him close. When he finally calmed himself, wiped the tears from his eyes, he saw no judgement in hers.

They grew closer after that. Jun never prodded Jin on what happened, Jin let his mother care for him in her overbearing way. There were no more attempts to get out of training. There were no more arguments laced with words to cut her down, Jin went to bed on time every night and never snuck out again. They could even talk to each other. Honest talks. He would still lash out at her sometimes, but Jun could accept that. That was just who Jin was, and it wasn't likely to change anytime soon.

As he practiced more and more on learning the art, Jun had to admit her son had a natural talent for martial arts. She'd even be willing to bet he was more powerful than his father at that age. Pretty soon, there was nothing more that she could teach him, he had master the Kazama style to a fault.

In the months preceding his birthday, Jun notice the air became severely dryer. She'd bring it up with the local townsfolk but no one else seemed to know what the woman was talking about. She's had felt this way before, years ago. She never fully understood what had happened, but she did know her sister's disappearance, which happened during the peak of the dryness*, was definitely related to it. But it felt different this time. Worse. She felt a burning sensation on her skin as she tried to understand what was happening to her. As the days progressed, the burning became worse. Jun began to wake up with burns on her upper arms. Something inside of her was screaming that she was about to reach her end. Premonitions began to bleed into her subconsciousness, a monster haunting her hours awake and dreaming. The screams of so many souls made her go deaf at times. Sanity was fleeing from Jun. Something was coming for her

But that's not what worried her the most.

Her main concern was her little boy. No longer little, but still completely hers. There was no question that he was in danger. And, as much as the idea crushed her, she knew he had to leave the island.

Jun had been so relieved to spend Jin's fifteenth birthday with him. The joy of at least being able to share that with him. Much to his chagrin, she made a big deal out of hit, constantly hugged her son and had to force the tears away.

Two weeks later, when Jun awoke to her entire arm being covered in scalding burn scars, she knew she'd have to have a talk with Jin. It was sunrise, they had been meditating together in a peaceful quiet. Jun tried to broach the topic with Jin only to find that he had fallen asleep sitting up. Her heart too heavy to chuckle, Jun could only nudge him away and wave off the sheepish look he gave her. She was sending him to stay with her brother and his family, but she couldn't tell him that yet. Jin didn't even know they existed.

"I am not going to live forever, Jin" Jun said quietly. He shot her an incredulous look.

"No one lives forever," Jin responded back flatly. Not sure where his mother was going with this.

"If something happens to me, I need you to seek out someone." Jun started

"Are you sick?" Jin asked, disbelieving, he looked her up and down as if he could find a mysterious illness plaguing her and knock it away.

"If worse comes to worse, I want you to go to Tokyo, find a man named Heihachi Mishima. Tell him I ask of him to care for you." Jun prayed it would never have to come to that. There was nothing Jun wanted less than for Jin to meet Heihachi. But if something happened to her brother, if for some reason Jin could not make it to him, Heihachi would have to be a last resort. Jun knew that Kazuya was alive somewhere, she just didn't know where. She did not want to imagine what could happen to her boy if he had to take care of himself. Jin did not inherit Kazuya's powers, he should be fine.

Heihachi would do no harm to him.

"Why do I have to go anywhere? This is my home." For the first time in months, Jin openly displayed agitation towards his mother, speaking to her as if she were crazy and ridiculous. Jun was not surprised nor could she blame him.

"If something happens to me, you may not be safe here."

"Nothing is going to happen to you! And even something did, how to you expect me to get to the mainland to find some man that I have never met, don't even know, in a city that I've never even been to, with billions-"

"Millions" Jun corrected

"Of people," Jin continued on as if she hadn't said a word. She had to remind herself that it didn't matter if Tokyo had millions or billions. To Jin, both were inconceivable and overwhelming when his tiny little world only consisted of a few thousand people. "How do you expect me to do that?"

"Trust me," Jun said wryly, recalling the billboards plastered with Heihachi and his beloved bear, the streets named in his 'honor', the school he had built in his name, that dreaded chocolate shop... "I don't think you're going to have a hard time finding him."

"Who even is this man?"

"It's about time that I told you about your father..."

It had been a month since Jin's birthday. Jun had woken up well before dawn. Burns covered her entire body. She had begun dressing in longer dresses that, along with hot weather, made her uncomfortable. After she dressed, she tucked a ship ticket into her pocket. It was a ticket to Osaka and it was for Jin, she was finally going to tell him that he was leaving tomorrow. No more procrastinating. As much as Jun hated it, as much as it broke her heart, it was time for her little boy to go.

Every footfall was heavy and downtrodden. Slow, painstakingly slow. As Jun was about to pull Jin's door open, she glanced out the window.

Jin shoved scorching hot wood and debris off of him as he forced himself to crawl above the wreckage surrounding him. His head felt like it had been split open. His body screamed in pain at every move he made. The sky took on a dim lavender color as the sun was just rising. Jin was grateful, the sun in his eyes surely would have increased his pain tenfold. Jin found himself having to crawl down the hill of rubble.

There was a pungent smell in the air. As Jin breathed in ashes, that awful smell of smoke burned his nostrils. Looking down, Jin saw chunks of his own flesh missing from his arms. What little skin that remained was severely burned and most likely dead. His blood had already begun to clot and cake. Looking at his arms made them hurt more. Stars danced in Jin's eyes as he became lightheaded and dizzy.

As his hand found to hot earth and gripped the remains of burnt grass, Jin commanded his body to continue crawling, glancing back at the ruins behind him. His home. Everything was gone. Recollection soon found him as memories of all that transpired came back to him.

That monster.

The fire.

His mother's screams for him to flee.

His mother.

With that, overcoming every protest his body gave him, Jin threw himself up with a start and sprinted back to rubble that was once his dwelling. Jin threw aside the still burning wood, giving no regard to the burns it left on his hands. All the while Jin screamed for his mother. Jin screamed for help. Eventually, Jin reached the center, having cleared through all the remains.

No trace of his mother, not anywhere.

Something in Jin snapped. He screamed an earth-shattering, completely inhuman scream. Something was happening to the boy, he just didn't know what. There was no time to fear, or notice how he was slowly raising above the ground, as the world quickly grew dark

When Jin awoke later, flat on his face, the first thing he noticed was a lack of pain. As he pushed himself up, he noticed all the skin on his arms was back. Looking down at his legs, barely covered by the burned remains of the shorts he slept in, not a scratch was on him. They sky was gray. He was two feet from the remains of his home, somehow more destroyed than he remembered. A drop of water hit him. And then another. And then another. Rain quickly began pouring but Jin paid it no mind. He just continued to stare at his home.

The boy cried.

*For those of you confused, initially, as Tekken Tag Tournament was being designed, Jun was intended to have a sister. As the game was made non canonical, that plot line was scraped and said sister became Unknown. I plan on sticking to the original plot of Jun having one sister and one brother.

Wind is not supposed to be as long as Flying into Fatal Lightning is. I expect it to be no longer than five chapters, although the chapters will be considerably longer FIFL as they won't be updated as frequently.

This is a part of the series called Elements. More details in my profile.