Title: My Amaranth
Author: Darial Kuznetsova
Fandom: Tekken
Timeline: Tekken 6 with altered past.
Pairings: Jin Kazama/Hwoarang, Lars Alexandersson/Ling Xiaoyu
Rating: NC-17
Setting: World War III
Warnings: Bloodshed, war, homosexuality, shounen-ai (boy love)
Disclaimer: I do not own Tekken; it belongs to Namco. I do not own the name Amaranth, either. The song that inspired the title belongs to Nightwish.
Summary: My flower is in the smoke. But he doesn't want to see any of his friends in a coffin, either. Jin Kazama tries to survive in the brutal World War III with his friends, worrying over his lover and trying to destroy his father, Kazuya. Will he lead his friends to the better days, or will he bury all he has left to the cold, dusty soil of Japan?
A/N: Hopefully, not too weird to read. I'm doing my best with a difficult subject. Doesn't completely follow the canon storyline. Don't kill me if this is like, too simple stuff, because I'm also sending this to my English techer, as she likes my writings...
Beta: Salysha, Nemesis
As he heard another loud boom from the outside, Jin Kazama gave a last glance to the picture he had in his grasp. It was of one certain red-headed taekwondo fighter he had fallen in love with after the third tournament. They had been but 19 at the time they had first met; they had fought to a draw, and it had taken years for Hwoarang to revenge the draw. In the picture, Hwoarang was snoozing on the sofa, his goggles around his neck, and some of the hair falling to his face. The Korean still didn't know he had snapped the photo when he had been sleeping, but it was the dearest of Jin's belongings.
"Jin, we'd better get out of here. If the building collapses, the basement gets it first."
Lifting his gaze back up, he looked into the cold blue eyes of his bodyguard, Nina Williams. She held her rifle ready against her shoulder. Tucking the photo back in the pocket of his leather trench coat, he got up from the dusty floor.
"I'm ready."
They closed the door behind them and not a minute too early, as a grenade exploded right outside the basement window, throwing the door off its hinges, having it merely graze Jin's back. When they heard no more sounds, they took off to the lobby, navigating with ease in the labyrinth of corridors in the headquarters of the Mishima Zaibatsu.
Just as they were closing in on the lobby, they heard the Japanese yelling, followed by gunfire and a scream of agony. Nina shoved Jin back and took aim at someone who was shooting and fired five shots. Jin swallowed thickly upon hearing a thud of a body hitting the marble floor.
But who had been shot? If it was any of his employees, it wasn't a big loss. But if it was his friend…. He knew that his lover Hwoarang was at the front line, defending Korea's borders. His friend Lars Alexandersson was near Seoul, as well, leading the Tekken Force. The other people in the building besides him and Nina were his childhood friend Xiaoyu and Nina's son Steve. And his uncle….
He snapped out of his thoughts when Nina spoke: "It's clear. I think I got that son of a bitch."
They hurried to the lobby, and Jin paled as he saw the familiar silver head in a pool of blood.
Lee Chaolan had been shot several times to his stomach and chest, but he was still alive. Nina started inspecting the wounds of the older man, who was currently in the brink of choking in his blood. Jin kneeled beside the man he had come to respect, no matter how much of an ass he was sometimes. Adoptive uncle or not, he would have been even a little better father than his own.
"Lee, don't try to talk, okay…."
He's in shock…, Jin thought to himself. A dark glance from Nina confirmed his thoughts. When one's body was injured badly and the hurt one went into a shock, surviving was difficult. He watched the gleaming eyes of his uncle reflect crushing pain and fear. Blood spewed from his mouth and nose, as he tried to speak, but again, Jin hushed him.
"We need to get him away from here, to the hospital."
"What—oh, my goodness!" Nina glanced behind her and saw her son and the petite Chinese girl come down the stairs. Steve's eyes were on the man whom Nina had shot down.
"He's that Russian guy… Dragunov, or what's his face."
Kazama released a sigh. Spetsnaz was after him personally, but that they had shot an unarmed man without any questions being asked….
"I want you guys to go with Lee to the hospital."
"Jin, snap out of it. We are not leaving you!" Xiaoyu snapped. She stomped around the dying man and simply swatted Jin on the head. "You know that he won't make it. And I'm not stupid. They will start bombing down the hospitals any moment. The war spares no one."
Jin squeezed his eyes shut tightly.
"I just don't want to see you or any of my friends in a coffin…. Not yet…," he muttered while watching his uncle struggle for air, before the brown eyes locked with his. They shared the contact for seconds, until the silver head lolled to the side, and Lee's hands stopped trembling. He was finished.
An explosion shook the whole building. Nina gently closed Lee's eyelids. "Time to run; this whole place will come down! Go!" she ordered, and the group left the dead man behind.
When they were out of sight and out of the building, Dragunov moved, getting up from the floor and dusting himself off. Bullet holes decorated his chest, but no blood was in sight. He slowly opened his jacket and inspected the bulletproof vest he had.
A man with sunglasses approached the Silver Devil and stopped beside the body. His red left eye gleamed as he removed the shades. Kazuya Mishima stared down at his late adoptive brother.
"No help of a dead man. Will you honor the memory of a stranger, Mishima-sama?" one of the men asked with disgust in his voice.
"This 'stranger' was my brother. He chose my son's side. Now that he's gone, it'll be easier to read Jin Kazama's movements. If that bimbo can do even that correctly…." He muttered the last part under his breath. Anna Williams had failed her last mission, and only he had stopped her from receiving a Yakuza tradition of failures. It was like a gift from God, if he existed to receive a letter from the Spetsnaz asking to assist Yakuza in their terrorizing and send one of their officers to be used as an assassin. The gift had felt even greater when they had realized they would be getting Sergei Dragunov, the Sambo master, to Japan.
Kazuya lifted his dead brother from the ground and turned around.
"He deserves a burial." But he will burn in the flames of Hell…. "Prepare the pyre."
The Silver Devil's last journey had begun.