Pet
Cold.
Consciousness.
Asuka opens her eyes to a realm of darkness she didn't know existed. Her grogginess plays tricks on her, and for a moment she believes she's still in her bedroom, safe beneath the warm blanket.
Then she remembers the cold.
Not just cold, though. Freezing. It feels like the plunging temperature is actually seeping through her skin to her bones, chilling her very core.
She wraps her arms around herself, deducing that her father must have turned on the air conditioning during the night. She swings her leg toward what she assumes is the edge of the bed.
Her foot scrapes across a solid surface.
She wonders if she rolled onto the floor in her sleep, though it would be the first time she'd done such a thing. She draws both legs under her and rises to her knees, crawling to the left, then right, in search of the bed, her blanket—anything.
Three minutes find her empty-handed.
Desperate to remain calm, she combs through the contents of her memory to come up with a logical explanation. A face floats into focus on her eyelids.
Feng.
She grits her teeth as she recalls the muscular Chinese fighter, the man who broke into their dojo and injured her father a week earlier. He must have decided to pay her back for defeating him in the tournament.
She glances around, though it proves fruitless, as her environment is covered entirely in a thick blackness.
"Hello?" Her voice bounces off of low walls.
Still kneeling, she begins to pad her away across the floor, a hand outstretched. If the room isn't empty, the contents are definitely hide-and-seek champions. She doesn't think he would've bothered moving everything out of her room simply to confuse her. He must have taken her somewhere.
She figures she will eventually come to a wall, where she can feel for the door.
She doesn't get far.
"Fool."
She stops. He sounds close, but not anywhere within her reach.
"Turn on the lights and show yourself, coward!" she snaps.
She hears him grunt in amusement.
Her body shivers on its own accord. The cold is snaking around her ankles, numbing her skin. Her instincts urge her to curl into a ball to generate as much heat as possible, but does not want to risk missing her chance to ambush her aggressor.
"If you plan on keeping me here, you should've bound my arms and legs. Like they do in movies."
"No need for that."
"You underestimate me," she tells him, slowly rising to her feet.
"In order to be underestimated, you must first possess potential." His monotone voice strikes her from somewhere in the shadows. "You have no potential. You are nothing."
Her blood boils in spite of the frigid air. She moves to take a step forward.
A trap. He wants her to charge into the abyss so he can attack from behind.
"If I'm so useless, what do you want from me?" she asks crossly.
She hears a faint rustling. The floorboards directly in front of her let out a tired creak.
A firm hand encircles her forearm. "Pleading ignorance will not help you."
The contact sears her flesh as if it were with a hot iron. She tries to pry his hand away with her fingers, long nails digging defensively into his skin.
"Bitch," he snarls.
Her feet leave the ground as she is hoisted into the air, then launched with surprising ease into the depths of her prison cell.
"Don't touch me with those hands!"
She crashes into a wall as she lands. Scampering up, she quickly moves along the border and ignores her limbs' aching protests. She hopes her frozen fingertips will reveal an exit.
Heavy footsteps thunder in her direction. The same burning touch grasps her neck, spins her around. Her body screams as she is once more lifted off the floor. She stretches both arms as far as the tendons allow and flails, frantic to find a doorknob, a weapon—anything.
His grip tightens. She swears she can hear the bones in her throat cracking.
She feels something.
Then, in an instant, the hovering shadows elope, replaced by blinding light. Her hand falls from the switch as her vision flexes, adjusts.
Her captor struggles with the sudden brightness and loosens his hold. She gratefully gulps down the cold air and looks at him, the man who dared to call her weak.
His face—his entire body—is marred by thin scars. His hair is pointed and dark. One of his eyes glows a ghastly red.
She doesn't recognize him, but he seems to know her somehow.
"I don't need to be reminded of her," he growls with a glare.
He punches her in the stomach with a sort of superhuman strength. She doubles over, trembling.
"Who are you?" he demands.
She doesn't know.
She is not the same person she was before waking.
Asuka Kazama does not cower in the corner and let her enemies rip her body apart. She never gives up. She stands up for herself, for the helpless—now one in the same.
Another punch, and this time her face is the victim. Part of her welcomes the presence of blood, the gush of trickling warmth.
Asuka Kazama most certainly does not cry.
A tear, warm against her cold cheek, glides to meet her chin.
His heel collides with the back of her head, forces her facedown on the floor. She doesn't feel the pain. She is now entirely numb.
"Who are you?" he repeats.
"I—"
Her resolve fades, absorbed by the biting cold of the walls surrounding them.
She closes swollen eyes. "I am nothing."
A deep chuckle resounds in the room, a laugh rooted in evil. "Very good."
And she sits at her new master's feet because she knows what will happen if she doesn't.