When he opened his eyes, there was only white.
There would only be white, he would realise once he looked around, screamed for anyone to respond, and ran for what seemed like years without tiring.
It was a void from which there was no escape.
He wondered what brought him here to this nothingness. He wondered who he was. He wondered what had happened prior to his awakening. He wondered what appearance he donned now.
He found that he could only wonder and wander in this wall-less maze.
He did just that for what could have been an eternity.
Upon his wanderings, he found another.
Another like him.
He could only deduce as such because their structures were similar. This one had hands and feet and arms and legs, just like him, but they were fairer and daintier than his.
The sight of it had since created a hole in the dam within his mind, allowing information from another world to trickle through.
The first drop revealed that it was a human. When his gaze lingered, he learned that this human was female.
She wore white, like his never-changing surroundings but she also brought contrast to his world with her dark locks, her hair. She was surrounded by a world that was vaguely familiar to him, where the overhead was blue and the underneath was green.
She was brighter than his never-ending void and she danced around in what he remembered was called joy. And he also felt joy from watching her.
For some unknown reason, he wanted to be by her side.
When he approached her, she stayed the same distance away.
He would try endlessly to reach her but she'd never get closer, always an arm's reach away. And that was when he felt something else.
This feeling further cemented the difference between the two humans, for while she felt joy, he felt anguish.
He settled for watching her from this distance, his attention always devoted to her and his own world forgotten. He watched her live her life, experience different emotions, go to various places… things he couldn't do.
Her favourite place was where the underneath was green (grass) with specks of pink and purple and yellow (flowers). As he kept watching her though, he could notice a change in her disposition.
She was more sombre now and she became more lethargic as her abdomen slowly swelled with every dissimilar backdrop.
It seemed to grow until she could no longer walk and dance like before and she instead sat through the shifting colours of the overhead (days).
But she began to glow with joy as she did before. Perhaps it was because of the faint aura that encircled her middle.
It was like there was another human within her.
The corners of her lips were upturned (smile) as she stroked her large stomach. He wanted to stroke it too.
He wanted to live a life just like hers and he wanted her to be in every second of it because she made his existence tolerable.
But still, he remained rooted in his spot, knowing that nothing more was possible for him.
Then, there was a moment where her brightness was stained with something black, something which was so achingly familiar, something that felt like a part of him.
This blackness wanted to possess the aura around her stomach, but she managed to ward it away.
Her lips had formed a word that echoed throughout his core and was the last hammer to the walls that held everything back.
Devil.
That word, a word ingrained into his very being, brought forth a tidal wave.
Earth.
Trees.
Forests.
Birds.
Sky.
Air.
Clouds.
Rain.
Thunder.
Mishima.
Father.
Heihachi.
Screaming.
Pain.
Tears.
Hatred.
Fighting.
Vengeance.
Blood.
Power.
Dominance.
Towers.
Cities.
Money.
Crowds.
Kazama.
Jun.
Mystery.
Bravery.
Purity.
Happiness.
Love.
Angel.
DEVIL.
Heihachi.
Defeat.
Pain.
Scars.
Fire.
Burning.
Relief…
A whole new life had been re-dug from the depths of his subconscious. It was the life of Kazuya Mishima. It was his life.
His life.
His birth. His rise. His fall. His death.
Dead.
He was dead. This was death.
Death was infinite whiteness. Death was imprisonment.
Death was watching someone else's life go on.
His death was watching Jun's life go on.
Jun.
Jun Kazama.
His complete opposite.
His irrational want.
His fountain of youth.
His Achilles Heel.
His angel.
His child's mother.
She had been carrying his child this whole time. She had been carrying their son this entire time.
He looked just like the both of them. He represented their union. The union of heaven and hell. He was conceived from a paradox, a contradiction, an anomaly.
It wasn't supposed to happen. They weren't supposed to happen.
But it did, and this child's existence was undeniable proof of that.
He continued to watch the both of them because he was reminded why he was captivated by her. Even when he remembered nothing, he remembered the feelings she had planted within him. He remembered the love he felt for her and the light she brought into his miserable life.
He would never forget her again, nor would he look away from her for a second.
Her life was now that child. His child. Their child.
She tugged him along, ran behind him, held him close, prodded him forward… raised and treated him with love.
Raised and treated Jin with love.
He watched them both, unable to do anything else.
Jin grew up unaware of his father, watching from afar.
Jin grew up not knowing his father, his mother often refusing to tell him anything.
Jin grew up in place of his father, taking for granted the familial love that Kazuya grew without.
Jin grew up adoring his mother, like his father before him.
Jin grew up and every second, every minute, every hour, every day just slipped by so quickly.
Just when Kazuya had gotten everything together, his love, his son, his family was already moving on.
Then the day came when everything came crashing down. Mother and son were separated by an alien evil, one that was similar yet completely different from the one that he was born with.
She was terrified, as was he, yet they still tried to protect each other and, for the first time since way back when, Kazuya abandoned all logic and tried to be there for them.
He tried running again, and this time he was able to close the distance.
Not questioning it, he made to wrap his arms around them, protect them like he was meant to in the first place.
But instead, at his touch, his family began to fade and dissipate. Only wisps remained of his pride and joy, flowing out of his clenched fists and leaving this vacuity, leaving him.
It broke him.
He could no longer roam, not after regaining his identity and his memories. Not after knowing what the real world was like. He was no longer ignorant and so his illusion of bliss shattered.
He spent what might have been millennia consumed by a tidal wave of emotions.
Grief from losing his family, regret from having left their world in the first place, frustration from how powerless he was to prevent it all, apprehension from not knowing what happened to them, loneliness, claustrophobia, inferiority, there was no end to it.
And then, just when all was lost, a thought crossed his mind.
Heihachi Mishima.
He was the one who killed him, the reason he was in this prison.
The reason fearless, mysterious Jun had to go through everything alone.
The reason Jin grew up fatherless.
The reason they had to face that thing alone…
It was his fault. Everything was his fault.
Everything wrong with Kazuya's life was his fault. The fault of that arrogant, greedy bastard.
That thought, that hatred, kept him sane. Though it did little to help find a way out, it made him feel better about everything when he could blame his father.
He felt better when he decided that, if he ever had the chance, he'd make Heihachi feel every iota of pain he had caused him.
He went through with his pointless trek, anger and enmity fuelling his steps.
He didn't know how long he walked but he did so without a word.
He would eventually come across another vision of her, standing idly and staring off into the distance. He was taken aback... but soon elation resurfaced.
He could see her again.
Her name escaped his lips unconsciously… and she actually turned his way, perplexed.
She wanted to know where she was, and who this creature before her was. She maintained her distance and felt uneasy when he let his bafflement show on his face.
She just interacted with him, acknowledged his existence. She couldn't be a vision. She had to be there.
He approached her slowly and, thankfully, she didn't back away when he tentatively reached for her. His calloused fingers met with the soft skin of her face and he could have broken down into tears right there and then if he was capable of doing so.
She wasn't a vision. She was there.
Before she could escape, he pulled her into a hug. She was alarmed, naturally, and tried to fight his hold but he held on for dear life. He buried his face into her shoulder, uttering her name on repeat as the gravity of the situation settled in his mind.
If she was here, and this was death, then she was dead too. That thought should have distressed him but, instead, he was selfishly overjoyed that he now had company in these aimless corridors, that Jun was with him again.
She had long since stilled in his embrace, perhaps reminded of her identity by his calling of her name. Even if that wasn't the case, he'd make sure she'd remember everything.
She had brought him out of ignorance and he'd return the favour tenfold. It was the least he could do for her after all this time.
Remember she did, eventually, and he was with her through every startling revelation. The worst was when she remembered Jin, whose absence assured his survival.
She was distraught for the longest time, disappointed in her abilities as a protector and worried for their now orphaned son.
He was there for her though.
They were there for each other since they couldn't be there for Jin. They were selfish because they couldn't be selfless.
And, thus, the both of them were able to bond again over their joy and sorrow, their strengths and weaknesses, and their solitude and circumstance.
The time they spent together could have been a million seconds or a million years but, either way, it was too short. There came a time, eventually, when Kazuya felt an otherworldly pull.
The accustomed white was now a sickly grey, his vision was fading and he could hear sounds he had long since forgotten, of moving liquid and whirring machines and, most oddly of all, human voices.
All Jun could see was that he was distressed and agitated. When she made to comfort him, her fingers phased through his flesh.
They both looked at each other in shock, coming to the same conclusion.
He was turning into a vision, a vision that was leaving this realm. This was resurrection.
He would be alive again.
But neither wanted that.
They both clawed for each other, desperate to stay together, not wanting to leave the other alone. But this was a pointless endeavour.
Soon enough, his image dissolved into the background and it was now her turn to experience the isolation and madness that was death.
And when she would eventually come across an ethereal vision after walking through deathly silent whiteness, she would have preferred to be left alone with her exultant memories of her love and her son. She would have preferred to never see them again than have to witness what the two of them would become in their hatred and greed.
She would watch Kazuya be consumed by vengeance and embrace the evil within him, hunting down the man who had destroyed his life in every way.
She would see Jin fight a losing battle with his inner demons and defy her teachings, forsaking his morality for a chance at eternal freedom.
She would cry out whenever they tried to destroy each other, all while feeling absolutely powerless.
Unable to stop them, unable to unite them, she was doomed to watch them destroy their own souls until the day of her resurrection, the day where even she may forget all that she was in her quest to stop them.
That folly was not far behind but, for now, she mourned the loss of her dearest, completely unprepared for the trials to come.
This fic was inspired by Adele's 'Hello', although it ultimately influenced little. Now, about the characterisation.
I truly think that Kazuya would have been a great dad and husband/boyfriend, even with his horrible personality, if he hadn't died in T2. I think he suffers from a case of "He came back wrong" from T4 onwards and that, in his quest to kill Heihachi and get revenge he was willing to sacrifice Jin, but when Jin didn't cooperate, Kazuya automatically dubs him an additional obstacle.
Also, the whole 'death' scenario here was only Kazuya's opinion. Consider it less like 'death' and more like 'limbo'. No logic necessary, as I wanted to focus more on character than on scenario, but I tried to be consistent regardless. (Critiques are welcome)
Jun is dead in this story for the sake of the story, as canonically she's just 'missing'.
As always, any mistakes or problems (plot or character related) should be reported to me. And that's it really.
May peace be upon you.