Kazuya Mishima taps his fingers on the bench beside him in time with a tuneless song, frowning just a slight bit deeper than usual. He considers himself a reasonable man; he understands that Azazel's temple being in the middle of the Egyptian desert is something he has to work around.
He knows that due to the blistering heat Jin will be expecting him to storm the grounds with a full force come nightfall– in fact, that's probably what the whelp is planning to do himself– so he won't plan for an infiltration in daylight.
He knows that the remaining loyal members of the Tekken Force have sentries and outposts several miles out from the main canyon route to the temple, and that the best way to get there undetected would be to go through the desert and infiltrate the temple complex from behind.
He knows that they'll be looking for soldiers and lots of them (thanks to the sub-par training he believes that "Lars" character intentionally gave them to help his coup go smoother), so it'd be most efficient for Kazuya, Anna and Bruce to infiltrate the temple complex alone on foot.
He knows all of this and understands it. He also knows that he's going to have to walk for quite a while through the desert at high noon. Knowing why something is necessary intellectually doesn't mean you have to like it.
Kazuya cranes his neck to look through the helicopter's windshield; it's difficult to tell on this featureless expanse of sand, but he's fairly certain that they're a good minute out from their destination. A slightly less mature part of him hopes that Bruce will be merciful and just fly them straight over the temple.
Bruce and Anna are up in the cockpit, Bruce flying the craft and Anna resting her feet on the dashboard every time Bruce looked away from the copilot's seat. They've been talking on and off throughout the flight in, and when they were slightly further away Kazuya had made his own contributions. But as they grew closer, Kazuya grew quieter. Every few minutes he sees one of them glance over their shoulder at him and he meets their gaze with a steady glare.
Kazuya runs a hand through his hair, scowling at the opposite wall. This is will be tedious and unpleasant, but it'll be worth it. They'll get the opportunity to ambush Jin and his forces by taking this chance– Kazuya can't help but smirk just a little bit at the prospect of killing that boy. Not only that, but he'll get to see what power this Azazel holds. If his son's actions over the past year are any indication, it's worth starting a world war over.
Kazuya grits his teeth as he thinks; He honestly should've tried harder to get more detailed information on Azazel– that way he'd know for certain if that thing was worth spending time on. They should've seen if they could pull more information out of Michelle Chang's daughter, or tried harder to take this temple's guardian prisoner. If Azazel did turn out to be a waste of time, then killing Jin would lose some of its satisfaction, and he'd have to go find and murder his father to truly feel like it'd been a productive day.
He frowns as the helicopter begins to descend; well, distracting himself didn't work. The prospect of walking through the desert is just as unpleasant as it was a minute ago, if not more. He takes his hand out of his hair just to run it through again.
They settle on the sand, Bruce and Anna lingering only as long as they need before coming back from the cockpit; Anna sits down beside him and shoots Kazuya a sickly-sweet smile. He receives it with the darkest scowl he can muster.
"Ready to roll, Boss?" she chirps, fluttering her eyelashes. Kazuya can see in every line of her face, in every bend of her arms and legs, that she knows he's unhappy with their plan. And so she's responding the way she always does– by mocking him relentlessly.
He gets to his feet, growling, "Let's just get this over with."
Bruce smirks over at him; "Come on, Kaz', it won't be that bad." Kazuya almost grimaces at the nickname.
"Yeah, seriously Chief," Anna comments as she stretches her arms, "Aren't I the one who's supposed to be complaining about everything?"
"Let's just go," Kazuya snaps; his right eye smolders in its socket, casting a bloody glow over the helicopter's interior. That shuts them up. With a good-natured roll of his eyes, Bruce opens the cabin door.
Kazuya is hit head on with a burst of hot air. If Bruce and Anna are bothered by it, they aren't showing it. But when the heat slams into him Kazuya takes a sharp breath in, eyes going wide. For a moment the heat is all around him, pressing down and threatening to smother him. He's suddenly acutely aware of each and every one of his scars and can remember the walls of that fiery pit cutting into his skin as he fell with nauseating clarity.
He bites the inside of his lip, digging in with his canines to shock himself back. Ridiculous. He's alive now and not in any danger. He knows this. His death is buried deep in the past under twenty years. He knows this. He is not weak. He came back from death stronger. He is not weak.
"You alright?" Anna's voice brings him back. She and Bruce are staring at him, eyebrows raised. Kazuya immediately shuts his eyes with a deep frown, banishing the vivid memories. He can't look weak. He is not weak.
He mutters, "I'm fine."
He makes his way out into the desert before either of them can say anything more. They follow him a foot or two behind, keeping a close eye on his back. It's only several steps before the heat is all around him again. It's almost solid, weighing down on his shoulders like a pair of hands pushing him down, sitting heavy in his lungs like sea water.
He digs his nails into his palm and forces himself to continue forwards. This is ridiculous, he's not some fragile thing that lets one thing that happened twenty years ago break him. He's fine. He's strong. Heihachi can't kill him again, he'll make sure of that.
But.
The heat in his lungs swirls around and settles, making it harder and harder to draw in breath. Kazuya bites his tongue and forces himself to take in air, in and out, faster and faster with each footstep. He feels the heat sliding all over his skin, feels his skin cracking and turning black, his skin is burning and for a split second he wants to tear it all off.
He won't. Because he can't. He is not weak. He can't be weak.
He grinds his teeth together and presses forward.
His sweat is cold on the back of his neck, a welcome distraction from the heat for but a moment. Kazuya can vaguely hear Bruce- or is it Anna?- calling to him, but his own breath and the phantom crackling of flames drowns out all other sound. The air has turned to fire and he knows it isn't actually this hot but how can he know that when he feels like he's going to burst into flames again?
He's fine. He isn't trembling, he isn't hyperventilating, he's fine. He is strong. He is not weak. He cannot be weak. He is here. He is alive.
He can't be weak.
He can't be weak.
And then a voice, deep, rough, and never satisfied, growls in Kazuya's ears, "Always the disappointment. You're pathetic, Whelp. Now it's time to take back what you stole from me."
It all crashes into him, his resolve breaks under the strain and he's thrust back twenty years broken and helpless in his father's hands, he's dragged behind him by the wrist and raised up high before he's tumbling forwards into the volcano's gaping maw, flesh tearing on every outcropping of rock he hits on the way down, heat building and building until it engulfs him, seeps into him, his skin is turning to ash, scorching, he wants to tear it all off in a vain attempt to make this stop, he can't scream can't breathe his lungs filling with molten earth burning his flesh off the bone and heat heat everywhere searing blistering scorching sweltering burning burning BURNING IT BURNS IT HURTS OH GOD OH GOD–
Bruce's hands on his shoulders are jolts of cold lightning through his body. Kazuya whirls around and swings wildly, but Bruce catches his arms and holds on, his grip firm but not crushing. Kazuya tries to get a glimpse of his second's face but he can't stop shaking and bile is rising up in the back of his throat and his vision is blurred with not tears not fucking tears god damn it he's not supposed to be this weak and he hears a sound like breathless whimpering it isn't coming from him it can't be he is not weak he is not weak he is NOT he CAN'T–
Kazuya is moving back the way they came but he doesn't feel like he's walking. He can feel his feet dragging in the sand and Bruce's cool arm on his back. The heat is still everywhere and he's trying not to tear off his charred skin– it's difficult to find an anchor point in reality. He looks over his shoulder and sees Anna in a brief moment of clarity; her eyes are sharp as she surveys the area, looking for anyone who may have seen even though they were all but alone out here. The tight set of her jaw tells him anyone who did won't be heard from again.
His vision clears when he's in the shade of the helicopter's cabin; he pitches forward from Bruce's hold onto his knees, shaking and dry-heaving and scratching at his face and damn it damn it fucking damn it how can he be this weak?!
Bruce circles around to kneel in front of Kazuya, pulling his hands away from his face; Kazuya can see through the not FUCKING TEARS in his eyes that Bruce is saying something.
"Kazuya, breathe. Breathe. You're alright, you're alright Kazuya," he's saying, low and over and over, almost like a mantra.
He grinds his teeth and with a strangled growl wrenches out of Bruce's grip, staggering to his feet; "You think I don't know that?! I know I'm fine! I know I'm not in that fucking volcano and it's just heat!"
He smashes his fist into the cabin wall, sending a flurry of sparks and bolts erupting from his knuckles. His other hand runs through his hair, over and over again.
He's trying to breathe, trying to stop shaking, but instead he keeps shouting; "I'm alive, I'm fine, it's been twenty goddamn years! I am not weak! I don't need help, I shouldn't be breaking down like this– I–" He's losing his momentum, his shaking is getting worse, he drags his hand out of his hair and down his face; "I can't be– I can't be weak…"
A piece of him braces for the impact. It braces for the fallout of Bruce seeing him shivering, gasping for breath and in tears, at his absolute weakest. It braces for Heihachi's fist breaking his nose, for the bottom of the ravine at the end of the fall, for Jun disappearing into the dawn. It braces for the loss of twenty years in an instant.
It's a few moments before Bruce speaks again, in a soft voice Kazuya doesn't often hear him use; "I feel like I've told you this before, Kazuya, but you've got a screwed up definition of 'strength'. This doesn't make you weak. None of this does."
Those words can't reverse an entire upbringing, no matter how much both of them wish they could. But for the moment, they help Kazuya relearn how to breathe.
His right eye glows as his breathing normalizes and he mutters, "I didn't ask for a speech, Bruce."
Bruce shrugs; "I didn't plan on giving one. Just telling you how it is."
Anna ducks into the cabin and murmurs, "We're fine. We're alone." Kazuya's shoulders relax, and in a moment his shaking descends into a gentle tremble.
"How are you feeling now?" Anna asks, naked concern on her face.
"'m fine," Kazuya mutters, but he can see she doesn't believe him. She at least has the courtesy to keep it quiet.
"Do you think you can go back out there?" Bruce asks.
He should. Now that he knows his own weaknesses, he should fight them, crush them, subdue them and prove that he's better than everything Heihachi did to him.
But he lets his head droop down as he shakes it.
Anna nods again; "Alright. We'll retreat a little ways and go in at dusk."
A protest catches in Kazuya's throat as his left and right hands ignore him, Anna turning to Bruce and continuing, "Bruce, can you arrange for a diversion team to go in from the front at the same time? We're going in when they'll expect us so we'll need all the help we can get."
"I'm on it," Bruce replies with a nod, wasting no time climbing up into the cockpit to use the radio.
Lastly, Anna turns to him; "That alright?"
He stares at her for a moment, then nods numbly.
Something creeps up in him; an old instinct, one he no longer knows how to use. Two words he knows incredibly well but finds the prospect of using terrifying. But Anna and Bruce… they deserve them.
He tries to force them out; "Anna, Bruce… I… Uh–"
Anna and Bruce smile at him, because they know. They knew twenty years ago. The only difference between who Kazuya was when they parted and who he is now is several trillion artificially regenerated cells.
Anna puts a hand on his shoulder; "It's no problem, Kaz. Looking out for you is what we do best."
And Kazuya gives her the ghost of a smile in return.