Chapter 1: Shadowed by Fear
A/N: I do not own Tekken. All rights go to Namco. ...Enjoy!
The woman awoke, confused. The dart that she held when she fell unconscious was nowhere to be seen. She adjusted her brown eyes to her surroundings. She was in a small room, with metallic walls, and rust leaking from a corner. She sat on the icy, damp floor, with her legs tucked up against her. She raised her hands in attempt to stand up, but was restricted by chains. Handcuffs, Emma thought as she crawled forward, towards heavy metallic bars which prevented her escape. She grasped the bars, peering out into the open. She spotted a uniformed man, leaning against a wall, about two metres away from her.
"Hey, you!" Emma hissed at the man. The man shot a sinister look.
"What do you want?"
Emma glared. "When am I getting out of here?"
"Until the boss is ready to see you." The uniformed man huffed, about to march off, until another guard approached him, whispering something to him. The first man nodded. "Looks like you are coming after all." He grunted at Emma, pressing a few buttons on a wall, causing the bars of her prison-like room to open. The other security guard assisted the man to heave Emma up from the floor, almost dragging her out of the room.
The two guards hauled Emma through numerous corridors, all of which were strangely futuristic looking. There were green, matrix-style neon lights patterned across the walls, the floor having a similar design, except the lights were underneath a layer of glass. What is this place, some sort of extra terrestrial hideout? Emma pondered as she followed the endless lights with her eyes. She let her eyes wonder to the guards' uniform. It had a badge with a logo emblazoned onto it, and a name, woven in white thread. 'G Corporation'.
"This… is G Corporation?" Emma muttered, intending for the guards to hear her.
One of the two guards growled.
After travelling up a lift, and through more corridors, the three arrived at an office, with double doors. A guard moved forward to knock, however, a voice echoed from inside the room, before his fist made contact with the metal.
"Come in." a deep male voice snarled, as the guard typed a code into the wall beside the office, unlocking the doors, and revealed a tiny corridor, with glass doors at least a metre in front of them. Opening the glass doors, the guards let Emma into a large, headquarters like room, with glossy black tiled floors, and a glass wall to their right, acting like full length windows, revealing a skyscraper ridden city, with neon lights flashing in some areas, contrasting with the dark, almost starless sky. In the office, was a glass desk, large enough to be a bed, with a man sat on a comfortable looking office chair, sitting like a king would sit on his throne, on the other side. He wore a purple shirt, with the top button undone, with a light grey waistcoat and trousers. His black hair was slicked back into a point, from the nape of his neck, travelling diagonally. His face bore a few scars, his cold eyes staring at Emma's presence in the room. He smirked.
"Why are you keeping me prisoner here?" Emma scowled almost immediately, her eyes narrowing. "Kazuya Mishima."
Kazuya smiled for a second, then his expression faded into a serious look. "I need a highly skilled bodyguard." Kazuya shrugged as if that was obvious. Emma grimaced. Kazuya rose from his 'throne', and walked towards the windows. "I sent people across the globe to find me a bodyguard who can satisfy my… needs." He smiled maliciously.
"Your needs…!" Emma looked horrified. "Where the hell am I?" Emma simply asked, glaring at Kazuya, who merely chuckled.
"Japan." Kazuya grinned. "It's a shame that you can't go back home as quickly as you got here."
"Japan...!" Emma was taken aback. She was almost on the other side of the globe! Emma looked out of the window, partially out of curiosity, but mostly because she needed to escape.
"What makes you think I would ever agree to become your bodyguard?" At this point, Kazuya paced towards her, until his face was looking down at her, centimetres away from her face.
"I think you and I both know what I could do to you and your life." It was true, Emma thought. Kazuya was extremely powerful. He entered almost any fighting tournament and remained undefeated, except from one event when he had battled a man to a draw. He took over an entire corporation with his bare hands. He could kill her there and then if he wanted to, but why does he need a bodyguard? Emma remembered his previous words and shuddered. "Release her." Kazuya grinned in satisfaction.
One guard revealed a tiny, glass key from his pocket, before shoving it into the handcuffs, unlocking them. The guard let the cuffs drop to the floor, retreating to his original position by the doorway. Emma flexed her wrists, rubbing them slightly.
"Now, I've heard you were quite the challenge for my two… employees." Kazuya began, pausing, allowing Emma's perplexity to be her reply.
"Two employees? There were at least six last time I counted." Emma gritted her teeth.
"Those people were merely guinea pigs. The two employees I hired did their job well."
"The one that shot that dart at me…" Emma pondered aloud, trying to work out who the other employee could be. Then it clicked. The person who she trusted, with her name, her life. "Rose…"
"Let them in." Kazuya fluttered his hand, gesturing the guards to open the doors.
Two ladies waltzed in, lightly barging past the guards. One of these ladies was fairly tall, with a classy, brunette bob cut. She wore a sultry, scarlet dress, the oriental patterns precisely woven, the hem reaching mid thigh, and was split slightly on both sides. Black, lacy, embroidered tights were clinging to her legs, bright red heels worn on her feet. Her red lips formed a smile. In her hands, was a gun. The other lady was slightly shorter than the other woman. She had light blue eyes, outlined with pale pink eye shadow, which were glancing at Emma. She wore an olive brown top, and jeans, her long, blonde hair tied in a ponytail.
"Hello sweetie." The gun wielding woman greeted her coldly, patting her gun.
Emma muttered curses under her breath, whilst the woman laughed, trailing her free hand down to her pocket, uncovering a small, pink dart. Smooth, cherry red lipstick was smeared across it, in the form of two lips. "Anna." Emma snarled.
Emma's attention was caught by the other woman. She was already familiar with her name. "Rose. Or should I say… Lili." Emma growled as 'Rose' released her glossy blonde hair from her tight ponytail steadily.
"Who knew that all I needed to fool you was tied up hair and no eye shadow?"
"You didn't fool me at all. I recommend you use a different flowery name next time. Perhaps Daisy or Iris would have sufficed." Emma's sarcasm was made blatantly obvious. "Or maybe even Violet…"
"Enough!" Kazuya roared, slamming his fist on the table. Despite Kazuya's efforts to prevent Emma from asking anymore questions, she continued anyway.
"Why are you working with Kazuya, Lili? What benefit do you get?"
"Saving my father's oil company is essential. Mr. Mishima has the power to keep it alive."
Emma lowered her head slightly, approaching her. "You don't know what you are doing, Lili. You are going to get yourself killed."
"Try me." Lili's lips stretched into a menacing grin.
Emma flung her fist towards her face, her knuckles inches away from her nose, as Lili had just about dodged her blow. Lili grabbed Emma's arm with her velvety white gloves, tossing her aside. Recovering swiftly, Emma punched her firmly in her stomach, before delivering an uppercut to Lili's face, leaving her open for attack. Lili swung her long leg towards her horizontally; heel first, towards Emma's face, before a lacy gloved hand caught her by her boot, forcing Lili to flip backwards and crouch down. Emma leaped up, pushing her hands on Lili's shoulders, hand-standing on her, before diving behind Lili, shoving her head first into the tile floor. Lili stood up, smirking, blood trickling down her lip. Two feminine hands held Emma by her waist, spinning her around, and locking the handcuffs again. Anna smiled, twiddling the glass key in her hand. Emma glared at Kazuya, who was lightly applauding her, rising from his chair and pacing towards her.
"That was impressive…" Kazuya grinned, his face extremely close to hers…
Emma felt a cold draft hit her back. She smiled as she looked down at her handcuffs. They shouldn't have tied my hands where I could see them, Emma thought. She swung her leg back, and gave Kazuya an almighty kick in the crotch. The whole building shook by the sound of the Mishima's scream.
Emma ran as fast as she could out of the open doors behind her, bundling through the corridors as gracefully as she could, but struggled with her handcuffs tying her up. Anna and Lili were assisting Kazuya to get back onto his feet, whilst he was roaring orders at the hesitant guards.
"Get her! Get her, and bring her back! I will kill her myself!" Kazuya shrieked at the open doors, rather than his security guards.
"Yes, sir!" The guards saluted before they sprinted out of the room themselves, with receivers in their hands, calling for reinforcements. Soon about twenty of them were storming down the neon streaked corridors after Emma, who was trying to distance herself, as she was attempting to free herself from her handcuffs.
The guards were closing into her, as Emma was heading towards a seemingly dead end. The corridor was split into two. Panicking, Emma looked back over her shoulder. This was the end, Emma thought, right before a door shifted open right next to her. A male hand grabbed her wrist, heaving her into him, whilst his other hand grabbed her mouth, silencing her. He wore red gloves, similar to Kazuya's… Emma struggled in his grasp, attempting to get away from him, however he seemed surprisingly calm, and didn't utter a word. He closed the door swiftly, holding her tightly against him, his head resting against hers. The guards reached the crossroad of corridors, unaware of the fact that the runaway was in a small cupboard. As soon as the guards were out of sight, the man released her, switching on a light. Emma sighed.
"Thank you." Emma whispered, as she turned to face her saviour. He looked similar to Kazuya, except much younger, and without the scars, and he had a few strands of hair flopping onto his face, unlike Kazuya's, which was completely slicked back. He wore a long coat, and a black suit. His hazel eyes stared into hers. Emma knew this couldn't be Kazuya…
"Jin?" she mumbled in question. Jin smiled weakly, as he held Emma's wrists up, unlocking her handcuffs with a tiny key, secretively placing the metal cuffs in his coat pocket. Emma smiled with gratitude.
"We need to get out of here." He noted, peering down the corridor. "Follow me."
The two silently bounded down the same corridor in which the guards were pursuing the young woman, Jin leading the way, followed by Emma, down an incessant amount of stairs, as taking the lift would most likely result in them both getting caught. Reaching the ground floor, Jin bolted forward; towards a security guard who was the only person remained in their path of escape. Jin promptly punched him in the jaw, rather bluntly, letting his lifeless body sink to the floor. Shaking the blood off of his fist, Jin signalled Emma to follow him out of the revolving glass doors. Directly outside of the door, was a motorbike, painted in a glossy black. Jin smirked as he boarded his vehicle.
"Aren't you coming? Or do you want him to keep you hostage?"
Emma gasped, shaking her head. She approached the vehicle, and swung her lace covered leg over, sitting behind and extremely close to him due to the bike's small seating. She blushed. Emma wrapped her arms around his stomach, lightly.
"Hold on." Jin muttered to her as he revved the engine. The bike immediately started to dart forward, causing Emma's stomach to flip over, wrapping her arms tighter around him. Soon the G Corporation building vanished into the dark distance, before Jin made a sudden turn down the slip road, onto a motorway. They were driving at full speed down the highway, the pure white street lights seeming to streak across the air as they were swerving past cars and lorries. Emma felt the wind rushing through her raven hair, her eyes gazing over Jin's shoulder, ahead of her.
She was saved by Jin Kazama. The same Jin Kazama who is the CEO of Mishima Zaibatsu. The same Jin Kazama who is, or now considered as 'was', the son of Kazuya Mishima. From the seemingly emotionless expression on his face, Emma knew he had secrets. He was brought up by only his mother, Jun Kazama, who trained him to fight: using Kazama-style self defence. Four days before Jin's 15th birthday, his mother told him about his paternal family, and said: "Should anything happen to me, go to your grandfather. Heihachi Mishima." Exactly on his birthday, Jun was attacked by a beast, a monster. Jin awoke, to find himself surrounded by rubble. After digging for hours on end in the wreckage, his mother was nowhere to be found. Jin was then taken in by his grandfather, who had taught him Mishima-Based karate, creating a combination of the two family fighting styles.
Jin's life seemed to get worse as he grew up. He realised that his grandfather and father were the most heartless human beings to exist, after his grandfather betrayed him and his father didn't even know of his existence. He realised he harbours an evil inside of him, due to his father. Kazuya was thrown off a cliff by Heihachi, who only gave one reason: "If you are truly my son, you will survive and climb straight back up." Kazuya survived, scarred for life, which triggered the evil in him. The Devil Gene. This Devil Gene was passed onto Jin through his mother, causing the Devil to remain in him. For this, Jin despises his father and grandfather.
Emma could understand Jin's situation, how… isolated he must feel. Many have attempted to kill him in the past, for various reasons. Even his own friend wants to tear him apart. However, there was nothing he could do. There were only a handful of people who trusted him.
She trusted him.
"Jin…" Emma mumbled out of consciousness, not expecting an answer. To her mild surprise, he was listening.
"Yes?"
"Why… did you save me?" Emma asked cautiously. She was relieved that he had saved her, but was there a reason, or was Jin just being nice?
"Didn't you want to be rescued?"
"Of course I wanted to be rescued." Emma laughed to herself. Especially by you, Emma wanted to add, before catching her words from the tip of her tongue and swallowing them back down her throat. Jin was… nice, but Emma thought he may take that comment too seriously, resulting to throw her off the motor bike. Emma chuckled.
Emma's little fantasy was abruptly interrupted by the sound of helicopter blades chopping the air. "They're after us!" Emma whispered hastily to Jin, who looked over his shoulder, and silently groaned. Forcing the motorbike to roar, Jin propelled the bike forward, jerking the motorbike away from a lorry in front of them. In a matter of seconds, rapid gunfire was heard in the night, bullets falling like rain around them. Emma was now panicking, clinging onto Jin firmly. The bullets didn't faze him.
The two were rapidly approaching an extensive highway bridge, followed swiftly by around five, navy blue helicopters, shooting a seemingly infinite amount of ammunition at them. Directly ahead of them, almost waiting for their arrival, were half a dozen, metallic green tanks, parked in a row, locking onto their target: Jin and Emma.
"Shit…!"
Emma's curse droned into a cry as missiles were blasted into the atmosphere suspended in the sky, homing in onto the motorbike. Jin's eyes narrowed as he immediately jolted the handles to the left, causing the motorbike to drift ninety degrees, and pelt forward, crashing into the bridge's railings and into the air. The world seemed to travel in slow motion as a colossal eruption was created behind Jin and Emma.
"JIN!" Emma screamed at the top of her voice as she desperately braced herself. The jet black motorbike plummeted downwards, the tip of the motorbike pointing almost vertically. Jin closed his eyes softly, smiling to himself. A bullet train caught them at the last second, causing the motorbike to scrape off the surface of the roof, creating thousands of sparks, catapulting the two passengers across the train top, the bike sliding off the edge of the train, smashing itself to pieces. Jin and Emma found themselves entangled in each other due to the uncomfortable crash landing and sheer fright. Embarrassed, Emma shot herself upwards, shuffling backwards across the train slightly, distancing them.
"I am so sorry…"
"It was my fault." Jin silenced her, holding his hand against his head.
Emma saw a flash of dark red. "Hey, are you alright?" she mumbled loudly over the train's noise. Jin nodded, however Emma wasn't convinced; so she crawled back towards him, reaching her hand out to his head. Blood trickled down her fingers.
"Don't worry about me. I'm fine." Jin protested before Emma could take any action.
"No, you're not fine." Emma took out a small, white, silky piece of cloth. She smiled. "I used to wear glasses. I kept the cloth for some reason." She explained to him as she removed his hand from his head. Scarlet blood coated his pale palm. Emma briefly wiped his hand, before gently smearing the blood off of his face. She ran her silken cloth across of his forehead, then down the side of his cheek. Jin's eyes adverted away from her glance. His lips opened slightly, as if he were to say something, but closed shortly afterwards, weakly smiling instead.
"Thank you." He managed to mutter. Emma gazed down at her cloth. The pure white cloth was now completely burgundy, the dark blood sinking deep inside of the fabric.
The train grinded to a halt, the automatic doors hissing as they opened, allowing late night passengers to depart. Jin grabbed Emma's hand, jumping off onto the cold platform together. They both rose up simultaneously, glancing at each other, their fingers intertwined into each other, Jin's cold palm embracing Emma's lacy hand. Emma warmly smiled at him, causing Jin's hand to withdraw away from hers.
"Thank you." Emma chuckled lightly. "We haven't been properly introduced yet. I'm Emma." She offered her gloved hand again, for him to shake.
Jin accepted, replying to her. "Jin. Jin Kazama."
From that night, 16th November, a new friendship was born.
