Title: Ultimate Hate 14/??

Fandom: Tekken

Pairing : Kazuya/Lee

Disclaimer: I do not own Tekken or any of its characters. I am not making any profit from this.

Rating: R

Warnings: Incest, violence, language, angst.

Part 14

This was a trick. It had to be. In spite of the lack of an official confirmation, Lee Chaolan was long presumed dead, but even if he'd lived, there was no way that this could have been him. The Combot video was fairly recent, dating maybe two years back, which would have put Lee in his late forties then and the man that he was looking at was simply far too young.

Senn studied him carefully, looking for a sign of age; for wrinkles and scars, or at least a hint that he shaved like all normal, mature men do, but he saw nothing except smooth, perfect skin that would have put any woman to shame. He strained to find the telltale evidence of plastic surgery, or anything even suggesting a cosmetic treatment, but he found only fresh, obvious and unmarred youth.

Violet. This was Violet; charismatic, beautiful and daring, just like Lee Chaolan had been before him, in a time that predated him by a whole generation.

Senn could not understand it. Such a startling likeness wasn't possible, unless he was looking at the same man, but with a gap spanning twenty years between them, thinking like that was not a sane option.

There was no record of such a thing, but if Lee had had a son, Violet could have been the right age. He did not even have to be a direct descendant! A brother or even a cousin would have done just as well to offer explanation in the form of genetic resemblance, even if a result this perfect was something so unlikely, it was virtually impossible.

Senn leaned forward in his chair, not really listening to Violet's complicated elaboration on Combot's internal programming, while his mind reeled.

There had to be a rational explanation behind this. Unless they had cloned him when they had taken his dying body back to the USA, there was no possible way that Violet could be Lee. Then again, there were people who simply looked alike, for no good reason at all! Perhaps that was all it took; a similar bone structure, some surgical modifications and a little cosmetic enhancement to create results this good!

But why would anyone do something like that? He did not understand what purpose going to such lengths to imitate a man that was long dead could possibly serve, especially if one was then to go to the additional trouble of disguising himself enough, so that the resemblance would not be too visibly obvious. It did not make sense that the Violet Systems would use him as a puppet, to pose as Lee Chaolan himself. It was not logical to choose an impostor based on a man's likeness in youth, because that would not be fooling anyone! If Lee was indeed dead and the Violet Systems had had the need to conceal his demise for whatever political agenda they chose, then picking a more age-appropriate candidate would have been more beneficial. And more believable.

It was a macabre, disturbing line of thought, but it offered him relief, because if he was not an impostor, then Violet was at the very least a pawn, strategically placed for provocation. Kazuya thought that this man was his lost brother and he was already half-insane about it, so it was possible that he was the one at the bottom of this scheme perpetrated by the Violet Systems.

But Kazuya had not ever appeared publically at that time and his recovery and resurrection had been a reverently kept secret. Violet Systems couldn't... no, shouldn't have known about him and even if they had, what could they have possibly hoped to achieve by taunting a depraved monster with an image from his wrecked and ruined past?

Senn observed the sharply defined, beautiful face on his screen with growing agitation and antagonism. A member of the board rose from his seat and posed an obvious, almost sarcastic question and then the most disturbing thing happened. Violet smiled and Senn shuddered to the core of his being.

That smile was more than simple likeness. It was Lee smiling and there was no imitating that!

Violet answered the question with quiet complacence and masked his contempt with an almost mocking, patronising glee. His words produced laughter at the expense of the one who had tried to belittle him and though he seemed so young, he looked smug, knowing and mysterious, as if he was hiding all the secrets of the world behind his placid, flawless face and laughing covertly at the ignorance of mere human beings.

Beads of sweat broke out on Senn's forehead and shivering, he played back the video. He stared at it in a trance, unable to believe what he was seeing. He paused and switched between windows, rewinding the old Lee interview and stopping at a certain place.

The scene was almost identical. A reporter stood up from the crowd and posed a question and Lee smiled. The quality of the video was poorer, the language and the setting were different, but the situation was the same. His pure, white hair was tied back at his nape and he wore no shades over his dark, expressive eyes, yet there could be no doubt that this was the same face.

The attitude was the same and his timing and articulation were impeccable. The tilt of his head was unique and so was the way he pulled back his full, elegant lips to flash his bright, perfect teeth. The identical creases forming at the corners of his mouth could not be duplicated; not by actors, not by impostors and not by family. Then there was colour of his voice and the intonation when he spoke.

It was simply too much and Senn could not stand it any longer. He connected with his assistant over speed-dial.

"Ayano," he said. "I need a voice analysis and I need it now, I want the forensic s in my office at once!"

He had to get to the bottom of this, even though he was almost sure that he knew what their report would reveal and he dreaded the confirmation.

"Yes, sir," she chirped from the other side, but she also sounded tired and stressed. "Anything else, sir?"

"Yes," he said. "If you can find something for a headache, I would be most grateful. Something strong, mind you. At this point, I do not care if it is legal or not."

"I'll see what I can do, sir."

"And hurry up about it! Also, did you get a hold of what I asked for this morning?"

"Yes sir," she said. "It's on its way, sir."

"Good," Senn said. "Bring it to me as soon as they get here."

He cut the connection and closed his eyes for a moment. Bright splotches of colour danced behind his lids and his head swam. He wanted to sleep. He needed to sleep. Perhaps, if he got a proper rest, then all of this would start making sense.

When he looked at his computer again, his vision was blurred and it took him a long time to focus. He aligned the open videos next to each other and minimised the size of the display, until the faces of Violet and Lee stood side by side. He adjusted them to his liking and chose to press pause when both of them were at a certain, near identical angle, with the same tilt to the head and smiling that smug, satisfied smile.

The likeness was disconcerting. Could it be that Kazuya was right? Was it possible that both of these men were actually one and the same? Lee had been involved in a lot of strange and secretive research in his lifetime. Was it possible that he had discovered a way to slow down time and stop the aging process, so that he would remain eternally young?

Taking into consideration some of the mind-blowing breakthroughs that he had seen happen in Kazuya's labs, it was not that far of a stretch, but the thing that bothered Senn the most was that there simply was no comprehensive data available on Lee that wasn't at least almost two decades old. The last concrete, official facts that he'd managed to procure were dated eighteen years ago and they detailed the terrible accident which had happened on the eve of his thirtieth birthday, with horrifying consequences that had shocked the world.

Lee had been driving a ridiculously powerful machine under the influence and at an insane speed over frozen roads in Europe. He had gone there to party in the honour of his entry into the fourth decade of life, but judging from the drastic escalation of his behaviour that had followed his expulsion from Japan, it seemed like the event was more of a cause for despair than celebration to him.

There were two other people in the vehicle with him when it had crashed; a man and a woman, whose corpses were mauled beyond recognition by the time they were retrieved. Ironically, the thing that had initially saved Lee's life was his total lack of regard for international law, basic traffic regulations and most of all, his personal safety, because he had not been wearing a seatbelt when the speeding car had swivelled out of control.

He had flown through the windshield head-on as soon as he had hit the first obstacle, only seconds before the car itself had gone completely off of the road and continued to plummet down the sides of the canyon, to finally crash on jagged rock a kilometre below. After the flames from the explosion had died down, the only thing left behind was a wreck of twisted, mangled, molten iron and two disfigured, nearly vaporised skeletons trapped underneath.

Lee himself was flown to the ER by helicopter and with trepidation, Senn reached for a file on his desk that he had intended to pass on to Kazuya after the Devil gene within him stopped raging, but he was not sure whether that was such a good idea anymore.

It contained a copy of the last of Lee's medical records and they documented the extent of his injuries upon admittance in a hospital in Switzerland in full.

Senn glanced at the photos inside, but he had to look away. Lee's face was cut, bruised and swollen beyond recognition and he knew him only by his white, bloodied hair. His fall had ripped a large piece of skin from his left cheek, leaving the raw, bleeding muscle exposed, and such heedless destruction of his flawless beauty was both painful and horrific to contemplate.

Senn quickly turned to a textual explanation that was just as detailed, but less visual. Several pages worth of reading revealed that the superficial damage was the least of what had befallen him. They described trauma to his skull and the swelling of the brain which had left him in a coma. He'd suffered internal bleeding that had taken them hours to contain. Less pressing, but still terrible were at least a dozen broken bones and numerous injuries to all parts of his body.

But the most disastrous was the damage done to his fractured spine. Senn pulled out an enlarged photo of an x-ray that was included among the data and gazed at the critical point, helpfully circled in red with a thick, permanent marker. A man with such injuries should have died, but assuming that by some miracle he did survive, there was no way that he would have ever moved again.

Senn looked at the two identical faces, smiling at him from the computer screen. There was no way that they could possibly belong to the same man. Even if he had survived his accident, Lee would have remained paralysed and deformed, and death would have been the more merciful option for someone like him. Likewise, even if he'd managed to wake up from his coma, which was unlikely, he still would not have been able to avoid severe brain damage. It was unconceivable that he would even be able to function, let alone lead ground-breaking projects in robotic engineering and tease from a TV screen with his easy, seductive smiles, almost twenty years later.

As far as Senn knew, Lee was just an ordinary man. He had been adopted into the Mishima family which was, for the most part, hardly human, so Lee did not have the Devil blood in him like Kazuya, to heal and resurrect him from a certain death.

And the medical records did not lie.

The US had demanded Lee's extradition and obtained it only days after the accident, even thought he couldn't have possibly been in a condition stable enough for such a trip, but there was no proof of whether he had lived through it or not, unless one was to count in simple common sense.

A timid knock snapped him out of his contemplation and the door of the office opened to let his assistant inside.

"Sir, I have the footage you asked for," she told him.

"You do?" he said, reaching for it eagerly. "Give it here!"

She passed him a disk and he immediately inserted it into the drive, impatiently waiting for it to load.

"And your pills," she put a glass of water down on to the desk beside him, along with two little capsules, but Senn was no longer paying attention to her.

"Thank you, Ayano," he said and waved her away. He barely registered the door closing behind him as he stared at the picture playing out in front of his eyes.

The maddened, raving crowd cheered when the names of the fighters were announced and Senn almost failed contain himself as a familiar figure waltzed into the ring.

Violet. It was the same Violet from his conference and he barely stopped himself from jumping with excitement. He was even wearing the same outfit as the one that had been pasted all over the front page of that damn tabloid, so the lewd pictures had definitely come from that particular event!

Senn didn't know the first thing about martial arts. He had never trained himself and after Kazuya had introduced him to a whole new world of violence and death, even the vaguest hint of interest in it had evaporated, but his jaw dropped as he watched Violet move; tearing down his much larger, heavier opponent with a series of lightning-fast, high kicks. There was no catching him, no striking him, because he moved in a blur of motion and speed that was near impossible to follow.

If the video was dated twenty years ago, purple hair or not, there would have been no question in his mind that he was watching Lee Chaolan fight and filled with doubt and distress, he gave the x-ray another glance.

The fight was over in a matter of minutes, with Violet knocking his opponent down with a viper kick to his jaw. The man collapsed like a felled tree in a spectacular, humiliating display. His face hit the dirt and the impact of his remarkable weight resounded with a dull, sickening thud. The crowd exploded with adoration and Violet waved at them cheerfully, smiling, just like Lee had done so many years before him! He performed a series of elaborate jumps, which were nothing but sheer exhibitionism at work and the frenzied spectators rose to their feet in an ovation of approval. They loved his beauty, his skill and his charm and he bowed for them, basking in their adoration.

Lee, this was Lee and Senn did not care how it was possible, because the truth was that it did not even matter anymore. Kazuya believed that this was his brother and after seeing this, Senn could not blame him, because the likeness was truly surreal!

But whether Lee was alive or not, the fact remained that the Violet Systems were walking into a trap. The management of the company was oblivious to what lay in store for them once they merged and Senn was suddenly struck with a terrible dilemma.

Should he should warn this man; Violet, Lee, or whoever he was, because Kazuya's obsession with him was a powerful, frightening thing? Senn couldn't even begin to imagine what the Devil wanted from him, but judging from the reactions that he had already seen, it could be nothing good.

His consciousness writhed in torment, but his terror of what Kazuya would do to the rest of them, if Lee somehow managed to escape him, outweighed his fear of what the creature would do to his brother once he caught him again.

A great pain from Kazuya's past demanded closure. The Devil's madness kept the gaping wounds open in spite of passing time, and Senn was forced to acknowledge a grim fear that without Lee, this raging, supernatural being which was holding the resources of G-Corporation in the palm of his hand, may never again find his peace of mind.

And that would ultimately spell doom for them all.