"Sir, you have a visitor. I asked them to wait outside until you're available."

Kazuya glanced up from the paperwork before him.

"Very good, Saito. Please inform them I will be out in a moment."

The bodyguard bowed low and backed out of the house, sliding shut the door to Kazuya's room. Kazuya returned his attention back to Kazama Kokoro, Jun's mother.

"So you should be able to claim back at least half of the tax that was taken," he continued, pushing the stack of papers along the table to her. "As the primary income earner, when your husband died, a much more substantial amount of his assets should have gone to you and your daughters. Inform the tax office that you believe they've made an error. If they continue to give you trouble, tell them to ring the Mishima Zaibatsu office and our legal team will be happy to chat through the rest with them." Kazama Kokoro bowed to him, Kazuya caught her elbow to stop her bowing too low. "No need for that, Mrs Kazama. By the way, you should consider trademarking the Kazama Ryu name so that you can control the legacy of your family's martial art. I know that your brother-in-law teaches the style with your family's blessing, but there may come a time when things are less amicable. Set legal precedents now so that they do not cause you trouble in the future."

"Thank-you, Kazuya," Kokoro smiled at him. There were lines in her cheeks from a lifetime of just such soft smiles. "But we don't want to cause any family strife. It will only stir up trouble to go and say this is Kazama Ryu and that is not. And besides, it is unlikely the style will ever leave this little island."

Kazuya tilted his head,

"It's more likely than you might think. When Jun comes back to Tokyo with me, she may start up a dojo of her own. Kazama Ryu could become world renowned. She has plans to make it a self-defence style especially to be trained by the vulnerable in society."

"Hmm, a dojo is it? That how you're planning on enticing her back to Tokyo?"

"I like to think there might be some other factors behind the decision." His lips formed a coy half smirk. Kokoro raised her kimono sleeve to hide her laugh. "Please excuse me." Kazuya stood, gave her a small bow and stepped out of his room. He slid into a pair of geta sandals and then down into the courtyard before the Kazama house. He saw no one in the yard except his bodyguards and a child. He frowned slightly.

"Forgive me, Mr Mishima. This boy asked to see you, but requested we not inform you who he was beforehand…"

"Indeed?" Kazuya looked down at the boy through arched eyebrows. "And what do you have to say for yourself, Higashi?"

The young boy matched his stare. Kazuya hadn't spoken to the child since the first time he helped Jun out in the dojo.

"I came to show you." The boy stuck out his lower lip at him. "Do a throw on me, Sensei Mishima." The boy hopped from foot to foot eagerly.

Kazuya folded his arms, sleeves swishing as he did.

"A throw. Any throw in particular, or do you want me to just lob you into a bush?"

"Senseiii, I mean a proper throw! With my wrist like this." The boy tried to put a wrist lock on himself. Kazuya hesitated. "Sensei, do it, do it, do it! Please!"

"Rolling onto a hard ground is not advisable. And besides, you're in your gi. You're going to get it filthy."

"Sensei!"

Kazuya took the child's arm in his hand very carefully. He saw his bodyguards shift out the corner of his eye, wary and uncertain.

"I'm doing the technique properly, alright?" he warned. The child nodded vigorously. He took the boys hand and locked up his wrist, turning it swiftly into a throw. The boy leapt over his arm, performing a high breakfall perfectly. He rolled and stood up at the end.

"See, Sensei Mishima! I did it!" Kazuya's chest bloomed with pride. A small smile crossed his face. It faded a little when he saw there were tears in the boy's eyes. He stepped closer. "Oh," the boy wiped his eyes quickly. "The stone was quite hard like you said." He sniffed. "But it didn't really hurt, and I did it!"

The boy looked up at him with brilliant shining eyes. Kazuya wasn't sure what more the boy wanted from him. He thought back to Chaolan at his age and the way he'd always been waiting for something from Heihachi. Kazuya set his hand on the boy's head and ruffled his hair slightly. The boy's grin grew wider and all his tears vanished. He bowed low to Kazuya, then skipped off down the through the trees towards the village. Kazuya stood watching him, rubbing his chin in thought.

"You interrupted a conversation about taxation for this?" he said aloud.

The bodyguards shifted and swallowed. They both bowed to him.

"We apologise, Mr Mishima."

Kazuya waved them away,

"Merely an observation. Would that all matters of business could be interrupted in such a manner."

Out the corner of his eye he caught them glance at each other in surprise. Life happened at a slower place in this village. Without Zaibatsu matters pressing on him at every moment, Kazuya had the space to exist in the present and to move his attention to each person before him, evaluating what was in front him without just the skeletal business necessities that his usual brutal pace of life required.

He looked up at the sun, marking its position in the sky. Jun would be finishing at the dojo. He glanced at the ground beyond the flagstones. It had rained yesterday and the unpaved roads would still be a little muddy. He checked the hem of his hakama. Traditional clothing was something that always felt it belonged to Heihachi, so Kazuya had put it as far from himself as he could, as soon as he could. Living alongside the Kazamas however, had helped to distance the association. The looser clothing was more comfortable in the Yakushima steady heat and Jun's father's clothes fitted him well. In the last few days the temperature had started to come down a little, but Kazuya hadn't felt the need to forgo kimono, hakama and haori just yet.

Just as he was about to set off toward the village, he heard a shattering sound come from inside the house. He leapt out of his sandals and skidded indoors.

Jun's sister, Nao, was standing with a stack of bowls teetering in her arms, one disaster already in ceramic pieces at her feet. Kazuya took the whole stack carefully from her and set them on the side.

"I'm okay, Ma!" She called through the house, then winced at Kazuya.

"Mind the crockery!" Her mother's voice wound back through the paper walls.

"A bit awkward to be saved by you," Nao said to him.

"I wasn't saving you," Kazuya returned mildly, "I was saving the bowls."

Nao paused for a moment, then a grin cracked on her face. She punched his upper arm lightly.

"Fair point." She reached for the bowls.

"How about I take care of these. And you deal with…" he looked down at his bare feet and the shattered fragments all over the floor.

"Oh! Right, yes."

Kazuya put the dishes away then helped Nao pick up the broken crockery. Kazuya went to open the bin.

"Oh – don't worry about that. It's a beautiful bowl, and the pieces are large. We'll put it back together." Kazuya raised an eyebrow. Nao smiled. "We practice kintsugi in our house. When things break, we put them back together with gold. The cracks will always be there, but that's a history we don't mind acknowledging has happened." She held up the broken pieces and slotted them together. "We illuminated the places where the bowl is cracked with a gold paint. It becomes part of its beauty. And then it can have purpose again."

"A lot of effort for a broken bowl," Kazuya remarked.

Nao shrugged,

"It's an effort well spent. Why throw away what seems to be broken when it can be made anew with a little care and attention?" She set the pieces down. Then turned back to him. "By the way, do you know if Jun's planning on going up the mountain before dinner? Just wondering what fresh food there's going to be for dinner."

"Not today. There's an additional class after the children's lesson that she's teaching. I doubt there'll be time to harvest vegetables."

"Alright. I'm making food today, I'll put it on for when Rei gets home from school, does that suit you?"

"Yes, should be fine. Thank you for cooking."

"Not at all." She gave him a glowing smile. He left her carefully moving pieces of broken pottery around on the kitchen surface, her fingers gentle and tender as they ran over the sharp edges.

Kazuya picked his way down through the small grove that parted the Kazama household from the village. He stepped at a sedate pace to keep mud from flicking up from the road, one hand behind his back, shoulders held tall and proud. His bodyguards followed ten steps behind. He surveyed the village roving under the warm colours of afternoon sunshine. Fish were being dried and salted in the sun, nets were being woven, along with wicker hats and wicker indoor shoes. There were bows of greeting as he passed through the streets. He gave a nod to each in return.

Before he'd walked far, a gangly man wandered towards him, feet double-stepping every few paces, his balance swaying a little. There was movement from behind Kazuya but he raised a hand slightly, keeping his guards from interfering.

"Maeda," Kazuya greeted.

The man before him bowed with some difficulty.

"Mr Mishima." The man slurred his words. "I…- You are not what I thought you'd be, sir. Not at all."

Kazuya raised an eyebrow and gestured that they should keep walking as they talked. Blinding rays of light hit the tin village roofs and made them wink as brilliant as the sapphire sea beyond.

"What I mean is," the man, Maeda, adjusted his pace to Kazuya's, "with your bearing and all – I was expecting a reprimand for the uh – condition that I turned up in yesterday at the Kazamas – not an introduction to how do you call it? Whiskey?"

A smirk appeared on Kazuya's lips.

"You fixed the tatami admirably. Why fault a man for his habits when it doesn't hinder his work?"

"I wish the rest of the world was as progressive thinking as you are, Mr Mishima."

"Oh, they will be one day," he assured the man, gazing into the distance.

"Sir, I don't know if you're being hopeful or threatening…"

"Can't one be both?"

Maeda gave a chuckle and scratched his head.

"Well, I don't want to trouble you. Just wanted to stop by and say my thanks and all. I know I'm not the sort that you're used to mingling with and I appreciate the patience."

"No need to thank me. I'm not a patient man at all. I simply value efficiency and skilled craftsmanship before other matters. Social nicety is not something I care for in others. Weakness and inefficiency are far more irritating traits than inebriation."

The man's expression floundered a little.

"You talk in a very educated way, Mr Mishima. I only went to that school on the hill." He pointed at the school in question. "So, I don't quite follow all you're saying and all. But thank you for the chance to try whiskey and for not minding my drinking and I won't take up any more of your time, sir." Maeda bowed low, and for a moment Kazuya thought he might not manage to stand back up again. Then the man refound his balance and staggered off down the road, adjusting the straw hat he'd almost lost and humming as he went. Kazuya's eyebrows raised as he watched. He brought his bodyguards forward with a gesture of his finger. They walked confidently up to his side. The trepidation in their footsteps had finally all but gone, he was pleased to see.

"Saito, Okabe. Think you could do your work while drinking a bottle of sake on the hour?"

Saito folded his arms in his suit jacket.

"Dulled wits when weaving mats is hardly a life or death matter," the guard muttered.

"That man only has to worry about the well-being of his fingertips, and not the CEO of the Mishima Zaibatsu," Okabe added.

Kazuya laughed.

"Textbook answers. Well done. Although you missed your window to ask for less strenuous terms to your employment. I can hardly fire you whilst you're the only suitable candidates on Yakushima Island."

"Give us advance warning when we're allowed to make inappropriate comments without risk of redundancy then, sir."

"Moment's over."

"We'll raise the anxiety defcon level back to one and continue business as usual then, sir."

"One? Really?" He threw an incredulous glance back at them. "Working for me is that stressful?"

"Yes," they both replied in unison.

Kazuya laughed again. He saw their shoulders relax and the slight tugs of amusement ghost into their serious faces. He grinned, then kept walking. The clack of his sandals reverberated up the street. His guards waited a few paces to give him his space again.

The sky was inching toward another strident scarlet sunset as Kazuya walked up the hill to the dojo. He paused part way up it and turned to the sea. He clasped his hands behind his back and breathed in deeply. The salt air was clean and fresh in his lungs. The breakers washing back and forth on the beach as the tide came in tolled out distant but constant metronome. The call of different vendors and workers starting to wind down for the day filled the air, and was offset by the cry and wheel of seabirds hovering home on the high currents after long hours fishing at sea. Kazuya watched the sea slip into shades of burning gold. The mountain ridges extending out into the water as thick spurs were all shouldered in dark, bristling forests that ruffled in the wind. The quiet mountain behind him slumbered silent with an almost mystic serenity, untouched by the busy life at its feet.

Kazuya turned when he heard the sound of a sliding door being pushed back. He began walking up the hill again, in time to see students stepping out the dojo, bowing as they left and collected their belongings. He paused when he saw Jun. Her hair was tied up but a strand had come loose and was hanging at her cheek. One end of her black belt was longer than the other. She had a serious expression on her face as she clarified something to a student. She gestured with her hands as she did, demonstrating a wrist lock. The student bowed to her and she nodded. She set her hands on her hips, watching them depart with a kind of pride. Then she caught Kazuya looking at her. The colour rose in her cheeks and Kazuya decided he would never tire of seeing her blush for him.

He closed the short distance between them and wrapped an arm around her waist, brushing the stray lock of hair from her face with a hand.

"Kazuya!" she glanced about her, "the others will see!"

"I think your students know I'm not here for the sea view. It is particularly fine this evening, but Yakushima is tempting me with finer sights at present."

Her cheeks got redder.

"Stop flirting in public, I've got a reputation to uphold!" She made to push him away, but didn't put much effort into the movement.

"Oh? This is the strength of the mighty Kazama Ryu grandmaster?"

"Want me to throw you to the ground?"

"No!" he pouted, "I'm in my clean clothes and there's mud everywhere."

Jun put her hand to her mouth but failed to cover her laughter. Kazuya let her go a little, and came to stand next to her, resting a hand more lightly on the small of her back. He looked out again at the sunset.

"Still not used to seeing that."

She let out a long sigh and leaned her head against his shoulder. They stood together watching the sun start to sink.

"Sensei Kazama?" A young woman slipped into her sandals, already changed back into regular clothes with a sportsbag over one shoulder. Jun turned to her, though stayed in Kazuya's embrace, apparently not as concerned as she'd claimed to be at the display of affection. "I told my cousin about this class and about how you said complete beginners were welcome, and she said she'd like to try coming along." Jun smiled and nodded with encouragement. "But, Sensei, when her mother heard, she said women weren't permitted to train Kazama Ryu when she was young." A shadow fell over Jun's features. "So she said, since she never had the chance in her youth, did you really mean anyone can come along, and could my cousin's mother come along, even though she's celebrated her sixtieth birthday quite some years ago now."

Jun's face split into a smile and Kazuya felt relief heave through her.

"Of course! The health benefits of training are more than reason enough for anyone to come along, regardless of age."

"Oh, she doesn't want to come along for health benefits, Sensei. She says she wants to be able to give her grandsons who steal her radishes a good beating."

Jun's eyebrows raised.

"I'm sure we'll be able to accommodate her. And perhaps help her find a more meditative mindset that leads her to peaceful resolutions elsewhere in life…"

"I'll give her tips on revenge," Kazuya added. Jun elbowed him. He feigned pain. The student grinned, then bowed once to Jun and once to Kazuya.

"You're terrible," Jun murmured to him as the students walked down the road or pulled bicycles out of hedges to ride wobbly up the hill and over to the next town.

"That'll be the final nail in my reputation: Mishima accused of masterminding the punishment of radish thieves dealt out by sixty-year-old grandma."

Jun turned in his arms.

"Talking of reputation…" He gave a heavy sigh, but surrendered to being questioned by her. "Lei Wulong?"

"Being released from prison. Some time this week. All charges dropped."

Jun's eyes softened and his heart skipped a beat. With one look she could take him back to that office where he'd first seen her, still enchanting him with a single, piercing look.

"The animals the Zaibatsu is keeping in captivity?"

"I'll oversee their release to the appropriate authorities when I return to Tokyo."

"The doctor you had kidnapped?"

"I will speak to him about the future of his employment and give him leave to part ways with us if that is what he desires."

"… And Chaolan?"

Kazuya's brow furrowed.

"What about him?"

"You don't treat him fairly, Kazuya."

"He's running the Zaibatsu for me. He has everything he needs. And more besides. I give him almost everything he asks for. How am I not treating him fairly? Also I made him some new toys to play with. A robotics laboratory for starters."

"He doesn't want more things. He wants to be respected and loved by you."

"He knows I… that. What you said."

"Respect and love him?"

Kazuya's lip wrinkled at the words.

"Mm," he said vaguely.

"Does he really?"

"Of course. It's a complicated relationship. We don't talk about… things as openly as you and I do. The past is best left in the past. Neither of us wish to be reminded by it. And besides. What he wants most is for me to… get my anger under control. And to clean up the Zaibatsu. Most of the more unsavoury things I was doing were in order to research ways to harness my own… my uh… you know." He gestured to himself, still unwilling to talk about the darkness that had overtaken him and manifested before her in the sanctity of her dojo. "Now that I'm… attempting to remove my reliance on such a power, things will start changing the way he wants them to. Admittedly I also got angry in the past and did some things for f-… to pass the time when I was frustrated. And perhaps on other occasions I had some rather heavy handed methods. But things do not change overnight."

"Perhaps you could start by not keeping him as a junior employee."

Kazuya glanced at her, just a little sharply.

"I am the owner of the Zaibatsu, not him."

"Stop treating him as your inferior. He's not a threat to you."

Kazuya fixed her with a look.

"He is very much a threat. That's why I defanged him and made him a secretary. I guarantee he's thought of overthrowing me and seizing the Zaibatsu for himself at least once every day since I left. The only reason he won't have made a move is about fifty-fifty fear and loyalty. He has unpaid debts to me, and he knows I'd tear him apart if he came for my throne."

"Kazuya!" Jun reprimanded.

Kazuya shrugged.

"You don't know him like I do. Our lives were forced to be one long competition against one another. We've done our best to overcome those rivalries and make an unsteady peace. But Chaolan and I always worked best together in the face of insurmountable odds. Now that our father is dead, we must find a new kind of peace or all that rivalry and hatred is going to come thundering home. I find the most useful deterrent for rebellion is manipulation and healthy dose of fear. He knows this. And he knows that's why I keep him where I do. And besides, he's good at what he does. I need someone trustworthy in that position. It's a show of trust that I let him arrange my schedule." Jun's features fell as she listened to all this. When Kazuya caught sight of her expression, a sadness and guilt stirred inside him. She didn't need to say anything: he could hear a thousand words just in that puncturing melancholy gaze she pinned him with. "But…" he muttered, "it wouldn't do any harm to review the situation when I return. He is… a competent person to have about. Might lighten the load if I gave him a few more important responsibilities. I'm not making any promises, though. And it wouldn't be like he'd be running it as my equal… But I suppose there might be a more prestigious position I could give him that would make him resent me less…" His murmurings trailed off. He snapped his eyes back to Jun's face to gauge her response. A flood of relief flowed through him when he saw her expression bright and tender again.

"That sounds good," she whispered, "but… you really shouldn't be doing this all just for me, Kazuya. You can do things just because they're fair, and they're right…"

"Hmmm… but I've found my moral compass." He circled his hands about her waist again. "And she's so much more beautiful than anything inside my mess of a head." Jun shook her head slightly, a smile escaping her. "Also, I told your sister you're not going up that mountain to collect vegetables."

"What! Why?!" Jun pulled back.

"Because you've been working all afternoon and the sun is setting. It's time for home and a shower, not sauntering off for mountain adventures."

"But I promised them that I-"

"Then stop promising so much. The world isn't going to end just because you take a break and relax at the end of the working day."

Jun grumbled at that.

"Fine," she muttered, though her face was still sullen. Kazuya kissed the tip of her nose.

"Come, let's walk."

"I'm still in my gi, I'll change and then-"

"No point. It needs washing anyway. Walk with me or you'll miss the sunset."

Jun hesitated, then picked up her bag, slipped her hand into Kazuya's and they set off down the road. She smiled at Kazuya's bodyguards as they passed them. Kazuya kept watching her out the corner of his eye.

"It's a radiant evening," she noted. Warm, soft light eased into the village and stretched the little houses with brown shadows.

"Yes it is," he agreed, eyes never leaving her.

She glanced at him. Her cheeks and nose went pink and she scowled.

"Did you help my mother with whatever it is you wanted to look over for her?"

"Mmhm."

"You need to stop charming my family. It makes it very hard for me to do things when they're all taking your side over everything."

"Yes, a terrible turn of events. I'm in such a hurry to correct it." She elbowed him, but he caught it before it needled him. "Aggression isn't very aiki-jujutsu of you, is it." He smirked. "It's nice having someone on my side for once. You're always bending arguments in your direction, I like having three other Kazamas interjecting to back me up."

"You just like people agreeing with you," she said sullenly.

"If that was true, I certainly wouldn't be in a relationship with you, would I."

The stone courtyard at the Kazama house was all cream and mellow russet shadows, and filled with the smells of sizzling food and the clatter of hot woks when they arrived. The eaves of the house leaned out of the overgrowth of woolly dark trees welcoming them home. Jun tugged open a rickety shed door reached inside and scooped up seeds from a sack. She handed the bowl to Kazuya as she struggled to shut the door again.

"I'm getting in the shower and you're not coming too."

"That a challenge?"

"No, it's a fact, Mishima Kazuya. Dinner's almost ready and…"

"Yes? There a particular reason why I might slow you down?"

"You're impossible," she muttered, embarrassed again. "Feed the chickens and stop being such a flirt."

He laughed and ran his fingers through the seed. Jun left to go and get ready. There was a flutter of wings and a squawking, summoned by the sound of sifting seeds. Half a dozen hens fell over each other in an effort to cluster around him. He scattered seeds idly and the birds eddied about his feed, scratching and pecking as they fought each other for food. He crouched down and ran his hands over their vibrant shuffling feathers as they jostled. He looked up as he did. Crickets were chirruping and wending their thrumming song through the evening. The sky was growing darker. A line of storm clouds was building on the horizon. The air was colder, and the leaves around him shuffled and whispered with the promise of the end of summer.

When the bowl was empty, he slipped out of his sandals to go and help prepare dinner. The central room was alive with a flurry of activity. An enormous black pot was boiling on the open fire pit, crackling and glowing with the crumble of molten wood splitting into charcoal. The kitchen was filled with steam and the bursting sizzle of hot oil and smell of sesame and soy. Kazuya came in time to save a knife that was being edged off the kitchen surface in all the commotion. He set it to one side, then relieved one of Jun's sisters of an enormous pot of boiling water used for steaming the pak choi and poured it down the sink. When matters looked like they were more under control, he returned to the main room and took the wooden spoon out of Jun's mother's hand and stirred the rice on the fire.

"Does the taxes and the rice, Jun should keep hold of you," she winked at him. He gave a wry grin.

"You should tell her as much when she comes in. She doesn't truly appreciate my range of talents, Mrs Kazama."

"I will, don't you worry! She's such an unruly young lady. When she was a girl she always had mud on her face and was running off up that mountain to study plants or explore caves or tend the highest shrines in the cliffs. I despaired that she'd never find a young man. And yet here you are, and so well-mannered and well-dressed! She could learn a thing or two from you."

"Jun? Learn from me?!" Kazuya laughed. It felt free and easy to laugh with these people. "You're the only one who thinks so, Mrs Kazama." He heard his mobile phone ring from his bedroom.

"Oh, I meant to tell you that's been going off whilst you were out." Jun's mother took the spoon back from him. "You better go answer it."

Kazuya gave her a small bow and excused himself from the room. Jun's sisters were bickering in the kitchen, and snatches of a song were just audible over the splash of the shower. Kazuya paused to listen to Jun sing. The warmth he felt just then had nothing to do with the Yakushima humidity, or the open hearth fire, or the steaming kitchen vegetables. He could feel an ache in his chest like his heart was fuller than it had ever been before. He let out a breath, then hurried to his room and picked up his phone.

"Mishima Kazuya speaking."

"Where the fuck have you been?! I've been calling for an hour!"

Kazuya's peace of mind slumped. He could hear the chaos of the world he'd left behind in Chaolan's voice.

"You're upset."

"No shit I'm upset!" There was a disturbingly raw edge to Chaolan's words, like he was about to burst into tears. Kazuya closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, wondering what he could have possibly done wrong now. He took a deep breath and drew together his patience. Before he could speak, Chaolan spoke again. "K-Kazuya." His voice was small and broken and just the sound of it made Kazuya's eyes snap wide open and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He gripped the phone with both hands, knuckles going white.

"What?" He could hear his brother trying to control his breathing. It still sounded ragged. It had been a long time since Chaolan had been as uncomposed as this about something that didn't have Kazuya as the direct cause. "What?!" he pressed, agitated by Chaolan's anguish and the distance between them that meant he couldn't read him by his other tells. "Did someone hurt you? What's happened?"

More stuttered breathing. Kazuya strained to listen to it, trying to pull apart those sounds. Fear and not just pain. Perhaps it was something Chaolan had done and not something he'd done. Good, he preferred feeling anger to guilt.

"Are you with others? You should step outside," Chaolan managed.

"Answer my fucking question!"

"Step outside, Kazuya."

That was said more evenly. It disturbed Kazuya even more than the pain in his brother's voice had. Kazuya slid open the door of his bedroom and stepped out into the yard. He shut the door behind him. He forewent his sandals and stepped barefoot onto the flagstones. They were still warm with the old light of the now-set sun. Chickens waddled back over to him hoping for extra seeds. Their claws clicked on the stone.

"I'm outside. Will you please talk to me now, Chaolan?"

Another silence. It infuriated Kazuya so much he had to focus all his energy on calming his breathing so as not to scare off his brother by that sign alone.

"I… I received a letter."

Kazuya stayed silent. Chaolan staid nothing more.

"Chaolan, I swear-" he stopped himself when he heard the faint sound of a sob. Confused and disturbed, Kazuya hesitated. "I'm here. I'm with you. Talk to me. What's got you like this? Nothing shakes you like this. You're Lee Chaolan, impervious to everything the world throws at you. You haven't been like this since…-"

Kazuya cut himself off. Something cold flashed through him, like a bucket of ice water had just been dumped on him.

"I-I'll read you the letter," Chaolan whispered, his voice all ghosts and fear. He drew in a shuddering breath. "T-to a certain-… T-to a certain Sh-shanghai street orphan." Kazuya's heart was beating so loud in his own head it was hard to concentrate on Chaolan's words. "You have had m-many opportunities to serve the t-true legacy of the M-m… Mishima, but have instead chosen to continue aligning yourself with the… the m-maniacal tyrant calling himself the CEO of the Mishima Zaibatsu. As you have chosen your side, this letter hereby informs you that you will suffer the same fate as he when the Zaibatsu is taken from your ungrateful,… dishonourable, b-backstabbing hands. Make what peace you can in your depraved life. Soon it, and everything you ever gained from the Mishima name, w-will be s-stripped from you, and you will b-become… the nothing you were born into once again. What I give, I can just as easily take away. You b-breathe on b-borrowed time."

There was silence in the courtyard. The chickens around Kazuya's feet all as one made disturbed chattering squawks darting away from him and into the undergrowth.

"He…" Chaolan continued, voice a shattered whisper, "he didn't sign it, except for the family stamp. Th-the one that I thought y-you kept only at the estate. That means-… I guess that means he can get in – and has been in, or someone let him." Chaolan was starting to gabble in wayward desperation. "I suppose there are people still loyal to him. And maybe in the Zaibatsu too. We didn't purge it properly since we thought that he was-…"

Another silence. The wind rustled the trees. The clatter of pans from inside the house sounded so distant Kazuya could barely comprehend it was in the same world.

"Kazuya, you fucking promised me!" Chaolan exploded suddenly. There was fury and a kind of anger to him that Kazuya hadn't heard before. "You promised!"

Kazuya couldn't quite set his thoughts in order. He couldn't rewind enough of his mind fast enough to pick up the pieces of paranoia and terror from where he'd left them. His mind was white and numb. His lips moved wordlessly for a bit before he managed to form words.

"There must be a mistake. That can't be right," he said slowly, all disengaged and uncertain.

"You promised me!" There was hysteria in his brother's voice now. "You destroy everything and everyone around you! Why couldn't you get this one thing right and destroy the one person who needed destroying!"

"I-I checked!" Kazuya stammered. "You think I didn't check? I-I watched his body. He wasn't moving after I threw him off that cliff!"

"Wasn't moving? That's not fucking checking, Kazuya. Checking is stabbing him a thousand times, p-pulling his heart out, b-burying him in the bottom of an ocean with a lead weight, or even laying your finger on his fucking p-pulse! Any of those are checking!"

Kazuya's hand hovered near his mouth. A bit his finger. His breaths were coming shorter.

"This can't be right. This can't be happening."

"Who else would say that stuff?! Who else would write like that, would know those things?! The b-bit where he says I had ch-chances… Wang Jinrei asked me to go and see him a few days ago. H-he wanted me to try and… he wanted me to take the Zaibatsu for my own. He said you would be distracted. Distracted. I never thought-… Not in my wildest dreams did I think he meant-"

Kazuya blinked. Rage filmed over his eyes, snapping at anything that would save him from the drowning terror that was clawing its way up his throat like a vengeful corpse from a grave.

"He wanted you to what?!"

"Kaz, you know I would never – I'm loyal to you and only you. I told him to fuck off. I was going to tell you all about it sooner, but-"

"Yes, do tell me, but what?!" Kazuya paced about the yard, eyes flashing.

"Kaz, please," his brother begged, "don't be like this now of all times. I didn't want you to be furious. I wanted Jun to have a chance with you. Have a chance of helping you. You always seemed so much better around her. I thought if I told you sooner about Wang Jinrei that it would set back the work that-"

"You're damn right it would have set it back! And with good reason! This changes everything! It-"

Kazuya stormed in a circle. He drove a hand back through his hair with such violence that his haori sleeve whipped into his face. He pulled the tangled jacket off him and threw it on the floor.

"Don't be angry with me," Chaolan pleaded. "You're all I have. You know what that letter means. You know this means I'm out. He's going to take me down with you. I've given up everything for you, Kazuya, don't shut me out now. I'm with you or I'm dead. It won't be like last time: he won't be all sadist games and melodrama for the media. He's out for blood. I'm fucking dead. I'm dead if-"

"Quiet! Shut up! I need to think! Alright. You're mine. You're with me. There's no point letting him or Jinrei or anyone divide us. But don't fucking keep things from me just because-"

"I won't. I won't, I won't, Kaz. Thank-you. Thank-you. I'll do whatever you ask. We'll take him down together. We'll finish this and this time we'll make sure he doesn't get up again."

"This can't-… It must be some sick joke. Find me evidence. Find me a camera with his face on. A sighting. Anything. Maybe he wrote that letter before he died, to be sent later. Some last game from beyond the grave to screw with us."

"B-but Wang Jinrei said-"

"Fuck that old man! I'll deal with him later. Scratch that. He knows something about Heihachi. Go and find him. Demand answers by any means necessary. Just m-"

"Make it happen. I understand. I'll do it. But, Kazuya, do you really think he-… Could it really be that after all this time he-… Has he been watching us? Has he been watching me? Oh fuck, what if he-… what if he's seen that I'm-… that I…"

"It makes no difference what he's seen. If he's truly still alive, we will spin a web and catch him. I will finish what I started."

"I can't let Jae-suk come back. I can't see anyone. He'll use them to get to me. You can't bring Kazama Jun back here. We're not ready for this. I haven't been training hard enough. I'll stop drinking. I'll stop partying. I'll stop-… Kazuya, come home, I don't know what to do. This wasn't meant to happen. This wasn't how it was meant to end."

"Calm down, calm down. I'm coming home. I'll order the chopper and it'll pick me up first thing tomorrow. In the mean time make yourself useful. Get a handwriting analysis run, and date that letter if you can. Pull up CCTV and find out how the letter got to you. Get footage from the estate and see if we have him on camera. Question Wang Jinrei and see what he knows. Chaolan? Are you listening to me?" he said sharply.

Chaolan sniffed. Kazuya could hear him breathing hard down the phone.

"Y-yes, yes."

"Start rooting through our employees looking for weak links. People who were loyal to him in the old days. Fire whoever you want to. Don't hire anyone new."

"Kazuya. Kaz, do you really think father's still alive?"

"I don't know. I don't fucking know. I'll be with you tomorrow. Stay calm for me until then, alright? Don't do anything stupid. Keep a low profile. Take guards with you everywhere."

"You'll-… You'll be with me tomorrow?"

"Yes. Stop worrying. You won't sleep if you worry. I need you at your sharpest tomorrow, alright? I need your cunning. Get some sleep. Is my apartment fixed?"

Chaolan sniffed,

"Y-yes, I just had it finished for you this week. It's not exactly the same, but I tried to make it how you'd l-like it…"

"Good, that's good. I'm sure it looks good. Are the new locks all fitted?"

"Y-yes, Kazuya."

"Stay there tonight then. You stay there, and keep some guards there overnight. I'll find you tomorrow."

"Come back quickly," Chaolan breathed, and Kazuya hated the note of sheer terror with which it was said.

"I will," Kazuya promised. "I will. Stay strong. We're the fucking Mishima legacy, not him. We'll make it through this."

After he hung up, Kazuya set the phone calmly on the low wall.

The chickens in the bushes scattered further from him, clucking in distress.

He curled his fingers into fists. The veins on the back of his hand stood out purple.

"Kazuya?" Jun called him from the house. "Kazuya? Dinner is ready!"

Kazuya closed his eyes.

Jun rolled up the sleeves of the yukata she'd slipped into. She tied up her wet hair and called again from the main room.

"Kazuya?"

She helped her sisters set small, bright dishes on the table, all brimming with steaming fresh vegetables and pungent soy soaked tofu. She brought over a large, patterned, china dish for her mother to strain the rice into.

She padded over the tatami and stepped onto the polished wood before the main door. She slid it open.

The courtyard beyond was empty.

Jun frowned.

She slipped into sandals by the door and stepped out into the evening. Crickets were calling from thick waxy rhododendron bushes, blossoms all vibrant magnolia pink by the dying light. Her sandals clacked on the stone yard. She turned about her. Kazuya's discarded haori was on the floor. She picked it up and dusted it down. It had been her father's and the embroidery on it was still as fine as the day it had been bought. She hung it over her arm and held it to her. Unease settled in her stomach.

She saw Kazuya's mobile phone on the low wall. She picked it up, turning it over in her hands. The bushes stirred behind her. She peered into the shadowy foliage. A frightened chicken bolted clucking out of the leaves. It came and nestled under the hem of her yukata. She reached down and stroked it, comforting the bird by petting it under its beak where its throat was soft. The hen settled into content soft mumbling. Soon the other chickens stumbled out the undergrowth too, all clustering about her.

Jun glanced up and down the path, but saw no sign of anyone. Finally she looked up. Above, there were only roving dark storm clouds, clipping out the silvery light of a pale moon.

Author Note: Sorry on the delayed chapter, was a bit busy yesterday and wanted to read through one last time before I uploaded it. Here is the descent I think you all knew had to come. I hope all your little hearts don't break :)

Thanks again for your reviews and comments, I love reading them and it's very exciting to here your excitement. I love writing this story, but I'm very familiar with it, having proof read its chapters for weeks, so hearing your comments as you read it for the first time gets me all excited with you 3