"Kazuya, wait! Explain this to me."
The helicopter blades were whirring so loudly that Jun had to shout over them to be heard. There was a storm of fine sand about them, stirred up by the chopping air.
"I explained." Kazuya was calm and so controlled Jun couldn't feel his emotions. There was a shroud about him that shielded him from her. He was a tight whirlpool of so much conflict that no single emotion directed his actions or made itself known to her.
"Your father is alive. Possibly. But even so-…" She took his arm and pulled him further up the beach so that she could hear herself talk. "But this doesn't have to change everything. It doesn't have to change what we've been doing here. It doesn't have to change… our lives, the things we had planned."
He fixed her with eyes more honest than her own. There was still that earnest, open Kazuya looking back at her from under those very Mishima eyebrows.
"You know me," he said simply. "You know what this changes."
"Kazuya, don't go back there like this. You're not in control. You're… i-in an in between place."
"Jun." He touched her cheek. She could feel the finality in the gesture before he even spoke. "I have to go. I'm going back to finish what I started. Nothing will get between me and his end. I swore that." He glanced behind him. His bodyguards were loading the last of his luggage onto the helicopter. Kazuya's long trenchcoat fanned out in the cut of the churning air. He pushed his sunglasses up into his hair and looked down at her. It was strange seeing him in a suit again after the kimono and hakama he'd worn for the last week or so. "I swore that from the flat of my back as I looked up at that impossibly high cliff with only a demon for company. Heihachi dies by my hand. I promised myself. I promised my brother. The world is a better place without him."
"Kazuya-"
"Don't!" Kazuya raised a finger sharply. The movement made Jun jump. He hesitated, retracting his hand to make it less threatening. "Don't try and dissuade me. There's no point. I'm leaving."
"Fine." Jun glared fiercely up at him. "But I'm coming too."
"I'm leaving now. There's no time for this. I told Chaolan I'd be home by this afternoon."
"I don't need to pack. I don't need things. I don't need anything but you."
Kazuya stared at her. They warred in silence for a moment, then Kazuya glanced away.
"Do as you wish. But I'm going to do what I must. Don't blame me if you don't like it."
They walked back across the beach toward the helicopter. Kazuya stuck his hands in his waistcoat pockets, shoulders hunched. A gaggle of children had jumped down from the breakwater and were playing in the sun-scattered shadows cast by the whirling helicopter blades.
Kazuya's path was blocked abruptly by a small boy. Jun glanced at Kazuya. His brows had knitted.
"Sensei Mishima, do you have to leave? There are loads of other cool things I wanted to show you!" Higashi, her young student was looking imploringly up at Kazuya. His eyes were dark and stubborn and maybe on the edge of being upset. The boy put his hands on his hips. "I'm not moving! You have to stay here!"
Kazuya raised an eyebrow.
"Can you still do those high breakfalls?"
"Sure I can!" The boy immediately glowed under Kazuya's interest. He held his arm to his chest, and flipped over it, rolling in the sand and coming up to a stand a metre or so away. Kazuya gave a half smirk and stepped up onto the helicopter now that his path was clear.
"Hey! Sensei Mishima, you tricked me!"
Kazuya gave him a lazy salute and disappeared inside. Jun gave the boy an apologetic smile. She looked back up the beach. The village was gathered again, like they had when Kazuya first arrived. Their curious, inquiring faces were innocent of the bombshells rocking the world she'd been building. Her family wasn't here. Rei was at school and her mother hadn't realised Kazuya planned to leave so was out the back of the house gardening. She'd probably be picking vegetables for two too many people for dinner this evening.
"Jun!" A voice called across the beach. She could just make out the impatient click of Kazuya's tongue from behind her. "Jun!" Nao ran across the sand, a bag swinging in her hand. She thrust it into Jun's hands then threw her arms around her. "A few-" she was out of breath "- things for you. Not much as I didn't have time. I only just realised that he'd… he'd go. And you'd be stupid enough to follow." There were quiet, unasked questions in her sister's eyes. She said nothing more though. Jun embraced her and whispered,
"Thank-you." There wasn't time for anything more.
She stepped up into the helicopter. Kazuya helped her in, and it took off the moment she was seated. She looked down and could see Nao stretching her arms out to keep the children well back from the blades. Upturned faces and waving hands instantly blurred as their features drifted further away.
"Goodbye, Jun! Goodbye, Mr Mishima!" Shouts from below followed them up until the wind and the height drowned out all other sound. Jun waved for as long as she could make out faces. Then she glanced at Kazuya. He was looking out the other window toward the sea and the endless horizon. He was robed in shadows. She could see calculating cold things behind his eyes. She placed her palm upon his knee. He stirred. She turned away to look at Yakushima spread out like the map in her bedroom, all contours of thick forest that could never convey the mystery and spirit that lingered amidst the roots and towering trunks of its old trees. She felt fingers lightly touch hers. She took a steadier breath, glad that he was at least somewhere inside that hurt creature beside her.
Jun was silent for the helicopter journey. Kazuya spoke over his radio headset to his guards and made notes in a folder. She watched his brow furrow and his fingers shuffle anxiously through sheets of paper. He looked up occasionally to give her brief smiles, haunted with the weight of tasks ahead of him. Whenever she stretched out a hand, he would place his on hers, not looking up from his work, but running his calloused fingertips over her knuckles. The fresh sea air and buffeting wind was alive all around them cocooning them in a bubble of their own worries.
Jun was silent as they crossed the landing strip outside Kagoshima and walked up the steps to a Zaibatsu private jet. Kazuya was giving orders as they walked. He received a handful of papers from an aide. His coat flapped in the wind as he ascended to his plane. He paused once to look at the scuffed white trails of clouds bright against a sheer blue autumn sky. He looked back at Jun once and gave her a smile, this time it was smaller, and troubled by sorrows. It reached all the way inside her and turned things there – this bright, desperate love, and a terrible sense of doom and foreboding.
Jun was silent as the plane took off and the rice fields glittered as silver rectangles under the wink of sunlight. Kazuya spread files out before him on a table and drank whiskey neat from a cut crystal glass. His face was more stern now. He didn't have time to look up out the window. He rocked his glass on the table, the only sign betraying his inner turmoil. Jun had to tilt her head and shift her hand to try and catch his gaze. When he glanced at her it was only for a moment. The mechanical almost-smile held no content and was gone a second later as his gaze fell back to his papers.
Jun was silent as the plane landed in a private runway in Tokyo and the smog rose up around them and wavered in the cold light. Kazuya filed everything into briefcases and picked up his phone and answered a call the moment he stepped off the plane. The sky above Tokyo was grey and the first dead leaves skipped around Kazuya's feet as his smart shoes clacked on concrete. His thick, black, eyebrows were fierce and his lips twisted in displeasure as he listened to the call. His responses were all snapped and short. He only spared Jun one look, before his attention flicked elsewhere.
Jun was silent as the limousine pulled out of the airfield with a purr and sped through the haze of lights blurred in the Tokyo streets. Kazuya talked heatedly on the phone, tapping a fountain pen impatiently on a page and causing large blotches to spill and spread. All his energy was absorbed in the matter before him.
The limousine stopped before the Zaibatsu building in the early afternoon.
Kazuya got out immediately and his guard formed up about him. A flock of smart black suits, armed, and hidden behind sunglasses moved in perfect formation. Jun stepped hesitantly up to Kazuya. They walked up the broad steps to the glass doors. The tall Zaibatsu tower looked down at them. An empty sky stood behind it. As they entered the lobby, employees lined either side of the doorway. They bowed to Kazuya as he swept in.
"Welcome back, Boss," Bruce Irvin said. The familiar tall figure fell into step with Kazuya, forming a natural shadow to his movements. An elevator on the left binged and two figures stepped out. One was a woman dressed in a short black skirt and fur coat, with stockings up to her thighs and lethal looking heels. Next to her was Chaolan in a pinstripe white suit and candy-coloured shirt. Dark rings were under his sharp, snapping eyes and he was handing a wad of paper half an inch thick to the woman. He glanced up. A strangled cry escaped his throat and he ran forward, throwing his arms around Kazuya. Kazuya allowed the embrace for a moment, and rested one hand on the back of his brother's head, murmuring something in his ear that Jun couldn't catch. Chaolan clung to him for a few seconds longer before Kazuya shrugged him off.
Kazuya gestured to the elevator. Jun paused. The world was sliding back. Back to a place of boundaries where she didn't belong. Thunderstorms and tangled sheets and wild nights where the wind blew sideways and the rain came lashing down were already so far away. The man in the suit that the room revolved around felt so far from the one that had bowed his head into her arms and breathed softly in the secrecy of her embrace.
Kazuya stepped into the elevator. He turned around and frowned. Chaolan, Bruce, Jun, and Anna were all standing in the doorway, waiting on his word.
"Chaolan, with me. I need to talk to my brother alone. The rest of you take the next lift."
Jun saw relief spread on Chaolan's face. She watched him as he moved to Kazuya's side, eyes all eager yet somehow haunted by a terrible, terrible weight.
Jun waited in the lobby. Her eyes moved around the reception area, picking out the place where she'd first paused to look around at the impressive architecture, and the place where she'd stopped with Lei Wulong to catch their breaths as they ran in from the late metro, and the place where she'd sat and hesitantly looked out at the police car parked on the street: all somehow so far away in time and belonging to the worries of another life.
She stepped into the elevator with Bruce and the other woman.
"Anna Williams," the woman said to her, "and what are you, a PA?" Bruce passed her a sharp glance. Anna leaned back against the mirrored lift wall and gave a silvery laugh. "Ah, the girlfriend then. Have to say, I'm a little surprised. Kazuya firmly struck me as someone who'd never settle down with anyone." Jun said nothing. "I mean no offence by it." Anna winked at her, "he's certainly a catch, no doubt about it, if you can get past all the anger and violent tantrums." Bruce shifted again. Anna folded her arms, "Bruce, darling, I feel your protective mothering instincts kicking in, but you did not see Mishima Kazuya up close and personal at the Iron First Tournament. Lethal force of nature meets unbridled desire for revenge. He put half the competition in hospital and didn't break a sweat. The man has an iron focus when it comes to taking what he's owed. Forgive me if I can't see him as the sentimental type." She swivelled her attention back to Jun, "What's your secret, mysterious silent girlfriend? How'd you pin him down?"
Jun's eyes lidded and she kept her focus firmly forward. The small elevator was a whirl of unguarded emotions, but Jun kept that at a distance. She was too tired for empathy. The world around her was growing dark, pushing her hopes to a thin strip of light on a horizon that kept moving further away. There was a coldness to her voice when she spoke.
"What's your secret, Ms Williams? Does the Zaibatsu know you're here out of a sense of guilt?"
Jun saw Anna's eyes flash in the mirror walls of the elevator. Surprise and disturbance still registered on the woman's face. The lift stopped and the door rolled open and Jun stepped out. Anna was whispering harshly to Bruce, but Jun couldn't catch her words. Jun pulled back her shoulders and walked into Chaolan's office.
The brothers were conversing quietly by the window. Chaolan was passing printed stills of video footage to Kazuya. Their faces were both grim. Kazuya looked up when the others entered.
"Ms Williams, glad you could make it to Japan on short notice. You'll be working as a bodyguard for now. Chaolan can have his much coveted secretary job back again."
Chaolan gave a weak smile but didn't dare raise an objection. Jun's brow darkened.
"I've been informed that we let go fifteen employees last night," Kazuya continued. "There will be a purge of more, but I need an increase in security personnel. I want Anna and Bruce in charge of vetting potential candidates. Every one of them goes through both Chaolan and I before they even sign a contract. If there's even a whiff that they may have been compromised…" His eyes flicked to Jun and whatever threat he had planned trailed off. "See that we aren't hiring more spies into our midst." Kazuya finished. He strode out from around the desk and faced the far wall. Chaolan quickly pulled out a notepad and pen and began writing. Kazuya continued speaking, arms behind his back, facing the wall. "I will draw up a list of Heihachi's old haunts and places he frequented in Tokyo. I want each location scouted and under surveillance. We will find whatever hole he's been driven into. I want to know his contacts. Who's been helping him, and what he's been doing for the last year. And fire everyone working at the Mishima Estate. Throw Wang Jinrei out of the grounds."
"K-… Kazuya," Chaolan said timidly. "The servants on the estate have been working there longer than I've lived there… That's their home. It's the only life they know."
"Fire them."
"And Wang Jinrei was a friend of your Grandfather. That little house is all he has, he-"
"Do not even speak to me of Wang Jinrei. He is lucky to have his life at this stage. If our attention were not required immediately elsewhere-"
"Kazuya."
All the room bar Kazuya turned to look at Jun. Her interruption had been abrupt, quiet, but confrontational. All eyes switched back to Kazuya again. He remained facing the wall.
"He can live for now," Kazuya said, ignoring the interruption. "But clear the estate. And get answers from him before he runs for the hills. He's knows something about Heihachi that we don't."
"The laboratories," Jun interrupted again. Another silence. Bruce, Anna, and Chaolan looked between one another with a hesitant trepidation shared in their eyes.
"Now is not the time to deal with such things," Kazuya said stiffly, still with his back to them.
"Those experiments must end."
"The situation has changed. I will deal with them in good time."
Another silence. Jun could feel the tension and palpable fear suspended in the room around Kazuya's subordinates.
"You're still holding a man hostage." Jun's eyes narrowed at Kazuya's back.
"I need him. His expertise may be vital."
This time the silence persisted, long and stiff.
The afternoon sun slid dimly between grey, concrete Tokyo towers.
"Chaolan, see Bruce and Anna into my office." Kazuya's voice was low.
Chaolan bowed to him, and opened the office door. Bruce followed him in. Anna glanced back at Jun with one raised eyebrow before also following. The door was shut behind them.
Kazuya finally turned around.
"I have Zaibatsu business I need to conduct," he said. Jun fixed him with her eyes. "You made it clear to me once before that you had no desire to work for the Zaibatsu or to be involved in its business." His brow flickered slightly as he regarded her. He took a step closer. His finger moved to her chin, but she lifted her head a fraction higher so that his touch fell short. He lowered his hand again slowly. His voice changed, becoming softer. "Go choose an apartment. Anything you like. And a location for a dojo. I'll give you anything you ask for."
"You can't give me anything I'm asking for." She fixed him with a level, steady look.
His face darkened.
"We can talk about this later," he murmured. "I'm not ruling out those changes we talked about. I just need time. My priority has to be to prepare." His weight shifted, and she saw in that simple movement the agitation and fret and anxiety that his emotions would not speak of to her. His eyes disengaged and he seemed younger, perhaps even frightened. "He's coming for me, Jun. I need to be prepared to use every weapon in my arsenal."
She looked up at him, finally letting him see all her own fear and concern that she'd been holding back since he'd first told her the news that his father lived.
"… Every weapon?" she whispered.
He glanced off to one side.
"I only just beat him last time. I need to be prepared to-"
"You're stronger than you think you are, Kazuya. You don't need to rely on-"
"I need every chance I can get!" The angles reappeared in his features, cast into shadow by the drifting light. A silence stretched between them and the world seemed darker to her. He softened his voice for her again. "Stop worrying. When this is all over, it can go back to the way it was. I'll make it up to you. I'll get rid of all those parts of the Zaibatsu you hate, we can go back to how it was on Yakushima. It'll be me and you. I'll clean up the Zaibatsu. I'll make it totally legitimate if that's what you want. I'll stop relying on this thing inside me. We can banish it like you said. And we'll do things you love. We'll take the car out to Wakayama, and you can show me the mountains there. We can do that regularly. We can do anything we want. We could run the dojo together even. Maybe there could be a new Mishima Ryu student for the first time in seventeen years. We can make a life together. But I have to do this one thing. Everything can be the way it was, just not yet."
"It's always 'not yet' with you, Kazuya. One day you're going to wake up and life will have happened and your 'not yet' will still be on the horizon. You'll spend your days promising to be a better man tomorrow, and in the end no one will believe you, because no one wants to see the you I see, and if you never give them the chance, they will be right in believing you to be a tyrant. They will be right that you are cruel and evil. If you do cruel things, one day you'll realise you've become a cruel person. It is our actions that define us. No one knows the maybes in your head, no one knows the 'not yet's you were planning."
"I said it would happened, so it will happen," Kazuya snapped. "I just need to do this one thing first. Once I kill my father, everything will be set to right again. I have a plan formulating for how to lure him out. Something he won't be able to resist rearing his ugly head for." Kazuya gave a short anxious bark of a laugh. "There's going to be a second King of Iron First Tournament. I'll offer it back to him – he won't be able to resist the public platform. I'll beat him for all the world to see. But not on my own. Whilst he's alive, I need my power, and I need to know how to control it, and I need the doctor's research, and I need the people he's experimenting on."
"People?"
"Animals."
"You said people."
"I meant animals. The people who are helping him experiment on animals." She fixed him with a black look. He reached for her chin again and this time caught it before she could move from his grasp. "Everything will be alright. I promise. I love you."
Jun blinked. Her mouth opened slightly. Her lip quivered. She looked up at him and swallowed. Rational things, hurt things, and that pressing warning that fate was on their heels, all faded and her mind went blank. She could only look up at those sharp features: wide cheekbones slashed with that old scar, imperious brow, and those covetous, intense, dark eyes that had seized her the moment they had first rested upon her. Kazuya leaned forward and kissed her forehead.
"I'm going to book us a restaurant for this evening," he murmured, knowing that he'd captured her attention in those three words. "We'll have some time just the two of us. I'll see you later, alright?"
He gave her a soft look, one of those gentle ones he only ever saved for her and made her feel like the universe had paused. He gave her a small smile and brushed a thumb over her cheek. Her heart still beat fast for him despite it all. Her eyes fluttered halfway closed under his touch. Then his hand fell away. Jun's eyes flickered back open.
He turned his back on her and opened the door to his office. Chaolan, Bruce and Anna were all waiting for him.
Kazuya walked in. He went round the other side of his desk and sat down. He snapped open a silver cigarette case resting on the neatly tidied desk. Chaolan leaned forward and lit his cigarette for him. Bruce poured him a glass of whiskey and set it before him. Anna got up to shut the door. The door moved slowly, giving Jun a last glimpse of Mishima Kazuya before it closed with a gentle click.
Author Note: Thank you everyone for reading, and for your amazing comments and support throughout this story. It's been a real pleasure sharing it with you all and having your encouraging comments and love all the way through. This is the end of Jun and Kazuya's story arc, and so the end of our story too. Despite the inevitable downturn of the story, hopefully I've given a possible way of seeing the value and depth of Kaz and Jun's relationship despite its brevity. I like to think that there was something very important and valuable between them despite it ending in disaster. Disasters don't undermine the value of even those brief experiences. And I like to think that the fact that people like Jun might have seen something more in Kazuya, might mean that there's hope for him still even in the current Tekken games.
Sorry for another dark ending to a Tekken story, although unfortunately the canon is like that! My next story is post Tekken 7 and much lighter, following Jin Kazama and his relationship with Lee and Kazuya, so please stick around for more if you're interested, and lend me some more of your amazing support. I wish you all the best for the new year!