*When you walk away
You don't hear me say
Please, oh baby, don't go

Simple and clean is
The way that you're making
Me feel tonight
It's hard to let it go

Hold me
Whatever lies beyond this morning
Is a little later on
Regardless of warnings,
The future doesn't scare me at all
Nothing's like before*

*Utada Hikaru - Simple and Clean*
"It's simple," Angel told her brother as soon as he woke up the next morning. "We enter the Tournament, one of us wins, and bingo, we can confront Abel."

"That easy, huh?" he grunted in response. The moment his mind had registered wakefulness, she had barged into his room and plonked down on the edge of the bed to outline her grand scheme. He was less than impressed, especially so soon after waking.

"Should be," she replied. "I mean, I've been training in the martial arts all my life. You have unbelievable artificial strength. It would be impossible for both of us to lose."

At the mention of his ill-gotten strength, he closed his eyes and turned his head. She read him perfectly. "C'mon Bryan, it can't be that bad. You're bullet-proof, for God's sake. I'd kill for that."

He turned back to her, his intense steel-blue eyes attempting to hide his pain. "It's a psychological thing, Angel. I'm dead. I'm no longer human."

Angel forced a smile. "Are we even sure I'm human?"

"Your point?"

Her gaze became far away. "Kenji used to say something to me all the time. I usually ignored it because I hated him, but now I realize that it was good advice." She stared deep into his eyes. "He told me 'Accept what you are! Become what you must! That is the way of things.'" She took a deep breath. "'You are who you make yourself to be.'"

There was silence for a moment. "You saying that I should be happy that I'm a goddamn cyborg?"

"No, I'm saying that you've been given a second chance at life. Not only that, but you've been given skills and abilities that other people can only dream of."

"That's one way to look at it," he mused. She sighed, and stood, then turned to him.

"So are we doing it?"

He paused and looked away. When he did look up, there was a faint grin on his face. "Yeah. Let's go kick Heihachi Mishima's ass."

"That's the spirit!" Angel cheered. He gave her a Look, and she grinned. "What? I can't wait to enter this tournament!"

"I can," he said quietly.

"Something else. Remember that promise I made to Jarod?"

"The cop?"

"Yeah. I was hoping all along that you'd agree to go to Japan. I do remember that I lived there for most of my life. Maybe I'll remember some more things."

"So, win or lose the Tournament, you want to stay in Japan?"

She shook her head. "No lose, man. We can't lose. I'm fighting for you. If we both lose..." she trailed off. "I don't know what I would do, or where I would go. It's all or nothing."

"Yeah..." he said quietly. There was silence for a long moment.

Angel finally stood. "Well, that means that we'll be leaving soon. The tournament is next month. I'll give Jerry a two-weeks notice, then we'll train like hell for a week and a half. I want to get there early and scope out the competition."

"Whatever you say, boss," Bryan deadpanned. She shot him a funny look, and walked out of his room with a considerably lighter step. He stared after her for a long time. "All or nothing," he muttered softly. She didn't know the half of it. He sighed, climbed slowly out of his nice warm bed, and dressed.
It was a day later that Angel delivered her two weeks' notice to a stunned Jerry. She never told him about her deal with Jarod. She simply told him that she felt it was time to move on. He hemmed and hawed about the entire deal, but she was resolute, and he regretfully wished her good luck.

If only it had been that easy with Jeff. She'd become somewhat attached to him, almost like a true friend, but she knew they'd never be all that close. She was too secretive, too mysterious, too much a loner to be close to anyone but Bryan. And if he died, well, then she'd simply have to go somewhere else and continue as she had been before his arrival, as a lonely, dangerous young adult with no ties to anyone. Now that she thought about it, she would make a good mercenary. She didn't know why, but the thought stuck with her.

With two days till departure, her employment terminated, and nearly all ties to this place severed, she regretfully drove over to Jeff's house with a bouncing, energetic Takeru taking more than his share of space in the back seat, his massive head plastered to the window as the scenery rolled by. He let out deafning barks as he was released from the all-leather-interior prison, and cavorted madly about the Clay yard for several minutes.

The two young adults watched the mammoth canine as Angel told Jeff in even tones about her impending departure. He was shocked, and a little hurt that she'd taken this long to tell him. Bryan was the reason they were leaving, that they needed to go to Japan, that they had to win.

"What's wrong with him?" Jeff asked quietly.

She was quiet a moment. "He has cancer," she said in a dull voice. Lying to him hurt, but she couldn't tell him the truth, could she?

Could she?

"So why do you need to go to Japan again?" he asked for the second time, unable to grasp the concept of her leaving.

"If we win the tournament, we would have the most advanced medical resources in the world at our disposal. If anyone in the world could cure him, it would be Mishima Enterprises." She took a breath. "That's why we have to go. And that's why we have to win."

"But if both of you enter, then wouldn't you have to fight each other sooner or later?"

She looked away. "Yeah. That's a risk we're willing to take. Two of us has a much better chance than just one.

He was silent. She sighed, and stood. "I'd better go," she said quietly. "I still have some packing to do."

He stood a bit faster than she had. "Win or lose, you're coming back... right?" His eyes were sad, pleading. Was he really that attached to her? she wondered.

"I don't know." She was reluctant to leave this little place, and gave herself a mental kick. Do what needs to be done, Angel, she told herself. She started walking to her car. She opened the door, then paused, shut it, and walked back over to him. "I almost forgot. I have something I want to leave with you." Before he could ask, she whistled, and her loyal dog came bounding toward her.

He sensed her plan. "You can't be serious."

"I am," she stated firmly. She knelt down next to her furry friend, and spoke to him in gentle tones in Japanese. The dog's ears went from straight up to laid back, and he adopted a sad posture that nearly made her heart break.

At length, she stood, and spoke a few more words to the dog, softly. Takeru whimpered pitifully, as though she was stealing away his very soul. The words were spoken again, more firmly, and the dog's tail fell between his legs as he walked slowly over to Jeff and sat by the teenager's side.

"Angel, no, you can't..."

"Can, have, will, and shall." She said stiffly. "I've already spoken to David, and he said you could keep Takeru. I've delivered all his stuff, too, and some food, or didn't you notice it?"

"No," he said slowly. He still couldn't believe it. Takeru was like a child to Angel, was she really giving him away?

It was almost as if she'd read his mind. "Takeru was my only friend for so long, Jeff. Now you're my closest friend, and I want to leave you with something that means a lot to me. Besides, if I do win the tournament, there'd be no place for a dog this big."

They stared into each other's eyes for the longest time. "Goodbye, Jeff." She turned and again strode to her car when Takeru let out another anguished whimper. She paused, and looked into those enoromous, liquid brown eyes. "I'm sorry, Takeru," she said in English for Jeff's benefit. "Your job is to guard this house now." She said it again in fast Japanese, and the dog's head sank even lower, but he remained silent. Her gaze rose to Jeff's again, and he wore the same heartbroken expression that her dog did. She gave a slow, wistful smile and climbed into her car.

Tears appeared in the corners of Jeff's eyes as he watched her drive away, and his hand traveled absently down to the dog's head to give it a scratch before turning silently to his house. Takeru did not follow his new master indoors, but instead sat on the front steps, his eyes never leaving the place where he had last seen his beloved mistress's car.
In her own car on the way home, Angel felt the anguish of both minds. Jeff had been genuinely attached to her, she knew that now, and there was a pair of hearts in the Clay household that were breaking at her departure. Her gaze grew hard, telling herself that it had to be done, that she had a job to do, that a life depended on her now. Certainly Bryan could take care of himself, but she felt a certain sense of protectiveness toward him. Just like a family, a small voice whispered in the depths of her consciousness.

Unbeknownst to her, ever since her near-death experience, certain changes had become apparent in Angel. For example, her eyes often changed color when she was at extreme ends of the mood spectrum. Blue was happy, green was her night-vision that was attached to no mood at all, red was anger, and black was the color that shone true whenever she tried to hide her feelings. Her eyes, could she see them now, were an inky black as she tried to ignore the anguish rising inside her.

In those hard black eyes, there were tears.