Chapter Twenty-Four

Just nine more hours. Nine more hours, and he could start thinking clearly again. Steve rested his head back on his seat, his eyes heavy. However, he was finding it hard to rest; he still was anxious about leaving his family and Smart, and his left arm was bothering him a great deal. The skin around his scarring was being overly sensitive, apparently not taking well to the sudden shift in the weather and humidity outside after finally changing hemispheres.

He had a window seat that day; he liked the window seats. Usually, he could drift off watching the plane rise above the clouds, imagining that he was being taken up to heaven to be amongst the minds he admired most: Friedrich Nietzsche, Socrates, Hunter S. Thompson, and so on. He wanted to speak to anyone that could look at mankind from a distance.

The sun was starting to appear again, and the voice of the captain came over the intercom, speaking quickly in French. Steve made a face; he could only pick out a few words but managed to deduce that it would only be a couple hours before the plane landed to refuel. With that, he leaned back in his seat, gaze fixated on the endless plane of clouds; below, he could see splashes of lightning, indicating they were flying high above a storm.

As he nervously rubbed his arm, Steve prayed silently that wouldn't delay his plans any.

o.o.o.o.o

"What did she tell you?" Drake asked as he drove; Lei shifted some in his seat, straightening up. His hand was in his pocket, gripping the small key so tightly that his palm sweated.

The detective frowned some, "I'm not really at liberty to say. It was personal."

"Heh, I'm sure she told you not to trust me. Donna's always been paranoid like that. She practically smothered Agent Fury all the time. It was sickening."

"She didn't mention anything about Bryan," Lei shrugged; he then glanced over at the other man. "Mostly, she's as confused as I am about why this investigation is going on. I could tell you right now: Jin Kazama died of a fatal gunshot wound to the head after being shot by several semi-automatic weapons; there were plenty of witnesses, myself included. The party was unknown, but most likely some enemies of his grandfather. Same thing happened to Kazama's father--"

"--Heihachi Mishima killed that boy and his father, and you know it."

"Heihachi was standing right next to me, and I promise you, he wasn't holding an AK-47."

Drake frowned as he pulled up to a red light, "Why are you so insistent in defending that murderer?"

Lei was quiet for a moment, and turned to look out his window. At that point, he couldn't wait to get back to his own vehicle and go back to Paul's; the vinyl seats in Drake's car still were annoyingly hot and sticky, even with the air going and the windows opened.

Finally, he replied, "I believe in justice, but I don't believe in something that makes a farce out of the justice system." The car started moving again.

The world outside of the car seemed perfect; children playing outside in the fire hydrants, old men sitting out on their porches laughing and throwing down beers, cars passing by with their stereos blasting, sometimes R&B, sometimes country. The bright sunlight outside made everything faded and antique, like an old photograph. Lei smiled sadly to himself, always finding that he as much as he loved New York, he always enjoyed the scenery in Dreyfus. He then wondered if Jun had ever missed that after she left, if she missed New York after she disappeared, if she missed him at all.

"Detective?"

Lei snapped back to reality, "Huh?"

Drake pulled up slowly into the parking lot of Paul's garage, "This is the place you wanted to be dropped off at?"

Lei nodded once stiffly as Drake put the car in park, and the detective finally let go of the key in his pocket and pulled his hand out to shake the fed's, as to thank him for the ride.

o.o.o.o.o

Breakfast tasted bland. Hwoarang wasn't sure if it was just him or what, but he didn't complain as he ate silently, discreetly watching the two women he dined with; Michelle sipped quietly on tea while reading the paper, while Julia kept her head down, poking at her cold eggs though never putting anything in her mouth. He then began to wonder if this was how he was going to spend the rest of his life.

That morning he woke up feeling uncertain. It was a different kind of vagueness than what he had been subjected to his entire life. Instead of his usual frustration, there was an odd emptiness, like the last chapter of a novel had been ripped out, never to be read. Despite the fact that he had slept next to another warm body, something didn't feel right. He still didn't feel complete, and he was starting to question Julia's intentions. Part of him was content with the notion that he never had to go back to his parents, but he didn't want her pity.

And he certainly didn't want pity that he knew actually belonged to Jin Kazama.

Michelle placed down her cup and stood, "Well, I'm off to work." Quickly, she gathered her dishes to take to the kitchen, her paper folded underneath her arm as she scurried over to the sink. When she reemerged, she patted Julia once on the head, smiled over at Hwoarang as a goodbye, then grabbed her keys off the table as she trotted over to the front door.

When she heard the front door shut, Julia finally lifted her head. For a moment, it looked like she was going to say something to him, her eyes longing to break the silence, but she then quickly adverted her eyes back to her food.

He spoke first, "So, he told you he loved you."

"He didn't mean it," she replied softly, head still down.

"So what did he mean?"

"I don't know."

"Right..."

Julia looked up, "Actually, Rang, there's something I've been meaning to tell you for awhile."

"Changing the subject, huh?" he chuckled, a hint of disappointment in his voice.

"No, please. All I ask is that you listen." She shifted a bit in her seat, straightening up and looking Hwoarang in the eye. He frowned at her, leaning back in his seat as folded his hands over his abdomen. The older boy then lifted a hand and gestured cynically for Julia to begin.

As much as he wanted to hear what she had to say, he knew he'd regret it

o.o.o.o.o

She had stopping sleeping at night.

Every night since that night, she sat perched by her window waiting, afraid that if she closed her eyes, she'd miss him. He never came, however.

The devil talked to her on those nights. He was a handsome fellow who looked like an older version of her Jin: tall, dark-skinned, ebony hair slicked out of his dark eyes, and a playful smirk across his face just like her Jin. Instead of a tattoo on his arm, though, the devil had a massive scar across his chest; some nights, she could see it beneath his white-collared shirt, the half the buttons undone revealing his chiseled figure, the legs to his khaki cargo pants rolled up, his feet bare. He would sit outside her window and speak amiably to her about the weather, he always asked her about school, about her friends.

And about her mother. He seemed to adore her mother.

In the mornings, when the sound of her mother tiptoeing down the hallway to wake her, he would lean inside the window and kiss her softly on the lips, sometimes once, sometimes twice, always just like Jin had done. But he wasn't Jin.

She didn't know where Jin was. Her mother told her that Jin was dead. Jin's grandfather had said the same thing, and so did Detective Lei and Agent Fury. They all told her that Jin was dead.

The devil was dead, too. She had seen the photos her mother had tried to keep hidden. Old, faded photographs of her mother standing with the devil's arm around her shoulder that were kept in the same dirty trunk her mother kept her wedding dress. She had even seen his grave, which was hidden on the Mishima estate near edges of the cliffs. Jin had taken her out there once, and they sat for hours not speaking, just looking out at the desolate wasteland beneath the cliffs. Hollowed endless pits of rock, eroded away millions of years ago from long dead rivers and never-to-return rains. Skeletons of trees reached up towards the blank, hot sky with one last desperate prayer that was left unanswered. And she shivered a bit when his hand touched hers, slithering up her arm until it rested on her shoulder, and his teeth were nipping at her neck.

That was the first time they had made love. It was with the dusty ground against her bare back, the fiery light of sun slowly disappearing into the dead pits of rock beyond him and her. And with the eyes of the devil watching. She could see him watching intently, quietly, and though she tried to say something to her lover, she found herself unable to make words as she groaned softly, half in ecstasy, half in pain.

This went on for years, until the point where both she and he were indifferent to each other's presence. She'd close her eyes to imagine she was elsewhere, so that she didn't have to see the devil watching her anymore nor have to face the reality that her relationship with Jin had been reduced to something entirely physical.

There was only one time that Julia didn't remember the devil waiting for her, and that was the night before Jin went away forever. And she spent that night, clinging to Jin after they had made love, in hopes that he'd change his mind about not returning home, and slowly, she drifted off to sleep.

The only thing that woke her was the sensation of her legs being lifted and straddled.

o.o.o.o.o

Jerome Wilson, age 32, unmarried, just a few months shy of his tenth anniversary at New Vision Medical and G-Tech, lived with a mutt named Rosencrantz.

The killing wound was breathtaking to look at, even after the orderly had been dead for two days. It was nearly perfect; the force that pushed the cart towards the man's throat had been enough to cause the edge of the cart to neatly slice through the flesh of the man's throat, nearly decapitating him.

Someone in forensics had stated that the velocity force that had pushed that cart had to been two tons over several hundred miles per hour, after calculating the short distance traveled. And the thing that only stopped it was the impact of the skull and a wall pushing back with the same force. A wonderful experiment in physics, the coroner added.

Heihachi began to wonder why any of these people were doing medical work. That man's life had become nothing more than a science experiment. The elderly man felt out of place there; younger folk had asked him to come in to view the body, and now there he was staring down at the head of a man that stared back up at him with wild, milky eyes and mouth gapping, as if he was still gasping for air.

Jerome Wilson, drove a green '92 Ford Taurus, his student loans were almost paid off, still kept a picture of his girlfriend from high school in his wallet.

Jerome Wilson, age 32, cause of death: suffocation due to the esophagus being completely severed by a blunt object used with tremendous force.

No one but Heihachi cared that Mr. Wilson's dog hadn't been fed in two days.

The carcass of a jack rabbit lay in the middle of the living room floor; her neck had been broken. She was bleeding from several wounds, her fur caked and matted with dark brown blood. Next to the body, a bloody stick had been placed carefully; from where the mess of innards and bodily fluids split out, it had obviously been played with, probably while the rabbit was still breathing.

Heihachi shivered a bit as he gently nudged the dead animal with his index and middle fingers.

The body was still warm.

He straightened up from where he had been hunched over, pulling the black fedora off of his head as he walked further into his home.

Silence.

He went up the stairs, taking off his blazer and draping it over his arm as he trotted upwards towards the open bedroom door upstairs, towards the quiet afternoon sunlight and sounds of the summer breeze blowing through the wind chimes outside.

His son's back was to him, and the little boy was hunched over playing with his toy soldiers. Little tin samurai his grandfather had gotten him on a business trip to Japan. The boy hummed to himself softly, the same song his mother always sang to him at night, the one thing she could still do for the children.

Heihachi hated that song. When his wife sang it, her soft, sweet voice was a whisper like as if would be last time she would ever sing. He often felt like it was; Chaolan never fell asleep listening to it, his tiny, chubby face often scrunched up to keep from wailing out at the obscenity. He should have been too young to understand, yet he did.

Kazuya, however, always fell asleep, a serene smile on his face.

The Mishima leaned in the doorway, his arms folded over his blazer and stomach as he watched his oldest son play for a few moments before entering the room without word and leaning over Kazuya.

The boy was barefoot, still dressed in his oversized bedclothes, and his collection of samurai and soldiers, one from each trip Heihachi's father took, lay askew on the floor before him as he played. His tiny, bloodstained hands carefully arranging the soldiers into lines for battle as he hummed until finally singing softly to himself as he lovingly placed a broken ronin in line next to a wooden Spanish soldier.

Heihachi spoke, "Kazuya?"

Kazuya stopped what he was doing and tilted his head up to look up at his father, his eyes blank. The little boy blinked once and then went back to what he was doing.

Heihachi repeated himself, "Kazuya."

"I'm playing."

"There's a rabbit downstairs. Did you leave it there?"

"No."

The older Mishima sat down on the floor next to his son, crossing his legs Indian-style, his blazer still folded against his stomach. He then asked as he cranked his head lower to look his son in the eye, "Kazuya, do you know how it got down there?"

"I didn't do it."

"Your brother didn't do it, your mother didn't do it, and I'm pretty certain the nanny didn't do it."

Kazuya let out a small, frustrated huff yet kept his head down and repeated sternly, "I didn't do it."

"Then who did?"

"He did it," the little boy replied in a matter-of-fact tone, carefully laying down a Chinese foot soldier in line. He then looked up at his father again; Heihachi's face melted into confusion as he stared back at Kazuya, whose face was solemn.

"And who is he?" the older man asked softly.

Kazuya pointed in front of him, "Him."

Where Kazuya pointed was the space in front of him beyond the line of broken toy soldiers; there was no one there, except for a few more figures lain askew on the floor and the open window. The silence that followed was unnerving, the deceivingly peaceful sunlight that filled the room and fell on the little boy's face. The boy's attention went back to his playing, and he said nothing else. Heihachi rose silently, keeping his gaze on his son. He then turned to leave, only stopping once at the door to glace over his shoulder.

Kazuya started humming to himself again.

He threw away his soiled gardening gloves, stuffing them into the same trash bag that he had dropped the dead animal and the bloodied stick into. All of it went into the incinerator behind the dojo, and when Heihachi returned, he went straight up to Kazuya's bedroom, scooping up the little boy in his arms.

Surprisingly, Kazuya didn't protest as his father carried him out of the room, and he was carried into the bathroom. Gently, Heihachi set his son down on the floor, and he placed the lid down to the toilet and sat down on it to turn and draw water into the bathtub.

The fizzing of the steaming water echoed, filling Heihachi's ears with a grating pain as he listened. For a moment, he kept his attention on the water that slowly filled the tub, not sure exactly why he was doing what he was. But then, he closed his eyes then bowed his head solemnly as he let out a heavy sign before shifting in his seat some to face Kazuya.

Hastily, he pulled off his son's flannel top.

"Kazuya," he said as he continued to strip the little boy naked, "We're not going to tell anyone about rabbit. Ever."

Kazuya peered up at his father, "Not even Mama?"

"Not even Mama." With that, he lifted his son up carefully over the edge of the tub and placed him into the warm water. And for a moment, they sat staring at each other, until Kazuya turned away and shrugged, splashing water a bit.

Heihachi quickly rolled up his sleeves. He then reached over the boy to grab a bar of soap, dipped it into the water, and began scrubbing the boy down hastily.

". . .Dad?. . ."

It was dead silent then, and from the openings of the parking garage, snow fell; thick, sticky clumps that fluttered and reflected the rosy street lights from outside. And even then, Heihachi held his breath though no one was around. Kazuya lain sprawled before him, his head resting in his father's lap, the corner of his mouth twitching as his life drained out him painfully. The blood stain on the collar of his white oxford shirt grew larger until finally creeping out into his shirt and tie, yet Heihachi waited. Finally, the sounds of footsteps echoing through the garage broke the quiet.

He then said to his son, "I know it wasn't you. It was him." Kazuya managed a slight nod before taking one last shallow breath then he was still. His glazed over eyes stared up at the older man. "He did all of this." Heihachi gazed back down at the lifeless eyes, "I took care of him, and now you can rest."

"Dad?" He looked up at Lee. There was a strange clairvoyance in the young man's face; there had always been clouded thoughts that had been hung over Lee that only grew worse as he got older until finally he had sealed himself off entirely from both his brother and his father. However, it was moments like this that the silver-haired man managed to sober up and take in what was happening. He took it without saying a word, a cigarette dangling from his mouth and a flask of whiskey inside of his jacket.

Lee kneeled down next to his father, taking care not to wrinkle the black business suit and trenchcoat he was clad in, his hands still covered by black leather gloves.

He reeked of gun powder.

"He looks so peaceful..." the younger man commented, reaching inside of his coat to produce a pack of cigs and his silver zippo. He then lit up; the metallic sounds of his lighter echoed weakly through the emptiness. "We can't leave him here, though. If anyone--" He took a long drag of his cigarette then pulled it from his lips, "--Anyone sees this, this is all a jury needs to put you away for the rest of your life."

Heihachi was silent, and his face darkened into thought.

Lee continued, "I know what you're thinking..." He then gazed down at his brother; somberly, he raised a hand to the dead man's face and gently closed shut Kazuya's eyelids. "No one would even think to blame me. But you. Everyone will want to blame you."

"You're just upset about that Williams girl--"

"--You're damned right I am." Lee looked back up at his father, "You saw what Kaz did to her. She might as well be dead." He took another drag then looked away towards the huge openings in the concrete walls; the snow was starting to pick up, and the wind howled. Flashes of golden light floated by as trucks started clearing the streets that night; though still neither sirens nor flashes of red and blue.

The younger man sighed heavily, "There's this detective. He has it out for Kaz for some reason. I've talked to him a few times when he was investing the company for the feds." His gaze stayed on the thick flakes falling outside, "I think he'd buy us the time we need to get rid of the evidence."

The older Mishima's frown deepened, and he remained silent.

Lee turned back to look at his father and nodded sympathetically once before standing up, "Dad, I love Kaz more than anything else in the world, but as much I love him..." Again, he carefully dusted off the knees to his trousers and straightened his tie and coat before once more reaching into the coat, this time producing a cellphone.

Kazuya Mishima, age 27, unmarried, just a few weeks shy of his twenty-eighth birthday, lived with some woman whose name no one could remember.