Kanbei watched Heihachi as the mechanic fiddled with the controls, keeping one eye on Take as he shivered in a nearby chair.
"Don't worry," Heihachi assured the silent leader. "No problems. I can work this, but I don't know how successful it will be. After all, it does tend to hurt more to put things in rather than taking them out."
Kanbei wondered, briefly, if there was any hidden meaning in his words.
Kyuuzou entered the contraption with immense displeasure that was not shown, and his body remembered, in detail, where everything was supposed to be placed.
Heihachi waited, the controls ready, while Kyuuzou attached himself. He had never actually seen the process, but he did remember hearing of how it worked. He hoped, however, that it would be possible to draw Kyuuzou's soul back into his body. For who knows how far it could have wandered away in a month and a half?
Once Kyuuzou was ready,and everything was set into place, Heihachi sent up a silent prayer to the rice gods and turned on the machine.
Kyuuzou's entire body was wracked in pain, but he did not scream. The external pain was nothing compared to the internal pain he had endured. Still...he felt the energy searching him, searching for a clue of where to put back that which had been lost to him. That searching, that searing agony under the impartial gaze of technology made him yearn to both be human or to just remain as he was. Either was a better option compared to his current condition of pain so great it conquered even what Kyuuzou believed Death would feel like.
Kanbei heard Kyuuzou's silent scream, and his hands involuntarily moved to his ears. He drew his hand away from his left earring, having felt it being far too warm. He took it off, nearly burning his bare skin, and looked at it.
It was glowing the same color of the light that was washing through and over Kyuuzou.
Did that mean...?
Kanbei found a lead that allowed air in and opened a section to place the feather earring in.
It zoomed into the main tank, and Kyuuzou instinctively caught it.
For the first time in a long time, Kyuuzou allowed himself a quiet, faint moan of pain that Kanbei felt reverberate through his body.
'Maybe it would have been better to stay as I had been...'
The machine turned itself off after the process was complete, and Kanbei watched the wires fall away from Kyuuzou, depriving him of any support. Kyuuzou opened the door, picked up the swords that were lying next to it, and lunged at Take. After cutting him from groin to crown, finally straightened up to meet Kanbei's eyes.
'I'm back,' they said to him, calm and controlled, while Kyuuzou leaned heavily against the console.
Heihachi carefully went over to him, and took one glove off to touch Kyuuzou's skin. He broke out into a large smile when he felt it.
"You're human again!"
"Yes." was Kyuuzou's only reply as he fell to kneeling on the floor, his body readjusting to the extra weight of memories that were coming back to him. He stood again as Kanbei came over to him, sheathing his swords that had finally returned to him, and stood up.
"Let's go."
Heihachi looked at Kanbei, who nodded. it'd be good to be back to the village sooner rather than later. The two fell into step next to the newly-healed man, and they exited the same way they came in, with as little resistance as before.
When they stopped for the night, Kyuuzou gracefully collapsed next to a tree. The entire time they had been walking, memories, one by one, had reminded him of the scars on his soul, of the emotions that were his, the skills that were his, and reminded him of the man that he had been. Still, Kyuuzou felt that small corner of himself that was not quite healed, felt the icy prison he could still return to if neccesary, and he wondered briefly why it was still there before falling deeply asleep, his head lolling on his shoulder on a pillow of hair.
Heihachi looked over at the sleeping form, and then turned back to building up the fire.
"Kyuuzou's back, whether for better or worse is to be seen."
fin