Happy New Year! I'm FINALLY posting a new chapter, especially after that cliffhanger last chapter. Sorry for the delay! What's crazy is that a good portion of this chapter was already written, but I kept adding and omitting things because I'm never satisfied with the first draft lol. So, at least the chapter became a little longer than originally intended. As always, thanks for the reviews and keeping up with this story after so long (can't believe it's been 5 years already). Enjoy! :)
Warning: violence/assault mentioned.
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters. They are all property of Namco.
A strange chill hung in the air, giving the space in the area an otherworldly feel. What was this place? Why was it so dark?
As more time passed, the fogginess from her brain slowly began to lift, but her body still felt so weakened and limp. A soft groan escaped her red lips as she slowly came to. She slowly opened her eyes and was greeted to nothing but pitch darkness. Her mouth had an object obstructing it, and as she thrust her tongue forward to move the obstruction she came to realize that it was a ball gag. What happened to her? Where was she? Her heart quickened with apprehension and fear as she struggled to move. Her hands and feet were bound, but she strangely felt like her body was floating in mid air. Her limbs felt stretched out, but without her vision, she couldn't quite understand her positioning.
She stopped struggling once she realized it was futile, and doing so only made her realize how weak and tired she felt. Was she drugged? The thought sent her mind racing with worry, full of dark and disturbing thoughts concerning her current predicament. After what felt like ages of silence in the dark, she heard a door opening and the sounds of footsteps belonging to several people entering the room. Her heart was pounding again.
"You think she's awake now?" A man's voice said. "What the hell did you give her?"
"Just enough to knock out a baby elephant," a woman's voice said with a small laugh. "And if she's not up by now, we'll wake her up."
Hearing the sound of the voice set something off in her. Her emotions became turbulent; she felt everything from rage to disappointment to sadness. Somehow, the voice dislodged some of her memories that must've been suppressed by the heavy dosage of whatever drug was given to her. Her situation was much more dire than she originally thought. She almost had him, but because of her…everything was ruined. She remained still and silent.
"My, oh my, it looks like she's still out," the woman said.
"Damn, you probably overdosed her," the man's voice added with a crude laugh.
"No," a voice belonging to another man interrupted, sending a chill through the air. "She's awake."
"Holy shit! I didn't know you were here, boss!" the other man said in surprise.
Hearing that voice sent shivers throughout her body. There was someone in the room with her all along? She didn't hear anything for such a long time. Her heart was drumming to the point where she thought it was loud enough for the others to hear. She instinctively tensed when she felt someone's hand brush against her hair as the blindfold was being removed from her eyes.
She was hesitant to open her eyes; she was undoubtedly afraid at this point. After more silence, she felt a hard, stinging slap to her face. Her cry of pain was muffled by the gag and she finally opened her eyes and glared furiously at her attacker. It was no surprise that she was responsible for all this. She had already been tipped off that she was working for the man she was sent to kill, so they were bound to cross paths eventually. She had always been a thorn in her side, but this was beyond an annoying prank of her bleaching her clothes or ruining her makeup; this was her work. Her interfering with her job could have serious consequences, and her reputation, maybe even her life, was on the line.
"Hello, sunshine," the brunette said with a crimson smirk. "Did you dream sweet dreams, Angel?"
The room was now dimly lit, but she could still see that disgusting smirk on her younger sister's face as she stood before her in that garish, red dress. A sting of an old memory touched her heart as she mockingly called her the nickname from their now deceased father. Fury was boiling within her, but in her current predicament, she couldn't do anything to release her anger. She turned her head away from the brunette and tried to make out more of her surroundings. She was suspended from something in the dark ceiling and her legs were stretched slightly apart and bound by ropes from posts attached to the floor. What the hell was this? She had been captured in the past, but she was usually bound to chairs or left hog-tied on the floor, situations she could easily escape with time and patience, but this was strange. What were they planning to do with her?
The brunette could see the worry written all over the blonde's face, and she never felt more satisfied. If their father were alive, he'd probably be more upset that she finally bested his golden child, and he would never give her the proper credit for her feat since she used her resources and connections instead of relying on her solo prowess to complete the task. The look of defeat on her sister's face finally gave her the validation she never received from their father.
"Now that our little plaything is awake, what are we going to do with her?" the tall man stepped in the line of the blonde's view. She had been knocking off soldiers in their unit throughout the tournament, but now her lucky streak finally lost steam. She glared at him coldly for a brief moment before looking away from him.
Another strange moment of silence fell over the occupants in the room before the mysterious voice of the other man spoke up again. "Make her talk," the voice commanded sternly, reverberating over the room with a low thunderous rumble .
Her blue eyes looked in the direction where the man's voice was heard and tried to make out his location, but she could barely make out his silhouette. Every time he spoke, her blood ran a little bit cooler. As if abiding by his order, her sister undid the buckle on the gag and removed it from her mouth. She flexed her sore jaw to ease the pain before relaxing her mouth. She remained silent.
"What bounty price did my father place on my head?" he asked strangely.
That was an odd question to be asked in her current situation. He already knew who sent her, and now she was in his clutches, so why would he want to know the price of the bounty on his head? She saw no purpose in answering such a redundant question, so she didn't. Not long after her refusal to answer, she was struck again by her fiery tempered younger sister. Her same cheek stung with pain even more.
"Answer him!" the brunette yelled as she sneered angrily. "Being stubborn will only get you killed."
She only looked at her with a strange dead-pan stare. It was saddening to see her sister keeping company with such seedy men; father would be so disappointed in her. The last she heard, she was supposed to be in university, but somehow she veered off the right track to follow after her for reasons unbeknownst to her. Was this her way of grieving? This must've been therapeutic to her to unleash her fury unto her. They've always had their fair share of disagreements and fights, but she never realized her sister hated her this much.
Another eerie silence was cast over the room before it was broken. "How did you get this far without being discovered?" the mysterious man questioned. "Who else are you working with?"
From his tone, she could tell that he was suspicious that someone within his ranks was untrustworthy, and she just knew her sister was the top suspect. Her blue eyes slyly looked over to the brunette, her face was still emotionless, but her sister somehow picked up on what she may have been thinking, and she lashed out at her again with another slap.
"Say something, damn it!" she shouted as she stepped towards her and tightly clenched her jaw within her hand to force her to look at her.
There was something in her younger sister's eyes that seemed fearful if she finally spoke to insinuate that she was the rat within his company. With cold eyes, she just stared back at her treacherous sibling and remained silent. Their little stare down continued for a while before the man beside them interrupted.
"Wow, you two are turning me on," he said jokingly while watching the two sisters squabble. This quickly earned him a scowl from his partner.
Footsteps from the far corner of the room began approaching them slowly. It was then that her sister stepped aside and looked in the direction of the footsteps. The blonde assassin felt her breath hitch in her throat as he finally emerged from the shadows.
A Japanese man in his late 20s dressed in a three-piece purple suit appeared with a glass of brandy in hand, the same man she was commissioned to kill by the man's own father. His face was cold and unreadable, but within his eyes she could see this strange emotionless passion. Family killing family was nothing new, but there was something about him as he stood before her that made her understand why his old man wanted him dead. She had been captured, and now her fate was in his hands. She could solely blame her sister, but she still blamed herself for trusting someone as equally underhanded and seedy as the people surrounding her. Her blue eyes met with the man's dark brown eyes momentarily before she looked down.
The ominous man stopped just a foot away from her as he clenched her chin with his free hand and forced her to look up at him again. He quietly observed her as if he were assessing her somehow. He surprisingly lifted the corner of his lip ever so slightly with a small smirk. "I'm sure my father had his reasons for choosing you to hunt me down, but you're nothing more than a disposable pawn he's thrown at me until he's ready to come for me himself." He released her face. "And since you won't talk willingly...I'm going to have my men take their time with you until you do." He looked over to the tall man, who nodded in understanding.
The kickboxer put his fingers in his mouth and a sharp whistle pierced the air. Moments later, more footsteps entered the room. The two soldiers that were standing guard at the door approached her. "Alright boys, you heard him," he spoke to the two Tekken Force soldiers. "If she won't talk….let's see if she can scream." A sadistic grin appeared on his face as the trio of men turned their attention to the bound blonde. And so, the torture began, and her sister watched.
The brunette couldn't stop herself from wincing and flinching as her elder sister's screams and cries of pain filled the room as her 'comrades' mercilessly beat her in attempts to break her down until she did what she was told. What more did her boss want from her? Each man struck her in various places on her body, her abdomen, her back, her face...but she still wouldn't talk. What should she do? What could she do? This is what she wanted, right? This is what her sister deserved. She froze. The looks on the men's face sickened her as they were twisted in malice as if some sick gratification was received from tormenting her sister.
Her stomach churned as she suddenly felt sick. A cold hand landed against her bare shoulder that caused her to tense. She looked up at him and her eyes grew slightly wider as the smirk on his face frightened her.
"Well done," he congratulated her smugly. He continued to watch and listen to the cruel treatment the assassin endured until her screams finally went silent. She lasted longer than he thought she would. He downed the rest of his drink and handed the empty glass to the brunette, which she took with slightly shaky hands. He walked towards the door. "After you get her down, bring her down to the lab…I just might have use for her after all."
Her body was beyond bruised and battered, but she still clung to consciousness, somehow. After they unstrung her down from her bounds, she felt their disgusting hands casually groping at her body as they prepared to drag her to another location. Through the slits of swollen eyes, the last thing she remembered was that garish red dress staining her blurred vision.
After an indeterminate amount of time, she slowly began rousing from unconsciousness. Muffled groans of discomfort and anguish pushed through her bruised lips as she began the painful, agonizing process of waking up from her slumber. She noticed there was something lodged between her lips as she tried to close her mouth. She immediately felt disorientated, nauseous and sore almost everywhere on her body. She also felt extremely weak and fatigued, which was something she instantly knew was attributed to a heavy dosage of a sedative drug; she was more than familiar with this sensation. She moaned in pain again as more of her senses began awakening. Her arms felt numb and sore, and she felt like she was suspended in the air for some strange reason. At this point, she would rather slip back into unconsciousness than to face whatever horrific predicament she was in, but she would have to face the music sooner or later.
Reluctantly, she slowly parted her eyelids to finally gain a visual idea about where she may have been. Her vision was blurred momentarily before it finally cleared. The room she was in was partially lit with tactical military lanterns located in various areas of the room; it must've been past dusk. After completing a quick sweep of the room with her eyes, she realized she was in a military warehouse, which housed stacked wooden and metal crates around the space.
'Where is this…? Wait...what happened? The desert...I'm still in the Middle East...right?' She tried to mentally connect the dots to spark her memory to help herself get up to speed about what was going on. 'The desert...that large explosion...Jin?!' As she finally remembered her last moments before her blackout, her heart began pounding anxiously. For some strange reason she almost felt as if she were somewhere else.
Nina tried to refocus her hazy thoughts to see how she could possibly get herself out of this hairy situation. She craned her head upwards to see what she was hanging from. A thick, tight rope bound her hands together over her head, and as her eyes traveled upwards she noticed the rope was routed up to the ceiling of the warehouse and was thrown over a large metal beam in the ceiling. Unfortunately, due to her limited field of vision, she couldn't see where the other end of the rope was tied. She looked down and saw that her feet weren't bound, but she was hovering at least two feet from the ground, which would make it difficult to get any traction to pull at her bound wrists in attempts to wriggle free.
'Fuck me!' she thought irritably as she exhaled out a deep sigh. She loathed this feeling of helplessness, and she felt as useless as a dead carcass hanging in a meat locker. What was she supposed to do now? She had no way to contact her team and she had no idea what had happened to Jin. In frustration, she began wriggling against the rope bounding her hands, ignoring the pain of the ropes rubbing the skin of her wrists raw. Even with that small effort, she felt slightly fatigued. The drugs were still coursing through her system. She stopped struggling and hung her head low with her eyes closed to calm herself and regain a bit of her energy. Silence pervaded the air until she heard the sound of a large metal door creaking open. Her hearing tuned into the sound of a pair of footsteps approaching. She took a deep breath to prepare for whatever may come. The footsteps continually approached before coming to a halt near her. Once the intruder was in her view, an automatic eye roll was her immediate response.
"Well, well, well…it looks like sleeping beauty is finally awake from her slumber," the man's voice jested annoyingly. "Now the real fun can begin."
Nina rolled her eyes again as her skin crawled from being held in captivity by the idiot in her vicinity. Why wouldn't her enemies just kill her on sight? Why must she continually be subjected to some strange form of torture by demented creeps? She would have much rather had her brains blown out across the sand back in the desert than to deal with this nonsense.
The tall kickboxer approached until he was standing directly in front of her. A strange grin spread across his face. "I'm sure there's some real twisted plans in store for you when he returns," he implied darkly with an eerily familiar fiendish grin.
She narrowed her eyes at his words. She wondered what it was he got out of helping a sadistic creep like Kazuya Mishima. Why the hell was G Corp hellbent on capturing her? If it was information they wanted, they surely wouldn't get it for her. She remained silent, but she also didn't have a choice since she had a cloth gagging her mouth.
Bruce pointed to his bandaged neck. "Remember this?" he asked with a small sneer. "Of course you do, and now that I have the chance, it's about time I pay you back." He pulled a switchblade from his tactical vest and quickly sprung it open.
He slowly waved the blade in front of her face threateningly with a twisted grin before inching it closer to her neck in an attempt to exact his revenge on her. The moment she felt the cold steel press against her neck triggered an aggressive response from her. She reactively swung her leg to kick him wherever she could, and at her current disadvantage she could only weakly kick him in the knee. However, the aggravated yelp from him signified that she had kicked him in the same knee she had once dislocated in their past encounter, undoubtedly awakening the old wound. She was temporarily relieved that he backed away from her, but when he recovered, he quickly retaliated by ramming his fist into her gut.
Air expelled from her lungs, only to be partially restricted by the cloth still wedged between her lips. A few low groans erupted from her after enduring the blow. The burning, aching pain still throbbed in her abdomen from the blow and it appeared he was gearing up for a follow up until a voice rang out over the warehouse.
"Didn't I tell you not to have fun without me?" Anna said. She rolled her eyes with a look of disapproval as she witnessed her comrade having his way with her sister behind her back. "I don't like sloppy seconds, and I told you to leave her be until I got here!"
Bruce further sneered at her as she berated him. "The bitch had it coming!" he retorted as he shot a quick disdainful glance to the bondaged blonde. "Besides, who died and made you boss?"
The brunette crossed her arms with a scowl. "Aren't you supposed to be getting your men prepared for departure?" she questioned. "Kazuya came to do what he wanted, so I guess we can pack it up."
Nina's stomach sunk from her words. 'What did she mean by that? Is Jin…?' her thoughts became overwhelmed with worry. 'I can't do anything…I failed him.' She forlornly lowered her eyes and tried to contain her emotions.
Anna looked over to her bound sister and shook her head. What the hell was he doing to her while she was gone? "She doesn't need to be gagged…it's not like she's going to scream for help," she pointed out. It was strange that he was so concerned about gagging her but left her feet unbound, a careless oversight.
"How do you know?" he challenged her.
"Because I know," she bit out. Nina would rather go out with quiet dignity than to cry for help like a weak damsel in distress. If anything, she would have to pull teeth to get her to talk.
Bruce walked to the blonde and untied the knot behind her head to remove the cloth gag. "Fine, I needed my sweat rag back anyway," he joked as he wiped his head with the cloth while simultaneously enjoying the disgusted glare he received from the blonde.
"You're such a clown," Anna said, as even she felt sorry for her sister if that was the truth.
Bruce approached his partner and towered over her. "Did he give you those orders? Last I heard he was still roaming the desert somewhere."
She didn't back down. "Well, check in with the recon team to get updates so that we're not running around like headless chickens until he returns!"
The taller man was almost going to retort until his radio crackled with a message from one of his men requesting him to return to the hangar. He slightly chewed his bottom lip in irritation with his teammate until he decided to return to his duties. "I'll be back," he stated sternly. He looked at the blonde and back to Anna again. "Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone." After his warning, he finally walked away from the two women and headed towards the door.
Once she heard the door close she let out a sigh of annoyance. "Men…such a nuisance, but so easy to control," she said aloud to no one in particular. She now focused her eyes on her object of interest, her older sister. "Don't you agree?"
She had now officially left the eight circle of hell and entered the ninth. She didn't know what her dear sister had planned for her, but she'd much rather mop the seven seas than to be subjected to this torture. She could hear her footsteps approaching her from behind and tensed when she felt her sister's fingers gliding into her hair and loosened her ponytail until she eventually slipped off the band holding her hair back. Nina sighed deeply as she prepared herself for her next round of torture. She remained silent as her sister entered her field of vision.
"Now, doesn't that feel much better?" Anna said as she combed through her sister's blonde hair with her fingers. "I always told you that you looked less frigid with your hair down, but you never listened to me."
Nina blankly stared at her and wondered what was the purpose of all this. She ignored her as she played in her hair, occasionally brushing sand from it as she weirdly groomed her. Something about this interaction reminded her of their days of living together when she would prep and beautify her before they went out together, trying different makeup products on her and styling her hair in different ways. After awakening from cryosleep, she barely had a zest for life and such things didn't matter to her anymore. She remembered her sister's disappointment in her cutting her hair shorter and viewed it as an act of rebellion, which it absolutely was in an attempt to show her that she didn't care about vanity as much as she did, especially when her life was in absolute shambles. Still, she had nothing to say to her at the moment.
The brunette smirked slightly as her sister decided that if she couldn't physically attack her, she'd assault her with silence as a form of violence, like she always did. "I've always wondered if they called you 'the silent assassin' because you were so great at being stealthy, or if it was because you simply refused to speak even when captured?" she pondered with a smirk. "What use is it for you to withhold anything now? I'm sure Kazuya knows everything."
Hearing his name from her lips again made her cringe for some reason. Her blue eyes became slightly more icy upon hearing this. She had no idea what had transpired after falling unconscious in the desert, and from their current disposition, G Corp seemed to think they had the upper hand. This also meant that something terrible must have happened to Jin. "Then what use is it for you to keep me alive?" she finally spoke.
She smirked harder when she finally broke her silence. "Killing you like this would be boring," she stated as she crossed her arms as she looked her over. "Besides, don't you ever get tired of fighting other men's battles, letting them use your body like a weapon to fulfill their wishes?"
Nina narrowed her eyes at her criticism. What she did was not much different from what she was currently doing. Did she not let her favorite boss use her as a weapon against her, twice? "A bit hypocritical, aren't you, Anna?"
"Oh please! At least I have fun doing what I do," she defended. "You're just some soulless gun for hire!"
"What makes you think I don't have fun?" Nina said with an eerie smile slightly forming on her lips.
Her sister's dark glare unnerved her slightly, but she brushed it off. "Hmph, even so, you let yourself get carried away with your work," she pointed out. "Perhaps it's to keep you busy running from the past."
"Is that all you care about? Don't you ever get tired of trying to force this conversation?" she said coldly. She was growing ever frustrated in her sister's presence as she tried her damndest to steer their conversation into harping on about a past that she personally buried or didn't care to recall.
The brunette felt satisfied seeing her sister's demeanor change as she became increasingly upset, which only tempted her to keep poking at her. "I've been chasing you down for years to try to help you and this is the thanks I get?" she said with a disappointed sigh. "You're so ungrateful!"
Nina rolled her eyes again and struggled slightly against the bounds on her wrist as she wished to be set free from the hellhole she was being kept in; she no longer wanted to be subjected to listening to her younger sibling's insipid ramblings.
"I sacrificed so much just to keep you safe, to fulfill our father's dying wish, but you're the only one making this difficult, Nina," Anna continued. "If I hadn't stayed with you to help you, where would you be now?"
Nina began to notice that her sister was only this bold when she felt she had the upper hand or had her in a state of complete helplessness. After being revived from cryosleep, she sensed that Anna was empowered and emboldened by having her in a weakened state, where she was in control of everything she did. Since then, it seemed that she had become obsessed with trying to rein her in and regain the control she once had over her life. She was delusional if she felt that she deserved some type of reward for trying to correct a problem that she caused in the first place.
"Well, don't you see that everything I did was for your own good?" she tried to reason with her sister, trying to get her to see her side of things for once.
"Shut up, Anna, just shut the hell up!" she snapped loudly after becoming further annoyed with her faux altruistic claims.
"You think I wanted to spend my days dealing with your lunacy when I could've been traveling the world and exploring new possibilities in my second life?" the brunette continued raving angrily. "Take it how you want, but perhaps you lost your memory for a good reason, so that you can reset your life and start over!"
"You sound ridiculous, Anna!"
"Things turned out for the best!"
"You should have fucking killed me instead!"
"Deny it all you want, but I saved us!"
Her temper was boiling over now. She glared at her with an incredulous look. She knew that her sister lived in her own fantasy world, but to make a claim so outlandish and dishonest was insane to her. "Are you fucking kidding me, Anna?!" she exclaimed irately. "You're honestly going to pretend that you didn't fuck up my life by letting that bastard use me like a lab rat while you stood back and did nothing?! You disgust me!" The deja vu of her predicament resurfaced another bad memory she tried to bury long ago, and her sister's nonchalance concerning her past actions nearly sent her into a blind fury.
The brunette's heart secretly quickened from her sister's words. She took a step away from her sister and turned her back to her. Her eyes lowered as she was forced to relish in her vicious words. It seemed they would never understand each other. Of course she spun the truth a bit, but she could put a positive spin on anything, but Nina, however, was a staunch pessimist, or realist as she claimed. She could fixate on a mistake she made decades ago, but she was tired of trying to make things right when it was clear that she'll never be forgiven.
"You know, Nina, you really know how to hurt people, don't you?" she said as she slowly turned around and faced her with a slightly angry expression. "All these years, I've chased after you, stalked you, fought you just to get your attention, but I'm done trying to win your favor, just like I was trying to win Father's…"
"So be it!" Nina interrupted as she shot back her retort, not falling for her self-victimization routine. She was tired of having this argument with her only for her to ignore her warning and keep chasing after her, relentlessly. "Stay the hell away from me!"
Anna boldly walked towards her until there was just a foot between them. She reached out and placed her hand on her cheek and said, "If you push me away…you'll have no one, especially since your pretty boy boss is dead. You have no one without me!" the brunette taunted with a twisted smile. "I guess if this world goes to shit due to the war, I'll go into cold sleep alone for the next twenty years and leave you here to rot!"
Nina grimaced from her mocking words and from her touching her, and she reactively swung her leg to kick her sister away from her.
She stumbled back slightly from the kick and sneered at the bondaged woman. Somehow, being kicked only made her more upset with her idiot partner. She reached for a small gun on her hip. "Maybe another nap will calm you down!"
A sharp pain hit her in her front thigh and she looked down to see a syringe sticking from her leg. She let out a groan in annoyance and pain as she was once again forced into another involuntary drugged slumber. 'Jin…' her thoughts faded as she began to fall limp.
'You coward!' A voice berated him in the darkness.
His body felt non-existent and weightless as he floated between his subconscious and the real world.
'Pathetic, weak, coward…' the voice continued. 'You held back…held me back because of your baseless fears.'
He was confused. What happened? Where was he? Was he…dead? Why was he having trouble remembering anything?
'How can you save anyone when you're afraid of your true nature?' the voice said. 'I had him…and you ran away!'
Jin tried to recall the last moments before he blacked out. He was tired of having to go through this same routine. All he could remember was the desert. The devil seized control of him for his purposes, and the only thing he could remember was the sadness in her eyes before he left. Strange bits and pieces of memories returned; gunfire and the blazing sun breached his foggy memory, and then he remembered being engulfed in light before everything went dark.
'What happened? What did you do?' he thought, knowing that he would respond.
'I saved you…after you cowered in fear,' the entity responded. 'Now he knows you're weak…and he will hunt you down.'
He didn't know why he expected to receive a straight response from the demon. Convolution and confusion were the only things he received. He figured he would have to piece together everything himself. 'I have no choice but to face reality…' he thought as he could slowly feel himself entering the world of consciousness again.
'You'll never truly face reality until you face your fears…' the devil said cryptically before cackling until it faded away into the darkness.
His eyes finally began to flutter open after being unconscious for an unspecified amount of time. Once open, his eyes fixed to the beige, cloth roofing of the area. As his state of wakefulness became more pronounced, his senses were assaulted with the heavy scent of blood and gunpowder hanging in the air, and the loud, indistinguishable sobs and wails of agony of other men in the vicinity. Where the hell was he? He slowly lifted his head and noticed that his clothes were nearly completely shredded; his shirt was completely gone, and his slacks were torn from the hem to the inseam. A brief flash of black feathers, strange body markings, elongated claws, and gnashing fangs flickered in his memory, sending a chill down his spine.
He slowly turned his head to the side to further inspect his surroundings. His eyes stretched open a bit when he saw a man lying on a cot next to him ailing and wailing in pain constantly while grasping his blood-soaked, bandaged nub where his arm used to be. The pounding of his heart in his ears temporarily drowned out the sounds of the anguished cries as he continued to scan the room with his eyes to see various other men in the same condition, if not worse. He closed his eyes again as he felt like the walls were closing in on him. Just as he was on the brink of having a panic attack, he felt a hand against his shoulder. He writhed for a bit, still plagued by images of dismembered bodies swirling in his mind's eye. He opened his eyes and was surprised to see who it was.
The man towered over his cot and tried to keep him calm. "Hey, take it easy!" he said in a strong tone. "You need to keep it together!"
Somehow, he breathed deeply until he was able to calm himself. It was good to see a familiar face, but he was definitely expecting to see someone else. After a few more deep breaths, he focused his attention on the man beside him. He noticed that his head was bandaged and he looked quite weathered and beaten from the battle as well. "Eddy, where…?" he breathed out before his weak voice faded out and became a low series of coughs. He could feel granules of sand coating his mouth and tongue as he attempted to speak.
"You're in the infirmary tent…with the others," he said as he motioned his sullen eyes around to the other wounded soldiers. "The battle became deadlocked with G Corp and we needed to retreat to save as many men as possible."
After he finished coughing to clear his airways, he looked over to the man with a serious expression. "Where is Nina?" he asked in a clear, direct tone.
Eddy's face stiffened as he stared his employer directly in the eyes. He was somewhat afraid to emote anything on his face that may denote that something was amiss. Then again, he also blamed him, not just for the entire war itself, but for the particular misfortune that had befallen Nina due to his reckless behavior. Had he listened to her before he went storming off onto the battlefield like a maniac, they'd be back to safety. He lowered his eyes before clearing his throat and looking at him again with unease and worry. "She's…"
Before he could finish his sentence, his heart became thunderous again and a knot twisted deep within his gut as he could instantly tell from his body language that something bad had happened. He sprung up from the table and grabbed Eddy firmly by his arm. "Where is she?!" he blurted angrily, nearly hysterical at this point.
Eddy was taken aback from his behavior, but he decided to not let himself be intimidated by his angry outburst. He boldly snatched his arm from his grasp and glared at him with a stern expression. "She's missing in action!" he reported, finally letting his frustration and worry come forth. "We searched for her for hours, but we couldn't locate her, so my only guess is that she's been taken by G Corp." He last saw her fighting with her sister and the other commander, so he hoped that his assumption was correct. After he finished his quick report, he observed Jin, who seemed to temporarily retreat into his thoughts with a look of horror reflecting within his eyes. In fact, it was due to his team's search for Nina that they had accidentally stumbled across Jin trudging through the desert half unconscious before he passed out.
Everything went silent again. He was frozen in place in shock after hearing this news. Her eyes. That was the last thing he remembered. Her beckoning eyes pleading with him to come to his senses stained his memory, haunting him. It was his fault, everything was his fault. If only he had listened to her. Now, she was in their enemies' hands, in his father's hands. He hung his head low and he stared down at his hands; they were bruised and visibly stained with dried blood from the horrible acts of violence he committed when he let the devil take him. He failed, not only himself, but her as well. He should've been stronger to resist the beast within, the beast below, and Kazuya taunting him, but now his weakness had plunged them all into hell.
'How can I save anyone?' Jin thought fretfully as he tightly clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes shut again to conceal his anguish.
'You're a coward…' He could hear the voice echoing within his thoughts again.
It was clear that Jin wasn't mentally sound to cope with everything, yet he was the orchestrator of all the chaos surrounding them. Suddenly, he realized that he had been bamboozled into falling into the company of a man like him. He placed his master's life in the hands of a madman, and he felt that his soul was forever tarnished by the atrocities he committed to save one man's life. Jin was no leader. Seeing him like this only reaffirmed this belief. Instead of taking action, he sat there sulking like a child. He shook his head in contempt.
"I can't believe you're going to sit there and do nothing like a coward!" Eddy snapped as he stepped closer to him, letting his silent anger and resentment become loud once again. "What the hell are you going to do now? Because of you, Nina's behind enemy lines…dead even!"
Eddy's anger hit him like a freight train once again, instantly snapping him out of his stupor. Normally, he'd regain submission from his subordinates, or pawns as he would put it, through intimidation, but he felt much too crestfallen and stunned to react to anything. Besides, perhaps he needed to hear his words to knock him back to his senses. Now that he had passed through the shock and guilt stages of grief, he could now feel the anger swelling inside of him. 'She's still alive…she has to be…I refuse to believe otherwise,' he thought to further fuel his resolve to find her. 'I have no idea what he wants with her, but I'll kill him if he even thinks about harming her.'
'Tough thoughts, but weak actions,' the devil taunted once again. 'Will you actually stand your ground this time, or run away? It's your choice…'
Jin ignored the voice in his head and shook away his doubts. He looked up and directly into Eddy's eyes. He could still see the anger in his comrade's eyes as he anticipated a response from him. "I'm going to find her," he announced resolutely. He fully sat up and stood from the cot.
That was the obvious response he expected; however, he lacked the proper planning to execute his plan. From his current state, it didn't look like he could muster enough strength to pull this off alone. What the hell happened to him back in the desert? His clothes were torn to shreds and he had bruises and wounds over his body as if he'd been through his own personal war outside of the main battle. "It's in the middle of the night and we barely have any men to assist," Eddy pointed out, being realistic about their grim predicament. "How the hell are we going to pull this off?"
He wasn't a master of battle tactics, but there had to be something he could do, even if he had to show up as an one man army and bring the entire base down alone. 'There has to be a way…I won't be deterred by a lack of manpower…I must save her.'
'Accept your fate…and you will have endless power.'
The beast lurking within him was waiting for a moment like this to use his vulnerability to manipulate him to fully give in to the darkness. This time, perhaps, would he have to consider it…to save her? His thoughts stalled again as he contemplated doing such an unimaginable thing. Was the demon right, after all? He would have to accept his fate and learn how to control his power sooner or later, and there was no better reason than to take such a risk in such a dire time where she needed him. 'It's worth the risk...if there's no other way,' he concluded. Surprisingly, he didn't hear him speak in his thoughts, but he could feel something inside of him stir with anticipation.
"Jin?" Eddy's voice broke him out of his thoughts again. "What the hell are we going to do?" It was after midnight and the men that they had left in partial good health were deeply encumbered by their traumatizing and exhausting battle.
"How many men do we have left?" he inquired. "Where's Lars' unit?"
Eddy paused at the mention of Lars. He normally depended on the Swedish soldier for guidance and backup, but after what he witnessed earlier on the battlegrounds, he wouldn't be so trusting of him anymore. "Lars is out…he pulled out his team and returned to the base at headquarters," he revealed reluctantly. "His lack of action earlier may have contributed to…Nina's capture." A small weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
Jin established eye contact with him again upon hearing these words. It was disappointing to hear, but not shocking at all. She had expressed her distrust of him in the past, but he didn't take action right away. It was yet another mishap on his behalf, but he would deal with it later. He hated making snap decisions, but time was of the essence. They had to initiate the best tactic they could with limited resources, but in order to do so, he needed to vacate the premises of the medical tent. The ghastly sights and stench of blood wafting over them was slowly deteriorating his mental health. He looked up to the Brazilian man with determination now beaming in his eyes. "Don't worry, I'm going to correct my mistakes," he assured calmly. "Once I survey our current situation, I'll be able to devise a plan…and I'll save her." After a moment of silently staring back at him with uncertainty, Eddy finally nodded in understanding. They had their disagreements in the past, but hopefully they could put that aside to focus on the mission ahead.
'To fight monsters…'
'I must become one…' he thought with an otherworldly glimmer in his eyes.
End of Chapter 36!
Sorry for the Nina abuse, but this is probably nothing compared to what she's been through! Her worst torture was probably confronting her complicated past with her sister. I tried to add some more context behind why Nina distances herself from Anna since Namco gives us nothing besides their rivalry stemming from their father's favoritism of Nina and Anna's jealousy. Jin is having rough time as well, but they'll reunite soon. Looks like he might finally be ready to accept his true self!
Thanks for reading!