Chapter 3: Angel's Plea

"Devil, you foul beast—why do you continue to torture him? He does as you say now without much resistance and yet you cannot reward him for doing so?"

"I'd accuse you of not knowing who I am, but then you're an angel, you know full well. I don't need to explain myself to you."

Angel stood calmly beside Kazuya's bed as she spoke to Devil. Only she could see the pitiful beast of glowering red eyes and hunched shoulders. It could not stand on its own; it was irrevocably attached to Kazuya's soul. In a sense, Angel spoke to Kazuya—the part of him that often did not reach his conscious mind. Angel would speak to Kazuya physically and he would not recall any sort of conversation she had with Devil. She did not believe that he was wholly ignorant. Somewhere in some small place in his mind, he knew. She could not look into his dreams, but Devil could. He slept fitfully each night and all that Angel could do was stand by and watch. She could plead with Devil all she wanted, but it would not listen to her.

She had been sent to help and to observe; she found the observing part to be far easier than the former. Watching someone descend into darkness, could make even the most stoic angel despondent. She spoke to him but he no longer listened. She tried to abate Devil's hold on him, but it was ephemeral at best. It was akin to shining a flashlight in someone's face and snatching it away quickly before one's eyes adjusted. A day maybe two days would past and she would witness a dramatic change in Kazuya's behavior. He was suddenly honest, noble, responsible, and kindhearted. Then Devil would reawaken as it always did—the flashlight snatched away—and Kazuya would become short-tempered, guileful, and heartless. The true Kazuya was neither one of these extremes. Like most humans, he was somewhere in between. Short-tempered, yes, but somehow noble and kind in his own way. Guileful when the end justified the means and heartless to any who managed to piss him off that badly. At the same time, he was forgiving and trusting, but only to a select few who had showed him kindness. Angel could not return him to his original state and Devil was constantly enhancing his faults and overshadowing his strengths.

Angel feared that all she had managed to do was further disrupt his psyche at least the part of him which was still miraculously sane. Humans were communal creatures, some required less interaction with others, some needed more. Whichever was the case for Kazuya, because he habitually drove away people with his knack for being a complete ass, he was very isolated. Angel suspected that he wanted it that way not because he was simply a loner or particularly liked being at a distance from others, but because he was embarrassed. He no longer understood himself. He would remember some days and completely forget others. Sometimes he could look in a mirror and not know the person staring back at him. He felt his control slipping, Angel suspected, and he could not trust himself to be around others, not on a daily basis.

Sometimes he could not follow through on his resolve to remove himself from other people's lives. Every blue moon, tiring of all the rules he had set upon himself, he'd break every single one of them like yesterday. Angel watched from afar as Kazuya invited Lee to a restaurant. He had spent the better part of the day resting. That he would do such a thing did not surprise her since he often slept poorly each night. It was one of the many tricks Devil employed to make him more compliant, but that night—well rested and with a surprising awareness of himself—Lee had been witness to an incident that would not likely reoccur any time soon. Angel knew that it could not last long and watched with sad eyes as Devil regained its usual dominance over him the very next morning. It did not end very pretty.

She had wanted to help him then to an astonishing degree. She did not wish to see all the good that Kazuya had managed to do last night unravel, but she could do nothing—Devil's hold was too great. The hurt on Lee's face that day was an expression that she had not seen in a long time. That bridge was burned forever. Whatever brotherly relationship might have flourished between them was dead. Kazuya did not fire him rather he belittled Lee to such a degree that the janitorial position seemed far more pleasing despite the boost in pay.

That had been the last straw. Angel could no longer just stand there. She had to do something and more than what she was doing now. Kazuya was trapped in his own mind and daily lost a little more of himself. There was only one person she knew could help him—she went to this person now.

/

Jun stood silently in her kitchen chopping away at green peppers and onions. A pan sizzled intently on the stove as every few minutes she tossed in another hand of chopped vegetables. She stirred the items in the Wok thoroughly so that everything could share equally in the flavor. Her eyes were intently focused on her task and there was little evidence that she could be thinking about anything besides cooking at the moment.

"Jun," Angel spoke softly so as not to startle her.

Jun looked up when she thought she heard something. She looked to her right where the entrance to the kitchen was, but saw nothing. The sizzling Wok beckoned her again and she continued to stir.

"Jun Kazama," Angel spoke this time louder.

She jumped a little this time when she heard it. The voice was too obvious to simply ignore and she felt that she had heard that voice at another time in her life, but she could not place where. Before her food burned, she took out a bowl from the cabinet and quickly poured the contents of the hot pan in. Finally, she turned to the entrance.

"Who's there?"

"I cannot show myself. My appearance is not for your eyes."

Jun walked towards the entrance hoping that she might catch a glimpse of the person who spoke to her, but as her eyes searched the room beyond—the living room—she found nothing.

"I don't understand. Who are you?"

"Have you forgotten me already?"

"Have I seen you before?"

"You have spoken to me before. That time when you wanted to find Kazuya and you could not do so on your own volition."

A look of realization crossed her face, "You're…that spirit. Why are you here? Is it something to do with Kazuya?"

"Yes. There is something I must tell you first. I was sent here to observe Kazuya's actions and to help in a limited capacity."

"You're a guardian angel then. You've been with him this whole time?" Jun asked in wonderment, "You've done a horrible job, you know."

"I wasn't with him the whole time only recently."

Jun sighed and then made her way slowly to the couch nearest to her. "You haven't answered my question, why are you here?"

"You're concerned with his welfare, aren't you? I'm offering you a chance to help him."

"Does he know that you're doing this?"

"No, but that is irrelevant."

"Then I decline. I cannot help someone who no longer wants my help."

"Jun—

"No," she said shaking her head. "How long has it been since he's even picked up a phone to call me?" she asked rhetorically, "I tried to call him and his number is disconnected. He doesn't want anything to do with me. That has become very clear to me. Guardian angel, I've long since ceased concerning myself with his problems. His problems are just that—his. I understand your position, but you have come to the wrong place."

"No I have not. This is the only place I can go."

"Are you really that desperate, spirit?"

"Listen to me. I once told you that you must figure out on your own Kazuya's secret. I amend that now. If it will persuade you to my cause, then I will simply tell you. Are you interested?"

"No, I'm not. I'm not that girl anymore, spirit. That day, I was being foolish. I was pining for something that no longer existed. I had to do so much just to see him again and when I did, it wasn't what I expected. He wasn't overjoyed to see me—he was different. He distinctively put himself at a distance. That should tell a girl something, right? Maybe I've been reading this all wrong from the very beginning. Maybe he's never liked me at all and he's just never got around to telling me that."

"Jun, you don't really believe that."

"Oh and you're going to tell me something different? If Kazuya came through that door today, and apologized for his idiocy and insensitivity—I might consider helping him out with whatever it is that is bothering him. But it's just you—some faceless voice who could easily be a hallucination. How can I trust you? How can I go on clinging to childish dreams of love?"

"I'm not one for begging, human. If you do not want to aid me, then I am through here. It seems you have changed—I hope you do not regret your decision later."

Jun was not able to see when Angel left, but she felt when her presence was not there. She sat there on the couch for a few more minutes in thoughtful silence before returning to her meal. She hoped as well that she had not made the wrong decision. She lived alone in a small apartment near her jobsite. She had only just begun her career as an officer at WWWC, a wildlife organization. Work was often daunting and many times she found it to be far more dangerous than she initially thought. At times, she wondered why she had not simply become a veterinarian. She had been well on her way to becoming one back in college. If it hadn't been for a guest speaker that she had been forced to attend due to her major, she might not have considered this line of work at all. She remembered as the man from the wildlife organization spoke enthusiastically about being an officer. He spoke of the kind of impact that he was given the opportunity to make upon the world. By protecting the wildlife and making sure that their numbers did not dwindle, one was making sure that fragile ecosystems were not failing and ultimately leaving the Earth bereft of all her nutrients—uninhabitable for any living creature to live. The purpose of the officer mostly coincided with hers of being a veterinarian and it sounded far more exciting. She wouldn't simply be working with tamed animals and their owners—she would be working with wild animals. She could have continued her pursuit as a veterinarian, but as she became a junior in college, she realized that her heart was no longer in it. Her love for animals had not faded, it was simply the kind of classes that she had to attend were dry and scientific—that was not how she wanted to live out her life. She wanted to be in the forefront making a visible difference. There were humans out there who damaged and violated nature on a daily basis for no better reason than greed. How could she do anything while stuck in a monotonous job of seeing to pets? Pets had owners to protect them, but the wildlife was not afforded these luxuries and was subject to constant perversions and blatant ignorance by humans.

This was where she felt happiest, doing exactly what she loved. Dangers aside, she enjoyed coming into work. Besides, she was no stranger to combat. When she first knew that she would be changing her field of work, she dropped out of college and went back home to her mom. There, she began training with her mom as she had done all those years ago. She had thought the time she had spent at the dojo to be a complete waste when she could not share the skills she had learned with Kazuya, but she no longer did things because Kazuya might like it. Then, as she was dusting off her rusty technique, she did so because she truly wanted to be able to protect herself. She could be of no help to anybody at WWWC if she could not follow through on her assignments.

She had started from the bottom and worked her way up. Hard work was recognized at WWWC. They knew of her passion and soon she found herself taking up the high-risk assignments that no one else would touch. She had buried herself in her work because she knew that without it, her life would be empty and void.

/

AN: Yes, another update. I'm glad you've enjoyed seeing Kazuya's soft side in the last chapter, but it won't last for long :). And, yes, I am on summer break. So more updates! Stay tuned for another one within the next five days.