A/N; Sorry this chapter took so damn long. Christmas and writer's block were to blame unfortunately.
Chapter 2; Limbo
Ting.
The light, one-note bell of opening lift doors.
"Lift doors opening."
The well-built figure followed the obvious statement of the monosyllabic voice and walked through the doors of encased gold stamped with that ever present capital G.
Same damn routine every day.
The figure remained masked behind his piercings as he stood, two hands tied to front. That twang of the music resonated in his skull as the lift whirred up like crows with drill beaks gouging into his brain.
Just like it always did.
He crunched his sizeable lower jaw against his top teeth.
Just like he always did.
Ting.
Another ring of the bell, another slide of the doors, another entrance of a crop-cut, crimson haired women wearing the latest furs ripped from the underside of a now extinct species. Her hips swished next to him before she pirouetted on a single heel. It was graceful...
For a hooker.
The figure's narrow sidelong glance turned to the women of black sunglasses. The women didn't even cast a second glance.
The lift doors closed again. The music started again.
The figure let out a sigh.
The women started to hum to the music.
The grinding of teeth and the widening of eyes of fire beneath a low brow as the man felt his knuckles self-cracking. Still his gaze remained steadfast to the buttons of the lift playing out a lightshow in primary colours.
Same fucking annoyances.
"You were staring at my arse."
First claret to scarlet daggers.
"Yeah I was staring at an ass."
The prize-fighter hits back with worn boxing gloves.
The doors open again with that same bell.
"Mr. Dickinson..."
"...I need the reports..."
"...Monday, they must be in by Monday..."
The doors close.
The bell rings again.
"See you've had more breast implants, lady."
"As if I need them."
"You do."
"Least I don't need it on my face."
"Heh, only a drill will sought yours out, lady."
"A precision drill, of course."
"Nah, more of a jackhammer."
"Which you're about as subtle as."
"I know."
"You also know about having a small dick?"
"More than enough to please an adult like you."
"I have more exquisite tastes."
"Yeah, it takes more than one doesn't it?"
"Screw you."
"Already did... many times, lady."
"All unpleasant memories."
"For one who was screaming 'oh Bruce!' so much."
"I was exaggerating."
"You're a shit liar."
"You're a too stupid to lie."
"You're too shallow to think."
"I'll cut off your dick."
"See?"
"I'll do it right now!"
"Trust me you won't."
All were intended as rapier thrusts.
The reality?
All were as subtle as sledgehammer strikes in a toy shop.
The two remained in silence, thinking a unanimous thought.
Same damn insults.
The lift ground to a monotone halt.
First floor.
The doors pulled back to reveal a polished marble floor layered in yellow light until it grew brightest around the single figure sitting at the desk. The figure looked up from the desk of oak with a smile of youth.
"Anna, Bruce, good to see you."
"Yeah, you to Leo," replied Bruce with no hint of a smile.
Same employees.
New employer.
***
Beep.
Julia Chang's eyes perused over Jin Kazama's readings. Her pen touched the paper with a tick, all life signs normal.
"Anything new?"
The dry voice of her colleague Dr. Keller announced his arrival. Julia's head turned with slow movement to meet the wrinkled visage of her friend's face. She shook her head in response.
"Doesn't surprise me, six months and he doesn't even blink," he observed.
He cocked his head.
"He should be clinically dead. Mind you, we are dealing with a Mishima so..."
Yeah, a Mishima a member of a family that had spread devastation and destruction across thousands of landscapes, all stamped with a copyright symbol on them. Julia's eyes crossed to the man in question.
He's done more damage than most...
Did he deserve this though?
She hoped for what it was worth that he never had to wake up.
***
Kaachan!
Those were the times...
The fragrance of fresh morning dew dripping from the leaves.
The dome of light protecting an untouched paradise of tree and plant, all connected by their gnarled roots under the rich soil.
The feeling of grass after the fall of rain felt like the true touch of nature upon the body of Jin Kazama as he lay there one backhand laying on his brow.
Yakushima.
Home.
Kaachan!
A child's cry of his joy.
Once.
Come here, Jin!
The voice of the trees, the earth and his mother.
Her white cotton dress swayed in the wind as she chased after his child-self in bare feet and caught him with her hands. She lifted the giggling child up in her arms and held him close to her warmth as a small smile curved the edge of her lips.
Peace, a once lost dream.
Jun Kazama.
Dead in fire, burning timber and bloodied fists.
How long she may rest.
He continued to rest his hand on his face, his eyes averted to the heavens.
He rested in a world of clichés, the twisted world of marching armies under pointless symbols an indistinct visage of islands in that place called "somewhere."
More child's laughter and a gentle bird's laugh from his mother.
Jin smiled, if only a little.
Then a faint sound.
His eyes burst into awareness as he heard it.
"It" was a melody of dark harmony, a music of blended synthi-harps and slow ambient notes with the slow tap of a drum beat all linked by the clean notes of a piano. It was a music composed by electrical angels. The music rained down upon the scene as the voices of his mother and his younger self became drowned within the soft waves. He lifted himself up as the sky was being torn to paper shreds by an impending darkness.
"What's happening?!" he shouted.
The music consumed the laughter and joy. Jin flicked his head left and right, his expression fear flung in high points.
Is he awakening?!
"Jin, do not panic..."
A serene voice.
"You are merely moving on..."
"I don't want to awaken!" he protested back, standing to his feet and shouting to the heavens.
"As I said you are merely moving on."
The laughter drowned.
The world dissolved into shreds of paper darkness that fell around him in a new autumn.
The last blade of grass disappeared into the whirlpool of oblivion.
He was frozen in mid-air in the standing position.
"Uh..."
His flicked to the left and right searching for an unseen ledge.
His mouth opened to say other words.
Then he fell into nothingness...
***
Jin's good eye blinked.
"Oh he moved," regarded Keller with mock interest.
***
Her name's Lisa B huh?
Asuka stared out at the sky of blue as she wondered about her new classmate from the conversation yesterday.
She didn't exactly say that much about herself, always smiling though...
"Kazama-san?"
She blinked as the surly voice of her teacher broke over the ranks of students sitting at their plastic desks.
"Er... yes?"
"What is the name of the first circle of Hell, kohai-san?"
"Um... Limbo?"
"Correct and could you expand on it?"
Limbo...
A hand flew up among the random of others. That one was picked by the impatient gaze of the teacher.
"Limbo is the first circle of Hell where the poet Dante met he met the poets Homer and the philosopher Ovid. The poet Dante was said to have been influenced by the fields of Elysium for the imagery of this circle."
"Very good."
Asuka's eyes widened as Lisa replied with only a nod.
That was like listening to an encyclopaedia...
The sincerest of all encyclopaedias.
The clear ring of the bell as the metal hammer pulverised it with repetitive beats per second.
Finally!
"Remember class to finish your assignment for Monday," called the teacher over the fast shuffling and struggling of chairs and voices.
I've got more important things to think about than your stupid essay...
Asuka's footsteps pounded out through the thin doorway in a rush echoed by twenty one of the twenty two other classmates. As she exited through the doorway and into the corridor of chattering groups she turned her head to see Lisa packing her books away with careful precision, scanningthe cover of each one, seeing more information in one page than many students would see in a lifetime. Asuka raised a quizzical eyebrow as she watched and waited for the slow footsteps of the new girl.
"Hey."
Lisa smiled.
"You're Kazama-san aren't you? "The kid who is a constant pain in the arse."
Asuka's eyes dilated to the size of cat pupils.
"What did you say about me?" she snarled.
"All I said was that you are Kazama-san and that you are a "the kid who is a constant pain in the arse," or so I've heard."
"Who from?" demanded Asuka, her voice rising in perturbation.
"A group of boys, I think, I quoted from the one with spiky, black hair."
"Miyagi," muttered Asuka, "I'm going to fry his ass."
Lisa raised a finger.
"Don't you think by frying him that it will have to involve some kind of heating device such as a pan or a flamethrower and don't you think that Mr. Miyagi might die from severe burns because of this?"
Asuka's eyebrows cocked a little.
"It was just a form of expression," she corrected with a bemused smirk.
"Oh, I am not familiar with that expression."
"Heh, you sound like a computer."
"I guess but I'm still human."
Asuka's smirk widened into a smile as the two of them walked through the crowds of people.
"So where were you born?"
"Russia," replied Alisa.
"Russia? You sound Japanese!"
"Yes I was born in Russia but I was raised in Japan."
This was the start of a barrage of questions.
"Who were you raised by?"
"What school did you go to?"
"Why are you going here?"
Lisa answered with smiles and warmth, imparting bites of knowledge to her friend. Asuka felt her knowledge swell of this new friend of hers, a glutted feeling that warmed her heart and mind in small flames.
Careful wordplay though is the greatest of guards.
Little did Asuka know that Lisa B could locate thirty targets within a second and reduce them to dust. Little did she know that Lisa B could unleash chainsaws from her hands and carve Asuka into a thousand pieces. Little did she know that Alisa Boskonovitch had the athletic ability of most Olympic champions combined.
Mind you not many people knew this.
So hush.
***
Leo lay her hands on the clear reflections of a cityscape that shimmered on the steel table's surface.
They're going to be arriving soon...
She kept her right hand tapping on the table in the silence as she tugged on the chest of her seamless grey suit, pulling the collar away from a rather sore neck.
Damn suit. I'm like a piece of metal.
Strong, rigid metal that she would have to be as the silver doors slid open to let the ranks of black suited board members in, spreading out from the rank and file, coming to life from armoured automata as soon as they sat in their black leather chairs. Leo watched every single one of them walk to their respective places, place themselves on their seats, each with their black leather pads of incongruity laid in front of them.
Then the spark came.
She saw the green numbers of millions, billions even trillions run in rows in the irises of their eyes, all connected in this small network of fifteen. Their limbs moved of their own accord to their wills if they had been loosed from long strings that stretched deep within themselves and they turned their heads in varying speeds all towards one source, expressions of differing masks, some of the smiles of fool's gold, others the studied seriousness of old. They all however had one interest though.
Leo Kliesen.
They're either going to bite or burn me.
It was always a gamble when throwing the black dice. Leo pushed herself to her feet, the leather chair's metal feet squealing against the floor. She cleared her throat before speaking.
"I welcome you all here today, the first item I would like to discuss is the new robotics project..."
"Oh you mean the one that is costing the company a quarter of its defence budget yet yields no results," piped one board member.
"Well the Jack robots..."
"The Jack robots have become obsolete, they were outmatched by the Mishima Zaibatsu's Nancy units," cut in another with a razor beak.
Leo let out an inward groan.
They're going to do both.
"May I remind the board that the Nancy Unit is slow, cumbersome and impotent?"
Leo's sight glanced at the doorway to see the sharp corners of a black tuxedo filled by a man of silver hair, black shades and a frill shirt.
"The Jack unit has limitless potential," continued the suit of a man, "it has survived over twenty years of service, technology improving every aspect of its design yet its main outline has always stayed the same. With the technological stampede of time, it will only become greater."
The board remained silent as the man bowed in front of the doorway.
"I apologise for my lateness, Ms. Kliesen."
Leo smiled a small smile.
"Please, Mr. Chaolan come in and sit down."
"Thank you," he replied with a nod of his head before he walked down the right side.
Silence was a reception Leo knew that Lee Chaolan always had when he entered. He would walk towards his chair in that walk of rigid elegance. A silver swan with his head held high, breast pointed out yet wings clipped to the side. He approached the chair, pulling it back. A small smile for Leo as his eyes flashed from behind the shades before the silver blade was sheathed within an expression of bladed shields.
"Now, ladies and gentleman should we move onto another order of discussion?" continued Lee.
The silenced board members nodded in unified synchronicity again as they withdrew into the robots they so loathed.
***
Ba-dunk.
"Bruce."
Ba-dunk.
"Why do you carry that ball with you?"
Ba-dunk.
Bruce answered as the hard leather baseball was caught in his rough, right palm.
"Nostalgia."
"Nostalgia?"
"Yeah, memories..."
Anna raised a scarlet eyebrow.
"I didn't think memories were that important to you."
"Well they are so quit asking."
Anna's eyes narrowed in annoyance.
"I was just interested, you dumb brute."
"I thought the only interests you had were of men and sex."
"As I said, you're a dumb brute."
Bruce took no conscious notice of the studied seriousness of the venom she had lanced at him. The two of them remained in silence, both leaning against the sides of the doors to the meeting, neither speaking for three minutes until the echo of screeching chairs and the quiet yet audible talk of monotone voices was an announcement that the meeting was at an end.
Bruce watched the business suits of pinstripe and black march out of the room in leisure-step formation. The tapping of Anna's heels announced his time to enter.
"Ah, Lee Chaolan, it is good to see you again."
"My pleasure, Miss Anna Williams," replied Lee with a luxurious bow of his head.
Bruce let out a deep, growling sigh at seeing the sight.
"You okay, Bruce?"
His gaze shifted to see the gaze of Leo, staring at him with a half-smile.
"When did you start caring?"
"It's the responsibility of a employer to look out for his employees."
Bruce smirked.
"Hmph, you sound like a textbook."
" Yeah, mum taught me a lot of things in my life," she replied, rubbing the collar of her jacket.
"Your mum probably doesn't know that much about business then."
"Hey," corrected Leo with a lowered voice verging on anger, "my mother was a top business executive within this company, she knew how to run things."
"Running and playing in this world are two very different things," continued Bruce.
"I don't want to play any games, I just want to run this business," she affirmed with a straight gaze.
Bruce studied her from within those deep sockets.
"You sure? You'll continued to be eaten alive by those bastards on the board, if you don't start playing like a pro."
"How do you mean 'playing like a pro'?"
"When you walk into this room, you lose all emotion and focus on your goals."
Leo's blue eyes hardened to his gaze.
"I am not going to cut off my emotions anywhere," she retorted, "it's who I am."
"An arrogant kid like you will get slaughtered then," growled Bruce.
"I'm not arrogant. I just want to restore this world to order," she said, lowering her gaze as if seeing invisible landscapes rising to their firmaments.
"You think can do that though by being so damn passive and emotional?" he attacked again.
"I want to do this my way, even if I you are right I am not becoming like my predecessor."
Her voice stressed on the syllables of the last word, every one wishing to break a name forth, to spit it in hate but she kept her speech in check, preventing herself from breaking that taboo.
Bruce eyelids lowered at the mention of the name of his once employer.
I wonder if she even knows that I was one of the people involved in Kazuya's plot?
"Have you two finished yet?"
Anna's voice cut through, causing them to turn.
"Lee and I were waiting for you," she scolded.
"Well I..." objected Lee with a calm voice and small smile.
"Don't disagree, Lee!" she snapped without looking.
Lee letting out an inward sigh and retreated.
Bruce chuckled in his gruffness.
"Can't handle her Lee? Not many people can," he stated with experience .
A wry smile curved onto Anna's lips as Lee adjusted himself.
"What I am trying to say, " he corrected, "was that I have an appointment with someone, so until next time..."
He bowed in a great flourish of extravagance.
"I bid you all adieu."
Bruce watched him leave with a rather distasteful smirk.
Lee Chaolan... the only guy I know who walks and poses with a swan stuck up his arse.
***
Clicks.
The lights dimmed into nothingness in the narrow corridors. The polished surface of the floor became the reflectors of a dimming sun, the ripples of colourless reflections paving the way for the visitors of the night.
Julia Chang was one such being as she finished her last set of rounds.
Click.
The door closed in this emptiness.
Why am I here?
The same question she had asked herself over and over again.
Because of Heihachi Mishima.
The answer grated on her mind with rough palms, her benefactor's claws sinking into the rhetoric of her thoughts. She pushed the glasses up the bridge of her nose as she opened the last door. The lights of Jin Kazama's mortuary slab still emblazoned his body in hues of bleached colours. Even when comatose death still lingered with this man. Her gaze lingered on him for a moment, her eyes tracing the single black feathers enfolded within the dulled white feathers of his wing before her gaze dropped and she ticked the box.
"My, my you are enamoured with that man aren't you?"
She turned with a half-smile in recognition to Dr. Keller's old form in the doorway.
"I'd rather work for G-Corporation," she replied, shrugging.
"Figures," chuckled Keller.
He watched as she pressed the two switches beside his bed and the lights flicked out of existence.
"You going?" he asked.
"Yeah, Dr. Crosgrove is covering for me for the rest of the night."
"Crosgrove? The guy's actually showing some humanity?"
"Crosgrove isn't that bad."
"You wait until you work here for a lengthy period of time, the charm will go."
The footsteps of the two faded into muffled as Julia closed the door behind with a short click. Their voices fade out and the world for Jin Kazama is plunged into a starless space, a feeding bag the only source of unknown comfort...
***
Falling...
He was still falling...
***
The bell's ring called an end to the daily cycle.
The rush of the younger years' feet to leave through the gates while the older years pace in their groups, all their chattering rising into the leaded heavens. Asuka was part of one group of three that walked toward the school gate.
"So, how's Miharu-chan?"
"She's ill at the moment," explained Xiaoyu with a small smile, "but she said that she is getting better."
Alisa turned her head to the pair as they talked within that sphere and her eyes surveyed them. They talked about someone or something called Miharu, a being they had connected with.
Truly how?
"Where's Panda?"
"Grandpa won't let her out after Kuma tried to mount her for the fifty second time."
"What did she do?"
"She lost her temper and ripped off his..."
Xiaoyu lent into Asuka's ear as if whispering the greatest secret in the world in that high-pitched whisper.
Alisa's sensors picked up every letter.
Asuka burst out in peals of laughter at this great secret that her and Xiaoyu knew so well.
"I'm not surprised! Randy bastard deserved it!" chuckled Asuka.
"Kuma's not going to be able have children now..." replied Xiaoyu with a long, depressed sigh.
"Xiaoyu, the bear's a pervert!"
Asuka was still laughing in her words when she tried to reason with Xiaoyu. Alisa just smiled, her attentiveness attuned to every word as they reached the school gates.
"I'll see you tomorrow," piped Xiaoyu within the mass, "grandpa's going to pick me up from around the corner."
The pig-tailed girl waved her hand in the air for one last time, her arm becoming drowned within the droves of blue and white. Asuka's replicated the wave of her friend in frantic action. Alisa waved with a gentle motion until she was gone.
"Anyone picking you up?" asked Asuka as she turned back.
"Yes, Lee oba-kun," replied Alisa.
Two blares of a horn caused the Alisa's head to spin, if for once in a metaphorical fashion, her jump of joy characterised by a simple rise of the eyebrows and the widening of an ever present smile.
"He's here."
Asuka's eyes widened when she saw the car, a vehicle of black lines that all intertwined in a flow of smooth form, creating the shell of a super car.
The guy's loaded!
Her eyebrows lowered as she thought about it.
Wonder what other departments "Uncle Lee" is trying to make up in?
Another blare of the horns, the Uncle trying to make a quick entry and exit.
"I'll see you tomorrow," said Alisa in her light voice.
Asuka responded with a single wave and a smile. She watched her friend run to the car in small steps that bounded on the ground with an unparalleled grace. It was as if she was watching a child trying to walk yet know all the movements and muscle-reflexes that are needed for walking.
The left tinted window purred down to greet Alisa's face. Asuka tilted her head to the right, her eyes searching for the character of Uncle Lee. As her eyes settled on the man of sharp features and jet silver hair, the edges of a smirk pulled at the sides of her lips.
Guess he ain't that bad looking... he's still a showing-off prick though...
"Climb in the other side," he instructed to Alisa, pushing up the aviator shades on the bridge of his nose.
Asuka's eyes narrowed at the accent of an established class. The high pitch jabbed at her nerves as she could see in her mind's eye the silver spoon poked into a "Uncle Lee's" mouth since early childhood, his parents feeding him caviar and buying him an island just for his teddy, Shinji. By twelve, a boarding school snob, by eighteen, the undergraduate of arseholes and by thirty the pampered prince of a company that he hadn't even worked for!
Bastard.
Asuka forced another smile as her friend waved a second time before climbing into the car. The engine rumbled into life as her gaze retracted back to that hateful man. He turned his head in a slow movement and flashed a small smile at her.
She responded with only a face of crossed eyebrows and a tightened mouth, a response practiced with her father. That expression remained as the man simply turned and roared down the clearing road, it's howls and screeches fading as the talking of the dissipating groups dispersed as well .
"Phhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."
The breath lasted in an invisible echo from her curled lips as she turned and walked in the opposite direction.
***
"So you doing anything tonight?" asked Dr. Keller as the two of them walked into the deserted car park, a place that formed a horizon on its own.
"Not particularly," replied Julia, "you?"
"Going out for a drink, want to come?"
Julia shook her head as she walked to her car.
"What? You still fancy Kazama?"
She snorted with a note of a chuckle.
"No, I've got work to catch up on," she replied, meeting his gaze with a small smile.
"You're too tied up in your work, you know Julia?" sighed Keller as they approached his black Mercedes.
"I'd rather spend my time saving life than destroying it."
As his wizened hand reached for the silver door handle, he looked back up with both eyes narrowed and a smirk beneath his long nose.
"Why do they employ you here?"
No mirth or arrogance was evident in his voice, it was merely a question.
"Training in medicine was part of the course. Why do you think I graduated from the West Coast with First Degree and Honours?"
Keller smirked at Julia's confidence.
"Guess Heihachi hasn't got his head so far stuck up his arse then."
Her eyebrows lowered slightly at the remark.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing, it's just... well, the Zaibatsu isn't exactly known to react well to insults."
Keller laughed in the face of her concern.
"What? You think that Heihachi's going to care about what I say? Julia, he's rich enough to buy a thousand of me."
"He had a man beaten for his lack of manners at a dinner party he held once."
"...So what? He won't care."
Julia didn't reply as Keller pulled himself into the car, her eyes only following his movements. He closed the door and started the engine, the deep rumbles shaking the surface of the metal bonnet in this wasteland of tarmac. He waved once which she reciprocated with another wave. Tomorrow she would see him again.
Whether it was with bullet through his skull or not, she did not know.
Julia glanced at the Mishima Industrial Complex, it's towers of steel and glass a shimmering mirage of reality under the approach of the sky in its hues of vanilla. She turned and started away down that long car park towards her car.
The sunset looks quite beautiful.
Her gaze had been drawn to the other side, to the far off horizon over and behind those towers where men in suits dwelt. The sun was clear on the horizon as it set, a picture of oil colours painted with a natural flow, lighting up the sky in an orange that spread large.
Her right hand reached up to fiddle with the single braid that dropped down from her left ear.
So much like home, the trackless plains of Arizona in their world of green and rocky climbs. This sunset bore resemblances of those she had seen with her mother. Now it was nothing more than a romantic's dream, the sky of orange merging yet fighting the waves of vanilla.
She wrapped the braid around her index finger before just letting it fall away.
I've made my decision, I had to do what I did.
Sacrifices had been made.
Her eyes strayed to her car and she reached inside the pocket of her jeans, retrieving her car keys. The lights of the Fiat flashed white before dimming again as her hand rested on the smooth door handle.
She stopped as she felt those tingles of awareness.
A knowing that the men in suits were watching her, their shaded eyes revealing nothing.
Julia did not turn, only sigh to herself as she pulled the door open and sat herself on the cotton support of the seat.
The door closed.
The Mishima's watched and listened. They always watched and listened, eating on scraps of dead flesh. Even in here she felt the invisible buzz of an unseen recorder, draining all blood from the air in its eager search for living meat.
She opened the glove compartment to check.
I thought I put it there.
A slim, black phone lay amidst the piles of loose paper.
A life line to an old friend who she would call once away from here...
***
Funny, she's asleep.
Indeed it was funny to Lee Chaolan that a robot could sleep. His gaze flicked to her. Her sleeping face, a face craftsmen could love, was draped by her locks of dark rose. He noted in his gaze that the school uniform still looked rather cumbersome on her body. A black, gingham dress with white t-short, cotton socks and flat shoes? Lee shook his head as his gaze turned back to the wide vista in front.
Heihachi, you simply have no taste or style.
It was expected from an old fart like his father anyway.
Another thing he noted was the flower nestled in her locks.
She still holds my brother in high regard I see.
He smiled. Yes, Alisa was indeed intriguing. Though this journey... way too slow.
Lee's foot pressed onto the pedal with a mere touch and he heard and felt the engine snarl from within its cave. His eyes lit in motion with that sound, the adrenaline pumping into his veins, thrilling his body with light shivers. That sunset of rose that spanned a vista felt closer-
Two monotone beeps of his handset.
He let out a short sigh as the speed relaxed and then reached to the mobile in its hands free holder, pressing the central button.
Disappointment was replaced with a smile.
"Julia..."
Excellent.
It indeed was.
***
Asuka pulled open the wooden gate to the Kazama Dojo and stepped onto the garden path. Her footsteps tapped on the dirtied ground.
Every footstep was hollow in those taps of flat clogs.
A greeting for ghosts.
No words were given to those ghosts, only the sound of those steps and the sweet smell of drifting sakura blossoms.
Slam.
The door opened.
Slam!
The door closed.
"Papa?" called Asuka, her voice tinged with the boredom of late-teens.
She kicked off her loose shoes , each one flying off into the corners of the living room. Neither garnered her attention.
"Asuka, you really should be a little more polite," accosted Asuka's father as he hobbled into the room from the side door.
"Sorry, I've just had a bad end to the day."
"Tell me about it later, Asuka but mind your manners as Detective Wulong-san is visiting."
Asuka raised an eyebrow.
"Why?"
"It's about your cousin," answered the voice of the visitor.
Garbed in blue and green silks of a martial artists outfit, Lei was leaning in the doorway to the room, a cup of steaming ginseng tea in hand. His stance was relaxed, his voice not so.
"I've found the information you and Mr. Kazama requested on Jin Kazama," he continued, his eyes levelling with Asuka's orbs of trepidation.
The moment had come.
***
"Jin... Jin, wake up."
In the darkness, that great darkness, the obsidian eyes of Jin Kazama opened to the world.
"Where am I?" he muttered.
He remembered falling... falling for ages.
Then...
Hitting a surface.
Then...
No pain just...
Black.
Now he could feel that same smooth surface beneath his finger tips. His eyes strayed down and they widened and contracted at the same moment.
He was standing on nothing.
A lightless void was his floor.
Yet... he could feel something beneath his feet, a definite solidity so why...?
"All questions will be answered in time."
That same gentle voice.
"Who are you?"
"Someone once known."
"What do you mean?"
No reply from the sky of infinite black.
Jin put his hands to the ground and pulled himself up, the world around him finally becoming clear from just the floor and the sky.
It was a world of mirrors.
He staggered around as the soft yet eerie music played into his eardrums again.
He was reflected in nothing, the mirrors only reflecting their own small shards of light, all encapsulating infinite in a rectangle as one reflected another and another and another...
"This is a place of memory, Jin..."
The soft voice explained to him in his guarded stares.
"This is the place where your journey will start."
A/N; If you found the humour weird or just plain stupid I apologise, it's just this is the first time I've actually written humour and this will be an experiemental fic for me at least. Yes this will be the start of a Dante's Inferno style journey for Jin. It's going to be something that binds the plot over the next chapters. To you the reader I wish you the best and please rate and review.
hplo.
Japanese Dictionary;
Kohai - pupil
Chan - term of endearment.
San - mister.
Obachan - affectionate term for Uncle or middle-aged man.
Kaachan - affectionate term for mother.
Papa - affectionate term for father.