It seemed to be a matter of a few hours before the nation and then the whole world was razed to the ground by the destructive fury of Devil Kazuya, yet after the fierce clash with the mysterious warrior Akuma an unusual and worrying stillness had begun to emerge. Everyone expected it to be the shortest calm before the storm, but it had been going on for several weeks. People, despite being frightened and deeply tried by war and destruction, had almost started again to hope that all the horrors were finally over. G. Corp itself was working to help the population rebuild the collapsed buildings, provide shelter for those displaced and feed all the mouths in need of food. A cautious optimism hovered mockingly over a country at the end of its strength and all forms of aid were welcome, regardless of who came.

Heihachi was really dead and Kazuya's demonic powers had reached the highest stage ever. The confrontation with Akuma had been devastating, yet finally killing the much-hated father had managed to give him a strength and stamina never seen before. He had not been able to find out why his mother Kazumi had hired him as a hit man to exterminate his family, but little mattered to him. The last words of the opponent before finally succumbing still resonated in the head of Kazuya...

"Your power will never be worthy of the Hachijō..."

At first that phrase had instilled a certain curiosity in him, but then he realized that if that statement was true, his mother would not be killed so easily by her father. She would have fought and she certainly would have won, but she hadn't, so he didn't hesitate to eliminate the penultimate opponent. Penultimate, yes... Because one was still missing. The last Mishima knew that his son was alive and was out there somewhere. His goal to regain the part of Jin's devil gene was still his obsession, but he was in no hurry: he knew that sooner or later, driven by the desire to eradicate their race from the world, he would come forward. For the moment he enjoyed the victory, observing how the city laboriously reborn from the ashes. Of course he didn't care about those insignificant human beings and their needs, but he played his cards right. His image as a benefactor had come in handy on several occasions and he was looking forward to taking full control over the entire planet to begin his reign of terror. After the dictatorships of Jin and Heihachi, anyone would welcome any other alternative as a blessing. He smiled maliciously, crossing his arms as he continued to admire his unchallenged dominion. The red eye sparkled like a ruby of evil light. Victory had a such a sweet taste...

"I know you're alive, Jin...Come on... Dad is waiting for you!"

Several kilometers away, the occupants of Violet's System were well aware that that rebirth was a staged art, but they decided to stall and remain still in the shadows: Jin was still too weak and would never survive a fight against his father. A large part of his powers had been lost during the battle with Azazel and now the gene was highly unstable in him: he could manage it better, but he felt infinitely more vulnerable. Lars and Lee were very worried: the young Kazama was the only one in the world even vaguely able to defeat Kazuya and if he did not recover quickly they would be in serious trouble. They weren't sure that calm would last long. Jin was training to the limit every day for hours and hours, subjecting his body to inhuman efforts, yet he was not getting concrete results: How was it that for the duration of the coma Devil had done nothing but annihilate him and now he seemed to have gone into hibernation? The only evidence of his presence was the tattoo imprinted on his left arm, which however had begun to fade. Besides, what can you possibly expect from such an entity? Jin had completely failed in his mission, unleashed a war of epochal dimensions, failed to eradicate the devil's gene, and not only had he not died in the attempt, he had even come out weakened. Frustrated and unmotivated as he never destroyed with a single punch what was probably the fortieth Combot put at his disposal during the daily training. His father was right, his existence made no sense.

"You should calm down, boy. If you continue like this, we won't be able to keep up with Combot construction and you'll be out of them in two days." Lee commented as he entered the room with his usual boldness, which made Jin extremely nervous.

"They're not strong enough... I'm not strong enough!" replied the boy, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a towel.

"This is not an excuse to waste years and years of warehouse resources. Strength will return to you, and, allow me to remind you, that in such a state of mind you will not go anywhere. The real strenght comes from within you!"

Jin looked up to the sky in front of that statement, so obvious and so annoying.

"That's a quote as old as the Earth, Lee..."

"But as true as ever in your case: no one believes that Devil has abandoned you, much more plausible that it's making you pay for all your weaknesses. No matter how much I despise what you've done, and sure as hell that you have to pay dearly for all your wrongdoings, one by one, but I know you have a shred of humanity left in you. And that's exactly what makes you incapable of controlling the gene, which is what your father does so well."

"And what should I do then? Start killing people again?" he blurted out frustrated, throwing the towel to the ground.

"We'd appreciate it if you didn't. And I didn't mean that by the way, but you're gonna have to get there on your own. Now if you don't mind, I really need you at the lab. Clean up, though, you're sweaty as shit." concluded the Chinese before closing the door of the arena behind him.

Jin again found himself alone with his thoughts and anguish. As much as he hated to admit it, Lee was right, but he certainly could not risk losing himself again and causing even greater damage just to strengthen that beast that lived within him. He sighed heavily and dragged himself to the locker room for a quick shower before joining the others. For weeks they had been trying to infiltrate the databases of the Mishima Zaibatsu without success; it almost seemed that it had never existed and they didn't know if Heihachi or his father was behind it. The jet of hot water was partly able to soothe the tension on sore muscles, but not his constant headache. However, continuing to work on the same problem was useless, so might as well concentrate on something else, so he decided to get out of the shower, get dressed and head to the laboratory

"It took you a long time..." Lars commented when he saw him crossing the threshold.

Jin ignored him. Although they were both on the same side, relations with his uncle had never become friendly or nice. He knew that he still held a grudge against him for what he had done, and frankly he couldn't even blame him.

"So what?" he asked as he approached the group behind the massive PC screen.

He noticed that a long cable was attached directly to Alisa's back, while Lee typed on the keyboard like crazy. Hundreds and hundreds of binary codes, and other symbols that Jin didn't recognize, were swiping through the monitor. As a young man he was passionate about computer science and would have liked to deepen his studies, but unfortunately he had not had the opportunity.

"Yes... Yes... Come on, here we go, get in there..." murmured the owner of Violet's System, totally focused on what he was doing to the point of ignoring the silvery locks of hair that were partially obscuring his view. "Alisa, are you copying?"

"Affirmative, I start downloading the first data!" replied the android.

"EXCELLENT!" Lee cheered, clapping. "Excellent..."

"Will you tell me what you're up to since you interrupted my training to get me here?" Jin asked impatiently.

"Sure, sure... Do you want a cup of tea?"

"Lee!"

"Oh well..." he retorted, and with all the calm of the world called his secretary to bring him a steaming teapot of green tea and pastries.

He enjoyed even not too secretly keeping the boy on his toes, at least where he could he had no intention of making his life easy. In fact, he had to wait to be briefed only after a waitress served what was ordered and the drink became the right temperature to be sipped

"There are significant changes..." began after a grueling quarter of an hour. "We managed to infiltrate part of the G. Corporation archives and guess what we found...?"

Jin's murderous look was an eloquent invitation to move on and make haste.

"Most of the lost data from the Mishima Zaibatsu miraculously popped up. As we get information, it's transmitted to Alisa and stored in her memory in real time. Hundreds and hundreds of files per minute. Frankly, I expected better cybersecurity from both you and Kazuya... Your systems are leaking all over".

"It took you weeks!" replied dryly and also slightly offended..

"Yes, the important thing is the result no? Anyway... Sure you don't want pastries? They are delicious!".

"LEE, FOR GOD'S SAKE, MOVE ON!" This time it was Lars who blurted out and Jin was a little grateful.. Even he hung on the lips of the Chinese and was greedy for information.

"How grumpy... As I was saying... Many information has already been transmitted to Alisa, others are much more protected, but now I would say that I can get anywhere, it's just a matter of time..The main problem is that they come from the archives of G. Corp, who probably acquired them from Zaibatsu after Heihachi's death. Therefore, there is a high probability that many of them may have been altered, concealed, or even falsified. So, my dear Jin, your task is pretty simple..." the evil smile that painted on the man's face did not promise anything good. "Since that most of the data you entered came from the period in which you were in charge, it is up to you to verify the veracity of them!".

Jin didn't hear right. Lee couldn't be serious.

"Lee, do you have any idea how many..."

"Hundreds of thousands of information to check? Of course, my dear. But I can't do everything myself and who better than you can give reliable feedback?"

"That's not gonna happen!"

"Let's put it in this way: it's a great training for the mind and you seem to need it lately!"

Jin gritted his teeth and clenched his fists: he had no time for such nonsense. Kazuya was out there at the height of his powers planning who knows what and he couldn't afford the luxury of going through the archives of years and years of information. Not to mention that Lee would have taken advantage of it to snoop around and steal secrets he could not even remotely imagine, but then what else could he do? He was still so fucking weak, and he couldn't see any other way. He sighed deeply, trying to calm his poor nerves as best he could. All he cared about was ending his bloodline and his curse once and for all. And he would never leave any stone unturned. Resigned, he went to the upholstered chair that his uncle was pointing at him with his usual sneering smile and took his place in front of the giant double monitor: the mere sight of all those codes gave him a migraine.

"Don't worry, Alisa will help you..."

"Roger!" the android chirped, all happy to make herself useful.

Those next weeks were going to be endless...