DISCLAIMER: The Tekken series under the property of Bandai Namco and Tekken Project under Katsuhiro Harada. Action Taimanin, and the Taimanin Series belongs to Gremory Games and Lilith Soft.

Chapter 07: Death by Degrees

Back in the Nomad safehouse, while Edwin Black sat on the desk as he himself plans to enter the King of Iron Fist Tournament in hopes of rebuilding his criminal empire anew. The Vampire King sensed something is coming.

When Ingrid hears the door bell, before she could answer the door, someone managed to break the door into half with one powerful front kick. Afterwards, Oboro's lifeless corpse is thrown inside. From the darkness outside of the door step, the man's red left eye glows, revealing to be none other than Kazuya Mishima himself.

"Oboro!", Ingrid examined the traitor Taimanin's corpse, after noticing a hole in her chest, gives Kazuya a glare. "You! How could you do this!?"

A few seconds later, Black appears and saw Oboro's corpse, realizing that Kazuya singlehandedly slaughtered his army of demons trying to jump him.

"I never expect you, out of all people, to pay me a visit. I must have overestimated you and the power of the Devil Gene.", the Vampire King spoke.

Kazuya replied mocking him further as he laughs, "Blame this on your own cowardice, Black! You'd expect that this wretched woman having the audacity to take my Devil from me? Even without the Devil's power, I can still rule the world unimpeded!" Then he gives him another verbal smackdown that's enough to make Black angry. "You had the entire world at the palm of your hands... and you blew it! All because you've let the Taimanins lure you into their trap fighting the Death Wraiths and the Inferno demons!"

"Silence!", Black raises his right hand as he summons a swarm of bats in an attempt to overwhelm Kazuya and forcibly take his Devil Gene.

Only for Kazuya to reveal a third eye in his forehead and fired a laser, causing the bat swarm to dissipate. The small beam is enough to pierce through Black's gravity force field, that it leaves a cut on Black's face.

"(So this is the power of the Devil Gene. I haven't seen the full extent of its powers yet.)", the Vampire King began thinking to himself, as he and Kazuya engage on a brief altercation. Only for the tyrannical martial artist to push him back.

"What? Are you far from satisfied with just my Devil powers alone?", Kazuya lets out a chuckle.

"I've seen you bring out the full potential of your Devil Gene and killed your own father! Why did you bother holding back?", Black calls Kazuya out merely for not showing the full extent of his Devil form.

"The Devil's power is just a means to an end for me. Even without it, I will still conquer the world unimpeded! By letting your pathetic little pawn to die by my hand, this is a reminder that you should have not underestimated a Mishima!"

"I see. Even without the Devil Gene, you are still a mere human with a black heart! How intriguing."

Within moments, Kazuya takes his leave. But not before inviting him to the King of Iron Fist Tournament. "If you want my, and my deadbeat son's Devil powers so badly, come to the tournament, Black. Prove your worth, and I'll be waiting."

Kazuya just leaves after inviting the Vampire King to the King of Iron Fist Tournament. Black already knew that the tournament is the perfect opportunity for him to rebuild what he lost.

As Kazuya returned into his limousine and orders the chaffeur to drive on, his phone rings as he receives a call from Nina.

"How did it go?", the blonde assassin's voice spoke through his phone.

"Just an exchange of pleasantries and an altercation. Nevertheless, he got the message.", Kazuya replied. "I never thought Bruce is retiring, and it was a right decision to pass the military leadership to you."

"Thanks. I'm grateful for that. And besides, I'm only married to the job."

"Hmph. A consummate professional, I see. In that case, it's time we go even on those insects."

That said, Kazuya decides to go even with Edwin Black, by ordering Nina to kill both Black and Nina. Starting by sending a paratrooper of JACK-7s into the safehouse.

Meanwhile, as Black and Ingrid discuss about participating in the tournament, a JACK-7 just suddenly dropped into the safehouse, followed by a swarm of other JACKs.

"Cursed Mishima! He's trying to get even on us!", Black's face immediately show signs of panic and disbelief as soon he and Ingrid find themselves being cornered by JACK-7s. Realizing that he made a fatal mistake of overestimating the power of the Devil Gene, not to mention that Kazuya now has mastered his Devil form to its zenith.

"This isn't good, Black-sama...", Ingrid likewise began to feel how hopeless the situation is. "If we still have allies in the demon world that can still help us."

"Ingrid... I think it's already too late."

"Black-sama?"

"You must leave at once."

"Never! I won't leave you behind! We will get out of this!"

The JACKs immediately attack, Ingrid takes her sword Dark Flame and fend off the robots. Black himself decided to go all out without even transforming into his Archon form. With Black and Ingrid being the only remaining members of Nomad active, fighting waves of JACK robots.

"There's no end to them!", Ingrid huffed after being exhausted from the fifth wave.

"Ingrid! You must escape at once. G Corporation is trying to wipe out every member of Nomad, and we can't stick together for long.", Black asks Ingrid to escape knowing that G Corporation isn't going to stop sending JACKs until any member of Nomad are dead.

"But, sir!"

"Go!"

Black pushes Ingrid out of the surrounding JACK-7s, with one robot after another jumping on top of the Vampire King so as to form a disorderly heap. Within moments, one of the JACKs initiated a self-destruct protocol, the countdown is set in 5 seconds.

COUNTDOWN: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

[BOOM!]

Ingrid tries to save her master from the JACKs, only to be sent flying by the force of the explosion out of the building. As soon as Ingrid wakes up after being thrown out of the safehouse by the explosion, she has no time to grieve on losing her boss; she takes advantage of the dark night to elude G Corporation soldiers pursuing her.

As she avoided G Corp soldiers and JACK-7s altogether, just as she thought the coast is clear, the whirring of a helicopter's rotor can be heard from a far, not to mention Ingrid finds herself being marked by a sniper's laser sight.

From the helicopter, Nina takes aim from her sniper rifle and tries to nail Ingrid. But, the Hell Knight made good use of the forest and trees as cover trying to avoid the helicopter.

"There's no use running, Hell Knight.", Nina's voice echoed from the helicopter by using a megaphone.

"G Corporation?!", Ingrid gritted her teeth, as if she could barely escape her pursuers, exhausted from fighting for her master after Black forces her to escape and allowed himself to seemingly die to the JACK-7s. "You and Kazuya Mishima will pay for your transgressions!"

"Unfortunately, you won't be able to see the light of day.", Nina fires a round at the running Ingrid at her shoulder, missing a headshot.

The shot left Ingrid bleeding on her rear right shoulder. Exhausted and bleeding to near death, the Hell Knight found herself in a rather hopeless state as she tries to fight tooth and nail to escape with her life. However, the gunshot wound was so severe, she thought about facing her own untimely demise. But, then...

Meanwhile, the helicopter pilot warns Nina as the the pilot's dashboard started beeping.

"Incoming missile!", the pilot exclaimed.

"What the?", Nina shook her head as the missile hits the tail of the chopper. "Shit!"

"May day! May day! This is Falcon 1-1! We're hit! We're hit! We're going down!", the pilot exclaims it asks everyone on board to brace for impact.

While still breathing, Ingrid didn't expect any help. Within moments, a dark-skinned Brazilian man comes to her rescue.

"Are you alright, senhora?", said the Brazilian.

"Who are you?", the Hell Knight asked.

"There's no time to explain. We need to get you out of here!", the man continued, introducing himself as Eddy Gordo, a capoeira master. As he saw the chopper crashed, he cursed in his native language, "Puta que pariu!"

Meanwhile, at the crash site. Nina manages to get out of the wreckage barely alive, realizing whoever fired that Stinger missile still has unfinished business with her.

Nina's phone rang, a call coming from her employer.

"What happened?", Kazuya's voice spoke through the phone.

"The Hell Knight got away. The chopper's been shot down by a Stinger missile."

"Stinger missile? Could it be your sister's handiwork?", Kazuya apparently figured out that his former employee Anna still has unfinished business with Nina. And Nina quickly figured out that Anna has a knack of using rocket launchers.

"Fucking Anna... Whatever she's up to, she's most likely siding with the rebel army at this point."

"Retreat for now, Nina. We've already caused enough commotion to put Nomad out of commision for good. The Hell Knight will live to fight another day, in a right time and a right place."

For now, Ingrid managed to survive thanks to the intervention from Eddy Gordo and Anna Williams.

Author's Note:

- This chapter's title is a reference to the spin-off Death by Degrees, which features Nina as the playable protagonist. Her Rage Art in Tekken 8 is named after said spin-off.

- This chapter also emphasizes the obvious contrast between Ingrid and Nina: Ingrid is Edwin Black's most loyal secretary and enforcer. Nina is a professional killer who is willing to work for anyone if it benefits her, having worked for Jin (while head of the Mishima Zaibatsu), Heihachi (when he regains control of the Zaibatsu), and finally Kazuya. Ingrid has morals and principles; making her a stark contrast to the sadistic traitor Taimanin Oboro, and has a good relationship with her apprentice Lina, Nina has no morality whatsoever, if she has any. Both her and Anna continue on killing each other, except when visiting their father's grave, and refuses to accept Steve as her son.

- Black forcing Ingrid to escape while being overwhelmed by JACK-7s is the opposite of the opening of Tekken 5, where Kazuya ditches his own father to die alone, though Heihachi survived. Black most likely also survived.

- [SPOILERS for Tekken 8] Eddy rescuing Ingrid serves as a proper re-introduction to the character, after being recently included in the game earlier this week.