Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

To say that Lee Chaolan is surprised Kazuya has survived his battle with Jin is inaccurate. He isn't surprised. Kazuya has survived being thrown down a cliff, getting beaten to the brink of death numerous times in childhood, fighting the old man to the death multiple times in adulthood, and. somehow, a seemingly fatal dip in a damn volcano. At a certain point, Chaolan just takes it for granted that the man will survive whatever hell he puts himself through. Kazuya is like a cockroach. A particularly pissed-off cockroach.

Always scuttling just at the edge of his life. No matter how far Chaolan has run, no matter how carefully he has hidden—Kazuya seemingly is always there. He's given up on the thought that perhaps, one day, Kazuya won't be a part of his life. Even when they're not talking, he knows—sooner or later, he'll see Kazuya again.

Which is to say, when one perfectly normal morning, he gets an email four months after Kazuya is declared missing demanding a meeting that sounds suspiciously like its from the man himself— he isn't exactly surprised. The timing seems all obvious in retrospect, with numerous rumors swirling about that the former ruler of the world, however briefly, will be declared dead in absentia. What does surprise him, however, is the location given for the meeting in the email: Yakushima.

Which is an odd choice for Kazuya. Not the sort of place he'd ever imagine the man would enjoy. There were relatively few people in the world who would, or at least, people in Kazuya's orbit. Jin, possibly, but his nephew has been busy at Chaolan's side, repairing some of the damage caused during the war. 

Which left...only the other Kazama, the long-missing Jun Kazama. Which would make perfect sense, except for the ever-so-embarrassing problem of her being missing, almost certainly dead. No one has used her bank account in seven years. There have been no hits on her government ID or her personal number. If she isn't a dead woman, she knows how to do a damn good impression of one. 

But why else would Kazuya be on Yakushima?

Chaolan drums his fingers. Kazuya is, deep down, a bit of a sentimental sort, but not quite the living-on-my-ex's-island-forever-to-atone-for-my-sins sort of sentimental. More never forgets a single wrong and constructs elaborate revenge fantasies to address said wrong sort of sentimental.

"Lars," he mutters, pressing a button on his desk. He rather likes the intercom. It lets him talk to anyone he wants, without needing to worry about their face, or his reactions to them.

"Hm?" The crackle of Lars' voice comes over the static, reassuring and steady. For being one of Heihachi's sons, the man is remarkably well-adjusted. Perhaps because he spent so little time with his father. Lee Chaolan’s lips tip into a sardonic grin at the thought. Lars is the lucky one of the three of them, in a way.

"Fancy a trip to Yakushima? I've been invited by a ghost."

"Our Oni-san has risen from the dead, I take it?" Lars doesn't seem surprised either. He's quick, Lars, and if he were half as temperamental as Kazuya is, Chaolan would be worried about it.

"Mmm-hmm. I suspect so, though the letter inviting me was unsigned. Yakushima, a week from today, at noon. Family business." He quotes the email in full. Lars' sigh crackles over the line.

"Yakushima? Kazuya Mishima? An odd choice. I thought that island was a damn nature sanctuary." 

"Jin's mother is from the Osumi islands. Yakushima, specifically."

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line.

"...I thought she was dead. Jin always talked about her like she was."

"Me too. But it seems too strong a coincidence. Either she's there and he's laying low with her, or he's trying to bait Jin out by being close to a place Jin would feel compelled to defend." A pause; Chaolan considers it. "But I think it's more likely the former. Kazuya gets impatient; he would have started waving red flags all over that island if he wanted Jin's attention. Light some forests on fire or something."

"Huh." Another long pause. "Does Jin know?"

This time it's Chaolan's turn to sigh. To say Jin and his father have a complicated relationship is... true, to say the least. He supposes that it runs in the family.

"I don't know," he mutters. "And I'm not looking forward to telling him."

"I think he's going to be coming in today," Lars says, and Chaolan sighs. What luck. "...Want me to tell him?"

"No." He wishes he could leave it to Lars, but Lars hasn’t known Kazuya at all. Outside of perhaps Jun, who knows Kazuya better than Chaolan? "I'm used to cleaning up Oni-san's messes, trust me."

A laugh is Lars' only response to that. "I'll tell you when I see him then."

"Yeah." Chaolan cuts the connection and grimaces, staring at the email again, trying to make sense of it all. It's almost certainly Kazuya's: the writing is opaque and yet somehow so to the point that you can't mistake it for anyone else. Yakushima. 15:00. Family business. Simple, terse. But very Kazuya. He'd written it like that so Chaolan would know it was from him. He is sure. He stares at it for a while until the damn alarm beeps; Lars. He sighs. True to his word then; Jin must be coming in.

"What floor, Lars?"

"Just coming in the main door."

Chaolan stands up and winces. He isn’t looking forward to this.

"Jin! Nephew!" Chaolan smiles at the boy, who stares at him owlishly. He likes Jin, but to say that their relationship is... uncomplicated, well, that isn't true either. The boy is too much like his father, and that look is part of it. That is pure Kazuya there; he swallows and tries to suppress the thought with it. He sees Kazuya in Jin often, in truth.

He will never, ever tell the boy that.

"Hi," Jin says quietly, not meeting his eyes. That move, too, all Kazuya. Absolutely not Kazama, not at all. There was—is?— no demon on earth more annoyingly chipper and tenacious than Jun Kazama, he thinks. The only woman on earth who has shaken hands with Heihachi Mishima and Kazuya Mishima on the same day and lived to tell about it. Certainly the only woman who has arrived at the Mishima Zaibatsu office and stayed outside of it for multiple days until Mr. Mishima would consent to meet with her.

"I want to talk to you for a bit. Alone." Jin's brow furrows—Kazuya again, there.

"Okay." And the terseness is all Kazuya, too...

"Excellent!" Lee Chaolan poses and smiles, but he does not feel very excellent. But if growing up in the Mishima household is good for one thing, it is this: he can fake enthusiasm and, in fact, most emotions, even in the most trying situations. Compared to trying to keep a civil dinner going between Kazuya and Heihachi, this is nothing.

Jin nods and mutely follows him to his office. Chaolan sits down. Jin does too, directly across from him—that, more the mother, he thinks. Kazuya would have stood, aloof and glaring, in the corner, one foot against the wall. God knows he'd done that often enough in Lee Chaolan's absolutely minuscule office at the Zaibatsu, arms crossed like Chaolan wasn't the one keeping that damn Zaibatsu fucking solvent—

"...You alright?" Jin asks, pushing him back to the present.

"Hm?"

"You were staring at the corner like you saw a ghost." Chaolan winces.

"…True enough. Apologies, Jin." He steeples his hands and looks at Jin, trying to take a measure of the man. Jin looks... tired. Jin has been rebuilding in northern Europe for weeks. He looks like he's been living in the camps, too; he can see the dirt on the kid’s fingernails, the kind you can’t scrub clean with limited running water.

He doubts the man is sleeping much.

"We miss you around here," he says, smiling, trying to lighten the atmosphere. Trying to let the kid know that he has allies.

"There's....a lot of work to do." Hesitant, somewhat guilty, that response. A good kid after all, Kazama. Different from his father in that. Kazuya isn't losing much—if any—sleep over the people he's killed. Lee knows that well enough. Kazuya wasn’t born with a conscious, and Lee Chaolan can’t ever quite tell if he thinks that was a blessing or a curse on the man. Either way, immaterial as far as Jin went.

He exhales and reaches out, traps Jin’s hand under his own. "Right. Well. I hope you know as your ...uncle that I will always be there for you if you need it. My door will always be open." He had only hesitated a little on uncle; hopefully Jin did not notice.

Jin looks at their hands together, looking a little boggled, and nods. "Uh…thanks. Is that what you wanted to tell me...?"

"No." He sighs. The kid is direct, but it’s unfortunate. Chaolan wants to do nothing but dance around the subject. "Listen, Jin, I have to tell you some news. And it might be upsetting. I got an email today. From Yakushima. It's not signed, but..."

"You think it's from Kaz...My father." Smart kid, too. Hard to say what parent that was from; perhaps it had skipped a generation.

"I do." He nods. "Did he contact you as well?"

"No." Jin looks down. "But...my mother..."

Chaolan sucks in a heavy breath; so this is confirmation of something he thought was very unlikely. "Your mother is alive?"

"It... was hard for me to believe as well. But... yes. I felt her—awaken, in Yakushima. At the shrine." Chaolan winces; he can imagine what awakened her, and it was a 7-foot-tall angry demonically possessed Kazuya Mishima, for sure.

"You didn't tell me about that."

"We had bigger troubles at the time," Jin says, but his reply is painfully guarded. Lee Chaolan suspects Jin knows that he knows the elder Kazama had... special abilities. And Jin knows now, perhaps better than almost anyone on earth, what getting special abilities often gets you: dissected like a lab rat. Jin no doubt hadn’t wanted that for her. And like Kazuya, the damn kid had assumed the worst, even when it made little sense—what would Chaolan want with such a woman? Kazama senior may have had a unique talent, but his interest has always been in machinery, not supernatural bullshit.

And Lee Chaolan has always been painfully aware of his niche.

"True," he says, trying to move off that subject, and leaves it at that. "So you think they are …together?"

A shrug. "I spared his life for her, as she asked." Eyes downcast; Jin doesn’t, perhaps, entirely agree with that decision. Chaolan isn’t sure he can blame him. "He was breathing when I left. I didn’t see her, but it’s possible she went there later, or he went to her. I don’t know if he would have been able to find..." A deeper frown. "I don’t know much about their... relationship. I never saw them together."

"I understand." Chaolan closes his eyes and chuckles. "It was always an odd relationship. But you're not wrong. If you felt her awaken, he probably did too. They were always..." He tries to think of a way to say it nicely. They were always odd together; spooky, in a way. They rarely talked out loud to one another, but they seemed to have wordless conversations that went on for hours, making Chaolan feel like a third wheel in a massive mansion with their incessant focus on one another. "They were always driven to one another," he says; it seems the most delicate way to put it.

"She called me," Jin says quietly, looking down at his hands. "About a week after... everything..."

He grimaces. "You should have told me about this sooner, Jin."

"Why?" Jin looks at him, genuinely puzzled.

"I told you before, you don’t need to bear everything on your shoulders. Good or bad." He reaches out across the table and squeezes Jin's hand. "I would have wanted to be happy with you. Provide her assistance, if she needed it.”

"...I think he was with her by then," Jin says, and his voice very much suggests that such was not a welcome homecoming.

"Did she say that much?"

A shake of the boy’s head. "No."

"Then what makes you think...?"

Jin says nothing for a long moment. Then he looks back at Chaolan, and another entirely too long moment passes. Chaolan has a thought that perhaps he is being judged; he awaits the judgment, saying nothing. He knows there is no rushing a Mishima when they get like this, however much he wants to. Finally Jin nods, and he seems to come to a decision.

He opens his mouth, and Chaolan smiles; he’s been judged trustable, which is no mean feat for a Mishima.

"You must understand... My mother is abysmally bad with new technology. When she... disappeared, she still had a pager. I used to ask her why, and she said, well, she understood it well enough. She didn’t want any new tech when the old tech was working perfectly fine." Lee Chaolan looks away; he suspects he knows why Kazama still had that damn pager, and it wasn’t entirely ecological in mind. Kazuya would have known the number to her pager. He wouldn’t know her damn cell phone. Foolish woman. She had held out hope.

"And then she reappeared after... everything, and, well, she managed to dial a cell phone call to me. Brand new phone. She didn’t mention him, but..." But you think he is helping her. Jin doesn’t need to say it for Chaolan to put all the pieces together. 

Jin looks down, his face noticeably sad, and Lee Chaolan feels a pity for the kid. Kazuya is a greedy bastard, always, and in this he’s robbed his own son of his relationship with his mother. He can see it on his face, that pain. But Jin turns away from him, and in those downcast eyes he sees Kazuya’s surliness and knows the man doesn’t want to talk about it. He tables it for something to discuss later.

"She said... they were going to rebuild her home in Yakushima. They." Jin’s eyes close, and Chaolan’s fist clenches. He will talk to Kazuya about it, though he doubts it will do much good. Kazuya, as always, will do what he wills. "And I think she offered me the chance to come home at any time, but—I didn’t hear much after they."

"I see." He changes the topic, not wanting Jin to dwell on it too long. "…Do you want to come with us to see…them?"

He offers, though he can’t imagine that Jin will take him up on it. Jin stares at him for a long moment before shaking his head slowly. "I can't. Not yet. Not with him."

"Okay." He taps his desk. "That's fine."

"Give my regards to Mother if... she's there." He closes his eyes; Jin expects she will be, he can tell, and it wounds him to imagine going without seeing his mother. "Tell her I'm sorry I... can't, just yet."

"Jin, I did not know your mother as well as ...some others did. But I do know that woman is stubborn. She loves you and she'll get through to you. With or without your father. He couldn't stop her if he wanted to."

Jin gives him a little half-smile that reminds Chaolan of the elder Kazama; nothing of Kazuya in that. "Yeah, well. Is that all?" Jin asks. He nods.

"Me and Lars are going to go, so you'll be in charge while we're in Japan." And if we don't come back.

"...Lars? He invited Lars?" 

"I invited Lars. I don't think it's a trap, but with your father..." He sighs. "Well. Just in case. I think two of us can keep him held down if we need to, with things being more...even, thanks to you. You just...keep things going here, alright?" You're our only help if we don't come back.

"Got it," Jin says, responsibility falling onto his shoulders like it’s his damn birthright, and Jin looks so much like his father did in those long-ago days that Lee Chaolan has to look away.

"Plane leaves at 20:00 next Thursday if you change your mind."

They shake hands, but Chaolan knows his nephew won’t change his mind, and true enough, he did not.

The flight is... awkward. 

Neither of them talks much, both clearly anxious, Chaolan suspects. 

“What do you think this is about?” Lars finally asks once they are well into the flight. Chaolan stares out the window, wondering where, exactly, they are. Some nameless space—could be Europe, could be Asia. Somewhere in between, perhaps.

"Our brother? It could be anything. Family business is...concerning. He doesn't tend to ah, view the family in a positive light.”

"Understatement. He called me a sick joke when I met him, you know." Lars folds his arms, though he doubts the man took much offense to it. Lars didn’t grow up with Kazuya; he doesn’t have the emotional damage needed for Kazuya to truly hurt him.

Chaolan smiles to himself; the more things change, the more they stay the same. "If it helps, it's a recycled insult. He told me the same. Frequently."

"Then I guess at least it's good company. Let me ask frankly: You think there's any chance this is a trap? Some way for him to get back on top again?"

Chaolan shakes his head. “Can't ever rule it out, but unlikely. Kazuya...” He sighs. “It’s not his style. If he wanted to take us out, he’d just start creating conflict again. This is...” He raises a hand. “More likely a peaceful meeting. Violence is never at a zero chance of occurring with him, but…”

“But what could we possibly have to talk about?”

“My guess? Something to do with Kazama. One of the Kazamas, at least. He might just want to know how Jin is doing.” He smirks. “Maybe Jin hit his head so hard he actually developed some paternal feelings for him.”

“I don’t think he had a lot of that to inherit from our father,” Lars spits, with just a hint of bitterness. Chaolan nods toward him. Lars had dodged a bullet not growing up in that hell of a household, but it’s hard to tell Lars he was luckier to be abandoned, that the old man’s apathy was far better to hold than his attention. Still, Chaolan shakes his head. Heihachi is dead. Best to just move past it, perhaps. All they can do, now.

“Yes, I would agree,” Chaolan finally says, his thoughts a million miles and twenty years away from Lars' own. The plane continues, and Chaolan watches as they pass over more land—not Japan, not yet. No water. Perhaps China? Impossible to say. There is a lot of smoke, a lot of rubble. His stomach turns. He is going to spend the rest of his life cleaning up this mess, isn’t he?

“How do you want to play this?” Lars asks a moment later. “We go in together?”

Lee Chaolan shakes his head. “No. You go to town. Wait a day.” He grimaces. “You’re the rescue plan.”

“And you’re the princess, got it.”

“Of course.” He laughs humorlessly and gently taps the rose in his lapel. “Aren’t I always the pretty one?”

“I dunno, Jin might be gunning for you on that one.” Chaolan sighs and shakes his head.

“Ah, to lose to the broody ones two generations in a row... such is my life.” A smirk graces his face. “Though for making Heihachi's genetics somewhat palatable, I suppose you also deserve consideration…”

“Hahaha,” Lars shakes his head. “Thank my mother. She was the real looker.”

"He always did like the prettiest ones," Chaolan mutters, frowning as he looks out the window. That is Japan now, unmistakable. They are getting closer. He can almost identify where Tokyo is, and it makes his heart ache a bit. Chaolan could go home now if he wanted to, but he doesn't think he ever will—not again.

"So, Kazama's mom... how's she change this op?" Lars asks. Chaolan thinks it’s almost funny that Lars is the son Heihachi ignored; the man is a true soldier. Fortunate, perhaps, in this world that has a greater need for soldiers than any other. And fortunate, perhaps, in that concentrating on the operation they’re conducting is at least keeping Chaolan’s thoughts to focused on less maudlin places than his own childhood.

"Well," he says delicately, "she's... strong." It's the closest thing to a neutral description of her he can think of.

"You don't like her," Lars observes with a smirk, and Chaolan grimaces.

"It's not that." But it was kind of that. Chaolan has never much liked Kazama, a combination of Kazuya's worst traits: her weird supernatural sense of staring straight through your soul, her ever-famous ability to investigate by single-mindedly tearing into every goddamn report he's ever filed, and her constant and near-oppressive goody-goody aura. "She's..." he sighs. "Different. Like him."

"Jin?" Lars asks.

Lee Chaolan shakes his head. "Oni-san. They're both very... insular. They'd have entire days in the mansion where they'd be next to one another for hours and not say a damn word. Out loud, anyway. She'll come across a little bit more normal, but she's every bit as supernatural as he is. Or was, I suppose."

"Jeez," Lars mutters, shaking his head.

"I only knew they were a couple because my brother doesn't tolerate anyone getting too close to him if, you know, he doesn't want them to. Even then, I wasn't sure until she took his hand one day and he didn't startle at the contact. Then I knew. But truth be told, I have no idea how that started.”

“God knows what she sees in him,” Lars says, and Chaolan snorts. True enough.

“She... generally makes him a little less likely to kill everyone around him."

"How lucky for us."

He nods. "She communicates better. She can be a Kazuya translator, sometimes. She is, genuinely, a good person. An annoyingly good person. When she gets the hint of something she doesn't approve of, she'll chase it to the ends of the earth, and she will fix it. She's terrifying." A soft laugh escapes him. "I suppose you see why they were attracted to one another."

Lars smiles. "Love is a funny thing."

"I can't say, in truth, that I know," he replies, looking away. He envies his brother in a way; Lars doesn't have the trouble with intimacy that Kazuya and Chaolan do. There are times he feels jealous of Kazuya, too; for all the man's callousness, he still has a person at his side, who has loved him, evidently, for the last twenty years, without a single word of comfort or love to her in all that time. It’s not the sort of love he can understand.

The truth is: Jin's mother scares Lee Chaolan a bit. In many ways. 

And sometimes, he wonders if she scares Kazuya, too.

"I think she'll generally be more on our side than not, but she won't let us hurt him. If he starts to attack, she'll make sure he's safe. Even if it means..." Chaolan trails off, and Lars nods toward him.

"So, stay on her good side, then? Right now, I'd assume she's the bigger threat if she's got her powers and he doesn't."

"I don't think you can ever count out Kazuya. Demon or no. But truth is..." Lee Chaolan shrugs his shoulders. "I don't think I ever knew him without it. Even when we were kids..." He pauses, his thoughts drifting back to those strange nights as children — the times he'd gone into Kazuya's room, only to find it empty. Where'd you go? he'd ask, and Kazuya would always be a smart-ass about it: Kyoto. Osaka. Nara. Hokkaido. All places impossible for a small child to go on foot. Only after seeing those demon wings had Chaolan wondered if Kazuya had been telling the truth.

But back then, Chaolan had thought he was lying, and he'd protest. Tell me where you really went! Why don't you take me with you? And Kazuya had just... stopped talking to him. As a child, he'd taken it as proof that his brother was just being a dick. But now, as an adult, he wonders for the first time how it must have felt for Kazuya, to have this little kid brother he'd never wanted, who never believed a word he said, and to have a secret he could never tell. He winces. He doesn't like thinking about their childhood.

"You okay?" Lars asks, reaching out. Chaolan startles, as he always does when touched unexpectedly — a loving relic of Heihachi's "care."

"Just thinking about our childhood." He can't quite look Lars in the eye. They are over a smaller island now, and he knows they are close. The plane dips into its final descent; he sighs. "It wasn't a happy one, is all."

"...I'm sorry," Lars says, his voice quiet, almost uncertain. He doesn't add anything else. What can he say? Heihachi had abandoned him even faster than he'd disinherited his two eldest sons.

"Well, we wouldn't be Heihachi's sons if we had happy childhoods," Chaolan replies, attempting to inject a bit of humor to lighten the mood. He manages to coax a small smile from Lars, but nothing more.

The plane skids down onto the runway, mercifully cutting the conversation short. For the next few minutes, Lee Chaolan concentrates on maintaining his composure through the landing.

"We've reached the destination," the Yggdrasil pilot announces from the front.

"Marvelous," Chaolan says, not feeling particularly marvelous about it at all. He glances outside; they're the only plane on the tarmac.

"Did Oni-san give coordinates?" Lars asks.

"No." Lee Chaolan shakes his head. He's been wondering about that himself. Then, he catches sight of a small white bird fluttering around the windows, almost as if it’s trying to peer inside. He frowns, an uneasy feeling settling in his stomach. "...I suppose he'll send someone along."

"Hm?" Lars looks outside, squinting. "I don't see anything. Just a bird."

"Just a feeling, Lars, but I think it's her instead of him." A beat. "Which is going to ruin our plans, because if it is... She'll already know you're here."

Lars smirks. "Don't worry. I think fast on my feet."

Chaolan manages a smile at that, but it's quickly wiped from his face when he turns to open the door and sees someone already waiting at the top of the steps. He catches Lars doing a double take behind him and can't help but smirk, even as his nerves spike.

"Jun Kazama," he says loudly, spreading his hands—the old Chaolan secret technique: if you can't change inopportune facts, at least put on a song and dance to distract everybody. "I have to admit, I am surprised to see you."

"I am not surprised to see you." Twenty years, and she hasn't changed at all; no sense of humor, just staring directly through his soul. He grimaces. Then, as if she knows how horrible he feels, she turns and smiles.

"But I am pleased." She bows. "You have done well for yourself, Chaolan. You should be proud."

"I, erm..." Why does this woman instantly make him feel like a lost twenty-something? She gently flicks at his nose, a curious gesture, then laughs.

"How far you have come. I'm glad you were able to make your dreams come true." She turns then and moves onto Lars, smiling at him. Chaolan tries to pick up the pieces. What is it about Kazama that renders one completely speechless? He doesn't understand the woman.

"This is Jun," Chaolan says, stumbling through the introduction.

"Jin's mom, right." Lars seems less thrown. "Heard a lot about you. I'm—"

“Lars.” She squeezes Lars’s hand, and Chaolan watches as his eyes widen in shock.

“How did you—?”

“Kazuya mentioned he had a half-brother a little older than Jin.” Chaolan is surprised that Kazuya had said anything about Lars at all. “And your hair, sir, grows upwards.”

“Quite right.” Lars laughs, shaking her hand, and Lee Chaolan wonders if it is somehow genetic, this easy bond between Kazamas and Mishimas. “And you're our oni-san's… girl, yes?”

“Something like that.” She brushes her hair away from her face, glancing aside. It seems she doesn’t care for the nickname, though it is a clever pun: both "demon" and "big brother" in one. She looks back at Chaolan, giving him a smile that feels almost eerie, as if she’s read his thoughts.

“How is Jin?” she asks.

“He's doing okay. Sends his regards and his apologies.” She nods and folds her arms around herself. Chaolan notes she has the decency to look a bit ashamed about it. Then her hand drifts lower, holding her belly, and she looks away.

“I had hoped—” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter.” She squares her shoulders and sighs. “He will come in his time.”

“You can go to him,” Chaolan offers. “I'll pay the airfare. Anytime.”

“When he wants that...” She smiles faintly at him. “I will take you up on it.” Her brow furrows with worry, and Lee Chaolan makes a mental note to tell Jin that if he wants his mother to come, he’ll make sure she comes. Alone.

“How is...?” He struggles with the name; Kazuya hasn’t crossed his mind in anything but a hostile way for a long time.

She nods at him. “He is himself.”

And doesn’t that just say everything? As if Chaolan even knows who “himself” is anymore. As if he ever knew who Kazuya, himself, truly was.

She closes the distance between them in a few steps and grabs his hand; he startles and pulls back. She doesn’t seem offended. He supposes she’s used to this with Kazuya. “What I mean is... he is how you remember him. He’s learning to live a... normal life, but he’s every bit as stubborn and exacting as the brother you once knew well.” Her smile is soft; yes, Chaolan thinks, Jun Kazama can evidently love that man without a single word or caress to sustain her for two decades.

“I have always loved him,” she whispers, her voice almost inaudible. “Don’t think me some fool ignorant of his nature. I know what he is.”

“That is not the part I question,” he replies. “It is more that Jin—”

“Jin…” She sighs. “Has built an extensive support network. Kazuya... has not. And I think you know he will not. I am the entirety of it, present company perhaps excepted.” She smiles, but there is a sadness to it. “Speaking of, we should go. If we're not there soon, he'll come looking for us. He’s a worrier, you know.”

“Oh, trust me, I remember.” Lee Chaolan feels a strange mixture of relief and dread; he’s eager to get this over with. Stepping out into the sunlight, he instantly feels a little better. He doesn’t like being with Kazama in the shadows. He hurries down the steps, wanting to put some distance between himself and Kazama. She follows quickly behind him, and Lars trails behind her.

"I'm glad he doesn't expect it, at least." He winces, trying to change the subject. He regrets bringing it up now; an unfortunate slip. "Kazuya's pretty unbearable when he decides he wants something that he can't have."

"Yes," she says, smiling softly. "I remember."

"How have you two been getting along out here?" Lars asks. Chaolan feels grateful for Lars steering the conversation away from the past.

"We're alright," Jun replies, still smiling. "Rebuilding my... our home has kept us busy. His recovery, too. My..." Her voice trails off. "Well. It has taken me longer than I'd like to get used to this world. It's changed a lot in the last seven years."

"It has," Chaolan agrees quietly. "I had wondered what happened to you, Kazama. I think everyone did."

"I fell into a coma," she states sharply, and he senses she doesn't want to delve into it. "It took the two people I love most in this world fighting nearly to the death for me to wake up." She stops in the middle of the street, looking down. Her hand drifts to her midsection again. She’s been doing that a lot, and it’s not a mannerism that he’s ever remembered her having. He can't help but think of the worst possibility: Did Kazuya get her pregnant again? He doesn't want to be the one to tell Jin that. Maybe it’s just an old habit from her previous pregnancy that hasn’t left her. For twenty-two years. His mouth flattens into a line. That seems unlikely.

"I wish it hadn't come to that," she says. "I wish I could have stopped them from fighting sooner. So much of the pain in this world..." She swallows hard and then continues, picking up her pace. "I can't help but feel the weight of it on my shoulders."

Lars glances at him, and Chaolan reads it as a warning not to say anything. He wouldn’t, but he’s frustrated. It isn’t Jun’s fault, what Kazuya and Jin have done. It’s theirs alone.

"It's not your fault," Lars says, placing a hand on Kazama's shoulder. She doesn’t flinch, just turns to him and smiles. "It was going to happen. Too many Mishimas in this world, I guess." He offers a sheepish grin, clearly searching for something reassuring to say, but there isn’t anything comforting about the endless strife Jin and Kazuya had caused.

Jun’s reaction is revealing. She pales at Lars' words, her face slackening, and Chaolan’s suspicions feel confirmed in just that one look of horror. She’d have no reason to react like that, not unless she thought there would be another Mishima in this world. She must be pregnant. Kazuya, you absolute son of a bitch. The woman has barely been out of a coma! How far along, Lee Chaolan wonders. If it's closer to three months than one, he might just be tempted to attempt to murder Kazuya himself.

And now he realizes what this meeting is likely about. If Kazama is pregnant, then Kazuya will want her looked after. He'll be worried. Neither of them has proper identification anymore. Kazuya’s stateless status cuts both ways: he holds no allegiance to any nation, but also no one owes him any protection. No ID cards, no job, no insurance—no access to doctors.

And Kazama, at 44 and just out of a coma, is facing what must be a challenging pregnancy.

"I don't think you all need to fight," she murmurs, her cheeks flushing. "I don't think it's inevitable at all."

Chaolan can’t help but feel a surge of exasperation. “Kazama,” he begins gently, trying to dispel this argument before it begins. “You know as well as I do that Mishimas have always been… inclined towards conflict.”

She looks at him, her gaze steady. "But I believe we can change our family."

He wants to believe her, but the doubt lingers. This family has been bound by struggle for too long, and change—even if possible—will not come easily.

"We were raised that way," Chaolan says carefully, trying to soothe her. "It's as much nurture as nature. You know that. Kazuya and I... we got a full blast of that. Jin less so, but some. Lars not at all. It might be hard for him to understand."

He gives Lars a pleading look. Lars looks back at him, puzzled, but nods. The younger brother trusts him, at least, which is good because the older brother certainly never would.

"It will be peaceful from now on," Jun declares firmly, and Chaolan wonders if she's trying to convince herself or them—or both. Probably both. Her hand moves upward, but she stops herself from touching her stomach again. "We will all live in peace. Maybe an uneasy one, but the world is hurt enough. This family doesn't have to bring any more misery to it."

"I understand," Lars says, his voice a little rough, and Chaolan swallows, realizing all at once that Lars has taken Jun’s statement a far different way than she intended. "I don't want to do what they did, don't worry. I like fighting, but I prefer less high-stakes than...Well, then the end of the world." He trails off, offering a small, shaky smile. Chaolan wonders how often Lars has had to justify himself like that.

"...I'm sorry," Jun says softly. "It's not you I was thinking of, Mr. Alexandersson. I'm sure you're lovely." A soft Kazama smile—Jin inherited that, thankfully. Kazuya never did have a good smile. "It just weighs on me, what he did."

But not enough to stop having his child, Chaolan thinks. Twice.

"It's not your fault," Lars says again, reaching out a hand. She squeezes it.

"I agree," Chaolan adds, and she nods, smiling at him. They walk a few more minutes in silence, and he looks around the town, still in the process of rebuilding, but not as destroyed as he'd feared. Kazuya, do you walk these streets? Do you feel guilty about it at all?

He'd bet the answer is no.

They reach the end of the town road, and Jun turns back to them. "Mr. Alexandersson, why don't you come with us? Just let me run ahead a bit when we get there to tell him you're here." She smiles and reaches out a hand toward Lars; she really does seem to like him. "It seems a shame to keep the family apart longer than we have to."

"You sure your, uh, man, will be alright with that?" Lars asks skeptically. Chaolan agrees with him. Kazuya tends to react aggressively—extremely aggressively—to any unexpected deviation in his plans.

"He's having a good day, and you are kind to me. I think you will be kind to him, too. And I think it would do him good to see people who are kind to him. Especially people who are... family." Still a bit of a Mishima fatalist then, Chaolan notes. She smiles at them both, as if to dispel their doubts, but it doesn’t work in Chaolan’s case; he knows Kazuya’s gloom all too well. "We'll warn him, but he has to get used to these things. And I am allowed to have company, too." She looks at Chaolan with an impish grin, a hint of the old Inspector Kazama he remembers. "He has to learn to deal with it."

"Okay..." Lars says, but Chaolan can tell he doesn’t quite believe her. "But I'll meet you back here if oni-san isn't, uh... receptive."

"I'll walk you back myself," she assures him. It's settled, he supposes. But now he's almost disappointed Lars is coming along; he would have liked to ask Kazama a bit about her pregnancy, and he doesn’t particularly want to share it with Lars—not yet. Not on the off chance he’s wrong, or things wouldn’t work out, or that Kazama hasn’t told... Jin.

They walk up the path with minimal conversation, mostly about the nature they pass. He has to admit, it’s beautiful. He can understand if it soothes a bit of Kazuya's soul, if Kazuya has any soul left at all.

He has to hope he does, now. He sighs. Kazuya is becoming his problem. Over and over and over again.

Guess that's family, huh? He laughs, then realizes two heads have swiveled toward him. Jun looks irritated; Lars, just puzzled.

"Pardon, pardon," he says, holding his hands out. "I haven't seen him in a while. The tension is just..."

"I see," Kazama says, knowing he’s lying a little. And she doesn't much like it.

They walk on in silence the rest of the way.

And he begins to think maybe Jin didn’t get his moodiness from just his father.

He frowns, his anxiety mounting as they climb the steep hill. It takes ages, and only Kazama seems unbothered. He tries to imagine growing up here, not in Tokyo—but he can’t. Then, abruptly, they're out of the tree line, in a small clearing with a little house that is smaller than even the smallest building on the Mishima estate.

It must drive you crazy, he thinks. Kazuya never liked small spaces, he remembers.

"Stay here, Mr. Alexandersson, if you would, for a minute," Jun murmurs. Lars nods and leans against a tree, turning his head. For half a second, Chaolan sees someone else and sucks in a breath. He walks a little faster until they’re well out of Lars’ earshot and tries very hard not to think of Heihachi.

"He will be happy to see you," she says under her breath. It distracts him from his own trauma, and he laughs lightly.

"Oh, he's never happy to see me." He grabs her hand, and she stops, looking at him with a frown. "Forgive me, Miss Kazama, but can we have a private moment, just the two of us?"

She stops walking and nods, but there is a wariness in it that he recognizes in her from her son’s reaction. He smiles at her; if Kazuya is watching from the windows, he doesn’t want his brother to see Lee Chaolan as a threat. "Are you alright with him? Happy? He hasn't... forced you to...?"

A quick nod. "I have always wanted this, with him. It is later than I wanted, but..." She gives him a little grin. "I still want it. I love him, Chaolan."

"I know." He squeezes her hands. "Forgive me for being so direct, but I don’t think we have a lot of time before Kazuya comes swaggering out, so... first, I never got a chance to welcome you to the family back then. I’ll say it now. Welcome.”

A political answer meant to reduce her suspicion; it works. She smiles and murmurs a thank you to him. Now he chases it with an uppercut. Proverbially.

“And also, perhaps I am mistaken, but… Am I right in thinking you’re… expecting?"

She drops her hand from his. "How did you...?" She frowns.

He smiles. "I may not be psychic, Miss Kazama, but I grew up with him. I'm observant."

She looks at him for a long moment before stiffly nodding. She takes a step back, afraid. "I won't hurt you," he mutters. "Or the baby. I've been an unwanted mutt all my life, Kazama. It's not my business to hate children for their father's actions. But I want to know if you... want it, or...?"

"I do," she says. "I chose this. I am not a victim in this story. Do not paint it that way."

"I'll assume a full sibling for Jin, then," he says, and she gives him a dirty look, as if to say who else? He smiles sadly. Almost anyone else would have been—

"Don't finish that thought," she murmurs. "Don't. I know he is a difficult man. But he is my man. And... yes. Same father."

"...I see. Do you want me to tell Jin...?" He really hopes the answer is no, and to his relief, she shakes her head.

"I would rather tell him myself. If you could ask him to visit at some point..." She smiles, and he nods, and that is as far as they get, because the front door slams.

And then, well, there he is. Kazuya Mishima himself.

Chapter Text

Chaolan would know Kazuya anywhere: he always has the same oppressive aura, demon or no. Nothing about that part of him has changed, even if plenty else about him has. No glowing eye anymore, but the same disdainful and distrusting glare. The same long scar slashed across his cheeks, now added to by a faint scar that starts above his formerly demonic eye and cuts all the way down to the gash beneath his cheeks. The familiar bobtail is gone, replaced with long, straight hair that is long enough to droop, cresting at his shoulders—that is a shock; he'd never seen him with normal hair—but the familiar upward drift is still there when he looks at the shorter hairs near Kazuya’s sideburns. Still growing upwards, it seems.

He supposes after a few months out here in the boonies with Kazama...Well. He supposes the man might have relaxed a bit, let him let his proverbial hair down. A bit.

Though its hard to see any relaxation in his posture. He's still painfully stiff, almost military-grade straight. Kazuya folds his arms. He looks at Chaolan. The look isn’t that much different than when they were kids, and for half a second he feels the ghost of Heihachi’s palm on his shoulder, telling Kazuya how he had a new brother…

Chaolan shakes off his ghosts and glares back. He isn't afraid of Kazuya, nor Heihachi. Not anymore.

"Chaolan," Kazuya says, not sounding happy to see him. He turns his head toward Jun, and Chaolan catches a bit of their usual bizarre, wordless conversational antics: a nod of her head, a raise of his eyebrows, a long shared stare. A final nod on his part. Kazuya steps forward and to the side, then frowns deeper.

"You brought Alexandersson?" he booms, loud enough that Lars certainly hears it.

“Hello," Lars says, waving from the tree. He takes a step forward and then abruptly stops as Kazuya shifts stances, going into the Mishima-style base kata.  

"Kazuya—" Jun says softly. "He's a friend."

"He's not my friend." Kazuya shoots her a sharp glance. "Nor yours."

"He is our son's friend. Your half-brother." Kazuya tightens his fist and Jun places a hand on Kazuya's arm, and he looks at her; more of their wordless communication flickers between them. Chaolan supposes it’s a good thing Kazuya hasn't lost that—who knows how he'd communicate with another human being if he didn't have... whatever that is.

Jun smiles and grabs his hand, as if he isn't Kazuya fucking Mishima but just some... normal man. She squeezes it tightly. "He is kind. He means you no ill-will. He wanted to see you."

A very long beat of silence follows her remark; he doesn’t drop his stance, nor does he tell Lars to advance. After what feels like centuries but is surely only a few moments, Kazuya finally nods, giving up the stalemate. "...Fine." Jun smiles, a small victory won, and claps her hands gently. It’s almost comical, though Kazuya doesn’t look amused. But she stands a little closer to him, and he doesn’t startle or move away—miracle enough on its own.

"You hear that, Lars? You’ve been invited to the Mishima brothers' reunion!" Chaolan can’t resist the jab, then catches a familiar coldness sweeping through him as Kazuya’s head swivels toward him. "Shall I order some catering?"

Kazuya just stares, his frown deepening. As usual, he finds a way to take offense.

"…You need a bodyguard to meet with me now?" Kazuya asks roughly. Chaolan raises his eyebrows.

"…You need to hide behind a translator to talk to me now? There was a time you didn’t send Kazama to do your emotional dirty work for you."

Both Kazuya and Jun glare at him now. Jun Kazama steps even closer to Kazuya, and he wraps a protective arm around her waist. Chaolan wonders if Kazuya knows. He’s pretty sure he does. Kazuya looks at Lars, and the grip on Jun tightens.

Oh, yes. He knows.

Chaolan smiles at him, undaunted, knowing it will annoy the piss out of Kazuya. It does. Kazuya’s frown remains, so firmly in place it might as well have been carved into his face. Evidently, being lucky enough to have the love of a beautiful, kind woman, being spared his life, and being a father to an incoming, evidently wanted child wasn’t enough to make the man any happier.

"If the young one tries anything—" Chaolan bites his tongue, wanting to argue: since when is Lars a bigger threat than me? I know where to hit you where it hurts. But even he knew, peevish though he is at the slight, that such commentary wouldn’t lead anywhere productive.

"Lars? He won't," Kazama says softly. "And even if he did, do you not think I'm strong enough to handle him?" A soft breeze blows through the valley they’re all standing in, but Kazuya's frown only deepens further. He stares at Kazama, entrenching himself further in their near-wordless argument.

Kazama stares back.

Chaolan glances back at Lars, raising his eyebrows. Lars nods and does the same in return, their own bit of wordless communication. Chaolan wonders if Lars is thinking it’s a miracle Jin has any communication skills at all.

A blink from Kazuya.

"I've handled a lot of lightning in my day," Kazama says quietly, and Chaolan wishes his hearing weren't so sharp, because that was something he could have lived without knowing. "He can't hurt me. And even if he tried, you would make sure his attempt would be very short indeed."

"True." Another endlessly long pause. Chaolan is starting to wish he'd brought a book. Lars begins walking toward them slowly; he’s waiting to be told no, Chaolan suspects.

Finally, Kazuya jerks his head toward him. "A minute alone, Chaolan." He jerks his head toward the door. He jabs a finger toward Kazama, more threatening than doting. "And you will—"

"I will yell if there is trouble, but there won't be. I'm going to show Lars around the place. Show him our handiwork." A soft smile appears on Kazama's face; Chaolan still can’t fathom what she sees in Kazuya or how she can take his austere orders as terms of endearment.

"Sounds nice," Lars says, remarkably easygoing here. He smiles softly. "I'll pass along what you tell me to Jin. Is it alright to take pictures in case he wants to see…?" A nice thought, Chaolan muses. Maybe Lars is the son who finally took after the old man after all. Certainly none of Heihachi's cagey charm had found its way into Kazuya.

Jun claps her hands, visibly delighted by Lars' idea. "Of course!" She grabs Lars' arm and pulls him along, nattering about some chicken coops as she walked off. Kazuya watches them go; a frown still on his face.

"He won't hurt her," Chaolan murmurs. Kazuya says nothing. He waits. It’s the part of Kazuya that’s always hardest to remember: the glacial pauses, followed by the most devastating violence in quick succession. He always remembers those cold eyes of the storm exist, but never how damnably long they are.

"He won't seduce her either, if that's what you're worried about. I don't think you have to worry about her. If she took you back now..." Chaolan laughs. "She won't ever leave you."

"Mmm." A glare. "I trust her."

"A miracle, that."

An incredibly slow, glacial nod. And then... nothing. Chaolan really should have brought that book. At this rate, they'll be staring at each other overnight, and he really didn’t want that. "Kazuya..."

"...Is that one the only lackey you brought?" Kazuya asks, his voice tense, his eyes still locked on Jun and Lars.

"Yes. I did ask your son if he wanted to come. He... declined. So yes. Just Lars."

A slow, poisonous smile spreads across Kazuya’s face. "I suppose I'm impressed you think it still takes two of you to win against me now."

"Maybe I just didn't want to break a sweat.” He smirks, and Kazuya scoffs in return. Nothing new, this; they’ve traded blows like that since Chaolan was four years old. “The fight might be more even between us now... But I've underestimated you to my peril often enough. I don’t take chances anymore."

Kazuya doesn’t say anything in response, just nodding and absorbing the words. It’s strange, Chaolan thinks. Their rivalry is old, yet jarring in its familiarity. It feels natural, despite them not seeing one another outside of a tournament for more than two decades at this point.

For twenty years, Chaolan convinced himself they weren’t brothers. Not really.

And yet, here they are.

"It was never very even." A long beat. "He didn't want it to be."

Chaolan wonders if, perhaps, Kazuya finally feels a little guilty for his part in that. After all, Chaolan hadn't asked to be adopted any more than Kazuya had asked for a little brother.

And yet the man had beaten him bloody at their father's command often enough.

"No," Chaolan says, then laughs a little to himself.. "Isn't it funny how he fucked all of us up just a bit differently from the last? You have to admire the man's capacity for cruelty." The present tense slips out of his mouth unbidden, and Kazuya notices, but he isn't much amused by it.

"Had. He's dead," Kazuya states plainly. Chaolan looks at him carefully. No regrets. Not a one. "I watched him die, this time."

"I know," Chaolan replies. "I watched you. Good job." He gives a sarcastic thumbs up, but truth be told, he had been happier to see Kazuya win. There’s still a bit of loyalty between them, at least when it comes to that man. Kazuya was always the... more predictable opponent, let’s say. And therefore the far more preferable opponent. "Did it feel better the second time?"

"...No. Worse." He waits for more information; Kazuya offers none.

"Losing the novelty, I expect," Chaolan says and sighs.

"...That wasn't it."

He waits for further detail, and, again, Kazuya stonewalls him, offering nothing but his presence n response. He sighs. The only way to get more out of Kazuya is to bait him, but this particular tiger is just as liable to bite as it is to roar when its tail gets pulled.

"What was it, then? Did you find your conscience under the floorboards at G Corp? Floating above a rogue volcano?" The banter comes easily, but Chaolan finds himself wondering why he is even bothering. Kazuya isn't someone you can buddy up to. He tried to embrace him and pull him away from his path when they were both much younger, but Kazuya remained undeterred, as he always has been.

I’m going to rule the world one day, Lee. Kazuya had told him that before his damn balls had even dropped, and he had accomplished it. Men like that didn’t back down.

But here he is. Backed down. At peace. Bizarre.

"Have you ever known me to have a conscience?" Kazuya retorts, jerking his head toward the door. "Come."

"Okay." Chaolan frowns. "But you didn't answer—"

Kazuya pauses halfway up the stairs to his new home. "I...realized that with him gone, my priorities shifted." He gives Chaolan a long look. Chaolan nods; he doesn’t need to hear more. With Heihachi gone, the field was winnowed. There was only one Mishima left to fight. Or one team of them, at least.

But only one of them really ever stood a chance of defeating him. Lee Chaolan is a vain man, but not quite vain enough to believe that it is him.

"...And those priorities have shifted again now, I assume?" he asks, keeping his questioning political, not personal.

Kazuya gives a brief nod. A political answer. For Kazuya, anyway. It speaks volumes, somehow.

"Are you happy here?" he asks as Kazuya walks into the room. It’s a small, humble space, this house; a simple couch, a straightforward doorway, a basic fireplace. The combined kitchen, dining area and living room is as middle class and mediocre as the man himself never is. "This isn't your style."

"It's what she likes," Kazuya replies, still staring out the window at Lars and Jun. "And I don't care. A chair is a chair. A stove is a stove."

Chaolan nods slowly. He looks between the table and the couch and opts to sit at the table. It feels simpler, feels a lot less intimate. More business-like. Business is easier for him to deal with when it comes to Kazuya than the emotional undercurrents of their relationship. Kazuya refuses to sit at all. He watches Jun walk and talk with Lars, leaning against the window, and Lee can hear a bit of their conversation; the flow of easy chatter, at least, if not the words.

"You love her," he says softly, trying to move this along. "I can see that." Kazuya’s hand tightens on the curtain, and he says nothing. Chaolan shifts gears, prodding the tiger to try to get him to the business at hand. "More than I would have thought, given your absence from her life."

Kazuya’s hand tightens again, and he glares at Chaolan.

"She loves me," he replies stiffly. "More than I would have thought, given my absence from her life."

"You are truly fortunate," Chaolan says, his voice taking on a harder edge now. "You don't deserve her. You never deserved her.”

“No," Kazuya says quietly. "I know."

They sit in silence for a long moment; it's more humility than Chaolan would have expected from the man, and he's honestly a little thrown off by it. He wonders if it’s time to bring up Jin yet; it doesn’t feel like it. He needs to get Kazuya to the table before Kazuya can storm away from it.

"Why am I here, Kazuya?" Chaolan asks. Kazuya says nothing, continuing to watch Jun, and Chaolan rolls his eyes. "I assume you didn't invite me here to watch you give Kazama senior puppy dog eyes?"

"There's nothing about me that's a puppy." Kazuya finally turns away from the window, glaring at him with all his tiger-born fury. "You know that."

Chaolan nods and holds out a hand, wordlessly asking the man to sit at his own kitchen table. Let them talk business. Business is familiar. Normal. The only working relationship they’ve had in he doesn’t even care to think of how many years.

Kazuya stalks over and stares at him. He doesn’t sit, leaning his foot against the door and folding his arms and staring at Chaolan like a particularly pissed off owl instead.

"Oh for fuck's sake, Kazuya," Chaolan snaps. "Are you still trying to judge if I'm trustworthy? Don't you think the fact that I am here alone to meet you is proof enough?"

"You are not alone—"           

"He's family. And if you behaved better, I would have come alone, but the fact is, you haven't given me much reason to trust you in the last two decades."

A long, quiet beat of silence; it’s familiar with Kazuya, and he’s starting to remember that, and he fills the silence, jabbing his finger toward Kazuya. "I take care of your son. I could have killed him in his sleep at any point in the last two years and sent you his head if I wanted to send you a message. I could have shot Jun Kazama at the airport if I really wanted to hurt you. I didn't. I'm here." A heavy silence hangs between them. "I'm your brother, Kazuya, if not by blood, then by—"

"Bond. Bondage in hell." A soft and completely Kazuya-like laugh escapes him, devoid of any hint of joy. "Yes, I know.” More silence. He lets it pass, staring at the man, and finally Kazuya moves a little closer to the table.

“How is...?" Kazuya asks, but he keeps his head turned away, avoiding eye contact.

"Kazama junior?"

A small—incredibly small—nod.

"He's... okay. A little mixed up. Feels guilty. Misses his mother."

"He can see her at any time."

"He knows you're here. And you two are... well, Mishimas. He won’t come here if you’re here. No more than you visited me at the estate when the old man was—"

"…It's different."

"...Is it?"

Kazuya snorts. “You know what he did to us. I didn’t touch a hair on Kazama Junior’s head until he became an adult."

Chaolan smiles at him; Kazuya’s defense isn’t exactly a strong one. "If that helps you sleep better at night..."

"I'd need a conscience for that trouble, now, wouldn't I?" Kazuya replies bitterly, turning away from Chaolan and back toward the window. Chaolan doesn’t have a comeback for that volley; he just looks at him and raises his eyebrows.

Kazuya gives him a long shrug of his shoulders. "The boy can come whenever he wants to. I can make myself scarce if it is my presence that keeps him away, and both you and he know that I am capable of that. Jin is choosing not to see his mother because of some sick martyr's complex he has and he is choosing to suffer. That is not my fault, nor is it within my means to fix it.”

"Yes, well, he certainly doesn't get that martyr’s complex from you." Kazuya nods, not looking bothered by the insinuation at all. Chaolan wishes once again that Kazuya could be an easier man to get along with.

"He did not," Kazuya admits. "But..." Kazuya gives him a strangely hesitant look; it’s odd, and it doesn’t suit Kazuya’s features well. "...Tell him he's welcome—"

"Tell him yourself."

"I can't. He blocked my number." Kazuya smirks. "Little shit."

"Are you surprised?" Chaolan shakes his head. "First, you taunted Jin that you'd kill him for two years, then when he spares your life, you pay him back by immediately fucking his mom? Moving in with her? After missing his entire childhood?"

An unmistakably Kazuya smirk in response. "He wouldn’t be here in the first place if I wasn’t, as you put it, fucking his mommy."

"Yes, but how would you feel if your mother had re-appeared in the first tournament and started pulling off your father's gi?"

Kazuya did pale a bit at that. "I suppose I would have to have attempted two murders instead of one."

"And yet the boy has let you live. With his mother. In his childhood home."

"Tsssch." Kazuya leans back in his chair. "Well... Kazama and I... are very different people."

"He is better than you," Chaolan states, and he means it to be devastating, but it misses the mark. Kazuya just shrugs. No, his brother hasn’t changed much at all. "But he is not that dissimilar from you. Truth be told, I see my old big brother in him a lot."

That hits harder. No answer comes in response, but Kazuya gives Chaolan a heavy glare, as if the mere thought the boy he gave half his DNA to could resemble him in such a way.

He stared at Kazuya for a long moment, then opted the push the knife in deeper, trying to get a stronger response.

"It must weigh on Jun heavily to have her son gone." Kazuya shoots a sharper glance upward at him; it’s Kazuya-ese for saying don’t. Chaolan just smiles, knowing it’ll push things to a head. "Her only son." Though how long that remains true is surely only a matter of months. Kazuya exhales heavily; Chaolan wonders if the man will mention her pregnancy.

"It does, but I warned her what the consequence of accepting my kiss would be. She went into our relationship willingly. Both times. I've never hidden a thing from her, Chaolan. She chose me. Whether or not you—or the boy—think I deserve it, I am the one she chose. And you should respect her choice in the matter."

Chaolan shakes his head. Kazuya's idea of honesty is... hm. Truth, but slant. He doubts Kazama knew about Kazuya's demonic appearance the first time she met him, and doubts more that Kazuya was all too willing to offer up much detail on how he treated Jin in Jun’s absence.

"It is too late, Chaolan," Kazuya mutters. "If you want me to leave her, that is... not happening. The boy can, frankly, stuff it if that is his requirement to see his mother. It is not a reasonable request."

"So kind you are as a father. So selfless."

A long shrug. "I am what I am. I have always been what I am. You both know that. The boy can see her at any time. Whenever he wants. He merely has to make the effort. If he does not..." Kazuya shrugs. "So be it."

"Kazuya..." Chaolan lets out a soft chuckle under his breath. "You are a selfish man. Pig-headed and selfish."

Kazuya’s fist slams into the table, and he startles a bit, and berates himself for showing that weakness. Thankfully, Kazuya's off on his own self-sanctimonious screed, and doesn't notice his flinching enough to berate him for the weakness of it.

"Why should I deny what makes me happy? What makes her happy? The boy will find his way. One way or another. Even if I were not fucking his mother—he is a 22-year-old man. He has long left the nest. He would not want to settle back down with his mother. If I were not in the picture, she would be living here, alone, feeling guilty for the state of the world. You know as well as I the boy inherited his moodiness from her as much as me. She’d mope about the state of the world and feel powerless to fix it, a woman uprooted from time. With me... she has comfort. She is happy. She would not be so happy without me."

His face softens a bit—it’s hard not to when he can hear the emotion in Kazuya’s voice—but he’s careful to keep the argument going, not admitting weakness.

"...Is your Kazama is alright with just...not seeing her son? Entirely because of you?" 

"My Kazama thinks he will come around. That the boy just needs time.  I think he will never come around, myself.” He doesn’t seem particularly bothered by that, and again Lee Chaolan wonders just what is going through that terrible mind. “But...Jun knows, as well. That he is an adult. And if he does not come around to having his father in his life in a ....few months, she will probably go to see him on her own, and they will be just fine."

"And you'll just putter around and be a house husband while your ...woman is away?" 

Kazuya only smirks in response.

Chaolan shakes his head. "You have not changed."

"No. I am what I am."

And that is the difficult part of this. It would be easier to pardon Kazuya if he didn't half-think the man would go right back to his old ways the second Jun Kazama leaves him alone for a day or two.

"I am retired, Chaolan," Kazuya says. "I am not a good man. I will never be a good man. But I am done with trying to bend the world to my will. I have done it." He shrugs. "It is over. You all may pick up the pieces or fight over the scraps. I don't care."

"Comforting," Chaolan mutters, though it isn’t really. It explains little of Kazuya’s sudden change of heart. Kazuya says nothing, simply staring at him. Chaolan notices the man keeps his head slightly pivoted to look at him—odd. Kazuya generally looked at him out of the corner of his eyes when he didn’t want to stare directly at him; now he adjusted his head to keep staring at him head-on.

"So... why am I here? I assume you didn't just want to talk about Jin."

"Didn't ask you here to talk about Jin at all. Just... showing an interest, is all." He can’t quite hide the wince he makes in reaction to that; all this talk, and they’re not even close to what the man wanted to talk about?

"You've never been a small talker, Kazuya. Please, just tell me why you had to haul me all the way across the Pacific." Chaolan stares at him, watching Kazuya's eyes as the man fidgets in his seat. Kazuya keeps watching him, but only the eye that hadn’t had the demonic glow remains focused.

Lee closes his eyes and waits, knowing Kazuya is very hesitant about whatever comes next. After a long moment, Kazuya reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small picture. A Polaroid? Chaolan blinks; he hasn’t seen one in ages. Kazuya slides it across the table toward him.

"This is why," Kazuya says, his voice rough.

"What is this?"

"What do you think it is?" Another of Kazuya's infuriating habits—answering a question with a question.

"A baby," Chaolan murmurs, staring at the Polaroid. "And I would have guessed it was Jin, given that it's on a Polaroid, but..." He narrows his eyes, allowing his well-practiced mask to slip just slightly, revealing the Mishima smile underneath. Kazuya isn’t rattled by it. "Well, you know... the way you were touching her stomach back there..."

"Hmph. You're observant," Kazuya says. "As always."

"Of course. So, a new bastard for you." No reaction. Again, Chaolan feels frustration bubbling up in his heart. That flatness, the unreadability—Kazuya has always been borderline impossible to figure out. He prides himself on being an expert at reading Kazuya’s body language, but even he barely knows what Kazuya is thinking most of the time.

"Congratulations," Chaolan adds, voice edged with sarcasm. Why is it whenever he’s in the room with Kazuya, he gets the uncontrollable urge to try to provoke the man? It’s no different than when they were young men, or even children.

But his attempt to provoke fails; there is no vitriol unleashed in return. Just Kazuya staring at him, as if Chaolan should perfectly understand what he wanted. Chaolan looks at him, exasperation clear on his face.

Kazuya frowns slightly, the only sign he’s even slightly peeved. "You don't seem particularly happy about it."

"Your last child almost destroyed the world because his feelings got hurt; no, Kazuya, I am not, as you put it, particularly happy about it."

"That won't happen again," Kazuya says, his voice both flat and resolute. Chaolan thinks it’s easy to say—he would have given bad odds on Kazuya coming back to reign hell on them in the first place, and yet, he had, and here they are, living out their days after the apocalypse.

"You know, looking at this..." Chaolan raises an eyebrow. "This baby is a little more than just an embryo."

"About four months," Kazuya responds, answering the unspoken question.

"Four months." Chaolan scoffs and leans back. He really had pretty much immediately gone from his final battle with Jin to fucking the woman, hadn't he? "Do you just not... know... about condoms? Did you just disassociate through that torturous lecture from Heihachi when we were teenagers?"

Chaolan wouldn’t have blamed him for that, truthfully. It had been absolutely agonizing.

Kazuya folds his arms, the same goddamn neutral glare on his face. There’s zero response, justification, or even insult. He hates his older brother sometimes, he really does.

"...Did she even wake up first?" Chaolan throws out, knowing it would get a rise out of him. It does. Kazuya slams his fist on the table again and looks up at him.

"She chose to do this with me," he spits. "Whatever you think about it."

"She just... she couldn't have been out of her coma long." No, not long at all. Kazuya never was one to waste time, he supposes, though he is surprised that this, of all things, is something his brother is putting his energy toward.

Kazuya hadn’t wanted children, or at least he hadn’t when they were younger. He’d been plenty vocal about it, insisting the Mishima dynasty would die with him.

"Do you think I took advantage of her?" Kazuya asks, a soft scoff escaping him. "Do you think she's capable of being taken advantage of?"

Chaolan looks away. Yes, he did think Kazuya capable. He's seen Kazuya murder people. It genuinely was not a nice sight and made worse by the fact Kazuya seemed not to care at all. He’d been on the ground with him in Hokkaido. While Kazuya had never raped anyone to Chaolan's knowledge, Chaolan had always assumed it was because the man simply had less inclination toward sex rather than any moral objection.

"She chose me. As the father. Regardless of your thoughts, no matter how many gears you turn in that self-sanctimonious head of yours.”

"So I see." Chaolan frowns. "You could have waited a bit, is what I’m saying."

"It had been twenty years. Neither of us wanted to wait. I didn’t particularly care in the moment if a child was born from it. The odds were low." Kazuya’s lip twitches—a subtle sign, but one Chaolan can still read.

"My god. You’re proud you knocked her up? I don’t see why. You’ve done it before."

"Any idiot in his twenties can knock a girl up. Far more impressive to do it at fifty." A slow smirk creeps across Kazuya’s face. Yes, he is proud. And yes, Chaolan finds it as infuriating as he ever did.

"You are quite old to be having your second child." A pause. Kazuya says nothing. "Jin’s twenty-two now."

"I cannot make the gap between them smaller. But it isn’t the largest gap in our family. Living family, even. Count the years between us and Lars. Surely you’ve done the math."

Chaolan winces. "Is Heihachi really the father you want to emulate?"

"No. But my point is, Lars is perfectly healthy, and this child is unlikely to suffer for the crime of my age." As if Kazuya’s age is the only factor where he could be judged as lacking in fatherly fitness, Chaolan thinks. The truth is, he’s pretty sure it’s not even one of the top ten reasons for concern, as far as Kazuya’s fitness in fatherhood is concerned.

"Lars' mother is only 45 today. Jun is 44. He had a much younger mother than your child will." Chaolan mentally subtracts Lars’ age from 25, and that is some rather agonizing math. But Kazuya seems unbothered by it. He shrugs.

“She is pregnant. It is what it is."

"So it is." A long pause. They stare at one another. Chaolan sighs. "Do you even want this child? Truly?"

Another shrug. "I didn’t care whether it was conceived or not. But I am... interested, at least. It is, at minimum, a novelty. I did not get to... enjoy fatherhood the first time around."

"...You didn't seem to," Chaolan says, watching the angry flicker in Kazuya’s eyes—there, and burning bright, but it vanishes within seconds. Still, Kazuya’s fingers tighten, a telltale sign he's holding back his anger. Chaolan is surprised, truthfully; he hadn’t thought Kazuya cared about Jin very much at all, beyond seeing him as a problem to be solved.

"Jun wants it very much," Kazuya mumbles, his eyes shifting away from Chaolan, glancing toward the window. "Do I have a natural inclination toward fatherhood? You know as well as I do that I do not. But if it makes her happy, then I will be what she needs me to be. The baby has given us... purpose. She always wanted a large family when we were younger. I cannot give her that anymore. But we can raise this one together. And she is very happy to be having this one. With me. She didn’t get to enjoy it the first time around either."

And Chaolan... did feel some sympathy for that. He knew Kazama hadn't been in a good situation the first time around. He'd gotten her onto her ferry back to Yakushima after they'd left the Mishima estate for the last time, fleeing in those first few panicked hours after Kazuya’s death, and she hadn't stopped crying the entire ride from the Mishima estate to the Taniyama port in Kagoshima. Chaolan hadn't known she was pregnant then. He wondered if Kazuya had known when he’d died, that first time; he didn’t think so.

"Damn," he mutters. "You better tell your son about this. I'm not breaking this to him."

"I didn’t expect you to. That’s not why I called."

"Then why did you...?" Kazuya is taking far too long to get to the point. It is atypical, odd behavior Chaolan can’t explain and in Kazuya, odd behavior tended to make Chaolan nervous. Kazuya was generally the type to at least say what he wanted and say it plainly. To avoid doing so like this? Endlessly suspicious. "This is the fourth time I've asked. I'd prefer you get to the point soon; I’d like to go home tonight."

"...Look closer at the picture.”

Chaolan looks at it again, frustrated. It seems normal enough to him, but he'd never had an interest in or a desire to know much about babies, let alone how to read a sonogram. He had never been a father. He had never wanted to be a father—Heihachi had destroyed any possible urge to create a family in him.

But evidently not for Kazuya. For all his constant talk about letting the bloodline die with him, Kazama had evidently been a good enough lay to change his long-held notions, somehow.

"It looks healthy enough." Chaolan glances back at Kazuya, noticing an odd expression on his face—an expression caught in some no man’s land between dread and pride. He frowns again, staring at the enigmatic Polaroid. "What am I looking for?"

Kazuya sighs. "Look at what the child has. Or, perhaps, lacks."

Chaolan stares at the sonogram again, his eyes narrowing as he studies it. Then it hits him, and he looks back up at Kazuya, wide-eyed.

"...It's a girl?"

A nod.

"Mishimas don't have girls." Chaolan has seen all the portraits in the halls of the Mishima estate—an endless line of pointy-haired men. The women in those old portraits were almost always wives. He could only think of perhaps one or two Mishima women, and even those portraits were so old they were mere rough illustrations, barely more than preserved sketches. Not a single female-born Mishima in living memory.

"I know. She'll be the first one born in..." Kazuya closes his eyes, seemingly doing the math in his head, perhaps walking through those strange, empty hallways in his own memories. "Almost three hundred years."

"...Does this mean something?" Chaolan still doesn’t understand.

"She's a girl."

"...Yes, we've established this. I don't see what it has to do with me, unless you're implying I'm the most girlish person you know, which—" Really was rather insulting, but Kazuya just stared at him as if he was a moron for somehow not being quite as up to date on the family lore. It rankled, not only to have Kazuya act like he was an idiot for his ignorance, but also to know that whatever it was, it was something that Heihachi had kept secret from Chaolan, a little amuse-bouche that evidently only blood relatives could learn. Children who had been adopted and simply tortured half to death need not apply.

"...She's a female Mishima. She is going to attract attention. Maybe the wrong kind. She needs protection." Kazuya says it like it's obvious.

It really is not.

"Protection." Chaolan raises an eyebrow. "What—? Dammit, man, what are you getting at? Put your cards on the table."

Kazuya looks at him and says nothing. Chaolan looks back and remains silent. The two of them stare at one another.

Finally, Kazuya sighs and holds his hand to his head, as if this entire conversation is giving him a headache. If so, he certainly isn’t the only one.

"If... anything were to happen to me and Jun..." Chaolan's stomach drops at this ominous beginning.

"You are kidding."

"I am not."

"I am not, shall we say, father material." And unlike Kazuya, he has never changed his mind on the matter. There’s a reason his birth control standards are considerably higher than Kazuya’s.

"Nor am I." Kazuya gives him a little grin, as if this is the most hilarious private joke they’ve ever told.

"...I have already spent considerable time caring for your elder spawn!" Chaolan exclaims, slamming his own fist down. He has civilized one of Kazuya’s children and truly does not wish to devote the rest of his life to running around trying to keep the second from destroying the world over their daddy issues as well. It is magnanimous enough of him to allow this child to exist, to permit them to have the Yakushima forests and the island waters. To allow Kazuya to play house instead of insisting on prosecuting him for crimes he has long committed without a single shred of conscience. He will let the man have his life, his wife, and this little baby, and that is more than generous in Chaolan’s eyes.

But Kazuya doesn’t seem to think it an argument worth its salt. His brother leans forward and smiles, all Cheshire Cat, the way he did when they were children, as if he knows something Chaolan does not. "That only makes you more qualified," he says, smiling as if it is funny.

It isn’t funny.

Chaolan feels like he wants to blow steam out of his ears. He stares at Kazuya, who doesn’t have the decency to be burnt by the intensity of his glare. "No. No. No. Why—why me?"

"You lead the largest paramilitary organization in the world, you're strong enough to defend yourself and teach her to do the same. I know you still know Mishima-ryu no matter how much you let your skills in it lie fallow, and Jin is close enough to you that he’d probably still have a good relationship with the girl were we to perish."

"...Why not just ask Jin?"

"As I said, he blocked my number." Kazuya lets out a long sigh. "And... I have already robbed him of quite a bit of his late adolescence. I cannot ask him to become a father early on top of it all should... the unlikely occur. And he will likely have children of his own in a few years. Do you think it is fun, Chaolan, to be the adopted child in a house of blood children?"

"There was nothing fun nor loving in that fucking house," Chaolan spits out at Kazuya, as hard as he can. "And you have some nerve, even for you to bring up my childhood to try to manipulate me into caring for your spawn—"

"Chaolan, you will never marry. You have told me that a million times." Kazuya flicks his fingers dismissively. "You are smart, armed to the teeth, and have a sense of chivalry so bone-deep I know you won’t let anything happen to either of my children. Because deep down, you know as well as I do that there is no family for you nor I but one another. We are the only two who know that hell. Alexandersson, for all his blood…" Kazuya scoffs. “He’s not his son. Not like us.”

“You’ve never acknowledged me being your brother like that before,” Chaolan says softly; Kazuya says nothing. They both look away from one another. Too long with the old man; any kind of vulnerability like this can only be weakness. Neither knows how to address it.

Chaolan sighs and leans away from the table, trying to pivot back to business, to something less vulnerable than whatever waters they’ve found themselves in now. "And what am I getting in return for this trade, Kazuya? To be the adopted father of your child if someone finally does manage to—quite deservedly—wring your neck?"

"Wait. That's not my only desire."

Chaolan sighs again, deeply annoyed. At least you can count on Kazuya to never let him make you feel sorry for him for long. "Okay. List out your demands for me so I can laugh at them and we can move on."

"One: I wish to marry Kazama."

He raises an eyebrow. One, his permission is not something Kazuya ever needs nor, in the past, had wanted. Two, Kazuya and Kazama been apart for twenty years. Surely at this point, the documentation didn’t matter. But Chaolan finds his brother's eyes, and he sees that Kazuya is deadly serious in this request.

"My god, you're truly trying to put the late in 'better late than never,' aren't you?"

Kazuya snorts but doesn’t bother to dignify it with a response for a long moment. He just stares at Chaolan. Finally, Kazuya shakes his head and relents, looking away. His fist clenches, and a little bit of lightning shoots out. Chaolan's book on reading Kazuya Mishima hasn't been referenced much in many years, but he recognizes that emotion: distress.

For fuck's sake! The man can take over the world but can't tell him why, after twenty-two goddamn years, he feels the urge to put a ring on it?

“The life she wanted…” Kazuya says in a strangely quiet voice, looking down at the table. “I’ll never be able to give her that. The big family, the public life, the redeemed husband… I am capable of providing none of those things. But I do ...care... for her. And I will give her whatever shadow I can of the things she wanted in this life. I owe it to her for twenty years of suffering alone.”

“Do you really consider not having to see your face for twenty years suffering?” Though Chaolan knows it isn’t true that Kazama didn’t see Kazuya during that time. She has seen him quite a bit, in fact—every time she stared into the eyes of her son. But Chaolan doesn’t know the woman well enough to understand if that is a haunting or a comfort. A bit of both, he suspects. Kazuya has a gift for being a bit of both.

Kazuya takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “It would make her happy. I don’t feel like I need to justify it more than that to you. I would like to do it. And I would like you to be the…” He frowns and waves his hand; it’s odd to see him nervous.

“Best man? Maiden of honor?”

“There is nothing maidenly about you,” Kazuya snorts. “But… a witness. Let us call it that.”

Chaolan sighs. “And what form of ID will you be presenting for this wedding? It will be a tall order for a dead man.”

“I know.” Kazuya drums his hands on the table. "That’s for my next demand: I want your help getting documentation—wedding certificates. One for now, under the Kazama name for us both. One from 1996, with our real names."

"I—" Chaolan's brow furrows. "Why on earth would you want one backdated...?" It hits him the second the question leaves his mouth. "Oh, damn. Jin. You want to make Jin your son, legally."

Kazuya nods. "The Mishima Estate will be up for auction soon if there are no heirs found. You are disinherited. Lars was never recognized. I am..."

Lee Chaolan bursts out laughing. "Dead twice over, and disinherited for good measure?"

Kazuya says nothing but nods.

"I'm pretty sure he refused to even put you in the family itai, you know."

"...." Kazuya's fingers dig further into the table, but again he says nothing. On his best behavior, Lee supposes. It’s odd.

“All the more reason to give it to Jin. The old man recognized him enough to give him a credible claim, and he died before he could disbar Jin from the family records. He was born before he struck me out. He's got a good claim.” It makes sense on paper. But Kazuya is forgetting one very important factor.

“He probably won’t want it.”

“Then he can make the choice to struggle without the family money. But I would like to offer him that choice. He’s certainly experienced the drawbacks of being from House Mishima enough. He should enjoy the benefits of all this bullshit."

“…Do you really think he’d be willing to even use the family name? I grew up in that bullshit, and I never took it." Kazuya looks away, and neither of them brings up the fact that it wasn’t Chaolan's choice; Heihachi made it clear that the Mishima name came with expectations Chaolan could never meet. Would never meet.

He had only ever been meant to be Kazuya's punching bag.

And look at him now.

"I don't care what name he uses. Even if he’s revealed to be legitimate, his father is dead as far as the public knows. He can use whatever name he wants. Which reminds me: I want a third set of IDs, with a new and unrelated assumed name.”

“Why would you want that?” Lee asks. He can think of a reason but not a good, proper, and legal one.

"I have a lot of enemies. I never know when one might catch up with me. We may have to move quickly. I don't want to wait on paperwork. My gift to you is I'll let you know what those alternate identities are, so you can track us."

"You've never been one to use an alias. As I recall, you rather liked to sign your work." Chaolan says.

"It's not so much for me as for my wife and daughter. As you know, I'm a terrible man. But they are not.”

"Oh, this kid could take after Dad. The first certainly did." Kazuya's nose flares, and Chaolan gets the impression that the man is truly struggling not to hit him. Well, let him. It would be nothing new.

"Please," Kazuya murmurs. And that shakes Lee Chaolan; his face goes slack, he is listening now. "For them, at least. Leave me to rot, but give them a chance..."

Kazuya Mishima, for all his faults—numerous, copious, so many that Lee had burned up years of therapy trying to think of all of them—has said please. He is begging his little brother, and Chaolan knows it truly chaps Kazuya’s ass to have to say that to him.

He sighs. Dammit. He is doing this. Fuck.

"Okay, so, a wedding, and several sets of documentation for said wedding, and new identity documents for you and Kazama. And we'll make a third set for the kid, but obviously we have to wait until baby girl Mishima or baby boy Mishima is born for that." He nods. "Is that the end of your demands?"

He shakes his head no. Of course it isn't. Lee Chaolan bites back his irritation and waves his hand, as if to say bring it on. "I would also like your assistance to do a short mission to my apartment at G-Corp's headquarters. There's some... personal items I'd like to grab. Before they loot the place."

"I can buy you new clothes—" A Hail Mary pass, as the Americans say, he knows it the second it leaves his mouth, a desperate desire not to go to G Corp, not to place his least trusted brother in a font of power that Kazuya used to wield around him like a knife.

"I'd like to get some things I took from the Mishima estate. Personal items. You can't print new pictures of a long-dead mother, Chaolan."

"The place will be crawling with what's left of G Force security. The die-hards will recognize you. How do you expect me to get you into it anonymously, let alone get out of it?"

"I can, believe it or not, wear a mask. Or do a helicopter jump. It doesn't need to be for long. All I need is a few minutes to gather the things that I took from the Mishima estate. It isn't much. A few photos. ...Some of my mother’s property."

Chaolan looks down at the table, uncomfortable. Kazuya must have gone back to the Mishima estate after Heihachi passed, he must have to have any kind of items of his past such as that. Chaolan is bothered by that; his considerable surveillance on the Mishima estate hadn't caught it, which was worrying on its own. But it worried him for another reason too: it was unusual for Kazuya to do such a thing.

Kazuya hadn't been one to dwell on the past.

"Chaolan, it's going to be about fifteen minutes at maximum. Just get me into the building. I can handle the rest."

"I'm not worried about you surviving it. But Kazuya, I want you to have an escort." Chaolan knows it's as good as saying he doesn’t trust Kazuya in G Corp's headquarters—and, well, he doesn’t. "But to be honest, I paused because I was mostly just surprised you went home."

A long beat passes. Kazuya folds his arms, saying nothing, and Chaolan feels his frustration spike. He hates Kazuya all the more for his silence.

"That's what I want," Kazuya finally says, typical in his refusal to address anything Chaolan has brought up, ignoring questions like he was paid to do so. "That's all I want. Name your price."

"Simple." Chaolan leans in, the shift to business familiar and far more comfortable. "One. I want to hire you."

Kazuya raises his eyebrows. "What?"

"You're a demon." Kazuya opens his mouth as if he's going to argue, and Chaolan waves his argument aside without even bothering to hear it. "Metaphorically, if no longer literally." A smirk creeps across Kazuya's old mug. That much is true and his older brother offers no argument. "You're a terrifying man, and a brutal one. If I need someone dangerous killed, you're more than qualified to beat them to a fine paste. And I think you're still enough of a monster that you can go home, wash the blood off your hands, and not feel the least bit guilty about it as you tuck your daughter into bed and kiss Kazama goodnight."

"Fine," Kazuya says, unflinchingly. "That's true."

"I'll even pay you a retainer for your skills. With your new ID, of course."

"Generous," Kazuya mutters. "A mistake."

"No." Chaolan glares at him across the table. "A gesture of... generosity. To keep you complacent, and working for me, instead of trying to set out on your own."

"I don't need your money," Kazuya spits. "I've squirreled away more than enough to take care of us."

"Mm." He smirks. "Well, too bad. I had to live with the humiliation of being your secretary in our youth. You can live with the humiliation of being my hitman in your senior years."

"You are only a year younger." But Chaolan certainly looked decades younger; a combination of some great aestheticians and, presumably, the lack of volcanic baths. Lee Chaolan opted to be charitable and ignore the dig at his age.

"Second: I want the girl tested for your stupid demon gene. We need to know if you're still passing it on, regardless of whether you can transform or not.”

"Fine, with the proviso that it's done here and done quietly. She doesn't need to feel like a lab animal." Protective already. Chaolan wouldn’t have thought Kazuya the type, but the counter-demand is reasonable and easy enough to accommodate.

"Fine. I also want blood samples from you and Kazama. And I'd like to retest every year."

"...Why?"

"You, to see if... whatever Jin did... wears off. Kazama because I need a control with the same sort of... mystic bullshit she has to evaluate your daughter’s blood correctly. It’s just one blood test. Nothing severe. The whole family will get it. Jin too, if I can finagle him into it."

"...Fine. If you tell me the results. Even Jin's."

"Fine." He won’t tell Jin that part, Chaolan thinks.

"Third. Last, and not least. You see me every few months. Kazama and the kid too."

"...Why?"

"One: any problem I have with unraveling G Corp, you're helping me with.” He jabs at Kazuya with one angry finger. “Not optional. You're giving me every last cipher, code, and resource you can, and collaboration on that is going to be a lot easier in person."

Kazuya says nothing but gives a short, staccato nod of assent.

"Two: I would like to see my brother, who was my friend, once."

"When we were lonely children and had no choice. Even then, we spent more time beating the shit out of each other to impress the old man than we ever did... bonding." Kazuya scoffs.

"Still. Consider it my attempt to keep what’s left of our miserable family on the same page. And next time, I'll bring a better doctor than anyone you've got out here in the boonies, someone who can give your wife a better check-up. Also, when I come around, you and Kazama will get an update on your son, and I will get something to tell the kid if he decides he wants to tolerate your idiocy after all. At minimum, he’ll know you two are alive. And you’ll get to enjoy my marvelous presence."

"Joy.”

"...And on top of that, I’d like to hold my niece, get to know her. Someone has to be a non-surly male role model for her, and you're not up to that task. Frankly, neither is Jin. This one—she’ll be cute... as long as she looks like her mother."

Kazuya didn’t take the gentle ribbing good-naturedly; he glares at Chaolan. "Cute?!" Kazuya stands up and walks over toward him, leaning over Chaolan, though his lean is shifted oddly a bit, favoring his left. "If you make one move on her, Chaolan, I will gut you like a fish." The defensiveness comes out strong, and Lee quickly holds up both hands. He is pretty sure Kazuya means it, which is terrifying given that the kid is still in utero.

"I meant it like, you know, a cute little kid! Not like that!" Lee blinks. "She'll be fifty years younger than me, Kazuya. I don’t mind a younger love by a decade or so, but I’m not Father, hitting up college co-eds in his seventies. And we both know cute girls aren’t my... usual choice, anyway."

Kazuya’s nostrils flare as he sits down again. "...Fine. I agree to your terms, though I’d like this forced meeting to be more of an ideal rather than a contractually obligated demand. Kids get snotty ears, work gets busy, and all that."

Still, he holds out a hand. Lee grasps it and smiles. "Sure. That I can agree on. We can wiggle the dates around a bit. But two meetings, minimum, a year."

A long pause; Kazuya raises his chin and glares down at him with a sharp nod. "We're agreed."

"Yes. I'll draw up a contract. Identification cards will probably take a couple of weeks. When do you want the doctor to come?"

"As soon as possible." He looks out toward the window. "She says she's fine and she's already seen the local one who's willing to take cash, but..."

"But you’ve never had a good thing in your life without worrying you’ll lose it. I know." An angry glare; Kazuya never has liked it when Lee Chaolan can see a bit of his tender belly underneath it all. "And you've generally been proven right, so I suppose I can’t be too surprised. But some of your true friends remain, you know."

"What friends?" Kazuya asks, his tone as bitter as the black coffee Kazuya favors; Chaolan smiles and shakes his head, gently tapping at the flower on his vest and loosening it.

"You've been too blind to one of them to notice," Chaolan mutters, twirling his boutonniere between his fingers. "But we survived that hell together. And I'd like to think that when I die, we’ll battle the old man in hell together, back-to-back."

"Hmph," Kazuya smirks. "I'm surprised you see yourself going there. You've put in so much work on improving your reputation. I'm told it's quite sterling now."

"I run the world's preeminent military research and development firm. I sold to G Corp, the Zaibatsu, and a hundred corrupt governments. I might have a humanitarian streak, but deep down, you and I both know... we are his sons. And he has ruined us both, blood or no."

"Blood or no." A long beat passes. Kazuya folds his arms and looks up at him. Chaolan looks back, and neither of them speaks for a long moment. "He had a talent for it."

"One I pray you will not inherit," Chaolan says, and there’s an edge to his voice that suggests if Kazuya has, he had best come to his senses and find a way not to show it to this new kid. He’s beaten the shit out of Jin as an adult enough; Chaolan isn’t going to let the man beat the shit out of a child, the way Heihachi had hurt them both.

"I have no interest in hurting children, particularly my own." Lee only raises his eyebrows at that, and Kazuya sighs. "Alright, the boy, I’ll give you. But circumstances were—"

"You really don’t have a leg to stand on in this argument," Chaolan says stiffly. Surprisingly, Kazuya stops. He sits down, nods, and turns to the side, glaring at Chaolan with one eye. Again, favoring the left. That is a bit odd; Kazuya has been favoring his non-formerly demonic eye almost the entire meeting.

Out of curiosity, Chaolan grabs his flower and an idea comes to him. He throws it toward Kazuya abruptly, targeting his right eye.

The man tries to block it, but Kazuya sees it too late, and the block attempt is clumsy, especially so for Kazuya. Lee's blood runs a bit cold at the realization. Kazuya’s eye is gone. Or close enough to it.

"So that's why you've retired," he says softly.

"Fuck off," Kazuya snarls, tossing his flower onto the floor and stomping on it for good measure. "You think it's the first loss in my life? The only damage I've suffered? Bullshit. It wouldn’t stop me if I wanted to keep fighting. I've retired not because of some stupid injury, but because I do not give a singular fuck about the game anymore. I am done. I am playing a different game now."

Chaolan only smiles and shrugs, moving languidly in response. This... well, Kazuya will recover. He is never weak, and the man is right; it’s only one loss among many in his life, and it won’t stop him. But it’s a weakness that can be exploited in a man who has few, and it will make Lee Chaolan sleep just that little bit better at night knowing Kazuya is now at least partially blind in his formerly demonic eye.

Kazuya just laughs at him. "Blood be damned. You're more Heihachi's son than I am. Telling me you are my friend one second and the next showing glee that I've lost an eye?" He tilts his head, looking coldly at Chaolan, though not without respect. "I did not know you thought yourself so much lesser than me, that you would be happy at—"

"Kazuya." Chaolan winces; the worst person he knows has, indeed, made a point. It isn’t great of him, and he has fallen into an old habit. "I do want to be your friend."

"You are proving it so well," Kazuya glares. As usual, the man can let nothing go. And now that he has some wrong to shake about like a chew toy, the tiger is all too happy to do so. Mishima’s. He sighs.

"I'm sorry, truly. We are both his sons. Sometimes... it comes out. But that was unfair to you; I am sorry. We have a deal. It changes nothing." A beat; Kazuya folds his arms. "I won't tell Jin."

"I don't care if he knows," Kazuya says, shrugging. "Now, if we are done here—"

"Fine, fine." Chaolan waves a hand and stands. "We're done. I'll get the employment paperwork drawn up and start on your IDs." A pause. "I also think we should do your G Corp run sooner than later. If people haven't gotten into your apartment by now—"

Kazuya no longer has the red eye, but there’s no missing the diabolical nature in his look at Chaolan. "Hmph. They won't have yet."

"Jesus, what did you—" Kazuya’s smirk only grows larger. "Forget it, I don't want to know."

"You really don't." A soft sigh escapes him, and he runs his hand through his too-long hair. "But you are right. The sooner, the better. My defenses will hold for a while. But not forever. And it has already been six months. I have hesitated perhaps too long already."

"Want to do it now?" Kazuya's eyes look back at him, surprised that Chaolan would offer, and he shakes his head. "Don't think I'm doing it for you. It's convenient. I was already heading toward America, I have a drop to make in Honolulu. You wouldn't be too much of a bother to take with us, and we’ve fuel enough to make California. I have a meeting in Tokyo at noon tomorrow anyway, so I can drop you off on the way back."

Kazuya mulls it over, staring at him. Chaolan stares back. The silence goes from comfortable to uncomfortable to absolutely interminable, and still Kazuya doesn’t move an inch.

They stare so long that Lee starts to fight the urge to check his damn watch. "What is it?" he finally asks. "Can you really not bear to be gone from Kazama senior for a single day?"

"Shut up," Kazuya snaps, glaring. "That isn't it." But Chaolan thinks it’s likely part of it, of whatever reason is holding Kazuya back. He remembers all too well what Kazuya was like the first time around with Kazama; they had been absolutely inseparable, to the point he is actually surprised death has cured the man of his habit of her. There’s something about the woman that absolutely ensnares Kazuya, like a witch.

He waits for Kazuya to explain what it is; the man doesn’t seem in the mood, however, to elucidate. Kazuya just stares for a moment longer, then the door opens, and as if she was summoned, Kazama herself pops in, her cheeks lightly flushed, breathing just slightly hard, like she’s been running.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lee, I— it couldn't wait." She grabs Kazuya's hand and presses it to her belly, smiling softly, and Chaolan watches Kazuya’s eyes grow larger.

"Mmm? Is that..." he mutters, his eye widening almost comically. The ghost of a smile comes over his face, and Chaolan tilts his head, a little shocked himself. He’s never seen the man... pleasantly... surprised. But this... sure looks... like that. Or what he imagines a concept of a pleasantly surprised Kazuya could look like.

Now he wonders if it’s really Kazama who wants this child so badly. Or if his brother... perhaps... does want it as well. This is not the look of a man who is only amused by the novelty of a child.

"You feel it!" Kazama smiles, triumphant, and he has to admit, it’s cute, her enthusiasm. Kazuya says nothing in return but gives her some sort of piercing look that would terrify him if he were in her position, but he isn’t and he silently thanks every god he can think of that he isn’t the one having Kazuya's child.

"She's kicking," Kazuya murmurs, and his hand grows tighter around Kazama. The hand on her shoulder grips her so tightly that Chaolan is surprised Kazama doesn’t complain about it, but she just leans into Kazuya, staring eerily into his eyes.

"Are you surprised?" Chaolan asks, receiving a glare for interrupting, but Kazuya doesn't bother to reply. Instead, he huffs and leans his head more onto her shoulder, and she pulls him closer into her, and it feels no different than it did twenty years ago: here is Kazuya, and here is Lee, the heir and the spare.

"Do you want to feel, Chaolan?" Kazama murmurs; he doesn’t miss the way Kazuya’s hand clamps a little tighter on her shoulder, though Kazama shows no recognition of it. He shrugs and moves a little closer, mostly because he knows it will vex Kazuya, and a part of him is curious about what this process is like. He has never seen a pregnant woman up close; the concept of fatherhood is something he prefers to experience a very, very far distance from the real thing.

She smiles at him as she maneuvers his hand near Kazuya; he feels it instantly, the funny little burst of something moving under her skin. It turns his stomach a bit; it feels... wrong to think of an act of creation made in blood and guts like that. But he gives Kazama a feeble smile, gently touching her stomach, as the child shifts and kicks against its mother. Taking after Kazuya, maybe; already surly.

"So strong," Kazuya mutters, and Chaolan can see the clear pride in the old bastard's eyes. He really does want this, Chaolan thinks, to his considerable surprise. Kazuya smiles at Jun, and she smiles back, and whatever private conversation they are having among themselves seems to be going positively.

After a couple of moments of shifting facial expressions, the two clearly lost in their own world, Lars comes in, running just a few seconds behind Kazama. "What's going on? I was with Kazama, and she just took off suddenly—" He huffs, frowning.

Lee just motions toward the two lovebirds, still pressed together. "The baby was kicking."

“She hides from us sometimes,” Jun says, her voice sounding a million miles away. “I’ve felt it a couple times before, but never so sustained, and I really…really wanted Kazuya to feel it. He never got to before.”

Kazuya gives her a nervous tic of his lips upward; it might be a smile, but with Kazuya, in a group setting like this? That’s hard to tell.

"Baby?" Lars asks, dumbfounded, doing a double-take and looking at them both. "Baby?!"

Chaolan gives him a tired look and nods. "It seems so. A new Mishima in this world."

Lars stares at the two of them for a long moment, earning a bit of a glare from Kazuya; no surprise there. "Glare" is Kazuya's default setting most of the time, and a pregnant Kazama seems to move that solid 70% chance of glares to a 90% chance.

"....Congrats, I guess," Lars says flatly and Chaolan smiles. He can tell his younger brother is already thinking how he did when he heard the news.

"Hmph," is all Kazuya replies. Chaolan can tell the man wants to say more—probably a dire threat about how he’ll murder Lars in very lurid detail if the man dares to say a single word against his daughter—but he demurs, keeping his hands on Kazama instead.

"...Does Jin know?" Lars asks, whispering it to him; they probably can still hear him—hell, Kazama, he’s pretty sure, can hear all their thoughts—and Chaolan shakes his head.

"No," he says, and Lars runs a hand through his insane hair. He hopes for Kazama's sake that she doesn't wind up with a child with hair like that. He can't imagine it’s pleasant to birth.

"I hope to tell him soon, when he's... ready..." Kazama says, her voice unusually a bit frail. Jin is, he suspects, a sore spot for her. "I'd appreciate it if you'd... not tell him and just direct him to us." A long beat; Kazuya looks at her, and she sighs. "...Me. Direct him to me."

All three of the Mishima boys in the room make a hmph noise of amusement, and Chaolan hates himself for doing it along with the other two, because it isn’t even biological if they are all doing it. Just another mark of the man who clings to their every shadow.

"I'm just..." Kazama laughs at herself. "Well, it is less that I am a great communicator and more—"

"That your man is only good at sticking his foot in his mouth, yeah, we know," Chaolan says, because he’s the only person in the room who can get away with doing so.

Lars relaxes a bit, smiling at his joke, and his eyes flick between Kazuya—currently focused on giving Lee a glare for daring to insult him—and Chaolan himself. "So, I suppose this Op is complete? You discuss what needed to be discussed?" The look in Lars’ eyes screams that he thinks it’s the baby they are discussing and that he wouldn't even need to debrief Lars. A welcome respite, that.

He nods. 

"Almost. We need to take Kazuya to G Corp San Fran for a moment." 

That causes an immediate response in the two other participants in the room; Kazuya doesn't react, but Kazama pulls him closer to her, and Lars visibly bristles. 

"No," Kazama says softly. "No, you're not going." 

"I want to," his older brother mutters, and at the same time, Lars turns to him. "Can we trust him?" 

"As much as we can trust anyone. He's agreeing to give us a lot we can use against the G Corp holdouts for a fifteen-minute trip on the way home. Doesn’t seem like a bad bargain to me." 

"What does 'a lot' mean?" 

"Codes to shut down JACKs, ciphers, the list goes on..." Lee mutters, and Kazuya nods slowly. 

"No," Jun says again, more protective. "He's been in enough danger. Whoever you think you need to kill in there—" 

"Who says I need to kill anyone?" Kazuya sounds affronted by it, and that is pure Kazuya, Chaolan thinks; somehow offended by the mere thought that he’d want to murder anyone when he is easily the most homicidal man Lee Chaolan personally knows. He rolls his eyes as Kazuya sulks, and Lars crosses his arms; neither has much patience for the other man’s bullshit.

"Kazuya..." she says softly, pressing her hands on his chest, as if she can bar him from doing what he wants with mere physical force alone. "No. I don't want you to be in danger."

"It's a quick fifteen-minute mission. Just... picking up a few things." He smiles at her, and the smile is genuine, and because it is genuine, it looks odd. He isn’t a man built for smiling.

There is a long silence; no wordless fight this time. For whatever reason, they are having it out here, between the two of them. Is it courtesy to Chaolan and Lars, or do they just...? Chaolan shakes his head. He doesn’t understand them, their romance, and he doesn’t think he ever will.

"I thought you left that life behind," she murmurs, and that is it, he suspects, the crux of the issue for her. Kazuya has left her for G Corporation once before, and it is all too easy for everyone in the room to see it happening again. He sighs and frowns.

"I did. This is only a retrieval of some... personal effects. Nothing more."

"What personal effects do you need from that life?" She sounds a little more on edge now; she doesn’t understand.

Kazuya presses his head to hers, unhesitating if visibly uncomfortable doing so in front of both of them. Whatever he says, neither of them can hear it; the man’s face doesn’t move.

But she freezes for a moment as he pulls back, looking smug.

"What the heck..." Lars mutters, and Lee shoots him a long-suffering look. To be around Kazuya, he’s long ago learned, means indulging the man in his psycho-supernatural bullshit. He never understands it, he never will, but the man just—just is. As he is.

She pulls her arms around Kazuya, and he nods, and seemingly, just like that, the argument is resolved.

"Alright," she says after a long moment. "But I am going with you."

"No," Kazuya says. "You're pregnant."

"And does that mean I cannot fly?" She gives him a smile that does nothing to assuage anyone in the crowd; he isn't happy about the idea of having a pregnant woman on board either. It would be hard enough to keep the peace with three Mishimas, but three Mishimas and a pregnant woman seem like a rather pointed disaster for when any sort of fistfight inevitably breaks out.

All three of them stare at her, and then he sees it: there is the old inspector Kazama, staring back, undeterred. "You can either take me with you, or I will fly behind you. And one of those options is considerably easier on me and the baby, if that's your sticking point." She puts her hand on her belly and takes a turn staring down all three of them. Lee raises his eyebrows; he thinks of the bird he saw at the airport, and he wonders again if that was indeed Kazama who had flown past the windows.

"You don't need to—" Typical Kazuya, here he is, given the keys to the kingdom and sticking his enormous foot in his mouth again. A bird flutters around Kazama, landing on her shoulder and twittering; he does the only sane thing and ignores it, as well as the fact her fingertips go up to stroke its little feathers.

"I know I do not have to go, Kazuya." She glares at the little bird for a moment, then turns her gaze on him, heavy with portent. "I want to. We are together now. You have a task that needs doing that presents such risk to you? Then you're going to do it with me."

Lee cocks his head and admires Kazama; she is a good match for his brother, he supposes, in the end. She isn’t what he ever would have expected Kazuya to end up with—in his mind, Kazuya would have ended up with little more than a bullet in his brain—but he can see how she is a match for him, because she isn’t backing down.

"I want to see it. I want to know. Even if..." She trails off, looking at him, and Kazuya sighs.

"Fine," he snaps; he isn’t particularly happy about it. "You have room for two, I assume?"

"For you two," Lee says. "I think we're ready to go. Unless Lars wants to take any more pictures?" He means it as a comedic punchline, but no one laughs, which is not very excellent or marvelous at all. Lars cocks his head for a moment and shoves him forward.

"One more. All three of you together." Kazuya glares at Lars; he thinks it’s pointless bullshit, and in truth, Lee does too.

"Oh, come on." Lars glares at all three of them, obviously frustrated. "You know, none of you were abandoned by your parents, but I was. I didn't get pictures of my family. My dad never acknowledged me—"

"He did you a favor—" Kazuya's foot-in-mouth disease does seem terminal, sadly, and Chaolan sighs.

"Not now—" Chaolan starts, but this time it’s Lars cutting him off instead.

"Yeah, well, my mom...I don't even know if she's alive, because once I could be shipped off to a school in Japan, she was more than willing to do so, so she could go back to her socialite life without some awkward kid hanging around. If I were Jin, I'd want to see pictures of my family from time to time, and I might know him better than any of you think, so shut up and try to smile for a few seconds so I can show my friend that his family can manage to stand next to one another for thirty seconds without a fight breaking out."

Lars walks over to them and glares at them all, then kneels down slightly, trying to get them all into the selfie. There’s a blink of light, and then another — and then Lars stands up and shows the picture back to them. Kazama, himself, and Lars — all perfect smiles. Kazuya's face is a stone-cold blank of neutrality.

"You really couldn't even smile for your—"

Kazuya lets out a growl of frustration and glares at him, and Chaolan sighs. Truly the middle brother now, stopping his big brother and little brother from fighting. "Trust me, you don't want to see him smile. It's a bit scary. He's doing Jin a favor." He glares at Kazuya, who glares back, distracted and obviously frustrated.

"...I don't think it's so bad," Kazama says, slowly putting her hand on him, and he watches as she tames the savage beast with one fold of her arms over his. "But Jin wouldn't recognize him with it, that's for sure. More the little...smirk thing you do."

"I do not do a 'smirky thing.'"

"You do."

"I don't."

"No, you do." She leans into him as they walk out in front, and Lee and Lars both breathe a deep sigh of relief as they leave the house. It feels ...lighter, somehow, to not be around them, as if their mystical bullshit somehow eats up all the air in the room.

"What are we taking him to G Corp San Fran for?" Lars's voice says, low, trying to stay out of earshot of the other two, he supposes. "Isn't that a risk? He's got hundreds of soldiers still holed up in that building—"

"He doesn't care about that anymore." Lars shoots him an incredulous look, but it's true: even now, all Kazuya focuses on is Jun bloody Kazama. He hasn't even yelled at them for not exiting his house yet, and the old Kazuya would have been more than belligerent about it, never liking it when anyone touched his toys when he wasn’t around.

"I know it's hard to believe, but..." He gestures out toward them, where Kazuya is currently smirking while denying that he ever made such a facial expression in his life. It almost looks like normal flirting. On his brother's face. Bizarre. "He wants to get a few family items. Keepsakes. Old pictures."

"Kazuya has family he doesn't hate?" Lars scoffs, and Chaolan chuckles.

"They tended to die off early. I never met his mother. She died a few weeks before I was adopted. I think he bought me to try to keep Kazuya...occupied. It looked less negligent, you know, to tell a kid to play with his little brother instead of just telling him he needed to be alone all the time." Lars opens his mouth and then, shakes his head, as if to say never mind, and Lee is relieved of it, because he damn well doesn’t want to talk about it. "I don't really want to discuss that. I know he doesn't either. It wasn't a happy childhood."

"Jeez, you're right," Lars says, gesturing at Kazuya’s smile as they move out of the Kazama-Mishima abode. "That smile woulda scared the hell out of Jin."

"He never had much practice at it, I suspect. Being happy," Lee frowns and slowly shuts the door. "Kazama!"

"Mm?" She sounds preoccupied, with Kazuya's fingers on her wrists.

"Do you need to lock up?"

Kazuya jerks his head toward them as if he’s suddenly aware they still exist. That may well be the case. He leaves Kazama, for once, and walks back toward them. He walks forward, reaching into his pocket and taking out a key; he locks the door quickly and leans against it, tugging at his hair to keep it pulled down instead of sticking, stubbornly, up. Lee smirks a bit at seeing that; hopefully, they won’t gather too much attention as they walk through the town. He has a feeling Kazuya goes into the village far less than she does, though that's less about him being a war criminal and more about him being an absolutely cantankerous old crank.

The walk back is almost silent, which he’s half-relieved by. It's tiring to be in Kazuya's presence, and while Kazama is no doubt the better person, she’s also rather... demanding in her own way. It feels like he can't think what he wants to around her, and as if to highlight that, she frowns and glances at him.

But she says nothing, and he just walks forward, relieved that she doesn't. He knows she probably can’t help it, but it doesn't make it any easier to deal with.

He just has to get through this little adventure. Just a few more hours in their company, and then he can say he’s fully dealt with Kazuya, and not only converted the man to his side, but maybe even kept the family together a bit.

But he knows from this tiring afternoon that they’ll never be able to get that close—Mishimas always do seem to do better when they’re continents apart.

Chapter Text

It’s been a long time since Jun Kazama has been in such a large group.

When she was a child, she remembers, it was always like this: all cacophony and noise, a dozen voices in her head, all thinking their own unique thoughts. She had learned to deal with it back then as a schoolgirl, but after nearly a decade of solitude in the Kazama shrine, she’s clearly lost a lot of her ability to shield her mind that she once had.

And now, Jun Kazama is getting a headache from all the mental chatter she can hear.

Mishimas were never quiet, mentally. She can feel it already, all the thoughts in the men she walks alongside. Lee Chaolan is thinking loudly, by far the worst offender, his schemes and plans unspooling a mile a minute; Kazuya, as usual, is quiet, but his thoughts are turbulent with hints of violence she doesn’t want to dwell on right now.

And Lars... Well, Lars is nice and quiet. She likes Lars; his thoughts don’t project so loudly. All he seems to be doing is appreciating the trees and thinking about getting back to the plane they flew in on.

And then there’s the baby too, whose thoughts only Jun is aware of at all; the baby seems fine, unbothered by the cacophony of thoughts floating around it. Your mother needs to improve her shielding, she thinks, smiling and gently touching her stomach. She’ll have to before the baby is born. The baby girl kicks, stubbornly, at her sides, and she stops for a moment, wincing.

Kazuya drops back instantly, his hand on her, his eyes darting to hers. Ever the worrywart.

"It's alright. She's just active. I think she knows we're going somewhere." Jun smiles at him, and he nods slowly. His hand creeps around her side anyway, as if he can calm the baby by holding her close. She thinks perhaps he’s nervous; that makes two of them.

"Do you really need to do this?" she asks. He nods. She knows it’s important to him, so she doesn’t press further, but the fact that he’s clearly hesitant about taking her there makes her feel...anxious.

They’ve never really talked about what he did in G Corporation, and she isn’t particularly sure she wants to know. The idea of seeing where he lived for so long without her unsettles her—not because she worries about finding evidence of a girlfriend or anything like that. Rather, it’s... the possibility that maybe he had thrived without her. That deep down, he had been perfectly happy to be alone.

Perhaps had even preferred it.

She rubs her belly again, frowning, disliking the direction of her thoughts. It’s clear that he likes where he is, and isn’t that answer enough?

"Lars," she calls out, wanting to talk to someone—anyone—about something else. He turns toward her and smiles. He really is a nice boy, she thinks. It’s strange to think of him as Kazuya’s half-brother; the two couldn’t be more dissimilar. "Did you grow up in Tokyo, like Lee-san and Kazuya? Your Japanese is fantastic."

"I was enrolled in the Mishima Polytechnical in Tokyo as soon as my mother could sign me up for it," Lars says. His voice is quiet, and she feels a little guilty for asking; it’s clearly a tender subject.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Kazuya rolling his eyes and Jun gives him a little look. She knows Heihachi established that after the second tournament, but Kazuya and Lee Chaolan had had their lessons handed down directly from Heihachi himself. Kazuya is staring at Lars, all bale-eyed and wary; he never did think much of Heihachi’s educational ambitions, Jun suspects.

"But…. I spent all my earliest years growing up in Sweden, actually. My mom is Swedish." Lars continues; perhaps he is doing his best to ignore Kazuya, too.

"Ah, so the blond hair!" Jun claps her hands lightly. Lars laughs, Kazuya glares, and Lee Chaolan looks like he’s trying to avoid the conversation, walking briskly ahead, his hands in his pockets. She smiles at the familiar site; the more things changed, the less they did.

"Yes," Lars says softly. "So the hair. Though my mother hates the way it naturally lays." He gestures at his hair, and Kazuya scoffs.

"I can see why," Kazuya mutters.

Jun gives him another look, firm but gentle, and he winces slightly, and, in as much as is possible for Kazuya, manages to soften the blow a bit. "...I’m sure it’s...difficult to deal with. Especially without the family...awareness." For Kazuya, that’s about as much as anyone can expect. Jun smiles at him, offering a little encouragement, and the group continues walking without further comment.

The baby kicks again as the silence stretches, as if to signal her protest at this mission. Easy, little wing, Jun thinks. It’s uncomfortable, yes, but we’ll be home soon. You shouldn’t let new voices disturb your little nest. Mommy and Daddy will keep you safe.

But the baby doesn’t listen. Kick, kick, kick. She winces and reaches out her hand for Kazuya’s again. He finds it and takes it without question, wordlessly squeezing her hand in support. His eyes meet hers—Are you okay? She nods. Yes. She rubs her belly, and he understands from that gesture what the wincing is about.

He always did make active babies. Jin had been no different. Jin... the thought of him stings her, just a little. She looks away from Kazuya this time, not wanting to meet his eyes. She wants to ask more about Jin, but the topic of her son feels so heavy in this company.

Kick. Kick, kick, kick. Jun sighs. The child wants nothing but to remind her mother of her little presence. Another problem with Mishima babies; they always want every last scrap of her attention.

Or maybe that was just Kazuya’s own influence.

She sighs and rubs her belly harder. Yes, baby, I hear you, I feel you, and I love you, too. But you must share my love with your big brother and your daddy, alright?

For a moment she thinks of Jin and this new baby sister; she can almost see it in her eyes, Jin holding his ridiculously younger sister up in his arms, smiling at her with that familiar little smile that is mostly Kazuya’s all-too-rare genuine grin, but with a warmth that’s pure Kazama in it. She hopes her second baby will know her brother someday. Her brow furrows, and she frowns again.

"Lars," Jun finally calls out, her voice breaking the silence as she gives into the temptation to at least talk about her son. Every head turns toward her. "Did you ever meet our son, Jin?"

"...Yeah," Lars says after a brief hesitation. His words feel cautious and her stomach sinks. "We used to work together. A few years ago."

"And then—" Kazuya starts, so clearly looking forward to telling the next part in the story, but Chaolan turns back to look at him with an expression so clear that even the least psychic person in the world could read it as don’t.

Kazuya snorts, as though offended by the interruption, but he doesn’t continue. Jun feels a flare of frustration, because it feels like everyone else in this group knows more about this story than she does.

"And then what, exactly?" she asks, her tone sharp.

"They fought against one another," Kazuya shrugs, looking at Lars with an odd glean, as if he’s all too happy to knock Lars down a peg in her estimation. "Lars led the Zaibatsu’s rebel army against our boy."

Our boy. That phrase is new. The words our boy make her smile, though she quickly realizes it’s not the right moment to call attention to his phrasing. She shakes her head, refocusing.

"It was... Jin was in a bad place at the time," Lars says, his gaze shifting toward Kazuya with a scowl. As they enter the town proper, Kazuya glares back, unbothered by the silent criticism. Jun notices the tension and understands it, even if Kazuya’s stubbornness often frustrates her.

"He's better now, though, yes?" she asks softly, her voice betraying her anxiety; she can hear it in her voice, in the thin-ness, the trembling. "You’re past that now?"

"Yeah," Lars says, his smile returning. He likes her, she can tell, and she must admit he is a charming boy all his own. "We’re good now. We’ve... had reasons to rally."

"I wonder what those  reasons could be," Kazuya mutters, his voice a heady and sarcastic vinegar-wine, and she taps his hand. We have to move on. He looks at her warily but nods. It’s not easy for him to walk with people that she can tell he considers enemies and little else, blood or no…but he’s at least slightly willing to listen to her. To indulge her, at least.

The rest of the walk through town passes in silence. No one says a word, and even the baby quiets down, settling in her belly without another movement. Jun smiles, relieved that at least one person seems comfortable now—even if that one person technically isn’t born yet.

She feels certain she’ll feel better once this is over and they’re back on Yakushima. It’s been so long since she’s left her homeland. The last time she left, she traveled to Tokyo for her last posting with the WWWC. When she had returned home with Jin in her belly, that had been it. She never imagined she would leave the comfort of Yakushima again.

Until now.

Kazuya's hand reaches for hers as they approach the aircraft. Jun listens, only half-attentive, as the pilot speaks to Lee Chaolan. The phrases they swap back and forth mean little to her. She steps into the aircraft and straps herself in after a few fumbling attempts; Kazuya, unsurprisingly, takes the seat beside her. He doesn’t struggle with getting any of the belts on, his hands well-practiced in suiting up for such a ride. Chaolan and Lars settle into spots on the other side of the aircraft.

Jun turns to look out the window, watching Lee’s men scurrying about. Whatever sort of force Lee Chaolan commands—it reminds her too much of the Tekkenshu that Heihachi had assembled from the remains of Kazuya’s private army. She shivers at the thought.

She feels a pair of eyes on her, and when looks back, Chaolan is the staring at her. You are no less his son, Lee Chaolan, blood or no, she thinks, though it’s not one of her kindest thoughts, so she keeps it to herself. Instead, she offers Chaolan a thin smile and shifts her focus back to Kazuya.

Jun squeezes his hand, wordlessly communicating with a simple nod what she wants to convey to Chaolan. I am his, and he is mine. I will keep him steady, do not worry. We strengthen one another.

Kazuya looks at her quizzically, uncertain as to why she’s offering the sudden support. He doesn’t seem bothered to be back in an airplane, and she supposes he has no fear of heights. He’d told her as much, in another life.

"Why would I be afraid to be up here? I have wings."

But that’s no longer entirely true, she reflects with a frown. His wings are gone, now. And yet here he is, fearless as ever. I will catch you if you fall, Kazuya, she vows. She strokes his hand with her thumb, a soft, wordless gesture of affection.

Her gaze shifts to the window, drinking in Yakushima. Oh, how she hates leaving Yakushima. Her anxiety rises with the whir of the engines, even though she knows it will be a short trip. Kazuya wouldn’t have insisted on leaving if it weren’t important. That small head press he’d given her earlier told her everything she needed to know: whatever this was, it mattered to him deeply.

Kazuya’s hand tightens around hers suddenly, and she gasps softly, looking over at him. He leans as far as the harness allows, gently touching his forehead to hers.

It is alright.

She leans into him, shuts her eyes, and tries to draw some of his endless courage into herself. And the gods know you have far too much courage anyway so it shouldn’t matter if I take some, she thinks, and she’s not surprised to hear a soft hmm of amusement from him.

"Have you ever flown, Miss Kazama?" Lars asks, his tone awkward, as though searching for a topic that isn’t weighed down by the years of pain they’ve all caused one another. Or perhaps just uncomfortable with their public display of affection.

"Yes," Jun says gently, turning her head away from Kazuya’s with some reluctance. "Many times." She hesitates, unsure of what more to say. She could fly herself, in a way, but that isn’t a topic she wants to broach. Nor does she want to mention her favorite form of flying: being held by someone else.

Kazuya’s cheek twitches slightly, and she blushes. Perhaps he has picked up on that thought.

"It has been a great many years since I’ve been on a plane, though," she admits, changing the subject slightly. "I used to fly on assignment all the time. After Jin was born, though..." She trails off, glancing away. "Well. We would have had to transfer in Tokyo, and it wasn’t..." She hesitates again.

"Safe," Chaolan mutters. "Because Jin looked a little too much like—"

"We don’t look that much alike," Kazuya murmurs, and the cabin falls into an awkward silence as everyone pointedly avoids acknowledging his words.

It’s true—Jin isn’t a duplicate of his father. For every moment she’s seen Kazuya’s ghost in Jin, she’s also seen traces of herself, of her own father, or even her mother, in their son. But Heihachi wouldn’t have cared about nuances. He would have seen Jin’s little bushy brows and untamable hair, seen those intense expressions of Jin’s that were a dead ringer for his father’s own, and he would have known and would have tried, so hard, to cut out the weed before it grew into a tree. She’s more certain of this now than she had been then.

Jun had tried so hard to keep him from knowing when Jin was young, so small, so vulnerable.

Not that it ever mattered in the end, whispers a part of her she doesn’t like to acknowledge, trapped in the darkest corner’s of Jun's mind, but she brushes the dark thought away, frowning. At least Jin was better equipped to handle that heavy Mishima mantle at fifteen than he would have been at five. She didn’t want to send him into that lion’s den, but she’d had no other choice at the time. And now…Jin is still alive, and that is what matters. He is safe. He has friends who treasure him, and a family that, even if it is perhaps complicated — and it has never been anything but that — is one that deeply loves him.

She knows, without one doubt in to her soul, that there isn’t a person on this plane who wouldn’t sacrifice their life for her son’s if it came down to it. Even Kazuya. Perhaps especially Kazuya. She looks at him and finds his eyes turbulent; he doesn’t like to talk about Jin, and it makes her sad.

But she understands—the guilt that clings to him there. The grief. She knows that pain all too well.

She shrugs a bit, trying to wash away the weight of that bittersweet past. Move on, lest it swallow you whole.

Kazama’s were supposed to good at that, aren’t they? Wind and water, flowing and shifting into other elements. She takes a deep breath, lets it fill her completely, and smiles at them all, the expression soft but determined, trying to offer them a measure of reassurance and to change the topic to something a bit less…turbulent.

"Well, before that, I flew frequently for work. All the time, really," Jun says with a gentle laugh. "I was stationed all over the world—America, Africa, even Europe a few times. I lived out of hotel rooms for a while. Though, at least when I worked in Tokyo, I was able to rent an apartment for a few months. It was small, but I filled it with so many plants that it reminded me of home a little bit. Made it much more bearable."

Kazuya looks away, and she almost giggles but manages to hold it in. He had never liked her apartment; it was too full of life, too overrun with greenery. She remembers, vividly, the time he had knocked over a plant on his way to the bathroom during the early days of their relationship. His face, flushed with embarrassment, cheeks pink as he stared down at the soil spilling out onto the floor—it was a dear memory etched in her heart.

He’d looked so frustrated, so braced for a scolding. But instead of snapping, she had tapped him gently on the shoulder, reassured him it was alright, and started cleaning it up herself. The gratitude in his eyes had been so genuine and so clearly novel to him that it had made her chest ache. Her heart burns at the thought, and she squeezes his hand tighter.

Kazuya glances at her, head tilted in question. What?

She shakes her head. Nothing. I just wanted your presence.

He nods slightly, understanding without words. This is their shared language, a subtle and effortless one, forged in moments like these.

Jun leans closer to the window, staring out at the ocean below. This vast body of water, one she has always cherished, now feels like an unkind force. It separated her from Kazuya for so many years. Leaning against him, she stares at the waves, the endless stretch of nothingness between Japan and America.

She wonders if he was conscious when they took him away—away from that volcano, away from everything he’d ever known.

But she doesn’t ask—both because he doesn’t like to talk about it, and because she doesn’t like to be reminded of all their time apart. She pauses in her melancholy, realizing that the whole cabin has fallen silent. Even her little baby has been still. Frowning, she presses a gentle hand to her belly, wondering if her sadness is somehow bleeding into the baby.

A tiny punch or kick answers her, and she smiles. No, child, you still have plenty of fight left in you.

She moves back toward Kazuya, but only glances the back of Kazuya's hair. He’s turned away from her now, staring at the wave. He’s…tense. Nervous? His posture is rigid, and all she can see is the back of his head, and all she can feel is how he’s already making a plan of attack for the G Corp building. Megumi comes by her spirit naturally, she thinks with a faint smile, but that he’s apprehensive doesn’t make her feel much better either.

"Chaolan," she says, breaking the silence. "Can you tell me how you founded Violet Industries? I heard Heihachi cast you out after the second tournament, so I can’t believe he provided the seed money."

Chaolan's eyes light up, and Jun knows she’s chosen topics well. Chaolan has always loved talking about himself, and recounting how he proved Heihachi wrong is clearly a bonus. It’s a topic Kazuya likes too—though only insofar as when the story is about proving Heihachi wrong.

From the way Kazuya’s head tilts toward Lee as he listens, Jun can tell he’s scrutinizing the story, searching for weaknesses, probing for cracks. That’s Kazuya for you, she thinks with quiet affection. It’s mostly harmless, and it’s keeping him engaged.

So she lets him listen, lets Chaolan's energetic tale fill the cabin, and allows herself to let the story wash over her.

She isn’t listening too intently—her focus is inward, eyes closed as she breathes deeply, trying to steel herself for the next step of this journey. The realization is hitting her fully now: they’re heading to the place where Kazuya lived all those years they were apart and she’s no less comfortable with it in the air than she was on the ground.

She isn’t sure she wants to see it. The idea frightens her in ways she struggles to articulate. What if it’s so opulent that she begins to fear he’ll never truly be happy in their modest, middle-class home? What if she stumbles upon some relic of those years—some hateful screed against Jin, or even against her?

That thought digs into her, sharp and persistent, and she bites her lip. She knows it’s important to him to go, that this journey means something deep and profound to Kazuya. But…

But I’m not looking forward to it, she admits to herself.

Placing her hands in her lap, she forces herself to think of reassuring things instead. He’s been with her for months now, with no signs of wavering or desire to run. His love for her and the baby is steady and real, shown in a hundred little ways: the way he presses his face to her belly, wanting to hear Megumi’s tiny heartbeat, or the genuine joy in his eyes when he felt her first kicks.

She knows him well enough to see the truth of it—his love for her is bone-deep. It always has been. There hasn’t been anyone else for him, and she knows there never will be.

Kazuya’s hand tightens on hers, pulling her from her spiraling thoughts. She looks at him, and his sharp eyes meet hers with a knowing glint. Your worrying is so loud, even I can hear it, Jun, he seems to say.

Then, he smiles. It’s small, an awkward attempt at comfort, but it softens the edges of her worry. She leans into him, letting his presence steady her. It doesn’t erase her fear entirely, but it helps. Slightly.

As soon as Jun starts to feel steadier, Lars murmurs that they’re over land again, and her stomach twists. She knows it’s not long now. Kazuya knows it too; his hand tightens on her shoulder, and he smiles at her. One of his rare, genuine smiles. That smile, dazzling as ever, only partly distracts her from the dread creeping in. She takes a deep breath and tries to calm herself. Remember, he chose you. He chose you.

So why does she still feel so shaky?

She leans against him, searching for comfort, but it vanishes almost instantly when he abruptly stands. She doesn’t recognize where they are, but everyone else on the plane clearly does.

This time, she doesn’t ask about it.

“We should get you some armor,” Chaolan says, his tone as casual as if he’s suggesting they pick out a new suit or tie. So damn nonchalant. Like it’s not a matter of life and death.

“I don’t need it,” Kazuya growls, and Jun resists the urge to slap him upside his stubborn head—but only just. If he’s walking into danger, she’s going to protect him however she can. She knows Chaolan well enough to understand that if he says this situation warrants full body armor, then Kazuya better wear it.

“Please,” she murmurs, her voice whisper-soft, meant only for Kazuya. He looks at her, and she meets his gaze, trying to show him everything she feels: the anguish of watching someone you love walk into a fight that they ultimately lost, the helplessness of seeing them struggle, fall, and…worse. The moment of his first death—his eyes still searching for her, surprise and pain etched on his face—is still etched in stone in the back of her mind.

They’ve already been given one miraculous return from the dead each. She knows better than to ask for another.

He holds her gaze, and she sees twenty years of regret reflected in his eyes for just a second, but its long enough. He winces, exhales heavily, and finally turns back toward Chaolan.

"You got some armor I can borrow?" Kazuya asks, his tone begrudging but resigned.

The relief on Jun’s face must be palpable because not one of the men on the plane will meet her gaze.

"Yeah," Chaolan nods, smirking slightly. "You can wear one of my super-suits. I always keep a spare on board." Kazuya rolls his eyes, and Chaolan adds, "But if you stretch it out, you're going to pay for it."

Kazuya shoots Chaolan another glare at the assumption he might stretch out Chaolan’s armor, and Jun finds herself smiling at the exchange. Almost brotherly, she thinks. Almost.

"Back of the plane," Chaolan says, motioning with his hand. Kazuya strides toward the rear without hesitation. Jun notes how steady his steps are; he’s completely at ease, used to being on air transport.

“Is….there a second one?” She asks softly; Lee Chaolan looks at her, his eyebrows raised, then he shakes his head. He doesn’t want her to go in there with Kazuya; she sees that on his face, clear as day.

Which is another tell that this operation might be more dangerous than Kazuya wants to tell her.

Her stomach twists again, and she looks toward Kazuya, desperate to fill her eyes with his image, to remind herself he is alright, that he is hale and hearty and whole. She watches him strap on the armor with quiet fascination. It’s the first time she’s seen him in anything like it, but it’s clear this isn’t his first time wearing heavy armor. He doesn’t even pause to ask for instructions, moving with practiced efficiency as he puts it on like a second skin.

No, she thinks, a carapace.

Jun’s thoughts drift to the war between him and Jin that she’s only glimpsed in fragments and small little web video clips, and she grimaces. Maybe he wore it in Hokkaido, she tells herself, clinging to the thought. A part of her prefers that image—him donning the armor in a battle far removed from her family.

“Kazuya…” she whispers; he either doesn’t hear her or he ignores her. Instead, Kazuya belts up, his movements practiced and methodical. He grabs a gun, his hands deftly checking the safety, then examining the clip. Watching him handle the weapon so expertly, Jun is reminded—uncomfortably—of the family he was born into, one that manufactures death and destruction. Her stomach twists, and once again, she wonders if she can keep him from continuing down the path he set out on so long ago. If he even really wants to deviate from that path; he says he does. He says he is happy with her, with no plans for the rest of eternity but to raise their baby together and watch the sun rise and set together every day.

But change is hard. She knows that’s true of them both. Still, she watches him carefully, examining that gun. There’s no longing on his face, no hidden desire she can sense emanating from him. There’s only resolve, a single-minded determination to extract whatever he needs from this office.

Jun tightens her hands together, nerves screaming through her as she looks out at the massive building their plane is circling. It’s enormous, even from this height. She knows without asking that this is the G Corporation headquarters—the place he lived, apart from her for so many years. She knows he had no say in who resurrected him, no power to reject those who subjected him to decades of experiments.

But she thinks, if he had gotten a true choice…He still would have taken G Corp’s offer. She understands why he would feel compelled to: a chance to understand the mechanism that was both his largest handicap and his greatest ally? Even she would be tempted.

And she knows, bone-deep, without a single doubt, that he never thought it would take so long to gain control of it.

She watches him in silence as he finishes securing his borrowed suit, her eyes following the practiced ease with which he straps himself in and readies for battle. Every motion speaks to years of familiarity with war, and it gnaws at her. She doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t meet her eyes, reserving his words for Chaolan instead. But his avoidance only irritates her further. She knows why he won’t speak—there is nothing he can say. Still, it grates. Him, and Jin as well…their petty battles with one another have left the world in chaos, and it weighs on her.

She sighs, and he glances at her for only half a second. She tries to soften her tone; one never knows when it could be the last time they see their lover.

She knows that better than most.

“Kazuya….” She starts again. “What should I do to help you while you’re….?” She gives him a soft smile, if one that doesn’t quite meet her eyes. She can’t help but notice he looks good in the suit. Kazuya doesn’t answer her question; he gives her a half smile, and shakes his head, and before she can even ask what he meant by that, he’s sliding the door of the plane open.

And without hesitation, he jumps.

She lets out a startled yell, rushing to undo her restraints, to run to the open door.

“Relax. He does this,” Lars says, his tone calm, as though people jump out of planes every day. Without a parachute.

Jun stares at Lars, open-mouthed, then turns to Lee, who looks equally unfazed. It was one thing to do it when he had wings to slow him down, to gently break his fall. He doesn’t have that safeguard, not anymore.

Her mouth sets into a tight, frustrated line as she looks from them to the empty space where Kazuya once stood—and then at the wide-open door.

She steps forward.

“Hey, wait a minute—” Chaolan starts, clearly catching on to her intention, but she glares at him and shakes her head sharply. She has nothing to fear.

"Why would I be afraid to be up here? I have wings."

Unlike the rest of them, she has her own way of following him.

Closing her eyes, she feels the familiar shift, her body transforming into the bird form she has spent so much of her recent years in. With a powerful beat of her wings, she takes off, soaring past the stunned gawkers and out into the open sky.

Following Kazuya isn’t particularly hard. His impact on the building has left a very distinct, Kazuya-sized hole in a window.

She shifts back to her human form, and Kazuya turns around, his eyebrows lifting in surprise. “Huh,” he says.

“Don’t huh me!” she snaps, folding her arms as she strides toward him. “I said we would do this together. You can hardly be surprised.”

A half-smile tugs at his lips. She’s a stubborn one, and, sometimes, he enjoys it. “I had forgotten how demanding you are.”

“Then you’re being foolish, Kazuya Mishima. When I said we’d do this as a team, I meant it.” Her tone leaves no room for argument, and his eyes soften, just a bit. He nods.

“Forgive me,” he mutters. “I just…” His words trail off, unfinished, leaving her looking at him with mounting frustration. Just what? Just wanted to shield her from something? Keep her from seeing something that might upset her?

Her gaze sweeps around the room, taking it in. It’s exactly what she expected: Kazuya’s awkward sense of decor, unchanged since the ’90s. The space is all glass, sharp metal, and leather accents. Expensive components, sure, but utterly devoid of warmth. No personality. No comfort. It’s as cold and clinical as the office he once occupied.

Her arms tighten around herself, and she looks back at him. “This is what you lived in?” she asks softly.

He shrugs, as if the sterility of the room doesn’t bother him. Maybe it doesn’t. A chair is a chair, a stove is a stove. “It served its purpose.”

She bites her lip, wanting to say more but unsure how to put her thoughts into words. This place—it reflects the life he’s led without her, one of isolation and power, where everything is calculated, functional, and empty. It makes her chest ache.

She takes a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down and focus on the man, not the room. Insulting his décor isn’t going to help them here. “I appreciate that you apologized for leaving me out. I know that’s not easy for you.”

He nods from his position in front of the drawer, his eyes catching hers for a moment, before turning away again. That’s always his way when he’s uncomfortable, isn’t it? Just try to run out the clock.

“But you keep shutting me out,” she continues, her voice firm but not unkind. “You ignore the decisions I’ve made, and I am your partner, not your—your subordinate. I said I wanted to be part of this, and you just shut me out again by jumping out the window before we could even talk to you about it.”

“Mm.” He sighs, stepping away. Avoiding her eyes now. Damn it. He’s regressing on her, and it’s frustrating. He doesn’t offer a reason, though she waits—with great difficulty—for him to give her one.

“Why?” She finally asks, balling her hands into fists, stepping closer to him. She’s not letting him walk away from this—not again. He’s walked away from her enough. She wants answers, and this time, she’ll get them. “Are you afraid I’d find evidence you…wouldn’t want me to see?”

He laughs softly, shaking his head. “No,” he says, almost instantaneously. “You know well the type of man I am.”

He then gently picks up a picture frame from his nightstand. Wordlessly, he hands it to her: a near-destroyed picture, charred around the edges but the picture still recognizable in its center. She stares at it, her breath catching when she sees the hands clasped at its center. His hand, and hers, clasped together; many years ago, now. A hasty candid snapped by Anna while they were walking in a nature sanctuary together and delivered to Jun with a wink later. The photo he carried with him during his fight with… Her hand tightens involuntarily around the frame.

“No,” he says again, his voice quiet but sure, looking at her for a long moment and then turning away.

She nods slowly. “Were you that afraid I’d judge your décor?” She asks softly; a joke and yet not quite a joke. She doesn’t know why he’s being like this.

“Well, I knew you’d hate that,” he says, gesturing toward the leather chair…and avoiding the main topic of conversation.

She sighs. “You think I’d break up with you over a leather chair?”

“No.” He moves toward the closet, grabbing a few items of clothing and tossing them into that duffel bag. Not looking at her.

“Then why, Kazuya, are you so uncomfortable with me being here with you?”

He stops what he’s doing and stares at his closet for a few moments, as if it could answer the question for him.

“I… am not used to… sharing these things,” he mutters. It sounds rough, and she knows that’s a sign that he’s a little uncomfortable—and that he’s sharing anyway. Progress, in its own way.

She stares at him, frustrated but also a little softened by his vulnerability. “Sit down,” he says, and though she’s wary, she does, perching on the edge of the bed. The bed he’s slept in without her.

It’s hard and uncompromising, much like the man himself.

He sets the duffel down beside her, rummaging through it for a moment before pulling a small box out. She didn’t see him put that in there, but it must have been of the first things he grabbed, judging by how deep he has to reach for it. Then, to her surprise, he drops to his knees in front of her.

With his free hand, he gently strokes her knee, his touch tentative and almost reverent.

"My life has been nothing but conflict," he murmurs. "And fighting." He doesn’t look at her, and it annoys her—why won’t he? They’ve loved one another for twenty years, loved madly, even when they were separated. Does he really think she wouldn’t want to experience his coming back here with him?

He smooths a hand down her thigh with his free hand, still not looking at her. His expression is hard to read, but she has an advanced degree in reading Kazuya, and she recognizes that look: pensive. Sad. She reaches out and gently fluffs his hair, and he finally looks at her, a bit chagrined. As if she’s interrupting some sort of holy ritual. She gives him half a smile, amused.

Then he quickly looks away again. "I’m…used to treating every encounter like a battlefield. Every person as a potential betrayer."

"And when have I betrayed you?" she whispers, not bothering to hide the hurt in her voice. "Since when have I been anything but your girl?"

"Never." A half-smile appears on his mouth for half a moment before disappearing. "But I told you. I’m an old attack dog, one who’s been in too many pit fights. I’m not a nice puppy that fetches slippers for you. I will never be your puppy. And it’s hard to teach me new tricks at this point."

She swallows and continues to gently stroke his hair, unsure of what to say. She wants him to try. She wants him to want to try. And, in her heart, she knows he is trying—signing on for a life in the Yakushima countryside with her is a far cry from what he first imagined as a potential future together.

"But I..." He trails off, his gaze darting away from hers again. “As I said. My life is war, conflict, horror. It’s not a nice life, Jun.”

"I like our life." She smooths his hair again. "I like you. I love you."

He narrows his eyes at her. "Listen," he says, and nothing else. She looks back, obviously frustrated. Why does he want her to listen to him explain why he feels he doesn’t deserve this life, this happiness?

After a moment, he continues. "As I said. My life is nothing but suffering. But in all those terrible years..." He squeezes her thigh and looks up at her, and she swallows hard at the look in his eyes, which is intense if bittersweet. "There’s been one bright spot. And that one bright star…” He swallows, and he actually looks almost nervous. “Well. There is no one else I could ever want to have at my side."

His little rueful smile shifts into his more-familiar smirk, and she heart hammers, beginning to realize just what this little speech is meant to accomplish. "Besides, there’s no one else stubborn enough to follow this old dog, anyway. Nor strong enough to."

Her heart stutters, and she feels a lump rise in her throat. He looks at her and slowly moves his right hand to her lap, gently nudging a small box there. Her heart speeds up, and she looks up at him.

"What is...?" she asks, but she already knows. Of course she knows. There aren’t a lot of things Kazuya Mishima would have in such a small box, and even less of them that would entail him on his knees like this.

The blush creeping across her face must make it obvious to him, because he chuckles softly. There’s an unusual jitter to his laugh that tells her Kazuya Mishima is just as nervous about this as she is, his infamous courage finally drained.

"I am not the man you deserve," he says, his voice soft and surprisingly steady. "I am cantankerous and gloomy, and I bite more than most dogs. I no longer have the money nor the power I could once offer you with this ring. But in all my years of fighting and conflict and surviving by the mere skin of my teeth, you are the only one who has ever earned my respect..."

She knows if she looks at him, she’ll see his usual intense expression trained fully on her. But she can’t tear her eyes away from his large, brutal hand, holding this small, romantic box.

"More than that," he says, his voice unfaltering and true. "You are the only one I have ever...loved.” He stumbles over the word, but he says, he says it, and her heart is damn near beating out of her chest. “I will be a terrible husband, it’s true. But I will be your terror, if you’ll have me."

"When did you get this...?" she whispers, gently opening the box. She almost gasps in surprise. A huge diamond, set in a silver band with a delicate—slightly yellowed—interior lining. She bites her lip and looks at him. "This is…"

"Quite overdue." His lips curve into a smirk. "I was planning to give you this after I fought Heihachi in the finals." Unsaid, but she knows: all those years ago. A beat, awkward, where she suspects they both think about what happened instead, and how horrible it was. "Well. That didn’t happen."

"I'm surprised you kept it." He had to have gone back to the Mishima estate to get it at some point; how had Heihachi not gotten rid of it, somehow, in all those years? She can’t quite pull her eyes away from the ring. She’s never seen a diamond that large in her life. Not that the size matters, but it’s proof of how much he wanted her to be seen as his wife.

The knowledge that this ring has waited so long—it hurts. He was planning to propose. He was planning to propose all those years ago. She can see it now, a whirlwind of knive-sharp flashes of a future that never happened: Kazuya’s arm raised in victory, then his curious face holding their son at his birth, Jin taking his first steps with his father on one side and her on the other...a life so different from the one they’ve lived instead.

"I always get what’s mine in the end, Kazama," he says. There’s a strange flicker of emotion across his face—hard to read, but she understands it. It’s the look of a man who found a holy relic from a future that never came to pass and seized it, knowing it would be the only version of that future he’d ever have. Or so he must have thought at the time.

"I figured when I died for the second time..." He shrugs. "The boy would get it, I suppose. I had no other heirs. Better him than any of Heihachi’s numerous bastards. If it could not adorn your finger, perhaps…" He can’t quite finish the sentence, but she understands what he means: if it couldn’t be yours, it would at least be in your blood-line.

Romantic and hopelessly fatalistic, in the way he usually was. It’s still almost enough to take her breath away.

"You would have confused Jin," she says wryly. She knows Jin, knows he has his father's mind at times—and knows, too, that he would see that diamond and immediately wonder which woman was going to be his stepmother. "I'm surprised you went back to get it."

But she knows why now.

"You haven't answered my question," he says stiffly, looking up at her. His posture, the guarded edge in his voice—it reminds her that Kazuya is, at heart, that kicked dog—a man always bracing for disappointment, always afraid of being hurt. She leans forward and gently presses a kiss to his cheek.

"Yes. Of course. How could you doubt it? We already have one child together. Almost two. You've been my mate for over twenty years. You claimed me long ago."

His expression softens into a rare, gentle smile. Relief. It breaks her heart a bit to think that he thought she might say no.

"But I can’t believe you’re asking me to marry you here," she says, heat rising to her cheeks. The blush spreads before she can control it.

He shrugs. "You were the one who followed me. I only needed to get the ring. Once you were here…why wait?”

"I didn’t need a ring," she murmurs. "I never needed to be married at all. Being your woman is enough."

"Hmph." He stands and moves to the nightstand, pulling off the two pictures of it, still in their frames—one the half-burned one, one of his mother. She recognizes it immediately. He must have pilfered it from the Mishima estate, too. She remembers the way that portrait’s eyes seemed to follow her around whenever she visited the Mishima compound back when they were dating.

"You needed the ring," he say, and his voice is a little gruff as he carefully wraps his pictures in a couple of the shirts he’d grabbed from the closet. "I'm not that improper."

"It didn’t need to be this ring." She shakes her head. "I don’t need a fancy stone, or—"

"It was my mother’s," he says softly.

Her mouth opens, but no words come out. Oh. Oh.

"Is that why you came here?" she asks, the question slipping out before she can stop it. The answer seems so obvious now. Of course it is.

He doesn’t reply, but the way he freezes for ten long seconds speaks volumes. Then, without a word, he resumes packing, hastily shoving a few more items into the duffle bag. The last thing he adds is a pistol. Her stomach twists at the sight of it, but she doesn’t stop him. Kazuya has many enemies, and much as she hates to admit it, there may come a day when it’s necessary.

"I'm surprised no guards have interrupted us," she admits. She had expected them by now. But it’s been quiet; there hasn’t even been a tripped alarm noise. She supposes that G Corp never thought most of the people who would invade their leader’s bedroom would literally go through the window.

He glances around and shrugs. "They’re not as efficient as they used to be. G Corp’s leadership has... declined. Boss isn’t around to have their hide for someone breaking into his living quarters. Why would they care?" There’s a trace of hurt in his voice, but she knows better than to press him on it. The lack of loyalty clearly stings, though he won’t admit it aloud. Not to her. She suspects it’s because it reminds him of the future he gave up.

But he won’t voice that, and she doesn’t want to know for sure, so she carefully avoids reading his mind on the matter.

"Are you ready to go?" she asks, her voice soft but firm. She’d rather avoid a fight with some soldiers, especially now that she’s starting to show. She’s confident she could handle it if it came to that, but she’d prefer not to put her child at risk.

He hesitates, his gaze sweeping over the room one last time. She sees the flicker in his eyes, the temptation to press some unseen intercom button, to broadcast his return to the entire building, to reclaim the empire he lost, to betray Chaolan and once again attempt to seize the world in his hands.

It breaks her heart a little. After all they’ve shared in the past months—the tender moments, the loving touches, his hand on her belly as he felt their child move—there is still a part of him that lusts for power, that longs for more.

But the moment passes. He shakes his head and looks at her, the fire in his gaze cooling into something softer but burning no less ardently.

"Yeah. I’m ready."

He reaches for her hand and leads her to the window. Outside, Chaolan’s helicopter hovers closer, its blades kicking up wind that whips her hair around her face. Kazuya wraps an arm around her and signals for the helicopter to approach.

"Oh," she says softly, a teasing note in her voice. "You’re waiting for me now?"

"Have to hold on to the woman who still has wings," he replies, a smirk tugging at his lips. "Since I’ve lost mine."

"You were always a good flier," she murmurs, a faint smile gracing her face. It’s the one thing she misses about his demonic form—the way he used to soar.

His smirk deepens. "Don’t worry. I won’t fall."

"You were always surefooted," she says. But her hands grip his sides just a little tighter as they wait. She wonders how many times he’s stood like this, poised for battle, on the precipice of a helicopter or a battlefield.

He glances down at her, and a rare smile softens his sharp features.

"It really was overdue," he says.

"Hmm?" Her mind is elsewhere, too focused on the approaching helicopter to process his words.

"The ring," he says; he’s still stuck on that, it seems. "You should’ve had it long ago."

"It never mattered." She squeezes his side, grounding herself in the moment. "I’ve always been your woman, married or not."

"Mm." His grip tightens, a quiet affirmation. She doesn’t understand why he clings to this symbol. They already have one grown child together, another on the way. Centuries from now, their bloodline will endure, mingled together through their descendants. What could be more permanent than that? A ring and a ceremony seem trivial in comparison.

But then he murmurs, "I am choosing you. That’s what it means. That I am willingly bound and willingly given."

She pauses and clings to him a little tighter. That, she understands. For a man like Kazuya—a man who has been fiercely independent from the moment she meant him—she understands why it is important to him. To say that he chose her, that he gave himself to her.

The helicopter looms beside the building, the roar of its blades drowning out anything else she might say. But she doesn’t need to speak. She turns to him, gazing into his dark, intense eyes, and he smiles.

It’s awkward and hesitant, and he’s still learning how to do it. Smiling makes him feel vulnerable, she knows.

But he’s still trying. For her.

She clings to Kazuya a little more tightly as they step onto the helicopter, the sound of a muffled boom behind them. Someone’s finally noticed they breached the room, but it doesn’t matter now—they’re airborne. Kazuya all but throws her into a seat, his movements brusque yet careful. She grabs onto him for balance as Lee slides the door shut with a resounding thud.

As they pull away, there’s no anti-aircraft fire to greet them. Either G Corp doesn’t have the resources, or they don’t see the point. She frowns, trying to work through the logistics in her head, though military strategy isn’t her forte.

She buckles her seatbelt, glancing at Kazuya to make sure he’s doing the same. He meets her gaze and offers a private, fleeting smile, his hand reaching for hers. It’s a small moment of peace in the chaos, but of course, it doesn’t last.

Chaolan’s eyes catch on her hand, widening slightly when he spots the ring.

“Oh, finally?” he mutters, his tone a bit cocky.

Kazuya growls low in his throat, narrowing his eyes at his adopted brother, but Chaolan just grins and claps his hands theatrically. He tosses Kazuya a thumbs-up before settling back into his seat; always the showman. “About time,” he says, his voice murmuring sweetly as he looks at them both.

She smiles at him, but is distracted from him by Lars, rising to look out the doorway window of their plane.

“What are the chances of pursuit?” Lars barks toward the cockpit, his voice sharp and efficient. She’s grateful for his vigilance, because at this moment, her mind is too consumed with the emotional whirlwind to focus on much else.

"You said yes?" Lee Chaolan asks her, his tone unexpectedly gentle. Despite their differences, she knows he respects her in his own way.

"Yes," she says softly. Her smile blooms as she presses a hand to her belly. "Of course. There was never any question. I would have said yes twenty years ago."

Her words earn a faint blush from Kazuya, who turns away from everyone, pretending to focus on the window.

"I’m surprised they aren’t pursuing us," he mutters, breaking the silence. "If they went to the trouble of blowing open my door..."

"Probably no resources for it," Chaolan replies with a shrug. "You lost most of your forces on Yakushima, remember?"

Kazuya makes a sharp tsch sound, the kind of noise that says he remembers all too well, even if he doesn’t want to dwell on it. He doesn’t turn to look back at her, but he reaches for her hand again, his fingers brushing hers hesitantly. The cool weight of the ring between them makes them both pause for a second, as if acknowledging the strangeness of it.

Lars catches the moment and smiles. "Congratulations," he says, his voice awkward but sincere.

"Thanks," she replies warmly.

Kazuya, predictably, says nothing. She sighs and playfully hits him on the shoulder. "Kazuya."

"Hm? Oh... thanks." The words come out grudgingly, but she’ll take it. He keeps his gaze fixed out the window, scanning for signs of pursuit.

"We’re clear, I think," Lee Chaolan says after a moment, but Kazuya doesn’t relax.

"We can’t go straight back to Japan," Lars interjects. "We’ll need to stop to refuel. Honolulu base is closest."

She nods absently, her thoughts drifting. She wishes Jin were here. There’s so much to tell him now, and she aches to see him with Kazuya. Just once. To let him know how deeply he’s loved—by both his parents.

"That’s fine," Kazuya says. His voice is low, tired. She supposes the day has taken its toll on him. He’s proposed, fought his way through a temptation to re-seize his past, and endured hours of Chaolan’s antics—all while keeping himself together. She’s a little sad, knowing which of those trials was hardest for him.

Will they ever have a normal, loving family? The baby in her belly kicks, as if to protest. Am I not proof enough? The thought makes her smile. Maybe the baby takes after her, too; so stubborn. So wanting to cling to the family she already knows.

And maybe she’s proof of the family they can grow, in their own way.

"Chaolan," she murmurs, drawing his attention. "Thank you for doing this for us."

"Quite all right," Chaolan says, tilting his head slightly as he studies her. "But…that bird thing of yours... that’s new, isn’t it?"

She frowns. "Yes. Ever since I woke up from..." Her voice trails off. She doesn’t want to admit that this is something new, something she barely understands. Shaking her head, she decides not to guess about what caused it. She knows she woke from that coma with significantly more power; that the shrine poured all of its energy into her in the years she was bound there. But she doesn’t want to tell Lee Chaolan that, doesn’t want to be seen as less human than she already is seen by them.

"She’s fine," Kazuya mutters, his voice thicker than usual. "It’s not the first time someone in this family has transformed."

"It’s quite an extensive transformation," Chaolan counters defensively. "No less than your own." Kazuya glares at him in response.

"Perhaps less laser beams," she admits with a soft laugh. Chaolan and Lars join in, and after a long moment, even Kazuya smirks.

"So you’ve seen it too, then?" Chaolan asks, his smirk almost identical to Kazuya’s, though she would never tell either of them that. "Our oni-san’s big transformation? I had wondered."

"Don’t call me that," Kazuya mutters under his breath, but no one pays attention to his grumbling.

"I knew," she says after Chaolan stares at her a touch too long. "Long ago."

They all pause, and she can feel the judgment from the others, as if silently questioning how she could go on to have Kazuya’s son anyway. But let them judge. She loves him, and he loves her, and as crazy as it is, demonic possession isn’t the only supernatural power Jin has in his family line.

And it won’t be the only power in her baby girl’s line either. Megumi kicks hard again, and when she makes a noise, Kazuya turns, his hands shifting to gently touch the edge of her side. She smiles at him.

He’s never had a good father figure, but he’s learning. And soon, he’ll be a father again. And, in many ways, it will be for the first time. Kazuya seems too vulnerable in the moment to do much more than he’s already doing, keeping his back to the group, his eyes glued to the horizon for threats she can’t see. She’s pretty sure he’s not looking for actual threats—just trying to carve out space for himself. Getting off the plane for a while might help him decompress.

"Do you think we’ll have a long stopover for fueling?" she asks, looking at Lee Chaolan, willing it to be true. At least half an hour. Enough time for Kazuya to recover.

"I don’t think—" Chaolan starts, but she glares at him, and he clears his throat. "Ah, well, I mean—" He scratches his neck. "I suppose a half hour."

She keeps glaring.

"Maybe longer. The Honolulu base isn’t the fastest—"

"What are you talking about?" Lars interjects. "They’ve got great—"

This time, she and Chaolan both glare at Lars, and he catches on.

"Ah, right. Must be mixing that up with another base. Mexico City or something," Lars mutters, his attempt at saving face half-hearted at best.

No one comments further. There’s a long beat, and then Lars brightens, looking at Chaolan. "You know, I think Alisa is in Hawaii today. Something about monitoring volcanic activity there."

"You’d best go see her, then," Lee Chaolan says with a smile, and she can’t help but smile too, watching them. It’s nice seeing Chaolan and Lars behave like brothers. They may not have grown up together like Chaolan and Kazuya, but they’ve formed a bond, nonetheless.

But it makes it even more obvious to her that Kazuya hasn’t joined in. He hasn’t vocalized anything beyond the bare minimum since they were picked up, and he’s still staring out the window, even though they’ve been over open water without pursuit for a while now. She watches him, and he doesn’t turn, even though he must feel her eyes on the back of his head. His thoughts are shielded. His hand doesn’t move from her side, but he isn’t engaging with anyone.

He’d be furious if he saw the pity in her eyes, but fortunately, he isn’t turning around. She sighs. Hopefully, he’ll decompress a bit in Hawaii. If they’re lucky, the stop will be at least a little scenic, though she doubts Lee Chaolan set up a base there for the view.

She startles as the plane skids downward a few moments later; once again, Kazuya barely reacts, only shifting his weight slightly to avoid being thrown hard against the seat. She stays quiet until they deplane, and when he stalks off in one direction without saying a word, she follows.

"Don’t you want to meet that Alisa woman? Lars’ girl?" She already knows the answer is no, but it’s a neutral explanation as to why she’s following him, and he’s unlikely to get irritated by the question.

"No," he says, crossing his arms. She rolls her eyes.

"If you wish to meet her, feel free. I have already met her; she threw an arm at me in combat."

"Don’t you mean raised an arm in—"

"No." He smirks. "I do not."

"...Alright. Another time, then." She places one hand on her wrist tentatively; something is going on with him, and she’s going to find out what. She glances at him and shifts her touch to take his hand, expecting him to pull away.

But he doesn’t. His hands close over hers, and he meets her gaze.

"I don’t want to socialize."

"That’s fine." She squeezes his hand. "Is my company alright?"

He drops her hand, huffing as he re-crosses his arms over his chest, a gesture that signals vulnerability—though he’d rather die than admit that it’s a protective instinct.

"...Your company does not count as socializing," he mutters after a long moment, and she smirks.

"Ah, I see." She tugs him toward the sound of water, hoping a tropical scene might help relax him. He follows quietly, and she considers mentioning how quiet he was on the ride, but, sensing his wariness, she decides against it. Instead, she starts talking about the plants she recognizes. Not many—it’s been twenty years since she last researched Hawaiian botany—but there’s enough overlap between her memories and similar flora on Yakushima for her to fill the silence with a calm, steady stream of chatter.

He doesn’t say much beyond a "hmm," from time to time, but that’s enough. When they finally reach a beach, he looks out at the waves. She watches with him for a moment before bending down to examine a familiar flower.

"Those grow on Yakushima," his voice booms, and she looks up, smiling. The first words he’s spoken in a long while, and it’s an attempt to connect with her.

"Yes," she replies simply. "Or rather, a cousin does. These have a white stem; the Yakushima version has a pink stem."

"Cousins, hm?" He looks down at her, and after a long pause, a thought strikes her, and she smiles. Gently, she reaches out, plucking a flower that’s a little past its prime, placing it behind his ear.

"Yes," she says. He clicks his tongue at the gesture but doesn’t stop her, nor does he pull the flower from his hair once she’s done. A success, by all accounts. She gently grabs his hand and squeezes it; her ring makes the whole experience of holding his hand feel a little different. She pauses. "We’ll have to get you a ring, too."

"Mm." He sounds uninterested in that part, but his hand stays on hers. She looks into his eyes, but she can’t quite read him, his thoughts staying beneath the surface. It’s a strange frustration—knowing him so well, yet unable to understand what he’s thinking right now.

"Do you truly want to marry?" she asks gently. "It’s alright if it feels too fast or—"

"I wanted it twenty years ago," he interrupts, shifting slightly toward her. "My feelings on the matter haven’t changed."

"Then what has put you in such a mood?" She strokes her hand down his back; he doesn’t pull away.

"A long period of my life has ended." She frowns; she had thought it had ended earlier—surely it ended when he left G Corp to live with her in Yakushima. It bothers her that he hasn’t shown any sign of this regret until now. "All that work. And all for nothing."

"Is it truly all for nothing?" she asks, doing her best to keep her voice gentle. "You’re back with me. Whatever path led you here, I cannot be anything but thankful for that."

He nods stiffly but says nothing more, and she doesn’t press him, simply waiting and letting him feel whatever it is he needs to feel, however long it takes.

"It’s not that I am unthankful that you are at my side. Do not take it as a rejection of you." It’s hard not to, though. It’s hard not to think of the years he spent with G Corporation while she was alive and well, raising his son in his memory. Those years felt like a rejection of her. By his own admission, they were. He sighs. "I spent twenty years working toward a goal. A goal I achieved, however briefly. And being back there just reminds me of the finality of it all. That it is over. That there’s no place left in that world for me."

"You make your own space." She squeezes his hand. She doesn’t understand his complaint; he achieved his goal, the goal did not make him happy, he acquired a new goal. As simple as that. "You’ve done a hundred thousand times. I don’t see why this is any different."

He says nothing, and she watches the water, waiting for his taciturn mind to finally relent and voice his concerns. The waves roll in, out, in, out. It feels like their relationship sometimes—always a few steps forward, then one back. After a long moment, he finally sighs and speaks again. "It just is."

"Elucidating," she murmurs, and he snorts.

"I was never a good conversationalist."

"No," she smiles. "Yet I still wish to understand you."

"Much to your folly, Jun Kazama." He pulls his hand away from hers, crossing his arms as he stares out at the sea. Her stomach twists.

"Do you miss it?" she asks softly, her voice catching in her throat, though her mouth demands she voice the words. She can’t live with always having it be a question, an unspoken thing among many that they’ve agreed to let go. "Do you wish to go back to G Corp, to try to possess the whole world?"

He makes an odd expression, a slight twitch of his mouth. "I would be lying if I did not say I still think about it." Her heart hurts at hearing that, but she keeps her face neutral. He smiles at her, but there’s no kindness in it—only sadness. "I told you, I’m a terrible man. But do not worry, I will not."

"If it’s for my sake—" Everything tastes bitter in her mouth, but she forces herself to say it. She won’t allow him to mope around for the rest of her life, thinking he’s caged by her when he wants to fly away. She knows all too well what it’s like to be a caged bird.

He pulls her closer to him, gently tugging her into his embrace. "It is not. I am far too selfish for it to be entirely for your benefit, Kazama. I am with you because I want to be. Do I miss the power? Yes. I will probably always miss it to some extent. But..." He sighs, and his hand glides down her shoulders, taking her hand in his. Slowly, he brings it to his lips, a courtly gesture, no less strange now than the first time he did it. A mark of how his upbringing was an entire class different from her own. "But even without you," he murmurs, his eyes on her hand in his, "even without you, I...found the cost too high."

"The cost—" The word fades as he looks at her, his eyes pleading with her not to make him say it. She shakes her head, slowly wrapping her hands around his neck. She knows what he’s saying—that Jin was the cost, and at the end of the day...he’s not sorry he failed to pay it. Even trying to stomach the attempt cost him something so dear that she knows he’ll never try again.

She smiles at him, tilting her head up, lips slightly parted; the communication equally wordless, equally understood. He dips his head down to kiss her—simple, pure, sweet.

"You’re too good for me," he mutters, gripping her hands tightly. "I don’t deserve your hand."

She rolls her eyes. "It’s too late for that self-doubt, Kazuya. You’ve not only already proposed, but you’ve also given me two children."

"One point five children," he says with a smirk before slowly pulling her close again. "Still can't believe that's—" His hand moves achingly slowly toward her abdomen, and she gently places her hands over his, guiding him to where Megumi is currently curled up.

"She's hiding a bit," she snorts. “She likes to do that. Hiding in her dark little cave all the time, only coming out to kick me—hard as a mule. And I have no doubt she’ll be just as stubborn and unrepentant as one too. I wonder where she gets that from?"

He looks at her furtively for a moment. She smiles, and he shakes his head. "I didn’t expect it to feel like this," he murmurs. His eyes flicker toward her, then away—a tell that he is trying to hide his vulnerability while attempting to not totally disengage. It’s a huge effort for him. She looks away, giving him time to recover, but she can’t stop herself from smiling. "To be a...father. Again."

"You didn’t get to enjoy it the first time." He didn’t even get to know about it the first time; Jin was unknown to her and him both then.

"No." He lets out a short laugh. "An understatement. Nothing about the years without you was particularly pleasurable, especially those early years. I was little more than a conscious slab of burnt meat."

She winces, rubbing his shoulder, wanting to say something comforting considering his horrific memories but all words fail her. But before she can say anything, a throat clears behind her. Turning, she finds a girl with pink hair staring at them. Kazuya glares at the girl, his expression glowering, and she can tell he’s furious with himself for letting this stranger catch them off guard in an intimate moment.

"Hi! I’m Alisa," the girl chirps, grinning at Jun before her expression turns neutral as she faces Kazuya. There’s something off about her—no ki, no blood flow, no life. Synthetic? Jun blinks, realizing Lee Chaolan’s robotics must be far further along than she thought. Then the name hits her.

"Ah, Alisa. Lars' girlfriend." She smiles at the girl, biting her cheek a bit to stop herself from laughing at the realization. Lars' girlfriend is a robot? Those Mishimas—none of them ever seem to have simple romances. She wonders who Jin will bring home, someday; at this point, she does not think she can be surprised.

"Kazama Jun," she says, holding out her hand with a gentle smile. Alisa smiles back, but her gaze shifts to Kazuya, her face carefully blank. "Watashi wa Alisa Bosconovitch—"

"I remember," Kazuya drawls, his voice laced with frustration. Jun catches the flicker of irritation across Alisa’s face and realizes the enmity is mutual.

"You’ve met, I see," Jun observes, her voice soft in a bid to keep the peace. Alisa nods vehemently, turning back to her.

"Only on the battlefield. He is not very nice."

"No," Jun agrees. "On the battlefield, he is not very nice."

Kazuya folds his arms, his mask slamming down with practiced ease. "What is it you want, Lars' pet?"

"Kazuya," Jun admonishes—gently so, but still a rebuke. "She has a name."

"No offense taken. I am still programmed with disdain for him, ma'am," Alisa replies with a polite blink and smile. "One of my primary objectives is to protect Jin Kazama from all his enemies."

"He's not Jin's enemy," Jun says firmly, giving Alisa a sharp look. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Kazuya’s smirk at her defense of him.

"I understand. But I have not been reprogrammed to think otherwise," Alisa replies. Jun nods, her annoyance fading. There, she understands and cannot help but feel a pang of sympathy for the girl’s fate—programmed in goals she did not choose. She makes a mental note to enquire with Chaolan just what limitations Alisa has on her own programming—and if any of those limitations can be undone.

"I hope one day you will feel secure enough to update your programming. He’s not a threat to Jin or you or anyone else, not anymore."

"I would not say that," Kazuya mutters under his breath. Jun shoots him a frustrated glance. Doesn’t he see she’s trying to ease fears about him? Alisa seems unconvinced of her words, no thanks to Kazuya. She looks at him with annoyance, then turns back to Jun, and a tender smile slowly spreads across her face.

"You seem very kind, Kazama Jun," Alisa says warmly. "Anyway, Mr. Lee told me to tell you that the plane is refueled and they’re waiting for you for take-off.”

She moves suddenly toward Jun, and grabs her hand, shaking it firmly. It feels like skin, even if she knows the woman isn’t flesh and blood. If it weren’t for her psychic powers, she’s not sure that she would know at all that the woman wasn’t born a human woman. “I hope this venture works out for you,” Alisa chirrups. “If you’ll excuse me." Without another word, rockets trigger at her back and takes off, the only proof of her interruption a trail of exhaust that lingers in the air.

Jun watches her disappear. "What an odd girl," she murmurs. "But not uncharming." She turns to Kazuya, who still watches the spot where Alisa disappeared from warily, his arms folded.

"You don’t need to be so guarded," she says, a little frustrated. "She wasn’t trying to hurt you."

"Hmph, I know." His glare suggests her comment was obvious. "I am well aware of who she is."

"You were rude to her," Jun mutters. "You need to stop assuming everyone wants to fight you, Kazuya."

"Everyone does." He raises his eyebrows and jabs a finger toward her. "You think Chaolan would not betray us, that he would not leave us for dead if he did not find our existence useful for him? That Lars would wait for us if he found a good advantage to leaving us here? They’re Mishimas, as much as I am. They would kill us for any advantage, the same as the old man and myself."

Jun folds her arms, stepping closer to him. "If every Mishima family gathering ends in a kill-or-be-killed battle, then why are they waiting for us? Why did they send Alisa to fetch us? Why did you let us walk off into the wilderness alone? I’ve seen what you do when you feel someone you love is at risk."

She reaches out, unfolding his arms despite his resistance. He lets her take his hand, though not without difficulty. "I think they want to be closer to you. And you’re just as afraid of letting them in as you are of me or Jin—"

"Enough," he says sharply, though his hand tightens around hers. It’s a small gesture, but it tells her she’s hit her mark. She wraps her arms around him, guiding him back toward the landing zone.

"We are Mishimas," he mutters after a long silence. "Sooner or later, betrayal and destruction are inevitable. That’s the way it’s always been—and always will be."

"It is the way it has been," she admits. "But it doesn't always have to be that way. Jin is as much Mishima as he is Kazama. And yet, you’re both alive. And fond enough of one another, in your own ways."

"Not wanting the other to die does not constitute fondness," he says, looking away. She rolls her eyes. He is fond of Jin—he just doesn’t want to admit it. Frustrated, she stomps her way up the path, trying to work out her anger. She knows why he’s like this, but it still saddens her to see how fiercely he denies loving their son, even as she catches him staring at Jin’s pictures with such concern at times.

"Hold up," he mutters. He can tell she’s mad. "Do not exert yourself too much. It’s not good for the baby."

"Will Megumi betray you too?" she whirls around and asks sharply, and he winces. "Is that what you think? That we’ll betray you? That I watch you sleep to figure out the best place to stick a knife?" She pokes his chest. "Is that what you think, Kazuya?"

"...No," he says softly. "Not you."

"Her?" She takes his hand and presses it gently to her belly. "You wanted her badly enough a couple months ago."

"...I want her." He pulls her into his arms, resting his head against hers. "I want her, Jun."

"But you think she’ll inevitably hurt you?" He flinches and doesn’t answer, which is as good as a yes. He takes her hands, wordlessly stroking them, a desperate look in his eyes that almost breaks her heart. He still fears losing her, she thinks.

"...Some things are worth pain," he mutters, looking away. "You always say she is like me. If she is like me... she’ll be no different, Jun. You may as well face it."

"I think it’s cute to imagine the baby being like you," she says softly, "but I have proof enough you can have a child who takes after you and be nothing but loving and kind." She lets go of his hand, reaching up to stroke his chin. "She will love her father. As I love her father. As Jin—"

He laughs nervously at that, shaking his head but pulling her closer.

"I cannot change this," he murmurs. "It has kept me alive too many years."

"You can. I’m not asking you to be their friend; I’m asking you to stop attacking people the moment they talk to you. I love you, and I want other people to realize you’re a good—"

"I am not a good ma—"

"…Ally," she cuts him off. "You’re clever and sharp. I want them to see you as I see you." She smiles, stroking his cheek. "If you want to stay quiet, that’s fine. I don’t expect you to become a talkative man. But…perhaps you should accept the possibility your family might genuinely tolerate you. You are not your father, Kazuya. You’ve proved that already."

He nods once, sharply. It isn’t a yes, but it’s as close as she can get out of him right now and she recognizes that. She backs off, sensing he’s done with the conversation. He’s heard her concerns, and she has to trust that’s enough.

"I know what I am. I am not an easy-going man," he says, his voice quiet and…wounded. Dammit! No, no, no. Dammit. He’s so sensitive to criticism sometimes. She grabs his hand and kisses it.

"None of that. Criticism doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I just want you to have more friends. Because you deserve to have friends. You deserve love.” His eyes flicker towards her, too sensitive, a rare unguarded look—and it gone as fast as it appears. Sometimes, she wonders how he ever got up the courage to kiss her at all—and how much he tortured himself before he allowed himself to do so.

"I do not need friends." He pauses. "But I have had them without your help, anyway."

"You had Anna and Bruce. Who were also your friends twenty years ago." She gently puts her hand in his and squeezes it, trying to encourage him to branch out.

"Is it wrong to keep friends so long?"

"You didn’t bother to tell them you were alive." He rolls his eyes.

"I did not tell you I was alive either, and I was madly in love with you." Her gasp at that sharp barb turns into a soft laugh—a little painful, but, for once, funny in a dark sort of way.

"So you admit that out loud now? Where someone might hear it?" She sticks her tongue out, teasing him. He smirks, his amusement quiet but evident.

"You’re wearing my ring, aren’t you?"

She glances at her hand and smiles. "We’ll have to tell Jin." She smiles for a moment, thinking of her son, but Kazuya winces, and that just almost breaks her heart.

"...He might not want to hear it," he says bluntly. She winces. She knows he’s right—Jin still has let their calls go direct to voicemail, and it’s been over a year now.  She knows that silence might be a sign he might never come around to it, but she hopes that it is not. She has to hope. Her love for Jin is as endless as her love for Kazuya. She has to try to reconcile the two, even if that work will take the rest of her life. She is certain now, at least, that if she talks to Chaolan...he would have Jin come to meet her, at least.

At the gate that will lead them back into the airfield, she slows. Kazuya follows behind her, arms folded, his gaze scanning the others. He says nothing to the crowd that is so obviously waiting for them, but he's not spewing insults, and that’s enough for now.

"Chaolan," she says. "We’re ready."

Chaolan smiles, nodding at her. Kazuya nods at Lee, the motion stiff but meaningful.

"Don't mess this up now," Chaolan says, his voice surprisingly warm. Kazuya hmphs and stalks past him, only hesitating when he reaches the top of the stairs. "She's good for you," Chaolan sing-songs, and winks at her. Kazuya ignores it, but the stiffening of his back tells her he's heard it, and he can't disagree with it.

"...Tell the boy...to call home sometime," Kazuya mutters, not turning to look at any of them; she freezes, then smiles at his rapidly retreating back as he goes to take his seat on the plane. She knows he did that for her. And she does love him for it.

That he tries. That he wants to try.  She takes Lee’s hand firmly, then shakes Lars’ and Alisa’s hands as well.

The ride back to Japan is quiet and uneventful. Halfway across the Pacific, even Kazuya stops watching for threats. Instead, he places a hand on her thigh. The small gesture means the world to her. She glances at him, and gently places her own ringed hand on his thigh. I'm yours.

His hand strokes her thigh carefully, and he nods. Yes. You are. And I, in turn, am yours. They are one another's now; perhaps they always were. Time has not softened his edges nor blotted out her melancholy, but they are stronger together than they ever were alone, and that is reason enough to give him a soft smile. They are together. And even if he does wish for power, at times, she believes now that he will not go back.

After a few moments, Kazuya’s hand squeezes her own as he looks at her with an intense fondness, and she knows what he is trying to convey. I will try. For the boy. For the...others. But... I do not expect any of them to want me, and it will not be your failure if you fail to fix our relationship. They are Mishima, as am I.

I could only ask for that. Thank you for trying. She wordlessly presses her brow to his own. His trust in her, even when he is at his most fatalistic, means more than she can express. It will be alright. I know Jin is my son as much as he is yours. He will come. I know it. And won't he surprised? Kazuya laughs softly, his voice surprisingly warm and genuine, though whether he’s picking up on her thoughts or just the gentle touch of her head to his, he does not know.

"Please don't start the honeymoon before we get you two back home," Chaolan says with a sniff. She looks over at him and smiles; he looks back at her.  Chaolan looks happier now than he did at the start of this; she can feel that things are shifting, changing. That perhaps they are all moving on, in some way. Welcome to the family, that grin says.

"We won't scandalize you," she murmurs with a teasing smile. For once, the plane doesn't feel full of tension that she can cut with a knife. It feels...maybe not easy, but easier. They can joke and tease and laugh together.

Like a family.

The plane continues its quiet journey, the rhythmic hum of the engines a steady backdrop to their shared silence. They don’t need to fill the space with words. For once, the absence of tension between them feels like a victory. A small one, but a victory nonetheless.

When they land in Japan, there’s no grand goodbyes, no awkward betrayals. There’s only the steady, comforting presence of one another, the quiet promise that they will see one another again—not soon, perhaps, but sometime. Kazuya’s hand remains in hers, a quiet promise that, despite everything, they’re still in this together. Willingly bound, willingly given.

And that, for now, is enough.