The Re-Forging of the Blade

**Chapter Ten**
The Absolution of the Forge

Kazuya Mishima slid back in the rich leather seat of his limo, brushing his fingers through thick black tendrils in order to sweep the wayward locks back into his normally severe style. With a deep breath, the heir to the empire ran his eyes along Chaolan, captivated by his labored breathing.

Lee pressed into the seat opposite of Kazuya, eyes closed as sweat-damp silver tendrils fell like mercury against leather. The tip of his tongue snaked out to wet the agonizing dryness of his lips as he drew up his hips to readjust his leather – unbuckled - trousers. “That was unexpected,” he groaned, his back sore from straining in an odd position for too long. It had been awhile since he had taken a ride like this in a limo, and his neck was no longer used to the angle he was forced to hold lest his skull crack against the roof of the car.

“Consider it my gift to you, for a job well done,” the Mishima snickered, clearing his throat. “It is the only gift an infectious bitch like you, can possibly understand.”

“You flatter me,” the Silver Devil exhaled sarcastically. Kazuya’s words drained every last bit of afterglow from his normally voracious libido. “A thank you for helping you seal Hwoarang’s fate? I hardly think something I receive for free, so often, is worthy of being labeled a gift.”

“Ungrateful bitch?” Kazuya hissed, holding Chaolan’s eyes with his own glasses-shielded gaze.

“You speak of this infection so often and yet, Kazuya, let us look at our lives from this moment to the first. It has never been I that pursued you…but rather you who sought after me, whether to fight or fuck. Rather than the infection, it would seem I am your cure.” Lee slid his leather aviator style jacket on before brushing a hand back through his hair. Knocking his knuckles against the privacy glass of the Limo, Lee waited for the divider to slide down. “You can let me out here.”

“Do not think to raise up that lowly Korean temper against me.” Kazuya’s voice was a warning. “You are only kept well and under control when it is I who hold your reins and suppress your more distasteful attributes. You should be groveling in thankfulness that I continue to inject you with Japanese superiority.

“Once upon a time, Silver Devil,” the Mishima heir purred, “you were an orphaned street rat, hustling your body on the filthy shores of your own country. It was my father who gave you both education and respectability - low as your blood is - and how did you repay him for kindness? You fought the underground circuit, so like dear Hwoarang in that respect.”

Lee narrowed his eyes, his lips pulling into a sneer. “And that is why you hate him so, isn’t it, dear adopted brother? But which is more pressing I wonder? Is it that Hwoarang reminds you of me in our youth…or does it recall your own desires which you still deny, now reflected in your son’s lust?”

Kazuya licked his lips slowly. How perfectly Chaolan had hit the mark and yet, he drew the façade deeper with a cold, malicious smile. “Where once you were a mere hustler by body and blood, you outdo yourself now, only to graduate to a murderer Chaolan. Not once but soon to be twice over,” the Mishima heir hissed cruelly. “And the moment you’re infected Korean brethren and new found lover dies, I will make sure the Interpol is given the information and evidence required to put you away for his murder.”

Lee lifted a brow, giving Kazuya a side long glance. “What are you talking about? What evidence could you possibly possess that I will not have destroyed in a matter of moments?” The Silver Devil was calling his bluff.

“Good luck with the unfortunate break-in you had this early morning…I trust your loft will need tremendous work.” The Mishima heir brushed his nails against his leather trench, giving the manicured surface a quick shine. “Blood samples and various sexually deviant devices littered with both fingerprints and DNA, a Phlebotomy kit with filled syringe tubes of Hwoarang’s blood…and an obvious stash of illegal chemical substances will certainly make up for any potential botches in the soon to be pending investigation.” Kazuya smiled demonically.

“Now, if only you were vain enough to record your sessions, I trust a verdict in a crime of passion, rife with deviation and fetish, could take a record of moments…or even seconds.” The Middle Age Mishima crossed his legs slowly. “You wouldn’t happen to be recording those interludes, would you?”

“You son of a bitch,” Lee hissed, curling his fingers into a fist, his almond eyes narrowing with seething rage and yet trapped like a rat in a cage. The Limo door opened at the hand of Kazuya’s personal chauffer, letting the refreshing breeze of dawning daylight cleanse the smell of sex and leather lingering along the interior.

“As if there was ever a doubt?” Kazuya chuckled. “Now, you can either sit back and play by the rules…or you can take your chances on the street. I would be careful in weighing the options…I am not the only one who watches you.”

Kazuya lowered his sunglasses, revealing that insinuating glint of his blood red eye to back up his previous statement. “Decide, Chaolan. Have we reached the point of no return…or merely a break for further negotiations?”

The Silver Devil pursed his lips and waved two fingers to the driver, indicating Kazuya’s victory as the solid door closed gently. “Let us not have to undergo this conversation again, Chaolan. Twice now you have been bested and warned, a third time is unacceptable.” The Mishima heir uncrossed his legs slowly, letting his hips arch upward slightly to adjust his positioning. “I do so love to see you defenseless, Lee. And to think all of the time and money you poured into resurrecting me from deaths doorstep….all to soothe a guilty conscience.”

The Silver Devil ran his hand back through his hair, the feathery molten tresses falling in locks across his beautiful almond eyes. “A mistake I would not make twice, I assure you.”

“Now that this business is settled, I will allow you to show me penance for your insolence. Apologize with that lovely, Korean mouth. Give me suck as though the rice paddies were burning white with napalm,” Kazuya purred, a dark smile slowly forming on his lips.

**

Jin startled awake with a sudden, painful groan. Breathing was a shot of agony, as though his ribs had been horrifically bruised. As he forced his eyes to open, heavy bands of the sun’s full rise nearly blinded him…and the Japanese youth realized he must have landed at a great height.

Shivering as he raised his head, Jin fought against the strain of his back, making his neck a suddenly heavy thing that protested cooperation. The Japanese youth was nearly past the point of his own endurance, when dark eyes fell on the shape of Hwoarang…

The Blood Talon was lying on his side, amidst a field of black feathers. Jin could barely make out the rise and fall of his lover’s chest and he fought to focus harder, to see deeper. “Seung?” he managed, the dull ache of his ribs making it difficult to draw in the breath he needed just to whisper the sacred name onto the wind.

The Korean youth did not stir and Jin was slowly starting to panic. Raising himself up on his arms, the Japanese tried desperately to draw himself to a crawl…realizing only then that the Devil within must have run out of its own endurance. His nails were clawed as they pressed into the hard tar of the rooftop. The transformation back to his natural form…had not been complete.

“Seung!” Jin cried out again, using the power of the Demon’s grip to pull him along on his stomach, the heavy pressure of the zippered sweat suit jacket he wore digging into his flesh as he moved like a worm on its belly.

The Japanese youth moved slowly, turning his strained neck to see precisely how the Demon had landed. A trail of oily black feathers shimmered with eerie iridescence in a streak from the far end of the rooftop to the place had Jin crawled from. By instinct, the Japanese youth knew it had been a crash landing, braced by a shield of wings. Hwoarang must have rolled out from the Devil’s grip as the Entity took the brunt of the impact.

Taking a deep breath, Jin steadily made his way to his lover’s side…the closer he drew the more he came to realize Hwoarang had been injured. Blood pooled beneath the Korean youth’s body, blackened against the tar…

“Seung, wake up…” The Japanese youth shuddered, his clawed hand finally reaching his tortured lover. With every last effort he could manage, Jin sat up, wincing at the motion as pain reflexes shivered throughout his body. He could not call on the Demon’s reserves; the Entity had already tapped past its limit into those wells. The Devil was so quiet, Jin could almost believed the creature never existed.

But, the Japanese youth knew better.

Jin pushed Hwoarang over onto his back and at the motion, found the source of the injury. The left side, below the ribs…the Korean youth’s shirt was covered in fresh blood, a pint if not more spread out like black tides on the rooftop.

A clawed hand reached forward, slicing open the stained shirt with the barest flick of sharp talons. Horrified eyes fell on Hwoarang’s pale skin, just below the ribs…the wound, however grave it might have seemed by the blood spill…was knitted cleanly together. Not a single rip disturbed flesh or muscle…

“How can this be…how can any of it be?” Jin wanted to scream but he could not muster the energy. His mind worked in sluggish reasoning as he watched the scant rise and fall of the Korean youth’s chest.

“He’s lost too much blood...” came the frightening realization and with it, a severe choice. He could slice his own skin open and feed his lover the blood that would ensure his survival, but thicken the curse it was obvious Hwoarang now possessed. Or, Jin could let his lover go. Let the Korean youth find peace in death’s salvation, to know an afterlife without the Devil Gene within his blood.

The decision was made in a single blink of sable lashes as Jin lifted his left hand, using the talons of his right to slice through the skin of his forearm. Wincing at the sensation, the Japanese youth used what remained of his quickly draining strength to lift Hwoarang’s head gently…and draw the bleeding wound to his lover’s open and pale petal soft lips.

“Drink, Seung. Replenish what you have lost and heal…drink as we have in the past…in love and desire…in silent vows…to care for each other.” Jin closed his eyes tightly as he felt the gravity of pull on his blood, the thick sound of vital liquid filling his lover’s throat and slowly siphoning down into the depths of Hwoarang’s pale body.

“I am sorry, Seung. I am sorry for what I have done to you…this infection, this curse. It is as I feared all along…my love has damned you to hell…and now, there is no return from its grip.” Jin shuddered, trying to force his head to remain upright, though it bobbed slightly forward beneath the strain and agony, so near to his own unconsciousness.

“…I will continue to feed you, every day and every night if it is necessary…I will care for you…until a thousand sunsets from tomorrow…I will love you as no other could. I promise, Seung. I won’t let it take you…” Jin closed his eyes, his back heaving slightly as seconds fell into minutes…and he could take the exhaustion and blood loss no more.

Drawing his arm up, Jin grasped the hem of his borrowed sweat pants, ripping it with one clean sweep of his talons. Wrapping the makeshift bandage around the shorn skin, Jin fell to his side, his head landing at Hwoarang’s feet. “Come back to me...Seung…please…don’t leave me here, alone…”

The Japanese youth fell into the complete blackness of total exhaustion, his wounded arm braced protectively along his lover’s long, deadly legs.

**

“I found these…in the alleyway. But there was no sign of anyone else.” Ling tried to catch her sobered breath, one hand braced against her own heaving chest as she held the captive evidence outward to be inspected by Steve and Julia. The Chinese youth bit the edge of her lip as the duo’s eyes fell over the feathers in her grasp. She just could not bring herself to tell them what she had seen…if she had, in fact, seen anything at all. The sunrise playing down the dark, saline slicked alley…surely had her hallucinating?

The British Boxer slid into a shade of color, paler than he was. “Those have to be Hwoarang’s,” he whispered, as though saying so aloud would bring the Blood Talon rushing back for his misplaced treasure. “I thought he had only one?”

Julia quirked a brow, looking from Steve to the oddly iridescent shimmer on the radiant, large black feathers Ling clutched. “There are no birds here, in Japan, that would require plumage so ornate…or so long. It would need to come from a terribly heavy or impressively large bird…a condor perhaps? Vulture? Surely this is something Hwoarang found during his time in the Military?”

“I am not sure, I just know he had one he always kept with him. That’s the story I told you about the tattoo on his back. I went with him the night it was inked, piss drunk as he was.” Steve shuddered. “I really don’t like those things…and what is it on there, is that blood?”

Julia reached her hand out toward the one of the feathers Ling held. “May I?” She asked softly as the Ling raised one of them in offering. With precision, the Chinese-American youth ran her delicate fingers against the bristles toward the stem…up to the tip of the plume and downward to the brace that connected the feather to its host.

The brushing motion yielded flecks of dried blood at the stem of the quill. “This feather is fresh. It was ripped clean…and quickly.” Julia lifted the edge up her inspecting eyes, magnified by her glasses. “Can you see here? The crack up the middle and the jagged edge that runs to the bottom?”

Steve tried to focus on the area Julia pointed out but he just could not seem to concentrate. “Ling, do you see it?”

The Chinese youth bit the edge of her lip as she tilted her head to the side, following the line of Julia’s fingers. “Yeah, I do see it. Do you think they all have the same thing on them? And, well, what does it mean?”

Julia shook her head. “Is it possible Hwoarang has…an imported bird, maybe, something he might have gotten into customs through the Korean military?”

Steve shook his head, turning slightly as he looked down, drawing in a shaky breath. “Hwoarang might be a lot of things, but he’s not an abuser of animals. I doubt he would hurt a living creature…that wasn’t human, I mean.”

Julia regarded Steve over the rim of her glasses. “Korean culture does not look down upon slaughtering and eating cats and dogs. The country is not a tremendous economic power, Steve.” She sighed, returning her gaze to the cracked quill of the feather.

“What other reasons would he have an obvious and possibly rare species of bird? He goes by the street name ‘Blood Talon’. Birds obviously have talons, the main method of killing is the use of their claws.” Julia tried to theorize any potential, realistic leads this might draw to the surface. “It is an obvious source of power for him…but not exactly like a totem. Perhaps it has a connection to his deceased lover, Jin Kazama. May the Great Spirits give wind to his wings…”

Julia said the last statement as a quick prayer for the dead, but now, her eyes grew wide. “Wind to his wings! Does Hwoarang practice any particular religion? Voodoo or Santeria perhaps?”

“Now you’re just drawing at straws!” Steve huffed, defensively. “Ling, back me up here. Hwoarang can be a right twat, but he is none of those things. The only religion he knows is whiskey and cigarettes…and the thrill of a good street fight…”

“…and his love for Jin Kazama.” Julia took a slow breath. “Grief does horrible things to people, Steve. It happens everyday…and you know that’s true….”

The British boxer had to only recall his few hours spent in Hwoarang’s room to bring to mind just how possessed the Blood Talon had been. Where Steve enjoyed a touch of pain, even expected it when it came to two males actively engaging… the Korean had been lost in delving out an insane level of agony, as though it would drive the Boxer into instant release. Was this the practice the Blood Talon and Jin Kazama used in their bedroom?

Hwoarang had always been rough to bottom or to top when they were together…but never had there been such vicious pleasure, such complete sadism in the act before. Could it be Julia had stumbled onto something? The Korean had called him Jin in the midst of their act…perhaps Hwoarang was honestly and truly possessed and destructive in his grief?

“You guys, I’m getting really scared. This doesn’t sound like Hwoarang at all…” Ling bit the edge of her manicured nail, just a little too hard…forcing her hand to shake off the self inflicted pain.

“You said yourself…at the café, what he did to the room…and almost did to you.” Julia cautioned, as the remaining feathers shivered in Lings grasp. With delicate fingers, she withdrew them all. “If you don’t mind, I will hold onto these and maybe give it some meditation…see if anything stirs.”

Ling shrugged her shoulders. “Well, if they belonged to Hwoarang, then obviously he didn’t hang around long enough to care if he left them.”

Steve took a deep breath, drawing himself out of internal reverie. “We should get back to the hotel, the kick off celebration is tomorrow and after that, the tournament begins. I don’t know about you ladies, but right now, I need some sleep.”

“Definitely agreed.” Ling sighed, glancing around the sun glistened streets. “I hope we see Hwoarang there. I am really started to get worried about that crazy Korean.”

**

Kazuya jolted suddenly, his hands grasping either side of the leather seats within the limo. Blinking rapidly, dark shielded eyes scanned across the whirling streets to either side of him, not far from where Chaolan had been left off in Uptown Tokyo. “It cannot be.”

The Mishima heir took a deep breath and focused his Chi. The sensation was like a sharp blade cutting through soft skin. The Blood connection to Hwoarang was suddenly…drowning.

//We are present in the Korean, yes. But another source has replaced our dominance. Kazama Jin has returned at last…and he has fed our vessel full.//

“How can that be? Neither Hwoarang nor Jin could not have known what we have done with the boy.” Kazuya raised his hand, pinching the bridge of his nose tightly.

//The lover’s presence beside Hwoarang has given further strength to the first infection of the Demon…we are still present…and our influence is still powerful…though I fear not nearly as strong as it should be. The Korean will live…and you will need Chaolan’s help.//

“I will not trust that infectious bitch to another task,” Kazuya hissed.

//We must know the state of blood within the Korean. He must have another injection…//

“That will be near impossible with the return of Kazama Jin.” The Mishima heir growled. And only then, did a new idea begin to form. “Yes. I will contact Chaolan in the morning…we are not yet bested, even if the bait has in fact drawn Kazama Jin’s return. I will not be satisfied until the Korean is dead.”

A dark smile lifted at the edges of Kazuya’s lips. “There are other ways…”

**

Hwoarang breathed in deeply as he strained to open his eyes. Sienna burned in the bright sunlight, causing the youth to wince and blink repeatedly. “Where the fuck am I?”

Groaning, the Blood Talon drew himself upright, but not before shivering back a thick agony that ripped through his body. Every muscle was sore and the heat of late afternoon sun was making him feel like he was on fire. Sienna eyes received the first view of the surroundings. A rooftop…somewhere in Uptown Tokyo judging by the way every other building was dwarfed. “How in the hell?”

Clearing his dry throat, Hwoarang shook off the cobwebs of his mind and stumbled to stretch out his legs. Never had he felt so stiff, like he had been dragged through hell itself. Throwing a side kick out to the right, the Korean youth heard the snap of underused muscles scream….and in that moment he realized…there was no sickness.

“Jin.” The Blood Talon smiled, recalling for that brief flash, the dream of not only seeing, but feeling the spirit of his lover come to him. There could be no other explanation for the edge taken off the sickness…or the taste of familiar blood in his throat. A copper so rich, so fulfilling…it was as though the past several months had been a dream. “Well, that still doesn’t answer how the fuck I got up here?”

In his euphoria to be free of the sickness, the Korean youth placed his palms against his knees, grimacing slightly at the filthy stains on his clothing as he arched his spine, stretching the stiff muscles into life. And that was when he saw a sight he just couldn’t wrap his head around. “Feathers?”

Arching a brow, Hwoarang dropped down to one knee, questioning eyes searching the littered ground for every large, iridescent quill. Just to the side of where he had slept, a thick lucid puddle glittered like a black sea frozen in place by sunlight. Tracing his fingers through the sticky mass, it instantly reddened his skin.

Drawing the substance beneath his nose, the Korean youth realized it was blood…but it didn’t smell like the blood he knew…or the blood he could taste in the back of his throat. Quickly scanning himself, sienna eyes fell on an odd, dark stain in his left side, just beneath his ribs. The source of the blood? Had he hurt himself?

Raising the filthy shirt upward, the Korean youth studied the flesh beneath the material. Not even a scrape…no remnant of blood…just a very eerie, macabre feeling growing in the back of his mind.

“What the fuck?” Hwoarang wiped his fingertips against his already stained jeans, casting his glance further out. There was an entire field of more feathers, littered like an oily runway some distance from where he awoke. “Alright…I’m starting to freak out…”

The Blood Talon stood slowly, scanning the area as paranoia filled his thoughts. From length to width, Hwoarang tried to judge every possible angle like it was a crime scene. And that was the moment fantasy and reality melded into one perfect silhouette.

“Seung,” came a voice so familiar, so warm, it made the Blood Talon take several steps back, until his knees buckled against a steam pipe jutting out of the rooftop.

“What in holy hell?” the Korean youth whispered, suddenly not so sure he was awake after all. His eyes had to be deceiving him, or maybe this was a dehydration induced mirage, there could be no other explanations. Well, maybe heat exhaustion. It can’t be…

Jin came around a small area just beyond the Korean’s line of site. He drew closer to Hwoarang, a slow smile forming against his lips. Stepping out of the sunlight’s blinding rays, the Japanese youth paused just paces away from the Blood Talon.

Jin took a long moment to behold every animated feature he had longed to touch and taste since the moment he left his lover’s side, months ago. Never did he believe Hwoarang would be standing before him, alive and warm. Not after his fears of the Blood Talon’s death at Kazuya’s hand…a pain that triggered the release of the Devil Within him. The frightening state he found his lover in during the earliest hours of this morning had nearly broken his spirit…but now, his Seung was here, and awake at last. “How do you feel?”

Hwoarang closed his eyes tightly, for a moment he swore he was going to lose consciousness again. “This isn’t happening,” he mumbled, his hands bracing through matted copper tendrils as he breathed out quickly.

Jin took another step closer. “Seung? Hey, look at me….are you alright?”

“You’re not really here. You can’t be. You’re dead.” Dark, sculpted brows knitted together as the Blood Talon refused to open his eyes. “Why do I keep doing this to myself…why can’t I just let you go…”

The Japanese youth could hear the pain in his lover’s voice. Only then, did Jin realize that much like his own presumptions… Hwoarang truly did believe he no longer drew breath.

Daring to draw himself within a scant distance from the Korean youth, Jin gently pressed his fingers beneath Hwoarang’s lowered chin. The contact seeming to make his lover grimace as the battle raged on in the Blood Talon’s mind. “Seung. Look at me…”

The Korean drew his eyes up slowly, letting the fire rings of sienna hold Jin’s own dark, warm gaze. “I am not dead, Seung. Though you may have believed otherwise. I have been in the Devil’s grasp…trapped in my grief…when I thought you had been killed…”

Hwoarang shook his head to the side to clear the fog he felt descending on him once more, but Jin would not release the tender touch beneath his chin. “No…”

“Yes, Seung. I am here…and I am real. And if I knew you never met the dark fate I feared…I never would have left you,” Jin said softly as he felt Hwoarang’s eyes return to his.

“Jin…” The Korean youth whispered the name like an ancient prayer, long forgotten to the world of man and machine, as tears formed at the rims of his eyes. For the first time in two and a half years of falling in and out with the synch of Jin’s life, coming to his rescue and stepping between the Japanese youth and danger, Hwoarang was now the one being saved. Rescued by the only person he ever would have allowed the sincerity of the act. It would take the strength of a demon to pull the Blood Talon back from the edge…and it seemed his order was ready.

“Forgive me, Seung…forgive me for what I have done to you…forgive me for not being here with you…when you needed me most,” Jin whispered softly, holding the Korean youth’s fire rimmed sienna eyes like a sacred relic.

“Forgive me for everything I have done…” Hwoarang did not say another word. Sliding his fingers into obsidian tendrils, the Blood Talon drew Jin closer to him, dark eyes holding his lover’s until the soft connection was finally made.

Jin’s hands drew in against the Korean youth’s body, falling with practiced ease to Hwoarang’s narrow hips. Silken lips parted to receive the warm velvet of his lover’s taste…trembling at the moment of unity and the hot, sugary flavor of the Blood Talons slick muscle gaining easy access to the depth of his mouth.

Hwoarang moaned as his tongue brushed the welcoming heat of Jin’s own muscle, lips parting further as he entwined the slick sensation, drawing in warm summer air against the half exposed dance. The Korean youth swallowed a slow, shaking breath from the heat of his lover’s mouth, fingers entwining the ebon silk he had dreamed for so many nights of touching, just one more time.

“I missed you…so fucking much,” Hwoarang moaned again, breaking away for just long enough to speak the words before retaking his lover’s mouth with a hunger he swore he had never felt before.

Jin rolled his head to the side as the Blood Talon’s mouth claimed him with voracious appetite, making every nerve ending in his body scream with such perfect expertise. He felt the pitch intensify as Hwoarang tilted his head, taking deeper laps into his thirsty mouth.

The Japanese youth drew away from the sugary taste of his lover’s mouth, his breath coming in slow rolling gasps as he felt Hwoarang’s breath wash over kiss wet lips. “I missed you too…” Jin managed, drinking in his lover’s own panting breath.

“God damn, one minute my world has gone to shit…the next I am so hot I can’t fucking see straight,” Hwoarang moaned, licking his lips clean of Jin’s taste with savoring pleasure.

“There is a set of stairs, on the other side of the roof…” Jin managed, trying to refocus from the wanton energy he felt coursing through his body. Neither he, nor Hwoarang could let this go any further…not until they were to safety. “If we are careful, we can get down the central well without tripping any alarms. That’s what I was checking out, while you slept. I am sorry I was not with you the moment you awoke.”

Hwoarang was too lost in the bliss of being reunited with Jin to care about the trivial details of finding a way off the rooftop. “I will fucking sprout wings myself to get you home. With you by my side, baby, I can fly.”

Jin’s lips formed into a slow, easy smile. “Home. I like the way that sounds. But I wouldn’t push it with the wing thing…it’s really not all it’s cracked up to be…”


TBC....

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