The Re-Forging of the Blade

**Chapter Seven**
Fires of the Forge, Relit.

Hwoarang’s eyes went wide as he withdrew from Ling’s warm, sweet mouth…the taste of her strawberry gloss tainting his senses. Shaking fingers released the Chinese beauty’s features and in a shot, the Blood Talon was up on his feet…

“Hwoarang….” Ling said, her eyes equally wide with shock. She had no idea what had just come over them both…but the sensation was incredible, the taste of the Korean’s mouth a mingle of bitter nicotine and sweet warmth. It was little wonder Jin could not keep away from the Blood Talon, with an expertise such as this.

Hwoarang turned, biting the nail of his right hand, not caring what glass imbedded shards remained like porcupine quills jutting out of his flesh. What had come over him? What had made him seek out the pretty mouth of the Chinese youth? “Ling…I am so sorry. Oh, god damn…I am so sorry. I don’t know…what came over me?”

The Korean’s words were half frantic as his chest heaved for breath. Grasping the black leather trench coat on the bed, the Blood Talon draped the material over his left, good arm…and turned toward the splintered door.

Ling rose up and grasped Hwoarang into an embrace, behind his back with her cheek pressed to the side of the sticky blood showing through his shirt. “Hwoarang wait. It’s alright…it was just a kiss. It doesn’t have to mean anything. Friends kiss, right? Sometimes?”

Fire rimmed sienna eyes lowered amidst a cavalcade of dark lashes, his body tensing as Ling pressed against him, her words trying so desperately to reassure him. “I understand what Jin meant now…the gift…and getting too close to me. My hands…were around your throat…and a minute later…I can’t stop myself from kissing you. I understand it now…and I am so sorry, Ling.”

The Chinese youth released the hold on Hwoarang’s back, sidestepping through the rubble of the room to look the Korean in his strangely gleaming eyes. “I don’t know what this gift is….that you keep talking about...but Jin isn’t here…and I am your friend…even if you don’t want me to be. You’re in pain, Hwoarang I knew you wouldn’t hurt me and I trust you. What just happened, it was just a kiss…something comforting…don’t get crazy on me about this and let me help you.”

The Blood Talon swallowed hard, mustering his most brusque tone. “I am sick, Ling…and I don’t think anyone has ever been so nice to me before…but sticking around me is going to get you hurt…I’m bad news, midget…and the headlines ain’t getting any better.”

“I don’t believe that…I think you need help!“ Ling stood there, her words echoing on protest, “Don’t you dare give up on yourself and don’t you dare give up on Jin!” she continued, turning as the Blood Talon walked past her.

Without looking back, Hwoarang stopped in the hall. “I’m not giving up on him. I want to join him,” he said coldly. If the Korean kept going this way, there was little doubt the curse he carried from Jin’s blood…was going to kill him. Instead of fighting it, perhaps it was time to join forces with it.

Hwoarang was half way down the hall when Ling felt her heart break. The edge of her manicured nails slowly brushing against still burning lips. For a moment she could almost imagine herself as Jin, and what it must have felt like to be kissed with that kind of love and passion, the all consuming hunger of desire and lust on the receiving end from the fiery Korean. And that’s when she knew that kiss was not meant for her…but for him….

“Jin.” Ling looked around the room, her voice taking on life amidst the broken pieces of glass and furniture that littered the scene. “I don’t know if you can hear me…but Hwoarang seems to think your listening…so let me give this a try.”

The Chinese youth cleared her throat and let her almond eyes focus on the sunlight glittering outside the window. “Hwoarang needs help, Jin. And he needs it fast…I don’t know what to do…please, Jin…help me to help him.”

**

Jin drew the hot cup of green tea to his lips, breath materializing as the chill wind whipped through his pea coat. The sun was bright and hot and the breeze that flowed from the water contradicted the sweet vitamin enrichment he felt. It had felt like ages since he truly looked out into the light.

The glassy waters glittered beneath the sun’s radiation, mesmerizing and unforgiving as it yielded angrily to the wooden intrusion of the boat splitting foam waves. The Japanese youth let his eyes search the horizon for signs of land, still a full day away…the deck of the boat becoming the anchor of his shoreline, the anchor of his thoughts.

Hwoarang needs help, Jin…

The Japanese youth blinked rapidly, the salt spray making his eyes dry and unfocused. He swore he heard Ling’s voice over his shoulder, just behind his back…and yet, there could be no way she would even know he was still alive. Not after the Honmaru…not after what the Devil spoke to him of Heihachi’s own death …How could it be possible?

//I felt our lover…days ago…and nothing since then. Ling Xiaoyu senses something amiss…and now I feel a surge in power from our father…Seek out Hwoarang…we will do so, together…//

Jin felt his heart beat wildly as the Devil’s voice filled him, its normally mocking and placid tone replaced by something more desperate. In the midst of this, somehow, the Chinese youth, Jin’s only friend, reached through to his tortured spirit. If Ling’s words were true…and not some demonic fabrication….then Seung was alive…and all thoughts of Kazuya’s hand breaking the stroke of the Korean’s mortal coil…

Eyes wide with sudden fear, Jin searched out over the water…using the salty currents around him like waders into meditation. Water had always been his element…comforting and forgiving, gentle and knowing. “Seung…where are you…”

Jin felt his chi ripple like the tides, arching as it joined with the Devil’s consciousness. Searching so desperately…Jin turned nearly half way around and still…he could feel, nothing. No connection to his lover’s spirit, to the Devil’s blood within Hwoarang’s body…there was nothing….

…but Ling.

The vision was as clear as a crystal basin filled with sparkling water. Ling was standing in a room…a room destroyed as sunlight reclaimed broken glass like glittering ephemeral souls desperate to find peace. Blood stained her cheek…and her eyes were rimmed with tears…lips red and kiss swollen. The sensation of Hwoarang was all around the Chinese youth…

//He has been there until recent…they have shared an intimate moment…it resonates from her skin…a kiss…a kiss on her lips meant…for us…the blood on the girl’s cheek…is his but it is not his…our father’s imprint saturates the room…our lover’s kiss…has made her afraid and wanton…and she calls out to help him. Do you see it, Jin?//

In all the years the Devil had been a part of his spirit, never had the voice inside of him shivered with such fear. “Yes…” Jin whispered to keep his voice away from the other sailors that roamed the deck, performing the work that was needing to be done. The vision was broken…ending as the Japanese youth spoke, stumbling forward slightly as the draining of his energy swept like wind through his spirit.

“Why do you aid me…when every moment before this has been to thwart and torture me?” Jin reached a hand out to grasp the high side of the ship, free hand still holding the cooling green tea.

//Kazuya’s surge of power…will kill both of us…and though it is cloaked to me...our lover’s hands…may be bloody with our death…we must find him…quickly…//

“That doesn’t make sense…he would never side with Kazuya!” Jin hissed.

//Willingly, perhaps not. Our sire employs methods we have yet to fathom and our lover may be the plaything for it…a catalyst…//

The genuine desperation in both the Demon’s and Ling’s voice…the vision of a room torn asunder and rife with blood…made Jin Kazama cringe. Where there should have been indignation at the thought of Hwoarang being intimate with another…there was only fear and anxiety. “How am I able to hear her?”

//It was she who made first contact…to us...brought on by the kiss…she feels it was meant for us and not for her mouth…she understands more than she knows…//

“We fly at midnight, at the change of watch upon the deck…gather your strength…I won’t have much of my own after the change comes,” Jin said with decisive strength as the demons words filled him. Rising up from his leaning position against the side of the boat, the Japanese youth drew in a deep breath. He would have precious little time to prepare himself for the agony he would have to endure…once the Devil overtook him…but every moment would have to be something made…accountable if only to find his lover...

**

“I notified the downstairs lobby about the state of the room, told him Hwoarang was not there…and that I was on my way to see him when the door was hanging off the hinge. I don’t like having to lie…but what else could I do.” Ling sat in the small café outside of the main eatery, chopsticks moving food around the plate. “Hwoarang is in serious trouble…I don’t know what to do…” she said softly, turning her dark eyes up to meet Steve’s with almost secret knowledge, as Julia took a bite of her vegetarian late lunch.

“Fucked if I know how to help the poor bastard,” Steve snickered, even as azure eyes connected to Ling’s. The Chinese youth knew of his past with the Korean…even if the past had become another mistake of reality. The boxer could not bring himself to speak of his darker desires before Julia…unknowing of just how she might view him if the truth should ever be told.

“Sounds unfortunate…to have lost his lover in this way…and then be grieving so hard he is self destructing. There really isn’t a way to help him…” the American cleared her throat of the garlic flavor, lifting her nearly empty glass as eyes looked around for a waiter to refill her drink. “…unless it’s through professional help…or a spiritual exorcism. I don’t know the rotes, but I am sure if I contact my mother, she would.” Julia recalled Hwoarang and the brief time she had spent in utter fascination with him. Who could not find the Korean captivating…? “I will make that call, if you think he would accept it.”

“I think anything your mother could offer to us, if her tribe permits, would be more than I could ask for. But I don’t know if Hwoarang would go for it…” Ling said softly, finishing her drink, even as Julia looked around for a waiter.

“You know him better than I, with your friendship to Jin and all. Spirits rest his soul,” the adopted Chinese American sighed softly, brushing her hand along the topaz bracelet she wore on her right wrist. “Even Steve knows Hwoarang better than I, they were once close friends, but that was years ago. So, figure out what you need me to do and I will make the best of what I can offer.” With that, Julia rose, taking both her glass and Ling’s in her hands. “Be right back, let me go get these refilled.”

“Alright,” Ling said softly, still pushing her late lunch around on the plate with bamboo sticks.

The moment Julia was out of earshot Steve leaned in, his azure eyes holding Ling’s dark depths. “Julia doesn’t know we have a past…and I want to keep it that way. Now, tell me what you saw?”

Ling looked into the window of the café proper before returning her gaze to Steve. “He was…possessed or something. The room was destroyed like I said…but what I didn’t tell you before is that…there was a window he broke out…and the glass was in his arm, sticking out all sick and bloody…and he just kept plucking the shards…and licking them clean…” the Chinese youth shivered softly. “He keeps talking about this gift Jin gave him…but I don’t know what he means…and the last thing he said to me, after he kissed me…which was amazing…and a whole other story…is that basically, he wants to join Jin…I am guessing in death. What do you know about the two of them, together?”

Steve breathed out heavily, narrowing his eyes to process the information. “Nothing more than you, I reckon. I know they have a strong bond…but from what Hwoarang has told me, there were these times when Jin would get into a mood…and Hwoarang would start feeling sick…it was making him worried about contracting something…you know like Syphilis or whatever, even though Jin was, yanno, a virgin. But the last time he had seen a doctor, he was healthy…but that was when he was in the military…before he went AWOL.”

The British Boxer looked back into the window, watching Julia finally getting the two drinks refilled. “I think Jin did something to him…but I don’t really know what the guy could have done...Hwoarang is no push over. He used to keep this black feather with him, all of the time. He even got the thing tattooed on his back, between the shoulder blades, when he was on leave in the United Kingdom, said it reminded him of Jin. I swore it meant something else. Have you seen it?”

“No,” Ling said, biting the edge of her lip. “What does this all mean?”

“I’m fucked if I know. But keep me posted. Take my cell phone number and make sure you let me know what’s going on. I really do care about Hwoarang…would almost say I loved him...if Julia hadn’t changed my life. So, let’s just keep this between you and me, alright?” Steve reached into his pocket and withdrew a pen, uncapping it with his teeth as he took up a napkin. Always the clever student at Oxford, he never went anywhere unprepared. “You have to wonder to yourself, what kind of situation is happening…if Jin is dead and then alive again, only to be dead once more. Something just isn’t right.”

The jotted numbers slid toward Ling, who instantly folded the material over, even as Julia returned to the table, setting the two drinks down. “So, did we make a decision?”

Ling cleared her throat, lowering the folded napkin with Steve’s number into her lap…and then into the pocket of her Capri style jeans. “No, Steve was just telling me about the last time he saw Hwoarang at the last tournament. I guess I am just not sure of where all of this comes from.” It was the cleverest cover the Chinese youth could think of as she avoided Steve’s eyes.

“Well, it sounds to me like his spirit is the ailment…his grief needs to be expressed and released…” Julia said, placing her hand softly on Steve’s upper thigh. “Anything we can do, Ling…Steve and I are there. Right babe?”

“Of course. Anything at all…” Steve said softly, his hand falling over Julia’s, enjoying the warmth of her grip. Next to Hwoarang, there was no one who could make him stir so much, with just a touch.

“I will make sure to remember that.” Ling sighed softly, turning her eyes to the street, just paces away.

**

Hwoarang stepped into the apartment haunted by his memories of Jin. Taking a deep breath, he closed the door behind him and flipped on the light to illuminate the growing darkness of the outside, tossing Jin’s jacket onto the counter in the kitchen. That was when he saw the duffel and the guitar, sitting just a few paces away from where the portal had opened. “Hello?”

“I’m in here,” Chang’s pained voice called back from the living room. “Where the hell have you been…and why don’t you answer my messages!”

The Blood Talon walked around from the kitchen into the living room, where Chang sat on the couch, tipped back against it, in pain.

“I’m sorry…I had something I had to do…I was going to come over and see you tonight…” It was a poor excuse. In his madness, the last thought the Korean had was of his blood brother…and that was wrong. Tapping the side pocket of overly tight jeans, Hwoarang felt the cellphone there, amidst the blood stains on denim.

“What is going on here, Seung,” Chang asked calmly as his eyes held Hwoarang’s. The gang leader looked as though he had been through hell…paler than before, his eyes haunted and dark, the outline beneath one indicating a black and blue…the stench of blood all around him….and an arm bandaged with blood soaking through the wrap.

“I punched through some glass…it broke the skin…I field dressed it after I pulled out all of the shards. Guess I am lucky I didn’t severe a nerve, right?” the Korean drew into the living room, lifting a cigarette from the pack in the opposite pocket. “Are you okay?”

“Okay? Been fucking worried sick about you. Do San is on his way from Korea tonight, he will be in come morning…to find you and to fight in the tournament,” Chang hissed defensively. “Look, you need to tell me exactly what is going on here, Seung. Lies won’t cut it anymore…I don’t care how bad it is…or what you have done…but I need some answers. If you can’t trust me, who the fuck can you trust?”

The Blood Talon cringed, taking in a deep pull of menthol. “Chang…I can’t tell you about this…I just can’t. It’s not that I don’t trust you, I’d lay my life down to save yours and you know that…but this…I can’t get you involved in this.”

Chang drew up, using the cane heavily till his feet connected flat to the floor. “I took more than a bullet for you, Seung. I watched a man turn into a devil…that afternoon at the den…I tried to defend the recruits…but I couldn’t do it alone…I didn’t have your strength or your training. You fucking owe me an explanation,” his words were hissed, dark with concern and indignation.

Hwoarang recalled that moment he walked into the den, strewn with blood and bodies…Chang calling out to him like a spirit to a medium. Never could he forget that moment where the weight of the world and all its responsibilities, fell on his shoulders. “Jin Kazama…you know is Kazuya Mishima’s son, right? Well, Jin has the Devil in him too, Chang. And now, so do I.”

Chang did not look the least bit phased, almost to the point of disbelief in the Gang leader’s words. “That’s not possible.”

“It is possible,” Hwoarang exhaled once more, his eyes holding his blood brothers. “Jin and I…we used to get a little rough. Well, a lot rough. We liked it that way, lots of pain with that pleasure…the more the better…” the Korean snickered, closing his eyes for a long moment. “I…liked the way his blood tasted. It was cute enough in the beginning…but I started to crave it…started to tear his skin open just to get a little…”

Chang visibly blanched now, his hand coming up to his lips. “Seung…”

“It was getting pretty violent at the end…lots of teeth and skin…his blood was like fucking fire…but what we didn’t know then…is the blood held the devil gene…and the devil gene is inside of me now. Jin ain’t here no more...so I have to deal with this on my own.” Hwoarang breathed in smoke, flicking the ashes onto the wood floor beneath him, crushing out the embers with his boot.

“How do you know…that you have it?” Chang asked, shaking as the pieces of the puzzle started to fall together.

“Cause I am getting Jin’s blood from someone…he says I’ve got the gene in me…he started to track the progress of it in my system…and it’s driving me fucking crazy, Chang. I can’t eat, can’t sleep….can’t control myself…all I can do is take the blood and get sick…it makes me so fucking sick…I feel it right now…the pain is coming back…and I swear, I‘m fucking dying.”

“Holy shit, Seung.” Of all the explanations Hwoarang could have cooked up, he would never have guessed this would be the one. And in that simple fact, Chang already knew there was truth. “What do we do now? How do we get rid of it?”

“I don’t think you can get rid of it,” the Blood Talon realized there was an ashtray not far from Chang, on the end table beside the couch. Walking toward it, the reverb of his spurs and boots echoing…he crushed the cylinder and looked to his blood brother. “And even if we could…I don’t know if I want to. Maybe Jin’s waiting for me in hell, maybe the pain will end…if I meet him there.”

“Don’t you dare fucking talk like that! What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you give up everything just to sink into the ground?” Chang had never, in all his years, heard Hwoarang speak this way before.

“Because I would rather spend one day with him in hell, then live without him,” Hwoarang said, with pure and honest conviction. “Well, now you know the story…and I don’t want a word of it going to Baek, you here me, Chang? I mean not a fucking word!” Just the idea of Do San knowing any of this, made the Blood Talon want to break something.

“We have to find you some help, there has to be a Mudang somewhere in Japan, right? There has to be a way to get this shit out of you!” Chang hissed, still disbelieving…but not about the story Seung told. He was in disbelief his best friend would give up without so much as a fight.

“I don’t want this shit out of me, Chang. Don’t you understand that. It’s Jin inside of me…a part of him is a part of me. I’m not exactly sprouting wings over here, but he’s still in me…and I want him there…for now. Just to keep me going, until I can't take it anymore.” He breathed deeply. “You know, I saw his wings once…they were black like night…long, real long…and so beautiful...” The Blood Talon slid down onto the sofa, running his fingers through filthy copper tendrils as he closed his eyes. “I have one of them, in my duffel…real soft to the touch. I wonder what a handful of them must have felt like…”

“That’s why you have that tattoo, isn’t it?” Chang asked, hobbling to the opposite side of Hwoarang on the couch, letting himself fall backward as the cane swept upward to his side.

“Yeah…I didn’t know it then, but it felt important when I found that feather, two and a half years ago on the floor at the old den. Makes sense to me now…makes me wonder what those things would have felt like, wrapped around me in the middle of the night…like some black cocoon…”

Chang rested his hand against the Blood Talon’s knee. “Only you…could stir shit between two different worlds, Seung,” he sighed heavily, closing his eyes as the information washed over him, overfilling his banks with the realm of the impossible…and demonic. “Just don’t go leaving me, alright? We will find a way to work this out, as long as you don’t start howling at the moon….”

**

Jin walked the deck of the ship fitfully as the sliver of moon rose high in the sky. Every creak of the bow crashing into waves made him turn…eyes searching the darkness to be sure no one was moving around in the blackness that could bear witness to what was coming.

“Are you ready?” The Japanese youth asked, slowly stripping away his pea coat and tossing it to the floor. With shaking fingers, Jin removed his stolen zippered sweat suit jacket and tied it around his waist…not to get ruined by the transformation soon to come.

//I am ready. We must fly fast to ensure we have not lost too much time…//

“I need you to get us to a place I can sleep, somewhere safe and unseen…I am going to be out of it for awhile…The change over…takes everything I have. Do you understand me?” Jin asked into the darkness, feeling the cold wind blow off the waters and onto his naked upper body.

//We work in tandem this night, and for however many more after it. I will assure the safety you require to rebuild as I sleep…//

Was it always this easy to communicate his needs to the demon…or just now, when the entity was shaken with some unknown fear? If Kazuya was growing as strong as the Devil within feared, perhaps the spirit worried he it would be absorbed and lose it’s singular consciousness…or perhaps it was true death that concerned the creature…the death of his host and the death of his own unattached spirit. “Alright, demon. I am ready.”

A wracking sensation filled the Japanese youth…as though his skin was being shorn clean of his muscles…a heavy hiss of pain leaving already pressed lips. Falling to his knees, Jin clutched his hands over his neck as fingers clenched for the skin of his shoulders.

The hot tear of flesh made the Japanese youth bite back a scream that would have alerted the others below deck. His firm body rocked forward till both hands had to be placed on the deck, just to steady himself from the agony. Claws slowly pressed forward as Jin felt the heavy ache of his mouth and elongating fangs cut through the pain of his back….either side of his head suddenly afire as blood dripped down angular cheeks.

Black wings unfolded from the primordial mixture of blood and demon deep within Kazama Jin’s body…jutting outward like the legs of a newborn foal. Slowly, the black feathers emerged and elongated…dripping blood onto the wood deck he so desperately clung to.

The break of spiral horns made its way from either side of Jin’s forehead…as dark eyes gave way to moonlit molten mercury…the mark of the Devil’s possession….

With a sudden shot upward, Jin spread his arms outward, back arching as black wings extended entirely, the lowest ebon feathers dripping against the wood. With a banshee cry into the night, the Devil took its control…sending the heavy body upward with the slightest flap of wings, aching for flight…