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Beauty in the Beast - by Sapfarah
Hit Page down [PgDn] to skip my intro and get to the story. However, it might help you appreciate it if you read the introductory lines.
I write when I have something to say. I write when I've got a flare. I write to make a statement. And now I have something to say that burns me. It's a little of it all.
* I want to state that Jin will not succumb to the Devil without a fight. He will not succumb at all.
* I want to disperse all doubt about him getting a second chance in love and life.
* I want to show that Jin is more than a whiner of his mother's death and/or a poor copy of his father. He is his OWN entity.
* This is also because Jin came bold back in Tekken Tag Tournament. At least in the FMVs.
Although the start of the story may suggest m/m this isn't the case. It goes on to an ordinary relationship.
Female readers: I used Claire Redfield since NO Tekken girl is good enough for this place, with the exceptions of Michelle and Kunimitsu, who don't fit due to generation. You can replace Claire with anyone however - even yourself. Feel free to!
I have no idea of what Namco has in store for Jin, I hope it's something like this. I wouldn't want to see him impregnating Xiaoyu and dying to the devil after killing his father.
Jin is a fighter. And as a such he will continue fighting. And win.
Since you may not know what this is all about, it supposedly picks up after the end of 'Chronicle to Downfall', which is as of yet incomplete but the main idea has been the leading inspiration. At a certain point, Jin transformed to the Beast he becomes in his ending.
...I'll also warn you that this story is really soppy. But stay tuned for the aftermath!
* * * * *
Beauty in the Beast
“ I’ve been at your tracks so many days now but still the only traces of you are found in my memory. Your touch, your smile and the beautiful shiny black hair. Your never going image. The expectation of hearing your talk once more. You. I love you. My heart belongs to you and looking for its owner, it leads me. I know, I pray it’s not being wrong. ”
Another sigh. Another twinkle of a star. Another minute ticking by.
Jin smiled softly to the ending of the night with subtle melancholy in his face. Again he was alone before the transgression towards another dawn and the option that he might ever stand up from his chair to do anything but sit and ponder, seemed unlikely or rather, unwanted.
For one more time he looked over at the box of cigarettes Paul had left behind him, empty but for two sticks and after deciding he couldn’t make it go to him by simply staring at it, he stretched his hand and took it.
Faint scent of filtered tobacco, sour in feeling yet pleasant, even if only in the memory, soothed his nostrils. He wasn’t smoking but he liked it when Paul did. At first he objected to him lighting a cigarette in his apartment but he couldn’t deny him that small favour after they had made love...
He was too languid himself and Paul insisted this was the best thing after sex. He shrugged with a smile. He would prefer to spend their last night cuddling but he didn’t feel Paul would want to get that emotional... He understood why. Given the circumstances, maybe he shouldn’t want that either... but he did.
He let the light box of paper and silvery coating back on the table before him, where it would stay for a little more, until he’d make up his mind to trash it, since no one would claim it and he wasn’t about to start smoking.
He stared at it, until what he had before him no longer mattered. Paul was gone and he would probably never come back. Jin didn’t feel sad that he couldn’t keep him. Paul wasn’t the type of man that would stay and neither was he looking for a permanent thing, especially as he really didn’t know Paul... But he was glad that he had spent his last hours here in this home with him and it had been hard for Jin not to allow tears when they said goodbye and gave each other a firm embrace. Paul had been his lover while he had stayed in the city and, beyond that, he was the only person he could talk to. Paul knew who he was and moreover, what he was. He made him open up his heart to someone who could take it, he was a strong shoulder he could lean on, he was a warm embrace he was welcome into. The time spent with him made the best moments of his days in that city. Now he was again alone.
The sky was brightening and he smiled, knowing that he would fall asleep at the first five minutes of the lecture. But he also felt optimistic that the day was beginning and along with it, he experienced that feeling which the fresh beginning endows. He got up and realised that lack of sleep began having its effects on him.
“Nothing that a good sandwich can’t fix...” he uttered in a monologue and forced himself to the kitchen. He could use some coffee.
The crows... same does their voice sound, be it near the summit of the night or the breaking of the day... so much they must have to tell, transgressing that boundary of shadows and uncertainty...
A drop of sweat rolled on a young man’s face. But it would take more than that to disrupt his concentration. Just like everyone else on his team, he could handle the duress of the mission. But his body couldn’t.
About twenty special forces men were covered behind rocks, on many foreheads sweat beaded around the hem of the helmet. All were aiming their weapons to the fearsome threat. A creature that looked like a beautiful young woman in a strange fashion, because her yellow glowing eyes and the pallor of her expressionless, heart shaped face, were anything but human. Neither was the power she had unleashed earlier, injuring several men of the mission.
Again she was still now, hiding in the shadows of the underground hollow where she had fled, like she was before she exploded. She had thrown a bubble of eerie glowing energy around her with a demonic shriek, sending everyone hit by it senseless on their back. Just like that she had lifted her hand in command and the blast went off and the detonation was followed by a rumbling growl, scaring cold everyone who survived it. Again she was now still, her body, wrapped in what would be best described as static flow of plasma, curled on the ground, playing with pebbles before her feet, like a girl child would, with unnatural, almost phony calmness. One could assume to hear notes fleeting through her lips.
The leader of the team then made the slightest of nods to the troop to follow. Silently, with machine guns clicking on the straps and feet mashing the gravel, the men began tightening the circle around the girl...
She stood up just when they were a couple of steps away from her. Her eyes were meant to be the last those unfortunate soldiers would see and especially the third glaring orifice bursting with white glow from the centre of her forehead, of which none would be able to tell, nor of the strong emission of light energy that poured from it to char them with painful hotness.
They convulsed in horrible pain. In a high pitched inaudible echo that deafened them with its reverberation, her three eyes glowing white with blinding, painful light, she waved her hand. Something that looked like the giant ghost of a wolf sprung from thin air behind her and shot forward, assaulting the soldiers along with a rush of her mysterious energy...
Bodies were strewn in the ground of the cave. While her mouth was still gaping to that shrill noise, the glow died from her eyes as she lowered her upraised hand in what seemed like contentment. The slippery strips of purplish energy that streamed like thick films over her fine silhouette, mollified to a different set of patterns. The wolf retracted in powerful swirls to stand over her as a spiritual protector.
Her job here was done. She walked away, leaving behind her nothing but a single hand drawn trace in the sand...
Outside the sky was brightening while nothing but the maggots crawled in the cave.
“Timothy...”
The muzzle of the shotgun was pulled back, allowing the helmet to roll back with the head it contained to its position, stamping its mass anew in the dusty floor. Gaping dead, a young man lay on the ground with his face covered in dust, clogged by the sweat which rolled on his skin a few hours ago when he was still alive. Just like the rest of his team, lying nearby.
Claire Redfield walked past him, minding not to step on him, leaving the large prints of her boots on the ground. She held the shotgun ever ready, although, to her regret, it was too late to need use it. One more name became meaningless in her mind as she walked further inside the cave where Delta team was decimated.
She stopped with her gun pointing to the ground, bending her head, repining. The bodies of twenty young soldiers she had trained herself formed a circle behind her. Twenty voices laughed in her memories at happy moments and a foul delusion insisted that those faces had now turned to awfully disfigured cadavers... this couldn’t be.
Yet the paramedics were taking the corpses, one by one, carefully covering them with sheets as they put them on stretchers... what’s the use?
Captain Claire Redfield loosened the strap of her helmet and the officer took over. She doubted she would find anything helpful at all in the scene but she had to keep the formalities. She owed it to them.
She moved into the cave, past the bodies, going where they hadn’t managed to reach. Towards the depth of the cave, where what they aimed for had been. Claire would not know that what appeared as a young girl had been sitting there but what she saw definitely pinned her on her feet.
There was no impression of the legs of a young woman sitting on the ground where she looked, only a sign she recognised pretty well, done too well to presume that a finger rather than an accurate chisel had drawn it on the dust. It looked like two unbalanced double edged sickles interlocked, one laying in reverse on top of the other, forming a somehow twirling emblem. Of the four spikes, one was longer than the rest, like a tail to that formation...
Claire went dizzy with comprehension. It took her an instant to recognise the sign and so intense was her remembrance that fear engrossed her long before her mind registered the identity of it. She had not forgotten it since she had last seen it, accurately tattooed on the arm of a certain young man... Kazama Jin.
Her memories of the handsome Japanese young man still thrilled her when she recalled them. He had a beautiful face and the loveliest eyes Claire had ever seen, eyes that she longed to relinquish herself within. There was no denying of her emotions towards Jin but she dared not reveal herself to the inhibited boy, in worry that he might be confused and lost for words of the denial she dreaded he would pronounce to her. However, Jin was always polite and helpful whenever they had talked and to that she counted as she was going to find him, in the infirmary he worked, to speak to him about the sights she had seen and ask for his counselling. Ask for his affection, that she knew was too much. But she secretly hoped for it. Even if she wouldn’t admit to it.
She sat quietly in the corridor, waiting. She knew that if anyone could explain that symbol to them, this was Jin. She had arranged to meet him and their conversation over the phone was at best awkward. But he had agreed to see her. And she was here now, waiting. The enforced stillness of the place and the purposefulness matched Jin in many ways. Was he content here? she wondered.
A door opened and Claire turned sharply towards it. Jin came through the door and Claire knew that what she saw on his face was a startle he couldn’t repress, despite knowing whom he would see as he would come outside, the same startle she had, to see his beautiful face again... He hadn’t changed a bit. He was ever the gorgeous youth she recalled... her heart skipped in thrill.
Despite his nervousness, Jin pulled the door behind him with a sweaty hand and still Claire couldn’t bring herself to talk, too overjoyed to encounter him again. She couldn’t avoid it so she smiled.
“Miss Redfield...” Jin murmured rather than affirmed and she stood up.
“Hello Jin,” she approached him with a handshake.
Jin took a hold of the offered hand and shook it back. His grip was shaking as much as hers... This was all so confusing, so awkward... How she wished it were but a first date meeting...
They had come to that tickly closeness once before and Claire almost believed that he... but that could mean anything. He still called her by her surname, he was simply humbled before her. He couldn’t be...
“How have you been?” she asked politely. She noticed that he was staring at her precautiously, appearing unwilling to talk, yet he managed.
“I’ve been doing well...”
“Studying medicine then, eh?” she smiled mildly.
“Yeah...”
Seeing that prolonging this pointless chat wouldn’t help Jin loosen up at all, she moistened her lips reticently and went straight for what she had come for. She could see that Jin was as ready as he would ever be for it.
“Jin, I came here because there is something I want to talk with you about...”
He let his head drop. Could it be he suspected something?
“I have recently undertaken a mission to which I believe you may hold some answers...”
He nodded very feebly with eyes closed. Then he looked up and his stare bared knowledge and certainty that what he would hear was something he had been expecting to...
“Let’s find some private place...” he suggested politely.
Claire drew a sharp breath as for a split second she let herself be fooled that this wasn’t going to be an important conversation. But he didn’t call her ‘miss Redfield’ this time. Neither had he called her ‘Claire’ but he invited her someplace private. If only this was what it sounded like...
After holding onto it for a long time, with his expression shifting from cold dread for seeing exactly what he feared he would to resignation and studiousness, Jin returned the photograph to Claire and bared his clear eyes at her, letting her know that he was aware of why he was getting involved. Claire took back the picture of the hand-drawn symbol in the sand of the fateful cave and slotted it back to its folder.
“I’ve been having dreamlike, unconscious diffusions lately,” he confessed. “Someone or something is calling me. The voice sounds like that of a woman but something about its essence is familiar to me...”
His face wallowed and Claire noticed his fist clench nervously.
“I’ve heard that summon before... I felt the exact same threat in the past... but I dare not suspect what...”
Slightly shocked, Claire leaned forwards and looked closer at Jin’s face. His statement came completely unexpected.
“You have heard of it before?”
Jin looked up with his forehead breaking sweat.
“It’s not something I can tell you easily,” he confessed with an astonishing frankness, considering the situations, Claire valued. She awaited quietly for him to voice the thoughts his lips struggled with. His face blushed from burning mortification as he looked down nervously.
“You know certain things about me, miss Redfield that many people don’t... and that is why I find the courage to let you know of it...”
He drew a breath, in which Claire found the time to relish the satisfaction his statement endowed her... she didn’t however observe that the breath of excitement she drew came simultaneously with Jin’s...
“I recognise the call to be that of a powerful Demon if not in fact a Deity that I have confronted in the past,” the young man said and the difficulty to speak increased as he thought of his next words. “This dismal deity however wants of me to offer my spirit...”
He shook his head in perturbation, in the same question he had many years ago, when he first found out he was Toshin’s target upon Earth. He had never fastened why of all the worthy spirits on this world, Toshin was so avid about His spirit. He had pursued and captured spirits that Jin admired and considered far superior to his, especially that of his mother... so why did he want his?
He gazed up at Claire again, as if in hope that she had the answer.
“I know it is stupid to wish to preserve my spirit by hiding it but I fear this demon too much... I thought I had defeated it in our last confrontation but apparently...”
He shifted the direction of his eyes.
“The cost of merely standing up to it corrupted me, while this being is apparently... still alive and ready for its next move...”
He looked directly at Claire who absorbed his image in more than just attention.
“You don’t think I’m making this up, do you?” he questioned.
Claire hesitated her answer, needing a moment to focus.
“No... of course not, Jin. Why would you?” she said finally. She dropped her head in pondering and for a while, both of them were stooped in thought.
“Jin,” she said first, glad that the young man looked up at her almost expectantly and at the same time, sorry that she knew she didn’t have his answer.
“I know that confronting this demon took a lot out of you. Still, I will be bold and ask of you to help me fight this.”
Infirm laughter flitted Jin’s lips. It was laughter of despondency however.
“I don’t know if I can...” he uttered. It was Claire’s turn to drop her eyes in desolation.
“But... if anyone knows anything at all about it... any help at all... Jin we cannot let it be...”
“I know, miss Redfield,” Jin almost protested but again, he stilled, struggling for the right words. He didn’t want Toshin harming innocent people anymore than she did but how could he explain to her that he feared the confrontation for, if he lost again... then his soul would belong to Toshin and all his power would be at the War God’s disposal? What of that then?
“Look Jin...” Claire interrupted his thoughts. “I know that what you’ve been through with this thing has severed your morale but you didn’t expect that a demon so strong would go on the first try?”
Jin stared confusedly at Claire. She obviously couldn’t know, as no one really could... that was his tragedy in this. He was by himself against it.
“Miss Redfield...” he attempted.
“Please Jin, hear me through,” Claire stopped him. “This monster is going to make its move anyway and the worst you can do is wait with arms folded.”
Jin frowned in desperation. What she said did make sense yet the fear behind it was terrible. He panicked.
“I can’t!” he forced with his exhale. Surely Claire could see his eyes dancing violently. Indeed that was why she stopped and stared at him...
“You don’t know what it is to confront this menace and face it again!” he protested. “I can’t!”
“Jin,” Claire retorted, “you have to help me find it and if possible, eliminate it. This being is destructive and carnageous and I cannot let it wreak any more disparagement. Obviously you have as many reasons as I do to get rid of it. Jin... Will you work with me against it?”
Although fear had swept him thoroughly, Jin couldn’t but observe the conviction that underlay Claire’s voice. He stared at her thoughtfully. She melted her face to comfort.
“You won’t be alone...” she assured him and the sincerity of her promise nearly soothed him. She obviously didn’t quite realise what she was getting to... but her offer for support was so encouraging... somehow Claire understood the positive effect of her words on Jin. Heartened by this, she reached out and took hold of his clenched fist in her hand.
“You have to, Jin,” she urged him. “For your own good. For everyone’s good.”
Her words imbued him with dear confidence. Claire looked into his eyes entreatingly, the words she wanted to but didn’t dare say, formed into her mind.
‘For me.’
She tightened her hold upon him and the emotion of her thoughts came out in her gesture and her voice.
“Please...”
It seemed as though she expected Jin’s answer for ever. She stared into his eyes in faltering hope and she thought that even her blood stopped circulating her veins when his mouth opened to speak.
“All right...” he said. He didn’t sound very firm but his answer was definite.
“I’ll help you, miss Redfield,” he said, to clear the doubt that still was upon her face.
Claire couldn’t prevent a bright smile. He had actually promised to assist her... somehow she had managed to convince him on it. She pulled her hand away from his.
“Start by calling me Claire,” she suggested in a friendly smile.
Jin flushed. She grinned.
He smiled.
A new sighting was recorded some days later.
The observers described it as a girl-looking demon with a wolf. A large wolf. A really big spiritual wolf, transparent as though made of air but howling much louder than a real one and the howl alone made the walls of buildings rebound and caused the hearts to freeze in horror. The girl itself... she was beautiful, so they said but her eyes glowed like effulgent gold and her suppleness was tainted with the shadow of death. She bared a symbol on her right arm like those carved by witches and her feral whisper asked for the “Demon Child”...
When the event was reported, Jin bowed his head at the mentioning.
“It’s me...” he uttered.
Claire went to him and sat by his side.
“You don’t know that,” she said but Jin gave her a look that stopped her from further consolation. He looked at her as to say that, to what he knew, she was apprehensive. And she kept silent.
“What does that creature want of you then?” she demanded.
Jin shrugged.
“That, I don’t know. But I feel... I’ll soon find out.”
‘Yea...’ Claire thought as she fell back and breathed out heavily. ‘Soon... How soon?’
They didn’t postpone visiting the vicinity. It was a small village, insignificant to the world, based at the feet of a cave stitched mountain. An ideal spot for this Creature to appear, Claire fathomed.
She also noted that this Entity almost always appeared in places that progress seemed to have left behind and this village couldn’t be more appropriate. A single wooden post connected the place with a wire that probably carried a solitary telephone line. There were no indications of watering either, other than some stone encircled wells between buildings. The people were draped rather than dressed with large pieces of fabric, fastened with the artful knotting ways of such cultures.
‘This village could pass as a scratch on the map,’ she thought ‘but perhaps to the demon, it has special meaning... Could the superstition of simple people feed this thing?’
They walked into a cluster of monks just outside the portal made of three cylindrical wooden poles that signified the village’s entrance. Closely observed by the gathered population, the monks were performing what appeared to be exonerating rituals, in absolute concentration, ignoring their presence, which would have otherwise stopped the daily route in such a place, to gather all attention on the ‘modernised’ newcomers.
In order to avoid collision and reduce attention, Claire maneuvered them around the chanting monks, she noticed however that their passing had caused a significant uneasiness which she almost immediately understood. Although all the monks bowed engrossed in their praying, she caught them casting covert glances towards Jin and in fact, the head priest, the one leading the chorus, lifted his head fully and his eyes openly studied the young man...
She looked back at Jin to see his reaction. She assumed he could probably be a Buddhist or practice a religion of similar character perhaps even to this one but he passed them by without even a glance... and then she noticed that he was wearing a short sleeved white T-shirt and a flash of agony went through her mind.
“Your arm Jin!” she hissed.
Jin’s attention leapt at her and understanding came immediately. Not knowing how to do it better, he covered his tattooed arm with his open palm but at the same time the nervousness drew an attention point on his face and Claire noted that the head priest was still looking at him and somehow he also observed her...
They didn’t find difficulty in getting information from the populace. They keenly pointed them to the caves in the mountains voicing precaution but there was ardent hope behind their pointing fingers.
“They are haunted by evil creatures!” they had repeatedly warned them, yet in hope they pointed the way, believing that they would cleanse those foul mountains from the evil that cursed them.
Claire led the expedition team steadily. It was almost noon but she wanted to have time ahead of them. Besides, that spectre hadn’t been an ordinary one in the matter of its hours. Seldomly had it stroke at night. For all she knew, it could be there already...
“How are you feeling, Jin?” she asked concernedly.
The young Japanese man avoided her eyes.
“I’m doing fine, miss...” he paused in thought. “Claire.”
She smiled.
‘That’s better.’
Claire was convinced that she was before days in a row of futile hide and seek with that being. Therefore, she almost oversaw the restlessness in Jin’s behaviour. Perhaps it was partly Jin’s fault, being so reserved that he tried to conceal his uneasiness. Eventually however, it became too much to repress and Claire, who continuously kept an eye over him, noticed.
“It’s here...” Jin uttered a response to the question she couldn’t mouth but was written all over her face.
“What is it?” she asked of him to tell her.
Jin’s eyes were wide in their sockets, looking down wildly.
“I don’t know...” he said intensely and unexpectedly, turned his wild eyes on her and that look shocked Claire from within. “Can’t you hear it?” he demanded of her.
She stood aghast. Was the call he received so intense to him? And if it was, then, how come the rest of them were oblivious to it?
She was inclined to believe Jin, however. She knew he was... different than...
That wasn’t a time for pointless consolation. Whatever Jin was, he wasn’t an ordinary human like the rest of them in this cave. Demon or not, he was their key to the solving of this mystery and even if he was a creature different to them, she certainly...
...didn’t mind...
She bowed her head once, in subconscious fear that Jin might be able to read her thoughts but immediately looked back at him.
“Take us to it,” she told him.
She saw that Jin had to brace himself but his expression was firm with determination.
They were getting closer. Even the others were feeling uneasy by now. Jin looked over at Claire. Her forehead was creased at her attempt to find the origin of something she received, possibly as no more than a sentiment. Some people, even without his demonic infuse, had the sensitivity to detect the alterations of their surroundings and detect other presences. Every human is naturally capable to do that but only few bother to discover that side in them... so few are really capable to listen...
But, he thought, that wasn’t the only thing that made Claire a special woman. Jin had seen women daring their limits like men do in the fighting competitions he had participated and he had seen women flirting with danger to ridiculous extends but he hadn’t seen many women like Claire, dealing with risk so responsibly. She knew this wasn’t a game, it wasn’t some adrenaline rising expedition. She did her job with professional dedication, knowing how important was the task she chose to undertake. She accepted her difficult position ungrudgingly but with no insignificant conceit either. She faced it without false pretensions and to that, she exuded respect... It made him feel that, there could be hope in what they were attempting to do.
He knew he was being influenced by her to steady himself, push his fears aside and seek the call he received, for the purpose of a better thing... and he thought how he was always afraid to let his feelings subside, in fear that he would end up like his father did. The ghost of his fate pursued his life ever since he found out but right this moment, where Claire was forcing him in that tour that asked him to confront himself, the way she made him push his emotions aside made him feel worthy more than he ever believed he could be...
‘You’re bringing the best out of me, Claire,’ he thought. ‘Remind me to tell you so, once this is over...’
He followed the signal almost hopeful.
He wasn’t wrong in his assumption. This entity was calling out at him directly. In his head he could hear her voice calling him with his name. It wasn’t a presumption or a psychic signal he picked. He distinctly heard a female voice, audible only in his head reaching out for him...
“Come to me, Jin, demon child!”
Yet, there was something else in the humor of the voice. An almost metallic underlying essence that boomed with power beyond that of a female human or even a mere spectre and this something was only too familiar in his memory... this was the impertinence that only a supreme entity could possess, a vast demon or a demigod, if not a proper deity...
...but Toshin was dead, wasn’t he? Hadn’t he himself vanquished the War God, freeing the spirits of the warriors and the tortured soul of his mother? Hadn’t he battled against the War God’s grip, when Heihachi shot him and his life subsided? That was when...
He pressed hard against the swelling thoughts that surged his brain.
‘That was when you transformed to a demon...’
‘No!’
‘It was my father,’ Jin argued. ‘He bestowed me with power to survive this and this manifested in that form...’
‘But were you not inherently demon, would it have worked, Jin?’
Jin’s eyes bulged again as he forced himself to reason otherwise, yet the question persisted unchanged, with frightful verity.
Would it?
‘But I didn’t kill Heihachi! My mother’s goodness preserved me! I can’t be...’
‘A fully fledged demon, yes. You weren’t ready yet then. But soon... you will be.’
“NO!”
Everyone stopped startled and Jin realised he had shouted his denial. He looked guiltily around and especially Claire. Her grey blue eyes focused on him for instructions.
“We’re getting closer,” he said as if he made up an excuse but his voice was vacillating with fears he wanted to confess but thought better not to.
“Lead us on, Jin,” Claire urged him kindly. He gave her a look of question, but to her uncertain look he read clearly that there was no other option. He sighed as he walked on, climbing up towards a whole within the cave, beyond where another chamber lay. He knew its shape exactly, even though he wasn’t in there as he also knew what he would see once he would enter...
A rumble began halfway to the opening and doubled instantly after it broke. The men of the team shouted in surprise as the floor shook under their feet. Jin, stabilising himself as best as he could, looked over at Claire with horror. She had taken it with surprising composure and was looking back at him and then at the men. A minor fall of boulders showered them as a warning and then the quake stopped.
“It only wants me,” Jin said tensely, after things quieted. “Stay behind!”
“No,” Claire stated firmly. “I won’t let you go alone.”
Jin stared into her eyes and she was unmoving. He couldn’t convince her to stay, so he turned his back to the rest and continued his progress, knowing that Claire was closely behind him.
“Wait here!” he heard her ordering her men, behind them. “We’ll meet on the lower floor!”
Sounds of retreating feet told him that she was obeyed.
Claire was the only one other than Jin that went up in the cave and she no longer perceived inhuman auras, because her agony mounted. At last, she was going to see that thing which caused the loss of so many of her teammates. In her long career she had seen a wide range of weird creatures, still she had learned not to set rules for what she might expect. This was going to be the case again.
She had assumed she would enter an empty cave, then a pillar of smoke would emerge from some place and a heinous demon would show. But the ‘being’ was already waiting for them in there.
It simply existed in the cave and to make things even more commonplace, the young girl they had so far only heard of, was sitting in plain view on the floor of the cave. But the wolf was more than words could tell.
Monstrously big, its expanse towered above the maiden and with its breadth alone it seemed to shelter her.
Claire gazed studiedly at the demonic pair but spared a stare for Jin... she saw his face bridle with tension, overcome by his effort to comprehend the spectacle before him...
All the young man’s attention was upon the spiritual wolf. What kind of a creature was this? A wolf symbolised Nature more than anything and mixed thoughts came to him. Was that a deliberate mockery against his mother’s teachings? And what did a wolf, representing untamed life doing associated with a spook sent by the wicked War God Toshin?
“A nature’s symbol... what games are you playing with me?” he muttered under his breath.
The girl looked at them. Although she had her face lifted all the time, suddenly her stare was more there, more ‘looking’. A smile was formed out of her thin dark lips and voice came out of her mouth and they both heard it.
“Well met, Jin, Demon Child...”
For one this shouldn’t be the voice of a young woman. It was hollow as if it echoed in a cave within her body, as big as the one they were in. There were no emotional accents but a spiritual flatness overruled it with the melodic chime of a booming bronze bell.
Her sight on its own wasn’t as terrifying, even with the hovering wolf shaped cloud beyond her. But that voice made Claire tremble from true fear.
She glanced towards Jin. She saw shaking determination on his face. There was something he needed to say but he didn’t dare...
“Approach to me...” the voice commanded with the regalness of one who knows they will be obeyed. What happened then was unforeseen and alike staggering to both of them.
Jin was compelled towards the strange creature, moving towards it even as he refused to, for it had possessed his body and eradicated his resistance. Claire could only watch as Jin approached, unable to decide to scream his name at him. She knew he was aware of everything going on and of the something which was taking control of his movements but still, he could only watch himself approach the creature in slow motion...
“NO!” she shouted desperately. With that, she rushed towards Jin.
The female creature elegantly lifted her hand but her smile was demonical. Claire suddenly saw her pupils submerge into the effulgent white radiance that replaced her eyes and all vitality left her to meet another mediator as forth rushed a cloud consisted of grey ash, twirling in a frenetic buzz, shaping to a huge wolf...
The wolf’s yellow eyes appeared in a split in front of her, glowing insanely with frenzy as it attacked her in its maddening speed. She didn’t even put her hands up, only froze into staring ahead at the dominant face of the wolf, unable to form a single thought. Before she even knew it, she was transfixed and possessed and all she knew was the frightful captivity of her mind to, what could well be, eternity...
Freed from the controlling grasp for now, Jin stared from Claire to the insane woman. The yellowish glow of her eyes in her evil smile was absolutely unnerving. He remembered the grip it had exerted upon him. He had been mesmerised beyond his control which only told him that this time, Toshin had a certain way of holding him. Yet he couldn’t let another innocent be caught between himself and Toshin’s mania. He steadied himself.
‘Demon...’ he addressed the creature with the voice of his thoughts.
He wasn’t at all surprised to receive a response. It was a spiritual edict of acknowledgement, still it was firm.
‘It’s me you want. Leave her alone.’
‘She interfered on her own will,’ an unworldly voice echoed. ‘Now she must face the consequences.’
‘She shouldn’t be part of this. Leave her be!’ Jin’s psyche insisted.
‘Is she significant to you?’
The question toned like a gong inside Jin’s consciousness. He shuddered, feeling it weighting on him like a physical burden but he also felt Claire raptly listening as well, waiting for him to say something...
He shuddered inwardly, undermined by his own confusion but her life was at risk now. A wrong word, a wrong answer would crush her at the possession of the Wolf’s spirit...
He bowed his head solemnly, not seeing much choice.
‘You don’t need to harm her. Please.’ he thought. And he felt a dull pang of disappointment that wasn’t his own but strangely communicated to his heart very well...
The cruel smile of the unknown girl spread further across her face. Jin struggled not to let it affect him. He tightened his fists.
‘It is me you want. I shall come to you alone and we will have no interference,’ he promised. ‘Now let her be.’
A whish of dire air swept past his mind screeching in acceptance.
‘I will accept you then, Demon Child...’ it said with the fiendishly echoing female voice.
Jin felt the swarm that was the spirit of the wolf leave Claire’s body and spiral away to the sphere whence it came from. As for the girl, she vanished from his open vision, fading away as demons do. She properly left the place, he knew so because he couldn’t feel her presence any longer, yet he kept looking where she stood when they had talked.
“My God, what was that?” he heard Claire gasp behind him but he didn’t have the heart to answer to her. His head bowed in misery.
‘I gave my promise now... and there is no way to fight off that Demon. It is much more powerful than I am... and I will relinquish to it. There is no way... no way...’
“Jin...”
He looked over his shoulder at Claire. Her face showed agony but she couldn’t possibly know, even if her expression might have misled him to guess otherwise. She reached a tentative hand to his arm and touched him.
‘Let’s go...’ she uttered.
Jin bowed his head in agreement. Indeed, there was no reason to remain there any longer.
Back at the camp, the men sat in a quiet circle, feeling lucky to have survived their encounter with the fearful being. Jin sat in a distant corner with his head bent. His slender bangs hung down before his face, studiously avoiding Claire’s inquisitive look.
“It is Toshin,” he confirmed. Claire knelt beside him, trying to pry past his secretiveness and find his stare. She failed.
“That girl...” he forced himself to explain, “she is Toshin’s messenger, conjured from his essence. I could feel there was something different about her composition. In this form, Toshin chose to approach Earth this time...”
His head was raised by little and Claire gave him a sympathetic look. Jin shrugged his shoulders, rubbing his embracing arms with his palms as though he was trying to warm himself.
“Toshin wants to have me...” he half heartedly admitted. “I don’t know why he chooses me of all...”
And he stopped, remembering Toshin’s last raid and the people he captured to meld in his essence... Fighters and people of admirable spirit, his mother who was the embodiment of all that was good... He found no relation of himself to these people, therefore he couldn’t understand why Toshin would be so intent in having his spirit, unless...
‘Unless I Am demonic in heritage after all... For all the goodness there is in my spirit, I am irreversibly blended with my demonic nature and that is what He wants... The amalgamation of the both... And I am It.’
So deep he was caught in his thoughts that he didn’t sense Claire squeezing his knee in encouragement. He sighed deeply. Apparently, last time he failed to stop Toshin... so what could ever be done to stop him at all?
“Maybe there’s only one possibility...” he mumbled near to letting go. Claire looked up at him. He found the courage to look into her eyes.
“That I go to It...”
He was stunned by the burst of surprise in her face.
“No!” she said heatedly. She forgot herself and rushed upon Jin. She grabbed him from both shoulders and juddered him anxiously.
“That will be surrendering without a fight! Listen to me, Jin. We’re gonna fight this together. I’m not gonna let you give up to it. Are you listening to me, Jin? Are you listening to me?”
Jin still averted his gaze to the side, flinching seemingly in suffering.
“You do not know,” he muttered.
“Stop it!” Claire demanded decisively. Her voice was direct and level and that made Jin endeavour a look at her.
“That’s not a way to barge into the battle. Jin... I want you ready to lounge your fists at it. You can’t resign before the fight has even begun. I won’t let you.”
“There’s nothing you can do, Claire!” Jin shouted, surprising her. She took her hands off him and stood up. When Jin saw the startle in her widened eyes his stare dwindled in remorse.
“You remember what happened when we met It... It nearly killed us and I...” he paused repressing his guilty recollection of the bargain he stroke. “I couldn’t do anything... We cannot win,” he said fatalistically.
Claire stared sorrowfully at his exhausted face. She wished there was a way to inspire him but there was nothing she could think of...
“I cannot confront the War God again,” Jin said cryptically. “If I failed on the first time, when I was ready...”
Again however, Claire dropped to her knees before him and forced his attention.
“Now, listen to me Jin.”
The young man looked at her in guilt. Her determination, even though she was a mere human was so much greater than his... He used to be like this once upon. But transforming to a devilish demon is bound to shake the foundations of any conscientious person.
“I don’t know what you have in mind,” Claire began. “But as long as it goes through my hand, I will not let you relinquish to this Demon. Even if you want to give up the fight, I don’t want to. This is my fight as well. Friends of mine died because of It. You may not wish to fight it but I won’t let you go to it. It wants you but I won’t let it have you and give it a clean victory.”
Jin was shamed by the tremor of injustice behind her words. She knew not what she was getting into but such good motives he rarely found. She was prepared to fight to the end an enemy so much bigger than she, for the sake of the memory of her friends...
Were he to die... would she hold such dear memories of him as well?
He bowed his head ashamed of his selfish thoughts. This was not about him now. It was about everybody. He perhaps was the only person who could do anything at all. He had no space for personal thoughts.
Claire’s face softened as she looked at him.
“I’ll stay with you,” she assured. “Together, we might be able to do something.” she said.
Jin only looked at her expecting face.
“Do we have a deal?” she urged him. But he didn’t reply.
However, he nodded meekly with his chin.
The night was absolutely still. But he could hear that ghastly whisper plain in the air...
He sat up from his bed. He alone could hear that which no one else did...
The night was serene.
He made no noise as he got to his feet, always observing Claire’s sleeping figure on the other bed, wondering if she truly slept...
“Claire?” he whispered as quietly as he could but regretted it. Still she didn’t stir. She was fast asleep... No wonder, the previous day had taken a lot out of her. She had suffered possession, he was surprised she was so constituted... or perhaps she tried to hold it for...
...for his sake?
He stood for a minute watching her sleep. Her breath was steady as a baby’s. Strands of her copper hair were falling to her face and he remembered how confident she had been of him... she lent him her hope and trust but he couldn’t cope with it...
‘I’ve let you down, Claire...’ he thought. ‘I’m sorry...’
But her vision reminded him of the faith she had showed him, the trust and for a moment, belief in him... He closed his lids in a smile.
‘Thank you,’ he said. Then quietly he walked out of the room towards the exit. He opened the door without making any noise and he was under the night, ready for the Call.
One look at the moon and the dark skies. He wasn’t even wearing shoes. He wouldn’t need them.
He ran.
“How come nobody saw him?” Claire asked frantically but none of the troops in her follow could tell her anything. She paced up and down the room, grasping her forehead.
“And I never noticed him leave, damn it!” she said to herself. “I was in the same room with him and I didn’t hear him leave!”
“It wasn’t your fault, Captain,” someone told her. But was that consolation really in the right place? There was no room for errors and she had let Jin slip away into the night, right into the arms of the War God, to offer himself, their strongest weapon, without a fight.
She couldn’t just have it. Even in her despair, she knew she ought to do something.
“We have to go to the cave,” she ordered decisively. “That is the first place we should check. Move on!”
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