Ashes To Ashes

Chapter 5: Heart And Soul

***

Aiko sat alone at the expansive dining room table, poking at her food with no interest. It was a traditional Japanese breakfast – tasty, very tasty indeed – but she didn’t feel like eating it, as usual. Instead, she sat there in her ultramarine-blue kimono, staring at the food as if it would vanish into thin air or magically appear in her stomach if she glared at it hard enough.

Somehow, over the last few years, her depression had become less of a condition and more of a way of life. It no longer dominated her every second; it simply existed, reminding her of the terrible past, and reminding her that she had no future. She lived with it, and it lived with her. She no longer had immense outbursts of unhappiness. She no longer felt emotion. Just...emptiness.

After a while, Heihachi finally came downstairs, dressed in nothing but his nightgown and slippers. By then, his breakfast had been laid out for him on the table, and all he had to do was sit down and eat.

Though, strangely enough, he didn’t seem to want to eat either...he simply picked at his meal with his chopsticks. He looked a little unsettled to her too, this particular morning. A little pale, a little shaky, definitely not ravenous like he usually was in the mornings.

“Heihachi-sama,” her voice shook slightly, and it was barely audible, even in the silence of the Mishima mansion’s early morning atmosphere.

He jumped nearly a mile at her words, and looked at her accusingly when he caught his breath and composure. “Aiko! Why...” He stopped before he could snarl at her. “...yes, dear?” His voice was somewhat strained.

Unsmilingly, she sat back in her chair, trying to relax slightly. “Are you all right?”

After a moment of glaring at her incredulously, he sighed. “Yes, I am fine.” Of course, he didn’t want to tell her about the previous evening’s affairs. After all, a man who sees ghosts in this day and age is considered to be completely and utterly insane.

Though she didn’t look convinced, she looked back down at her food and forced a mouthful down. As usual it nearly came up again – how could she eat, survive, live, when her son is dead? – but she managed to swallow it before it could rebel further. The next mouthful she chewed for what seemed like forever, unable to bring herself to swallow. She heard a soft sigh from further up the table, and glanced up to see Heihachi having similar difficulties with his meal.

Before she could ask, Heihachi responded to the unspoken question. He was able to read his wife’s expressions, after all. “No, I’m not alright. Happy?”

The clump of food slid down her throat like a hot, slimy slug, and slithered all the way down her gullet...making her feel entirely sick by the time it reached her stomach. “Not really, Heihachi-sama. You look worried about something.

How sweet of her to care...then again, she was his wife, she was supposed to do things like that – fuss over people when they were in a state of trauma or discomfort of any kind.

The mere thought of trauma made bile rise in the back of his throat – which he quickly forced to subside. The ultimate trauma had been inflicted by him upon his very own flesh and blood – Kazuya. He grew noticeably pale with the memory. For the first time in his life, of late, Heihachi was feeling grief. Even more importantly – guilt. He knew he’d feel more if he revealed his reasoning to Aiko. As much as he looked down upon her...he couldn’t bare seeing her cry. After all, she was his wife...he was supposed to love her.

“Strange matters on the mind of late. It doesn’t concern you, you needn’t fuss over it.” He looked up at her, noticing the look on her face. She’d taken it as if he’d scolded her for being overly curious...he forced a slight curve of his lips, and nodded to her. “Don’t worry, I’m sure everything will clear itself up and things will go back to normal soon enough.” Sure they will. It was impossible for the damage of the past to be healed. Dead flesh doesn’t heal; it festers.

The waiter passed by again, placing a third dinner-set down on the table, laden with piping hot cuisine. Followed by which, of course, was the distant sound of bare feet on the richly lacquered wooden stairs of the mansion. Though, to Heihachi’s keen ears, it sounded more like there were two sets of feet...either that, or Lee was walking down on his hands and knees.

The sound paused, and Heihachi could have sworn he’d heard whispers. He held his jaw still for a moment, ignoring the half-masticated mouthful he had, and arched a raven brow as he listened on to the strange little performance going on behind them. Again, the footsteps continued...it had to be Lee, goofing off and rolling down the stairs on all fours. Then again, do twelve-year-old boys still do that? He didn’t think so.

Then, he could definitely say he heard whispering again as the footsteps temporarily ceased once again.

“...not sure we should do this...he’ll have a fucking cow if he sees me...”

His brow rose even higher, and his raven eyes glanced over toward Aiko, who’d also heard the racket by now, and was looking about curiously.

“...don’t give a damn...doesn’t matter, this is going to be fun...anyhow, you deserve it...”

After that, Heihachi knew there was something strange going on. “Lee, what the hell are you doing?” His deep, gravely voice echoed about the walls of the dining room. Again, silence.

“Uh, coming downstairs for breakfast?” He answered the question with one of his own, quite literally.

“Who’ve you got with you?” His curiosity and confusion was being swiftly replaced with impatience.

“Um...you’ll see in a moment.”

Definitely impatience he was feeling there, nothing more, nothing less. “Lee, I...” he stopped dead and went as white as a sheet when he saw exactly who Lee had invited to breakfast.

Deep in her chest, Aiko could have sworn her heart had reached a new record heart-rate...and simply ceased under the strain. Though he was different from the last time she saw him, she knew exactly who it was.

With all eyes on the both of them, Lee felt suddenly just a little unnerved...but proceeded bravely down to the table, and sat down before his breakfast. His parents, both pallid and in a state of pure shock, stared at their interesting guest as he sat down beside Lee, watching him tuck in.

“Ka...Ka...” Aiko couldn’t bring herself to say his name.

“Kazuya...” The panicked words rushed out of Heihachi’s mouth in a gruff, breathy whisper, his jaw shaking uncontrollably.

The ghostly boy, looking now like any young pre-adolescent might in terms of liveliness, shrugged nonchalantly and cocked his head to the side. “Morning, Otousan.”

The cheek! He was acting almost as if he’d always been here, and it was a normal day! Still, Heihachi couldn’t find his breath. He struggled to draw much needed oxygen into his lungs with a wavering gasp. “What are you doing here...how...”

That was most definitely guilt he could see in the old man’s eyes, and hear in his tone. Yes, after last night’s encounter, he’d filled his old man with much required guilt for the pain he’d caused his son. It may have happened on its own, however. Kazuya, endowed with powers possessed only by the dead and damned, could sense Heihachi’s thoughts of him, and had acted upon them by paying a visit. He’d sensed Lee’s frustration and loneliness on the same day, and had decided to help the kid out some as well. He’d drifted off into a partial slumber whilst studying lee’s notes in the dark, and decided not to leave in the morning...after all, he missed Lee’s company. And now, here he was, once again encountering the one responsible for this whole mess.

In that pre-teen boy’s voice of his, he calmly gave the best answer he could think of at the time. “Well, I decided to join you for breakfast for once, rather than hide in the walls. Problem?”

Lee almost snorted rice out his nose, but satisfied himself with a less messy, much louder snort of suppressed laughter. Heihachi and Aiko both made no reply. There was an awkward silence between the four for a moment, and both boys began to wonder if it was such a good idea after all to bring the dead boy downstairs for all to see. However, Kazuya broke the silence once again. “Please, you’ve all seen me at one time or another...you all know I’m not entirely gone...get over it.”

The tears once again streaked down Aiko’s cheeks uncontrollably, against her will, but she forced herself not to cry. A shaky, weak smile formed on her wide lips, and she stood from her seat at the table. She would show Heihachi what was wrong with her the last eight years; she would show him the cause of her depression. Not sniffling, sobbing or choking one bit, she walked behind Kazuya’s chair, and wrapped her arms around his slender, bony shoulders, hugging him tight against her chest and nuzzling his neck. She could see, now, that he would have grown to be an utterly gorgeous young man.

Smiling softly, Kazuya rested his head backward, grasping one of her hands with his own hands – which were, by now, quite a bit larger than hers. He was, after all, in between looking like a child and a teenager.

“Aishiteru, Kazuya...” She drew him tighter. “Don’t leave us...”

Heihachi watched on, bordering on feeling horror at what he was witnessing. His dead son, now almost in teen-hood, was sitting there, before them, as if nothing had happened. Except for one thing; there was a massive scar across his chest. Heihachi knew exactly what it was from, too, and that made his heart sting. Though he looked on upon the reunion with mild disgust and hatred for the creature that had made his dear wife so ill...he was unable to discard the harrowing fact that he’d killed, in cold blood, the one thing that unified the both of them through the marriage. He was the hybrid of the world’s greatest fighter and the world’s kindest woman. He could have been great...great. He could have been anything. He would have been Heihachi’s legacy. Now, all they were left with was a semitransparent apparition that insisted on haunting them, driving them to insanity.

Holding the boy’s soft cheeks between her two small, graceful hands, Aiko glanced over at Heihachi, her eyes unreadable. She noticed how his face had changed – no longer did he have a young child’s rounded cheeks; she could feel, beneath her hands, protruding cheekbones, much like her own. It gave his face a rather triangular look, though his chin was beginning to square off, a little like his father’s, only without the cleft. “Heihachi-sama...this is your son. I don’t believe you’ve met him.”

When he gave her an incredulous, slightly bedazzled look, she continued in that dark, almost dangerous voice, laced in mystery. “Or should I say, you’ve never known him.”

Lee had watched the whole ordeal in absolute fascination. Before this, he’d never fully known or understood the complexity of the Mishima family’s inter-relationships...but now he understood. It was so innocent, yet laced with such malice. It was a living nightmare, a horror movie in real life.

A lump welled up in the older Mishima’s throat. The two pairs of obsidian eyes, so agonisingly alike, were boring into him with the intense heat of boiling magma. The anger, the hatred he had for the boy...they were melting away like ice. Replacing the void they left; anger and hatred for himself. Again, there was a painful silence, the tension in the room so thick it couldn’t even be sliced with a blade...finally Heihachi spoke. His deep voice was barely above a whisper, and he almost choked on his words, barely aware of what he was saying. “...can you forgive me...?”

The look on the boy’s face, the way his expression mutated ever so slightly to that of sickened seriousness, was enough to tear the balding man’s heart into shreds. Kazuya looked down and away, his head tilting with his dark eyes. “I’m just a dead boy...I’m not a miracle worker...” As his mother hugged him tighter, almost to the point of strangling the boy, he looked back up at his father. “Is murder something that one can forgive, or is it something you just forget?”

The truth hurt much more than he’d expected. Murder. That’s what it was. Murder. He was a murderer. He had murdered his son. He was nothing but a cold-blooded, heartless murderer. He didn’t deserve to be a father. “I...I didn’t know you...I didn’t know what I was doing...” The desperation began to build within him. He didn’t want it to be this way. “Kazuya...I didn’t know you as I do now...I made a terrible mistake...I only wish I could undo the damage...” There it was. He had confessed his fears, his guilt, his anguish, his failings...before his entire family. For the master of a wealthy Japanese household, this was as emasculating as the literal sense of the word.

Feeling the small, creamy arms around him tighten even more, Kazuya let go of the solid form he’d been holding on to for the entire morning, and let Aiko’s hands go straight through him...she ended up hugging herself, and collapsing to the ground, defiantly holding off the hysterical cries that wanted to erupt. At that point, she’d almost convinced herself that he was indeed alive. Trying his hardest to ignore her for the time being, Kazuya stood and walked slowly toward Heihachi, passing through any furniture that got in his way as if they were mere projections. Again, the boy’s eyes conveyed a steely seriousness that belonged to someone well beyond his thirteen years.

“But,” He began, his tone softening considerably, “If I were anyone else, I would simply refuse to talk to you again, or haunt you for the rest of your days, reminding you of the past...and fuelling our mutual hatred.” The wise words from the youth had everyone listening in silence. “However, there is an acceptance that we’ve both, inadvertently, sought after and fought for, ever since that day long ago.”

For the moment, Heihachi had to peel his eyes away from his son’s. He couldn’t bear the shame he felt. He was nothing but a murderer...and this god of a boy was willing to compromise, it seemed. He found himself staring at the immense disfigurement ripped across the small chest before him...that in itself was even more excruciating to be reminded of than the look in his son’s eyes.

Again, the boy’s voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “I don’t want to hate you, and I don’t want you to hate me...I can never forgive you for what you did; I don’t even have the option of living with the mistake. But I won’t condemn you for it; your own self-inflicted pain is already enough to cope with...knowing what you did to me, and as a result, to Okaasan and Lee.”

It was true. Kazuya had diligently summed up the entire situation in a few words. Wise words, too, for someone so young. Perhaps he’d gained infinite knowledge in his death. The youth held out his slender, smooth hand to his father after a long pause. Heihachi stared blankly at the offered limb for innumerable seconds, before grasping it with his own, holding the young hand firmly but shakily. The older man eventually stood, and laid his other hand on the shoulder well below him. He could most definitely feel rippling muscle below that smooth, tanned skin, but it barely covered the obvious bones of his shoulders, particularly the clavicle. The boy was too thin. No doubt it was because he was a representation of what he’d be if he were alive – pushed so hard it was a detriment to his health. Still, the smaller, warmer hand within his own was strong, very strong...despite his fears when the boy was younger, Kazuya would have grown to be a fantastic warrior.

And now all that was left of that legacy was its ghost.

After an intense moment between them, they both parted company; Heihachi resumed his seat at the head of the table, and Kazuya knelt down next to his distraught yet silent mother, comforting her, holding her protectively. Lee felt completely and utterly out of place the entire time; it was all too clear to him what he was...an outcast, the extra, an adopted replacement for this miracle of a child. Leaving what was left of his breakfast, he slipped out of the room, outside to the massive gardens outdoors, unnoticed by the family behind him.

It occurred to Heihachi after a moment that something was different – throughout the excitement and trauma, he’d completely forgotten how the boy had appeared to him the previous evening.

“Kazuya...how did you age eight years in twelve hours?” His tone was slightly scornful, as it always was toward his son in the past. Old habits die hard, after all.

As Kazuya slowly looked up, his body literally shrank before both of his parents’ eyes. As the obsidian orbs met the older Mishima’s raven eyes, the boy was in the form of a five-year-old; the one and the same he’d grown accustomed to appearing in from way back. The silence in the room indicated understanding; he was able to take on at least two forms; that of what he should be at present, and that of the five-year-old body he died in. he gave a slight smirk, and bowed to Heihachi, almost as if asking for an encore.

Before he could say anything, however, he found himself being grabbed roughly and half-strangled to death – only, he was dead already. He struggled a moment, but realised it was Aiko...and simply squirmed around to face her, wrapping his small arms around her neck.

“Don’t go again, Kazuya...don’t go...stay with us...don’t go...” She was almost unable to control her words as they came out, and her hand reached up, subconsciously, to pet the fluffy black hair on the boy’s head.

He squirmed again after a moment’s inactivity. “I’ll stay with you for today...but that’s as long as I can stay...”

Heihachi felt just a little uneasy and a little left out of the whole situation, but watched on in curiosity. He realised that Aiko was a simpler creature than he; she didn’t feel that hatred for the boy for making her ill as he did himself. She only felt that motherly love for her only son; it was so painfully obvious now.

“Why...why can’t you stay? Please don’t leave me...” Holding back her tears, Aiko concentrated on kissing and nuzzling the boy’s soft shoulder. Since he wasn’t ticklish, he didn’t giggle or squirm as a result.

“Because if I stay material for too long, I simply fade out of existence for a week or so...it’s not a pleasant feeling, believe me I’ve tried it once or twice...”

Aiko understood well enough, and finally let him go. “I should have thought so...” She smiled bitterly. “But one day with my little boy is a miracle in itself...”

As he prepared to walk off, she scooped him up off his feet, and carried him upstairs, almost floating above the ground in her state of euphoria. She would lock herself in her room with him all day, or sit outside with him until late at night...anything to spend that long-missed quality time with her one and only son.

Heihachi watched as the two disappeared up the stairs, not sure what to make of the situation that had unfolded this morning. It was at that moment that he noticed Lee was gone, and hadn’t even finished his breakfast. With the need of something to occupy his confused and troubled mind, Heihachi concurred that he should spend some time with his other son, Lee, since Kazuya’s time was being occupied entirely by his mother – and Lee lacked that attention, he now saw.

Leaving his breakfast on the table, Heihachi wandered out onto the estate’s vast grounds. He knew that silver-haired creature loved the outdoors; that’s where he would have retreated to.