They were walking in one of Tokyo's central parks. Kazuya was in a white shirt that billowed in the chill wind. Jin hadn't worn enough warm clothes, so was now wearing Kazuya's long leather coat.

The trees were all bare and dusted with snowflakes. Thick snow crunched under foot and a blanket of quiet hung over the city.

"Do you still feel it?" he asked his father.

Kazuya got out a cigarette but paused with his lighter before it got to his mouth. Jin followed his gaze. The sun was rising. It came red through the tall towers, spilling itself onto a pure white canvass. The wavering lines of skyscrapers were lit up with wavy borders of gold. All the city lights became nothing under that singular brilliance. Jin watched Kazuya as violet shadows shrunk back in his face, smoothing his usually angular features. Kazuya put his cigarette back in his pocket.

"Yes. It whispers to me." Kazuya frowned, but to Jin his face was radiant and all bathed in the light of the sunrise. "Every day it gets a little easier to resist, but I would still like to leave this city for a while. Take some time away from places that push me to call on it."

"I'll come with you," Jin said quickly.

Kazuya looked at him with a raised eyebrow. Jin's cheeks coloured, but he didn't retract his words. He looked up at Kazuya hopefully.

"As you wish."

Jin broke into a smile. Kazuya hesitated, then a small smile of his own mirrored it. He turned away.

"What is it?" Jin asked. Reading Kazuya had become so much easier of late.

"Hm. Nothing." Kazuya shrugged. He relented under Jin's inspection. "You remind me of her."

Jin felt colder. He drew the coat tighter about him and stared hard at the ground. The winter wind nipped at his knuckles and chilled his cheekbones. He nearly jumped in surprise when an arm wrapped around his shoulders and drew him close.

"You have stories to tell me of her that I missed out on." Kazuya's voice rumbled through his chest. Jin stayed quiet. For the first time, the sorrow at the mention of his mother didn't feel piercing. Instead of cutting him up, it felt like an old aching wound, and one not just borne by him. Jin pressed closer into the hug, he let out a long, low sigh. Being close to Kazuya was different to being close to his mother. When his mother had held him, everything felt at peace, like she was soothing strife from the world itself and melting dissonance into stillness. With Kazuya, it was like being surrounded by an impenetrable fortress – like he was the shield that would keep out the world – like he was ready to weather any violence for you and you would be safe just here in this place behind his arms. Jin held on to his father. A shudder came from deep within him. He'd pent so much of the last five years wishing he had fortifications like these to hide within. Kazuya's arms tightened around him in response. Jin could feel unspoken things in that embrace: things he knew Kazuya would never say out loud. But that was alright. Jin could feel them in that strong embrace. Kazuya's affection had a kind of possessive quality to it and a fierceness, like so many other aspects of his life. Just then though, they were a kind of promise. Kazuya would give him this safety, if Jin would allow it. They could face the world together, if that was what Jin wanted.

A moment passed, then Kazuya ruffled his hair. "Come. If we keep your uncle waiting, he might think I've murdered you."

Kazuya drew away and began striding through the snow. Jin watched him. With his white shirt and charcoal trousers, he cut a monochrome figure in landscape of only black and white. He fitted with a plainer sort of serenity. Just a man in a Tokyo park. A human without the wings of that terrible being lurking heavy with hollow spirit behind him. Kazuya turned, waiting for him to catch up. Jin felt his heart leap. He hurried to follow his father.

They were eating breakfast all together in an open-air restaurant at the foot of a mountain. The traditional inn had a low pagoda roof all strung with icicles. Outdoor heaters were pumping out glowing rosy warmth. Stepped up the slope on one side were natural hot springs. Steam shimmered up from the dark pools, melting back the snow from nearby rocks. The little restaurant was a quiet affair, just under an hour's drive from the city. Asuka had bags under her eyes and was yawning unashamedly at the early hour. She and Lee were seated on one side of the table under a heater, sharing a blanket. Kazuya and Jin sat opposite them, both frowning down at their menus.

"You said we were going out for a treat! A break! This is the earliest I've got up all year!" Asuka said, scowling at Lee.

"It was my suggestion that we go out for breakfast," Kazuya put in.

The complaints died on Asuka's lips as her eyes turned to Kazuya. She dropped her gaze and grumbled into her menu. Devil or not, Kazuya still seemed to have that effect on people. He gave a half smirk. Jin couldn't stop watching the way Kazuya laughed more easily, spoke more often, and the way the air felt easier to breathe around him. He wasn't sure if those were the changes in him or his father but they filled him nonetheless with bursts of joy for small things in life.

"What the-!?" Asuka sat up straight. Jin's eyes snapped up. "Who let these fucking cute monkeys in!?" Asuka leapt up from her seat, drowsiness forgotten. She bounded over to the steaming pools, terraced up the black rock on the far side of the restaurant. A troupe of snow monkeys had sunk themselves into the hot water further up the slope, and their strange faces all bordered in fluff and flecked with snow looked down at them curiously. Asuka, in her excitement, had dropped the blanket she and Lee had had about their shoulders, and she was now standing with hands planted on her hips as she peered up at the submerged monkeys. "Look at these adorable bastards!"

Lee shook his head, though whether at Asuka or the monkeys, it was hard to tell. He reached to pick up the blanket that had fallen to the floor. Before his fingers could touch it though, he hissed sharply and clutched his chest. Kazuya was on his feet in an instant.

"Don't move too much," Kazuya murmured. He placed a hand on Lee's lower back and helped him sit back upright. "If the pain is too much-"

"It's fine. Don't worry about it."

Kazuya knelt. He picked up the blanket and dusted it free of snow. Then he folded it. He offered it with two hands, raised to Lee like a gift. As he did, he lowered his head and looked down at the floor.

There was a pause. Jin realised he was watching the exchange with bated breath.

Lee received the blanket, taking it and setting it to one side. Kazuya kept his eyes averted and palms outstretched. Lee reached out a hand and cupped it to Kazuya's cheek. He raised his face until their eyes met. A silence held between them, a mirror of the still snow spread all around. A moment later, Kazuya's shoulders heaved in an enormous silent sigh. His hands dropped, though he remained on one knee.

"One last time," Lee said to him.

Kazuya's heavy brow furrowed in determination.

"I won't waste it," Kazuya said earnestly.

Lee's thumb brushed lightly over his brother's cheek. He smiled. It wasn't a dazzling, eccentric smile, but a small, tired one. Jin thought it was the most real he'd ever seen his uncle.

"Huh? Mr Mishima, watcha doin' in the snow?" Asuka came back over to the table.

Kazuya stood and Lee's hand slowly dropped.

"Be careful, Miss Kazama. You dropped your blanket in your fit of primate ecstasy." Kazuya gave a wry grin as he spoke. He came and sat back down next to Jin. Jin looked quickly at his menu, embarrassed at having witnessed such a personal moment.

"These monkeys-… their little faces! They've got these red faces and their fluff is so soft and they're just up their chillin'!"

"You've got a red face," Jin threw out idly. She did too. Especially her nose, which was pink with the cold.

Asuka stamped her foot. Lee and Kazuya hid their amusement.

"A table full of adults here, that's for sure!" She scowled and grabbed the blanket, shaking it out and wrapping it around herself before sitting down. "Well, I think they're cute monkeys," she muttered, "and I never seen no swimming monkeys before."

"Have you ever seen any monkey before?" Kazuya asked, just a hint haughtily.

"'Cause I grew up dirt poor in a city, that what you're insinuating, Mr Mishima?" She set him with piercing eyes.

"Yes." He returned the gaze with a level, measured look.

"I seen plenty o' monkeys. Sittin' at a table of 'em right now."

Kazuya's expression went black. Jin looked up anxiously. Lee snorted with laughter. Kazuya's expression relented before his brother's mirth. Kazuya muttered something that sounded a lot like 'no manners in Osaka', before a waiter came over and orders were placed.

They were brought steaming soups, thick with noodles and eggs still sizzling, and piping hot steamed dumplings and sushi sliced into thin fans and spread in a wheel about platters decorated with vegetables cut into flower shapes. They drank murky green tea under the cherry red warmth of the heater and talked about nothings: the flavour of the food, the chill mountain air, the antics of the monkeys in the pools.

Only after a while did Asuka break conversation open.

"Do you feel any different, Jin?"

Jin had noodles halfway to his mouth. They all slipped back into his bowl and the hot soup stung his hand as it splattered on him.

"I… yes, of course."

"So, it really is gone? It's just I was sceptical when you said that you weren't doing the ritual. I thought maybe you'd changed your mind."

Jin kept his eyes on his bowl.

"… Father took it away."

"Huh." Asuka had demolished most of her soup shortly after it had arrived, much to Lee's distaste as he sat next to her, watching her chopsticks (and much of the soup) flying. "I still think it woulda been good for you to do it. Therapeutic an' that. Confronting your demons."

Jin felt colder. The wind was chiller, the air more bitten. It wasn't the first time since the ritual that he felt like he'd taken a shortcut – a forbidden, easier road. The way Kazuya had described the ritual, it had sounded like a kind of cleansing by fire. Jin couldn't get away from the idea that maybe he deserved to see all the things that Kazuya had hidden him from. If it really was that terrible, perhaps it would serve as a kind of penance to be made to live with all that.

"Miss Kazama." Kazuya leered from over his bowl. "Your help was very much appreciated, but you really have no idea what you're talking about." His voice was clipped and sharp, and so was the keen, piercing gaze he fixed Asuka with. "Jin has done enough. He has guilt enough for a lifetime and if someone with a warped idea of justice intends to make him suffer further, they will have to go through me first."

Jin's cheeks reddened. He looked at Kazuya and saw Lee doing the same.

"Uh… Mr Mishima, I didn't mean it like that-" Asuka said, "I only meant-"

"The matter is done. He is free. Nothing more is relevant." Kazuya returned to his food.

Asuka shifted in her seat. Jin could see Lee trying to give her one of his warning looks to let things go, but Asuka wasn't as well versed in what all Lee's small gestures meant.

"What about you, Mr Mishima? Your devil is still there, right?"

Jin and Lee regarded Kazuya with matching anxious expressions.

"It's still there," Kazuya said casually. They all waited as he took a bite of a dumpling. He dipped it in his soup, then bit into it and chewed. He looked round at the faces all turned to him and raised his eyebrows. "The connection between us has been severed. So long as I do not forge it anew, devil will depart me as no more than a shadow – a parasite without a host."

Another silence followed. The only sound was Kazuya dipping more dumpling in his soup. Asuka asked the question they were all wondering.

"And… do you intend to renew your connection with that thing, or will you banish it?"

Kazuya gave her a shark-like smirk. He continued eating and said nothing. Jin saw Lee's eyes hood over, whilst Asuka become apprehensive. Jin looked at his food and the chopsticks in his hand. A kind of certainty spread its wings in his chest. He set his chopsticks down on top of his bowl.

"Kazuya chose to do that ritual. Had he chosen not to, no one here and no one anywhere could have stopped him. You cannot know what he will do, and it's true, if he wished to, he could continue to harbour his devil in secret, and keep everyone none the wiser. But there is nothing he can do that won't be met with suspicion. So instead of believing the worst of him, why not choose to believe he might do better? There are plenty of times when I thought I might as well do worse, since everyone believed I was already doing even more terrible things. If I hadn't had people like Hwoarang and Xiaoyu still believing the best of me, maybe I would have just sunk to the levels I was already accused of. If you doubt that someone is ever capable of changing, you're the weight dragging them down instead of the hand helping them up. So… so have a little faith."

Jin began shovelling noodles into his mouth quickly after that. He didn't dare look up. No one spoke at the table. Another eddy of winter wind shuffled through the fallen snow and made it skitter at their ankles. The only sound was the clink of Jin's chopsticks against his bowl.

"The mochi is good here," Kazuya said abruptly. "I'll have a selection brought out. Hurry up and finish your meal, Jin. You're so slow even Chaolan's finished, and he likes to look as beautiful as possible whilst eating every mouthful." Kazuya got up and went inside the restaurant.

The table was still silent.

"I'm gonna look at those cute monkeys again," Asuka said, with an awkward laugh. She put her blanket aside more carefully this time and wandered back over to the rock pools.

"I didn't mean to kill the mood," Jin said, finally looking up at Lee. To his surprise, Lee's eyes were soft and affectionate. Jin warmed at the sight of them.

"You're doing just fine," his uncle told him. "More than fine. I'm proud of you, Jin. Proud of what you've accomplished in the last few days, and of the man you've shown yourself capable of being." Lee stretched his hand out over the table. Jin hesitantly placed his in it. "You've done remarkable things, hoped impossible things…" Lee squeezed his hand gently. "You've given me back my brother. I-… I had lost hope of ever finding him again. But you persisted where I had all but given up. Thank-you."

Jin swallowed. He brushed roughly at the start of tears with his other hand. He gave a smile. He thought back to waking up in his uncle's medical wing, with the recent scenes of destruction about him, and the haunted caged feeling in his chest. Never could he have dreamed that one choice to flee out of a bedroom window at Violet Systems could have brought him here – to this snow-touched place, free of the weight of demons on his shoulders. Into his recollections came a vision of sandy hair and furious eyes and a doll-like body clutched close.

"Did… did you fix Alisa?" Jin asked.

"I haven't had too much time over the last few weeks, but I've made good progress. She'll be back on her feet soon enough."

"Lars…." Jin had a feeling that despite the warmth around this small table for him, Lars was going to be at the front of a long line of people who wouldn't be so quick to forgive.

"Don't you worry about Lars," Lee reassured him.

"He isn't going to stop trying to make me pay for all I've done, is he…" It wasn't really a question. Lee gave a sigh. He moved stray silver hair out of his face.

"There are many who are going to want to see you atone for your crimes, Jin. You have done terrible things, ordered terrible things. You can't expect them to let all that pain go."

The new freedom in Jin's hands felt like it was decaying. Without his devil and without his grandfather's corporation he was going to be a lot more vulnerable. He wasn't sure what the sentence was for starting wars, but he had a feeling it would be a long one, and after a very public trial. Lee squeezed his hand again, bringing him out of his reverie.

"Now, personally, under international pressure, Lars's insistence, and my own moral conscience, I feel I should hand you over to the relevant authorities-" Jin flinched like he'd been slapped. He looked up at his uncle, aghast, with real fear in his eyes. "But-…" Lee continued in a casual voice, still holding Jin's hand tenderly, "if, say, you were being harboured by the world's most powerful corporation, with a CEO everyone had just seen turn into the devil incarnate on their televisions... it is possible to surmise that international retributive justice might keep its hands well out of the jaws of that wolf." Lee's face was serious but there was a twinkle of something cunning in his eyes. "Didn't you hear Kazuya earlier? He said anyone wanting to get to you was going to be going through him first." Jin swallowed. Lee's voice became kinder. "When it comes to right and wrong, Kazuya has always been on rocky ground. But I can tell you now, there's no person I'd rather have my back than him. When he puts his mind to something, there isn't a force in the world that can sway him or stop him."

Jin was still troubled.

"But… it would be the right thing to do, wouldn't it? Handing myself in?"

"Good luck trying to convince Mishima Kazuya of that." Lee withdrew his hand and reached for his tea. "Now, let's not have any more of this gloom at the table. You have the chance at something new, Jin. Don't stew over the past. If it catches up to you, it catches up to you. In the meantime, all you can do is try to be a better person. And perhaps if the day comes when you're called to account, the good you've done will also be recalled in your favour." Lee's bright smile was once more tipped with that edge of melancholy that always simmered under his facades though. "We all of us have done terrible things. I've always been of the opinion that caging a man up with his guilt behind bars will not make the world a better place. It can hardly make up for the harm he's done, and will he come out the other end a better man?"

"Maybe it would help with the guilt," Jin murmured.

Should it, though?" Lee's eyes became so piercing, Jin could barely meet them. "Should sitting in a cell for thirty years be enough to rid your conscience of the deaths you caused? Will it appease the hearts of those who suffered? When Kazuya killed our father, it didn't undo the years we suffered under his hands. It didn't make me feel better. In fact, I…" Lee hesitated, a strange misty expression came over him. "Never mind about that. All I can say is that if I'd had the choice to make him suffer for what he did or to have the chance at a loving father, I always would have chosen the latter. Fighting for a misguided sense of justice nearly killed Kazuya, and he lost so much of himself along the way. I don't know, Jin. I don't know about these things. But I don't want my nephew locked up. Maybe that's selfish, but I've always been selfish. So, for my sake, for the sake of your father who needs you – go and live, and don't look back."

Jin was quiet. He watched Asuka feeding a monkey with a piece of dumpling she'd saved, wrapped up secretly in her sleeve. The monkey's little red hands reached out and grabbed the crumb. A very light snow was starting to drift in the air. It turned to patches on her shoulders and tangled in her hair and the monkey's downy grey fur.

"Father wants to go to Yakushima," Jin said, after a while.

"Good. Take him there."

"I haven't been back since…"

"I know." Lee gave him a small smile. "It will be different this time. It'll be different with him beside you. You both need to go back, I think."

"But what if-"

"Jin." Lee hushed him with just a word. "No more what ifs. There will be many of those to come, but you will handle them well. I have faith in you. It isn't the time for worries. Look forward and look up. Now, why don't you go and see the monkeys with Asuka. Off you go."

Jin gave a heavy sigh. He did as he was bidden though. He wondered if Lee wanted some time alone, or maybe a moment with his brother. When he got to Asuka's side, the monkey she'd been feeding skittered off to the shadows. Jin's heart fell. He gave another sigh. When he lifted his gaze, he saw a line of eyes and red faces peering down at him from out of the steamy haze, like figurines at a temple shrine. The faces turned, shimmering in the heat. The fluff about their faces all stood up on end, some crowded with caked snow. One monkey leapt up onto a wet, shiny, black rock. It skipped down the cliff with easy, practised motions, then paused a way off. It hopped up closer and stopped when it was in front of Jin. It blinked slowly at him and tilted its head. Suddenly, more monkeys were clambering down from the high pools. Their eyes were bright and inquisitive, and they peered up at him with their strange red faces. Jin watched them wordlessly. He stretched out a hand. A small red hand grabbed one of his fingers. He couldn't remember the last time an animal had come this close to him. Probably back on Yakushima, before everything.

"Huh, they sure like you a lot," Asuka said, a touch jealous. "I even gave them dumpling. What did you give them?" She soon became enrapt though when Jin was able to run his hand through the soft fur and the monkeys clustered all about him. She gave him a big smile, as though those creatures had done what no one else could, and convinced her he was finally rid of his shadow. Jin felt some of his own reassurance returning too. Something was changing. He couldn't ever have back the things he lost, but the upheaval in the world around him was rebalancing, and his place in it did not seem so wrong and hopeless as it had before.

He looked back at the table. Kazuya was returning, bringing the tray of sweets. He paused to offer one to Lee before he set the tray down. Lee had adoration in his face as he looked up at his brother. He seemed younger to Jin, and some of that cloak of mystery and distance he always wore, fell away as Jin watched him. He chatted eagerly with Kazuya about things just out of earshot. He smiled at something Kazuya said in reply, and laughed a little apprehensively and without his usual mask of confidence. The brothers exchanged easy, light conversation and the stiffness that Lee's injury caused him slipped out of his posture.

"You really think Kazuya can let that demon go?" Asuka asked him. She had turned and was watching too.

Jin stood a little taller.

"He had to turn to that devil because he had no one else. This time, I will be there beside him."

There was no time to say anything else after that. Kazuya waved them over to join for dessert. There was hot chocolate and coffee that would go cold if they lingered too long.


Author Note: Thank you all for reading and for all your beautiful comments and support! I'm so glad that lots of you have enjoyed this story. If you haven't already read them, you may be interested in my other Tekken stories. Chasing Demons forms the last story in a kind of trilogy that I've done. They can be read as standalone, but they also build on one another, so if you are interested in reading them, the order is 1. Fortified by Hate, 2. Zen Gardens of the Heart, 3. Chasing Demons.

Special thanks to Thalie and Sola Ircadia who's depictions of Lee inspired me to write this one.

Harae or harai (祓 or 祓い) is the general term for rituals of purification in Shinto. Harae is often described as purification, but it is also known as an exorcism to be done before worship.