Heaven Knows

Yugao

Author's Note: This is the sixth chapter, seventh if you count the prologue. Anyway, sorry again for making you wait. All my projects were piling up… and you know what happens. So, here's Carrion Crows, where Asuka receives the news about her father's near-death.

Disclaimer: I don't own Tekken and I don't own "Heaven Knows," the song that inspired this. The first belongs to Namco and the second belongs to Orange and Lemons.

"Cause this angel has flown away from me

Leaving me in drunken misery

I should have clipped her wings

And made her mine for all eternity…"

The Temple seemed grave and solemn, even more than usual. The halls were strangely bare, and unnervingly quiet. The few priests they saw pass by walked with their heads down, and their gazes to the floor.

It was not quite as she remembered it. Though the cool balsa wood floors, the open paper-paneled windows and the sweet scent of the wood walls remained the same, something was ineffably different. It was as if the life had been taken from it, not just by the sunset, but by something much more painful.

Hwoarang, who stood beside Asuka, bent down to whisper to her, "I don't understand why you like this place so much. It's like a graveyard."

She scowled at him. She'd thought she would be rid of the hot-tempered redhead once she arrived at the Temple, but Marshall had mentioned something about him staying the night. To this, the renegade grinned and said, "Sounds great." When she glared at him, he only answered, "What? To a wanderer, anywhere we could come in from the rain to is a palace."

"How very… poetic of you," she'd answered dryly.

The sun was beginning to set, and the priests that roamed the halls had started to light the lanterns, shedding more light through the criss-crossing, winding pathways within the Temple. That was part of the reason why it was called the Temple of the Wise – only those who are serene, patient, and logical could figure out the maze. As for Asuka, she had traveled the halls for years since she was born, and memorized every turn, every subtle change in level.

Perhaps bored with the silence, Hwoarang spoke up. "I'm hungry. Do you guys eat in this place?" he said loudly, so that his voice ricocheted off the stern stone walls in a resounding "place –place – place – place?".

She elbowed him in the ribs at his rudeness. "No respect at all!" she murmured, so that her voice echoed only as a soft whisper in the darkened hallways.

However, instead of being angered as she had thought he would be, Marshall only chuckled. "Not to worry, my dear boy, there will be time enough for that later. At the moment, we have more serious matters to discuss. Or if you prefer, I can speak with Asuka while you can find your own way around the Temple. I believe you might be able to tell the difference between the kitchen and the gallery."

The man's tone was amused, even assuring. But Hwoarang took one look down the dismal, unlit corridor and shrugged. "No thanks. I think I'll stick around."

"A wise decision, young man," he replied with a slight smile.

They stopped in front of a door Asuka remembered to lead to the infirmary. Had someone been hurt? She bit her lip, but had no courage to ask. Marshall reached out to open the door, and Asuka gasped as she entered the room.

Lying on the first bed was her father.

"Father!" she cried. As if on instinct she ran to his side, lifted the covers to check his pulse, his heartbeat, and his breathing in a frantic rush. Yet she could find no wound, no bruise, not even a single battle-mark. It was either disease, or magic…

Marshall appeared beside her, and as if in response to her unspoken thought, he said quietly, "One of ours turned against us, and used his craft against your father… as well as on Forrest."

"Forrest, too? What is to happen to them, Uncle Marshall?" she asked, biting back tears.

The older man sighed. "I am afraid I cannot say. Our priests have tried everything to heal them and bring them out of this state, but none of their enchantments worked."

"Is there no cure?" she asked, on the brink of panic. "They cannot stay in sleep like this forever! There has got to be a cure!"

Marshall turned away. "There is only one known cure for such powerful magic. I believe you have heard of the herb called the Emperor's Tears?"

"But…" dumbfounded, Asuka asked, "I thought that the heal-all is a myth."

"It was, but I have been told that it truly exists. It grows only in the Imperial Palace garden, and it is guarded by a good number of the Elite Guard," he explained. "Books have ascertained that it cured generation after generation of diseased Emperors and made them live longer. Though we cannot trust every one of those authors, I think it is worth a try."

She stood up. "I will find it, then."

"No!" he said suddenly, so that Asuka was caught off-guard. "It is much too dangerous for someone as young as you. I will do it… to save both my son and your father."

She bowed respectfully. "Tell me, then, Uncle Marshall, who made them this way."

He froze, but knew he could not deny her revenge. "His name is Feng Wei."

Julia tried to mask her sigh as she folded up the damp cloth and lay it on the girl's forehead. The younger girl was burning with fever, and it would be perhaps a day or so before she could recover and be well enough to go on her way. Though the delay of the journey irritated her somewhat, she knew she could not turn her back on someone who needed her help.

But at the moment, the help she was giving wasn't amounting to much. The big, heavy chain that encumbered the girl was alarmingly hot and wouldn't move at her touch. As long as the chain was still around her, she guessed, the girl would not have a chance to get better.

"Jin," the voice was a whisper on Julia's lips, but she knew she didn't have to say it once more. He appeared at the door at the sound of his name.

He came to her side, and, in the same hushed tone, asked, "What is wrong? Have you found the cause of her illness?"

She nodded a little. "I think so, but whether she will get better or not will depend on your ability to destroy constructed magic."

"Constructed magic? But what…" his eyes fell on the chain. "Oh… I suppose I could try, but I have never dealt with something like this before. I might need to concentrate more."

Julia nodded and got up from where she was seated. "I'll need to look for some herbs for her medicine. Would you be able to figure it out by the time I come back?"

"Maybe," he answered, not at all annoyed by her high expectation. "We'll have to see."

She nodded again, almost to herself this time, and disappeared out the door.

The rush of the cool night air was welcome to her; in all her years she had never loved anything more than the earth, and adventure. Now, she was with both. She closed her eyes, called out for her falcon once more, and it returned. It had not told her anything of Arinthea, or unrest brought about by the disappearance of the Emperor. Apparently no one had noticed anything different.

The very reason why she wanted to find out herself.

Disappointedly, she released her falcon and it flew off into the sky, leaving only a single, solitary feather drifting down to earth.

Hwoarang lifted the bowl to his face, and sighed happily. "Haven't had a home-cooked meal in ages! I am so glad I decided to come along after all," he said, sounding almost proud of his decision to freeload from the Temple of the Wise. He parted his chopsticks and began to eat like a starved animal.

… Well, like a starved person actually, he corrected with a smug grin.

He looked across the table to Asuka, and his smile fell. The girl had not touched her food at all, and was looking absently into the blank wall behind him. He thought – and if it wasn't for the dim light, he could have been sure – that he saw a tear fall from her eyes.

Asuka, crying? Thinking he was hallucinating, he shrugged it off and finished his meal.

But when he reached out and effortlessly took her rice bowl from her, he stopped smiling. "Asuka, are you all right? Did you even notice that I just stole your food?"

She looked at him disinterestedly, and pushed herself up off her chair. "Take it. I'm not hungry."

"If you got any skinnier you'd die, so eat up," he said in an attempt to make her smile. He was worried now. What was going on in the girl's head?

She shook her head. "No thanks. I'll just… go to bed."

"Asuka!" he got up from his chair and headed her off at the door, blocking her path. "Asuka, tell me what's wrong. What's gotten into you?"

She glared at him. "What's gotten into me? My father and my best friend are unconscious, and they will be until I can find some way to help them!" she said, her voice angered. "You know what? Forget it. You don't understand, and you never will understand. You've never cared for anyone in your whole life!"

"That's not true!" he argued.

She tried to shove him away from the door, but he wouldn't move. "Just let me go! I'm not feeling well, just let me go!" she cried, frustrated.

She seemed almost like a little girl, crying to be let go, crying for her father, or even for a brother…

"Let me go!"

A ten-year-old Hwoarang stopped in his tracks. That sounded almost like…

He turned to see the little red-haired girl try to push away the men that surrounded her. "Brother!" she called out to him, but her voice was drowned out by a loud, lascivious laughter. All the while, she screamed, "Let me go, just let me go! Brother, help me!"

And since his sister's death he was forever haunted by the thought that had he been strong enough, she would still be alive…

"Did you hear me? Let me go!" Asuka yelled, and in his absent-mindedness she was able to push him away this time. She was surprised, but only for a second. She barreled out the door and into another room, and by the time he got there she had already locked the door.

Frustrated, he punched the wall with his fist, letting out a growl as he did. "I have cared for someone," he said, almost to himself.

Julia opened the door, careful not to let the herbs escape through the little hole in the pouch. She made a mental note to mend it later, but the rip in the pouch was pushed from her mind when she saw the scene.

The girl was lying on the bed, as she was when Julia had left. The exiled prince, though, lay on the floor, seemingly unconscious. His hands were swollen and bleeding. The chain was silver-gray, strewn almost carelessly on the floor.

And quickly she pulled out a second mat from under the bed and put it on the other side of the room. Pulling up Jin by his arms, she was able to half-carry, half-drag him to the mat. Her arms were sore, but it didn't really matter at the moment. What mattered was that he would be all right.

She ran over to the counter and pulled from a jar a few herbs and some linen cloth. She tied both his hands, carefully so that she could be assured that he would be fine when he woke up. The process was quick, but not careless. Maybe, she thought, she didn't want to lose him.

Maybe.

When she was finished, she stood up from her place on the floor and accidentally stepped on the chain. Cautiously, she touched two fingers to it, expecting the sudden heat but not feeling it. She sighed, relieved.

He did it.

She picked it up carefully and laid it on the table, vowing to see her mother some time and ask her to use her magic to see whose it was. At the moment, though, Jin stirred at her feet.

"Julia," he murmured her name.

She felt herself kneel beside him. "Shh," she said quietly, "You're all right. Go back to sleep. I'll take care of the both of you for now."

"I… did it, by the time… you got back, didn't I?" he said hoarsely.

She smiled sadly. "Yes," she whispered, "Yes, you did."

Author's Note: I know that it's a short, pointless chapter. No need to rub it in, but please review.