#why is this one even longer. still not a writer btw✌️

[scalproie]

So. I can't stop.

---

"What's a mother?"

The two souls, previously deeply engaged in their conversation, flinched at the voice of the young hellborn prince, who was peeking just behind their seats, brown eyes huge and eager to learn about the world.

The souls shared a look, and would no doubt be sweating if they still were in a possession of a body.

"Well, um... y-you see, Your Highness-"

---

"There is only me and you."

"You said that already, Father!"

The sparring room always made Jin feel small, smaller than he was anyway. His father only ever trained him in a single corner. Jin had no idea why it was even called that in the first place: Kazuya never granted access to it to anybody, and even then, no one admidst all levels of Hell was even close to be his match.

The room was mainly used for training anyway: it was important to Kazuya that Jin was proficient in their family's fighting style, so he personally took to supervise his son's education himself. Jin loved those sessions, not for the complex forms and stances he had to practice over and over, but because he got to spend time with his dad.

And Kazuya was always more patient with him during these moments, for some reason.

Hence why training time was also synonymous with interrogation time.

"I know it's just the two of us, its just-"

"Mind your feet."

"It's just that everyone I know has a mother. Or had one anyway. Or even is one. Everyone had one except me. Even Hell Embodied acts like your-"

Jin felt the intensity of Kazuya's stare. The Drop it. stare, he dubbed it. Right. However Hell Embodied acted toward its king aside, making any subtle mention of Jin's grandmother, whoever she was, was coming dangerously close to the topic of Jin's grandfather, and that was a big no-no.

Jin closed his mouth and swallowed, until Kazuya's eyes left him to go back to scrutinizing every little movement of his son, dealing him easy blows to block.

"Keep your elbows up."

"I-I guess I just want to figure out more stuff about myself. I mean I don't even know what I'm supposed to be the god of."

"You're my son. That's all that matters."

"Maybe, but if you could just tell me where I come from or how I came to be... I don't know, I just want to know more."

"You haven't earned the right to know more."

Kazuya never lied. Jin knew as much because it was one of the first thing his father taught him: to never lie.

For Kazuya, lying was just a way to hide weakness, and if you had to hide weakness, then you were just weak. And if there is one thing Jin, at his young age, learned that his father hated more than lying, it was weakness.

So, as Jin will find out later in his life, in order to keep the truth away from him, Kazuya simply would not say anything, if he could help it. Coming up with that sentence was a time and lifesaver.

"But you never tell me how to do that!" Jin pouted sadly. It was useless on Kazuya. "What can I do to earn it?"

He barely had the time to finish voicing his question that Jin was swept off his feet and landed hard on his back with a yelp.

"The first step would be not to leave such obvious openings, Jin."

---

"Maybe it's just like for us phoenixes!"

Xiaoyu was sitting on the windowsill in front of Jin, swaying her legs back and forth. Jin lifted his chin from his knuckle and turned his head around to look at her.

"What do you mean?"

Xiaoyu was his first friend his own age. Well, who aged alongside him, however slow they were. Who even aged at all really. She might also have just been his first friend ever.

She started showing up at the House of the Dead not that long ago, she was a young phoenix and, by her own admission, her bubbly happy-go-lucky personality usually gave her quite the issue to stay out of trouble on the surface. It doesn't help that she never really had the fear of death either.

She was still strong enough to climb back out of Hell on her own, though it often took almost as long for her to get out than for her to spend time on the surface before dying again.

Jin loved her visits because she always spoke in great lengths of what was on said surface and whatever she had seen and experienced, and he was always more than happy to listen. Even if his father had the same disdain for her as he would a mere pest, Jin respected her and even bore a bit of admiration.

"When we die, we turn into a pile of ashes, right? Well, if you divide the pile in two and someone very close to you bury half of it in the ground, when next you rise out of your ashes and you dig where half of you was buried, you will find an egg and that's how you get a baby phoenix! No mother involved! At least, that's what my yeye told me."

"I'm... not sure it works that way for us." Jin wasn't sure it worked that way for pheonixes either.

"It could though! You gods are such weird creatures. And besides! It would make us have something in common."

Her honest smile made him smile in return. Maybe she was right, maybe his origin being so vague did not have to matter so much if she could take her own in spades. Maybe he could just enjoy being himself.

The hole in the most profound part of his soul begged to differ.

Still, he appreciated her attempt to cheer him up more than he could ever tell her. With her black and orange foreign clothing and sheer warmth that emanated out of her, she was like a literal ray of sunshine that never would've made its way to him otherwise.

"Or maybe you can count the mother as the one who bury the ashes?"

"Wait, did you just imply you hatched from an egg?"

---

"Can I help you with anything, Father?"

"No."

"Oh."

Jin was pacing besides Kazuya's desk. He was a polite young man, never wanting to impose, as reserved as his father was, but eventually even he could not deal with his own boredom any longer.

"Could you still teach me anyway? Maybe that way I could, you know, fill in for you in case you ever wanted to... take a break?"

"No."

Well that was another unsuccessful attempt at purpose-seeking. Jin paced the halls of his home, having done so more times than he could count. Maybe that was his fate, haunting the House of the Dead. How ironic.

He even considered going chatting with his father's annoying jester, so something was clearly wrong with him.

He found his salvation in two shades having trouble with repairing one of the gemstones counting device, and he happened to have a knack for this kind of tinkering. After the two souls thanked him, they informed him his services might be needed somewhere else, in an adjacent wing of the house that Jin never went to often for lack of anything interesting over there.

He made his way to the location that was way, way more secluded than he expected. To his surprise there was no one but him there. Just him, and a door bearing a busted sigil of his father. Evidently the thing that needed repairing.

Well, nothing he can do about that one, but it meant that whatever door it was sealing was now open, and if it was a storage room for one of his father's fabled collections, then at least he would have some story to tell, and some bets to win.

He barely cracked open the door when his nose was assaulted by unknown and vivid smells.

What he saw inside blew all that he thought he knew away.

He stepped inside shaking like the leaves he stepped upon, not quite believing his eyes. Grass? Plants? Were those... flowers? And that-

Jin gasped. "A tree..."

As he made his way deeper inside, no daring to touch anything, focused on the massive cedar tree in front of him, he felt a weight upon his chest.

Eugh. What was this place?

Neverminding the unease, he kept going forward, toward the tree that felt more and more like it was calling him.

He stopped a moment in the middle of the garden. It felt like.

It felt like he belonged.

He raised his hand without meaning to, like the blood inside it was attracted to the bark. Like it was yearning for it.

It was almost burning at the touch. And yet. And yet it was smooth. It was strong.

He looked at his hand. That wasn't his hand. It was slender, softer.

Then it was like he was projected out of his own body, except it wasn't his body. It was a woman, with long black hair, dressed in white, her back turned to him.

He couldn't breathe.

She slowly turned around, and her face brought back old, old, old memories. Of some place else. That barely lasted a second.

He looked at her eyes.

Dark, rich brown.

Mother?

---

"What happened to my mother?"

All heads turned to Jin as he stormed inside the throne room, the last to lazily do so was Kazuya's.

"I ought to keep you busy if all you're gonna do with your endless time is bothering me with pointless things."

"I found the garden."

Oh, how Jin basked in the pause that information gave Kazuya.

A simple motion of the king's hand was all it took for all souls present to clear the room. Even as people hurried past him, Jin kept his eyes on his father, who was doing much the same.

When the place was empty save for the both of them and the doors closed with a heavy sound, then Kazuya spoke again.

"How did you-"

"She's out there, isn't she? She's on the surface, is she from there?" Jin felt manic. All this time, all this time, at any moment, Kazuya could've told him, all along he could've relieved the void in Jin's heart. Jin never felt such anger, the back of his eyes started to hurt, something threatening to break out. "Does she know about me...?"

Kazuya stayed silent, it was clear on his face that he, too, was wrestling with many many thoughts at the same time. He had many things to say, and he picked the worst option.

"You do not have ea-"

"Enough! You keep saying that! All my life you've been saying that!"

Jin was through with trying to earn. Jin was going to get.

"Father, if you say I haven't earned the right to know one more time I swear I'll-"

"YOU'LL WHAT? WHAT WILL YOU DO, JIN?"

Kazuya slammed his hands on the desk before him and rose from his throne. As much as Jin steeled himself for this confrontation, he could not stop his body to jerk back at the sound. It wasn't that he was scared of his father, no, it's just that Kazuya rarely ever shouted, never really needed to, so to hear him lash out that suddenly was... shocking.

What Jin hated more than his own reaction though, was the strange feeling in his chest upon hearing his father say his name for the first time in what felt like forever.

Unaware, or not caring, of the turmoil happening within Jin, Kazuya continued:

"Tell me how you will succeed in demanding anything of me where even the so-called "strongest" have failed before you? Tell me what you plan to do as you defy your king, your kin? There is only us. There will only ever be us. Are you that eager to write the next chapter of our family's bloody legacy?!"

Jin fell silent.

Was that it? Is that what the neglect, the distance, the privation was about? Was Kazuya expecting Jin to kill him for good eventually? To take his place? Was that all Jin was to him? A future rival? A threat-in-waiting? Did he thought so lowly of him?

Was he scared of his own son?

That selfish fool, that stubborn old...

Kazuya feared that Jin would kill him?

In this moment, Jin just might.

"Why keep-"

"Speak up."

"Why keep me at all then? You could've just gotten rid of me ages ago, threw me away far from this place, and you, there could only just be you" The sarcastic tone Jin wanted to carry gave way to something more coarse, more raw. Neither father nor son were good at hiding their true emotions. "You could've freed yourself from all... this."

Knowing the answer to this emptiness, this missing piece, that Jin felt for all his life was finally within reach gave him the courage to go on, to openly provoke Kazuya for the first time.

"Is that what you did? To her?"

The only thing Jin heard next from his father was a spark.

Then the pain registered. A shock so brutal and intense Jin could feel spasms reverberating throughout all of his body, long after he realized his father's fist was already gone. His fingers kept twitching on their own, his teeth clenched on their own, his eyes shut on their own.

He dropped to the floor, clutching at his abdomen when he recovered the control of his hands, and when he could breathe once more he fully tasted the metallic smell of the surrounding electricity.

Right. The King of Hell was the son of the old Lightning God, first.

Kazuya was now towering over Jin. Has he always been that fast? The fist that was lodged just a second ago below Jin's chest still clenched and shaking at his father's side, his facial traits were sharpened by the ominous red glow of his eyes. His voice was glacial.

"Hellborn Prince, you are to be confined to your chambers until told otherwise. Do not expect to be let out anytime soon."

"I'm going to leave, Father, I'm going to break out of this place," Jin managed as he struggled to get off the floor, his own voice burning with determination. "You cannot keep things as they were, you cannot keep me here, I'll leave even if it kills me."

The massive doors cracked open to let in the previously dismissed servants. Suddenly the silent throne room became loud again as guards swarmed in, their captain Bruce kneeling and lending a worried hand to help Jin up. Kazuya turned around to walk back to his throne.

"Take him."

Jin swatted Bruce's hand away as he got to his feet, eyes boring a hole to the back of his father's head, before following suite and making his own way for the open doors.

Take him? What is this. Is Jin officially a prisoner now? Those are still his chambers. He doesn't need anyone to take him to his own chambers. What his father should very soon worry about is how to keep him in them, that is a promise.

As he was about to exit the room, Jin took a last glare in the direction of the throne. Kazuya had just resumed dominating the room, seated upon it once more. He was also staring at Jin.

Deep brown eyes met sharp red eyes once more.

I will leave, even if it kills me.

Jin walked out.

Kazuya rested his chin on his knuckle.

"It will."

#why is this one even longer. still not a writer btw✌️ #anyway wow I didnt know you could have so much fun with this #tagging later #Kazuya: you know what? YOURE GROUNDED. GO TO YOUR ROOM #Jin: THIS HOUSE IS A FUCKING NIGHTMARE #tekdes au