The Burning Lives

Heartbreak Hotel

Suggested listening: Jackson Wang - Drive You Home

-You may step down, Kazama-Seong Jin. Thanks for your testimony.

Jin bowed to Judge Sato, avoiding Hwoarang and Eun-jung's gazes, sitting down on his bench in complete silence. Mr. Shikichi, as shocked as anyone in the Courtroom, lost no time.

-I would like to call another testimony to the stand, Your Honour.

-So be it.

-I would like to call Kazama-Seong Hwoarang to testify.

The Korean dried his eyes and stood up, walking to the stand. He sat down, dead set on setting things straight in this case. But what was he stepping into, he didn't know.

-Mr. Kazama-Seong, to your knowledge, is it true Kazama-Seong Jin had a fight with Mishima Heihachi?

-It is.

-Why?

-It was all my fault. Mishima Heihachi had been sending threaths to our family for months, and I went to confront him. He beat me so severely, I ended up in the ER with a broken foot, broken ribs, and I almost died of sepsis. Jin was furious. Even at me, for pulling that stunt.

-Do you, in good conscience, believe he killed his grandfather?

-No.

-And why so?

-He would have never done something similar in front of our daughter. She was there to calm him down. To keep the situation at bay.

-Objection, Your Honour. He is his spouse, he can't incriminate him.

-Am I? By the Japanese law, I am no one to him. A mere partner-something, thanks to the pātonāshippu sensei seido. But no spouse. I can testify, and my testimony is valid. Object to something else.

-Watch your tone, Mr. Kazama-Seong. But, Mr. Yamada, he is right. He's no spouse to Kazama-Seong Jin. His testimony is admitted.

-Thanks, Your Honour. I will continue. Mr. Kazama-Seong, besides your belief that the defendant would never act on the rage he mentioned, do you have anything else to back up your thesis that he did not murder Mishima Heihachi?

-I don't. But neither does the prosecution. They do not have anything on him, nothing to pin that murder on my... partner. No video, no photo, no print, no nothing. And they surely don't want us to believe a then seventeen year old girl killed one of the best fighters in the world bare-handed. I am in the ranks, and I wasn't able to put him down. She's only a teenager, for god's sake.

-What about Mishima Kazuya's murder?

-That one is even easier. He was with me the evening it happened. He was in hideout at my apartment. Only days after, he reported himself at the UN for his crimes during WWIII. We were... enjoying our last days together. Do you really think he would waste a good evening to confront a father he never really got to know?

-I have no further questions, Your Honour.

-Word to the prosecution.

-Thanks, Your Honour. Mr. Kazama-Seong, is it true you were leader of the Resistance during WWIII?

-Yes.

-Wasn't it founded to counterattack Tekken Force soldiers, aka Kazama-Seong Jin's soldiers?

-Among other things, yes.

-So, you were basically fighting against your partner.

-I was fighting for what I thought was right. Right had no name nor face to me. Besides, Jin was presumed dead. There was no Jin in the picture at all, for all I knew back then.