A/N: Before I start this chapter I would like to thank my friend, Natari-chan for letting me use her name (though the character I'm using it for is nothing like her). Okay, on with the chapter!
Chapter one
I stared into the eyes of my newfound friend but he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at his father, a picture that hung on the wall across the room. Jin pushed past me and walked to the wall where the picture was hung. I saw Kazuya Mishima's sly smile before he was shattered into a million pieces on the hard wood floor. I always wondered why people didn't shatter like glass on the outside as they did on the inside.
A girl approached me and held out a hand to pull me from the floor. "I'm Asuka Kazama," she said with a kind smile.
"Natari." I didn't tell her my last name. As far as I was concerned, I didn't have one. I didn't have a family either. My so-called parents met in Japan and when they married, moved to the U.S. My mother was Japanese, my father was American. I looked nothing like him. They divorced three years after I was born and my father remarried. My mother and I moved back to Japan. Two years after, while I was at her friend's house, her car was near a shooting onslaught and as she got out, obviously oblivious to the things going on around her, she was shot. I moved back with my father in Nevada. He never told his wife that I was his daughter or that he was married once before and I hated him for that. He just told her that he had adopted me as a gift for her birthday. He never called me by my real name, just called me Natalie, the English to my Japanese name. I hated her for not knowing the truth about me. I moved back to Japan when I was eighteen.
I was brought back to reality by the sound of Asuka's voice. "So how did you meet Jin?"
"Ran into him after the tournament."
"You fought in the tournament?" she asked.
"No. I watched. He was just leaving and I tagged along, gave him company."
This time Jin spoke up. "And I was trying to get rid of you too!" He walked towards me and stopped when he got close.
"You aren't still trying, are you, Jin?"
He smiled and shook his head. "No." Jin looked down at me and smiled.
"That's what I thought." There was a lot Jin didn't know about me, too much actually. I was mostly cold hearted. Jin already knew I was mostly quiet unless someone spoke to me first. I turned to Asuka with a more serious face. "I think I might enter the next tournament though."
I never was trained in the art but I learned a few things from watching the tournaments and I had a few of my own things up the sleeve of my black leather.
"What do you say we get out of here? There's nothing here for us," Asuka suggested.
Jin and I nodded and the three of us walked out of the bare room. Once out of the building we noticed the water falling from the sky. "I hate the rain," I said. The sun is better than rain but I hate it too. I only liked it when it was cold and cloudy or if it was snowing.
I felt my black hair getting soaked as we walked down the streets of Tokyo. My stomach trembled and I wished I'd have worn a shirt that didn't expose the skin. I felt the wind flow through my jeans and down my shirt.
"Kazama!" a voice called from behind us. The rain hadn't stopped but it was lighter now than it had been. The three of us turned to see who'd called. A Korean man with flaming red hair stared in our direction. "Ready for a fight, Kazama?" He'd spoke English.
"Hwoarang, I don't need to fight you," Jin's English wasn't as quick as the other guy's.
I stepped forward. "I'll do it."
"Kazama, you're such a coward, letting a little girl fight your battles for you."
"No," I said. "I volunteered."
I stepped toward him. He held out a hand. "I'm Hwoarang."
I kicked his hand away. "Don't care." I just stood there, waiting for him to make a move.
"Fine. So you wanna fight me, eh?" I raised my eyebrows at him in answer. Hwoarang attempted to land a kick to my midsection. I grabbed hold of his leg with my right hand and I held it against my arm and my hip. Before I let go, I kicked his other leg from underneath him with my left foot.
"Your English is better than Kazama's," he said. When he got to his feet, Hwoarang tried to punch my face and found his arm behind his back and himself being pushed away.
"Spent fifteen years in North America."
"And how old are you?" Hwoarang asked, rubbing his arm and shoulder. He kicked me down when I wasn't focused. Taught me.
"Twenty-one." I, lying on the ground, entangled my right foot in his ankles and pushed myself up with my left. Then, using both hands, I pushed his chest until he collapsed on the wet concrete. "You knocked me down, I'll give you that."
"You've got skill."
"Thanks." I turned to walk away, Jin and Asuka followed. Normally I'm not the kind to thank anyone for anything. Never apologize and explain.
"Nice," Asuka commented. "I get next fight." She laughed.
I heard footsteps behind me and stopped only to find Hwoarang attempting to catch up. "I didn't catch your name."
I shook my head slightly and turned back around and started walking again. I sighed and turned the corner as Asuka and Jin kept walking straight.
"Natari, where are you going?" Asuka Kazama yelled after me.
I turned and walked backwards. "I'll catch you guys later. I've something I gotta do." Before I turned around, I backed into a telephone pole. "What kind of idiot would put a telephone pole where people could run into it?" I mumbled to myself. Most of the time I was highly coordinated, unless I wasn't watching where I was going, then I was bound to run into something. Facing forward, I ran down the street to my apartment complex.
