TEKKEN- THE BIOGRAPHIES

A/N Just to make it clear, there will be a new Chapter every week (that's what I said last chapter, several weeks ago… but seriously, this time I'm on it). I really appreciate reviews; it's almost like money to me. Except less exchangeable in the stock market, but I digress.

WARNING- This chapter is a little more difficult to follow than most, but that won't happen too often. Also, if by reading this you can find the secret message I hid in this document and write what you think it was in the review (if anyone can find it, which I doubt unless you're incredibly intelligent), you can win something incredible and intangible called 'Respect'. I will post the answer in the next chapter, because nobody will find the secret message. Or I might post the answer somewhere in the story...

2.

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And now, dear reader, we address one of the most pressing questions in the Tekken Universe: Who or what the hell is Yoshimitsu, and why hasn't his identity been figured out yet? This is a bit intense, so I guess I better jump into it…

The easy answer would be that he's a freak ninja. But wait a second; he has also appeared in the Soul Caliber series, which wouldn't be a problem… if Soul Caliber didn't take place 400 years before Tekken.

Yes, that's right. The Soul Caliber series takes place in the late 16th century. Is Yoshimitsu immortal? Is he over 400 years old?

Neither.

First of all, if you're alive for more than two centuries, you're goddamn immortal in my book. Hell, I'm not even old enough to drink and I'm starting to feel a little more senile every day. Not much, mind you, but I remember back in the day I didn't need language classes to learn my first language (English, of course), I just picked it up. Now I'm doing college-level Spanish in High School and I'll be damned if I could speak a word of it. Anyway, enough about me…

Yoshimitsu names his sword after himself in Soul Calibur (Yoshimitsu means "Lucky Light", or so I'm told). Four hundred years later, the ninja to be known as Yoshimitsu names himself after the sword that the ninja formerly known as Yoshimitsu named after himself. Exactly why is unknown.

Is everyone that swung the Yoshimitsu sword named Yoshimitsu? That would explain the wide variety of sometimes-festive and often-scary costume changes. It would explain why sometimes Yoshimitsu is childlike, joking around and playing games with Xiaoyu or any assortment of fighting animals with boxing gloves, and other times he's killing former-cop androids with his sword.

Again, back to the costumes. He's looked like a robot in some suits. He's looked like a human with a mask on. He's looked like a skeleton-thing. He has also looked like an alien. What is he? Well, the first assumption is that he is either multiple people or he has multiple identities… or maybe he changes his appearance because that's what ninja do. Hell, if I were a ninja and someone recognized me because I always wore the same black suit, I'd be pretty pissed off. Yeah, that's it.

I've already found a problem and I haven't even finished writing. In Tekken 3 Yoshimitsu's sword, which should be the ancient Yoshimitsu sword, has become a lightsaber-like thing…

Well, I'm sitting around looking for a random clue a la "The DaVinci Code" (which is not a very good title by the way. Leonardo da Vinci signifies that he was from Vinci, it is not a last name. It's like saying "The 'From Delaware' Code", which makes no sense. Whatever.)

"Namu," Yoshimitsu says as I kick Nightmare's ass in Soul Calibur III, as I often do. Well, I wondered what exactly that means. As it turns out, Namu is a Buddhist exultation, like 'halleluiah", that comes from the term "Namu Amida Butsa". This term is used as a prayer for the dead in Buddhism, so in a way Yoshimitsu is considering his enemy already dead. (Which they are, if they're fighting me).

So now I have a lead: Soul Calibur's Yoshimitsu named his sword after him. Also, the SC Yoshimitsu was Buddhist. We also know from his background that he is one of the survivors of the massacred Manji Clan. Great, but we still don't really know jack shit about the identity of Yoshimitsu.

Well, I looked up Manji (on Wikipedia, since I didn't feel like doing any real research at this point. It's getting late, I'm out of coffee. This research project is reaching an end, naturally.). Manji meant several things, such as:

1. Marco Polo referred to the Southern Chinese, who had been recently conquered by Kublai Khan, as Manji. This came from Chinese 'Manzi', "Southern Barbarians".

2. Manji is also the name of a Buddhist/Hindu symbol that the Nazi's later warped into the swastika. This is relevant because SC Yoshimitsu was Buddhist. It is unlikely, however, that he was a Nazi.

Yoshimitsu is probably a name passed down, then, from the owners of the Yoshimitsu sword, which was named this by the first Yoshimitsu from Soul Calibur. We figure that Yoshimitsu from the Tekken series is all the same person, because of the story continuity. Of course, if the story was tampered with, we'd have no way to be sure which Yoshimitsu is the real one, if at all Yoshimitsu exists.

We would assume that ninja's work within a web of deceit to conceal their identities and underlying motives. If this is so, everything that Yoshimitsu tells us about himself may be a lie. Then maybe Yoshimitsu isn't of South/East Asian descent, and maybe he's not Buddhist.

Why stop there?

Maybe he's not human, either. Maybe he's not even a member of the Manji Clan. Thus, the most likely answer is that Yoshimitsu does not exist.

Then again, that's what they want you to think, isn't it?

And that, dear reader, is why we don't know jack shit about Yoshimitsu.

(The Manji Clan may or may not have tampered with this document)

A/N Sorry, that's all I got. I just couldn't reach a definite conclusion. But fear not, reader, because next week I will have definite answers for the next question- "How does Panda legally traverse heavily populated urban areas unnoticed?" Yes, next week! Seriously, seven days (more or less…)!

Stay Tuned!

A/N I admit it. I lied. There was no message anywhere in this chapter (or is there...?). If you tried very hard and left the chapter frustrated and angry, as I'm sure you were, I apologize. If you found a secret message, you probably tried a little too hard (but tell me what it is anyway, I'm interested).