A knock on the door woke me up the next morning. I glanced at the clock and it read 8am. I groaned and pulled myself out of bed, answering the door to be greeted with a huge grin from Steve. For a minute, I contemplated slamming the door in his face. Surely it must be illegal for someone to be so damn cheerful in the morning? He noticed the look on my face and his grin shrank down to a smile.

"morning sunshine"

"grrrr. What do you want Steve?"

He said nothing, just shoved a piece of paper virtually in my face. I grabbed it off him and looked down at it. The heading said Kerrina Chaolan: Group C. I read through it, seeing all my matches.

"we all get an individual sheet with our matches, and on the board downstairs there is an overview of everyone's matches."

I didn't thank him, or even speak to him, I just shut the door in his face, throwing a shoe at it when he called 'your welcome' through the keyhole. I heard him laughing all the way down the hall as he walked off, and I had to admit, it made me smile a little as he had one hell of a contagious laugh.

I looked a bit more carefully at my sheet and smiled when I saw the rest of the people in my group. This was going to be fun. My first match was tomorrow against the really fat guy called Bob, then in two days, I was against Lei Wulong, and then three days after that I was going up against Miguel. A huge smile appeared at that. At least I got to smack the smile off one person's face, even if I didn't get any further. The sheet said that I had to win a minimum of two out of the three matches to move on to the next round. I knew I could take on Lei as I had fought him a few times before in my training, and I was fairly confident about beating Miguel. He was a brawler, which meant that he was reckless, and I had already seen for myself that he let his anger control him. I wasn't so sure about this Bob though. I had heard that even though he was fat, he retained his strength and speed, so he could prove to be very hard to beat, but I'm sure that as long as I keep cool, I could beat him.

I made my way downstairs after dressing, to see a bunch of people standing by the main board, finding out who was fighting who. I walked over to see who Steve, mum and Hwoarang were against, and just for fun I decided to see who Anna, jinn and Asuka were against. Hwoarang was to fight a woman named Julia Chang, a man called Bryan Fury and someone else only known as Panda. Never heard of any of them. Steve was in the same group as me and was up against King, Jack-5 and Lei Wulong. Never heard of them, apart from Lei either. Asuka was against a woman called Zafina and two men called Sergei (oh, the Russian dude) and Marshall Law. Mum was against Roger jnr, Feng Wei and a girl named Lili. Wow, so far, I didn't know any of the opponents, other than mine.

I felt a nudge on my shoulder and a blonde girl looked at me, with a put on look of apology.

"I'm sorry. Did I bump you?" she asked.

I rolled my eyes, and deliberately nudged back. Who the hell did she think she was? I didn't even know her, yet she thought she could push me around? I think not!

"woops" I said casually.

She turned to give me a full on glare, that I returned with a smirk. Wow, I really had been around dad and Hwoarang too much.

"better watch yourself" she hissed.

"or what? You'll scratch me with your false nails?"

"ooo, I'll have fun fighting you if you make it to the next rounds."

"what makes you think you'll get to the next round, princess?" a new voice answered.

She immediately turned and put on a dazzling smile, flicking her hair back and sending him a flirtatious wave. My fists automatically clenched and I grit my teeth.

"sorry Lili, but I told you last year, I can't stand you. Now why don't you leave and go sleep with some other mug? Coz this mug already has a woman"

My fists relaxed as Hwoarang moved away from her and pulled me into him, giving me a small kiss on the lips as he did. Immediately, the feeling of guilt returned to me, but it was shrunk as I saw the look of horror, surprise and hatred on 'lili's' face. I smiled at her and waved.

"toodles"

She growled and walked off in a rage. I just looked at Hwoarang and the pair of us laughed as she went.

Someone came up behind us and patted me on the back. I pulled away from Hwoarang to see who it was. It was a young woman who looked to be a similar age to me and Hwoarang. She wore a plain pair of jeans with a camel coloured halter neck to, covered with a denim jacket. Her hair was in two pigtails making her look almost childlike, yet the glasses she wore contrasted, making her look more mature.

"well done, I've never known anyone other than Hwoarang to speak to her like that" she said.

"thanks…" I answered.

"oh how rude of me. My name's Julia Chang"

"American, huh. Arizona?"

"yes, but how did you know I was from Arizona?" she asked.

"I lived there, in Phoenix, for a while" I responded.

She gave me a warm smile and wished me luck in the tournament before walking off. Hwoarang linked his hand with mine and began pulling me towards the cafeteria, complaining that his stomach was going to explode with hunger if he didn't eat soon.

I watched Hwoarang eating, pleasantly surprised that he actually had very good table manners when he was on his own. It was like when he was in a group, he put up all his defences, yet when he was alone or just with me, he was willing to let me in, see the true Hwoarang. Every time I thought about it, it would send butterflies in my stomach to think about. He must've noticed that I was watching him as he smiled at me and offered me a slice of toast.

"no thanks, I'm not really hungry."

"you ok there sweetheart?"

"I dunno, I just don't exactly have an appetite at the minute."

Hwoarang shrugged and continued eating. I found it strange that he didn't try to find out why I had no appetite, but I assumed that he either understood or he probably thought that I was just nervous about the tournament. The truth was that I needed to think of a plan to find my dad before Kazuya killed him, and the closer it got to my match, the more I trained and the less I slept to try and come up with a plan. I had noticed that over the last couple of weeks I had lost a lot of weight and I was suffering from the lack of food and sleep. I knew the dangers, but ignored them. As long as I won my fights and found my dad, nothing else mattered.

I came back to earth with a start as a hand appeared in front of my face and started to wave to grab my attention. I looked up to see Asuka standing there, a wide grin on her face.

"what is it with people and being cheerful in the morning? I just don't understand it" I groaned.

She laughed and gently punched my shoulder before smiling at Hwoarang and plonking herself down in the seat next to me.

"good morning to you too, miss I-don't-sleep-so-I-snap-at-everyone-in-the-morning."

I looked at her, my jaw dropped in shock.

"how did you know I don't sleep?" I whispered to her.

"I'm in the room next to you. I see you wondering about and sitting on the balcony at all times of the night."

"oh, right. Don't tell anyone, I don't want them to worry"

As I said that, I gave a pointed look to Hwoarang, who was too busy eating his eggs to notice us.

"gotcha" she said and winked.

After breakfast, Hwoarang declared that he had to go and warm up for his match that was taking place that day against Bryan Fury. I gave him a hug and kissed him for luck, and he cockily replied that he didn't need luck, but did need another kiss from me, so I gave him one and smiled softly at him, before he left to practise. While he was gone, Asuka filled me in on who Bryan was. Apparently, he had once been a human, but after he was nearly killed, some scientist turned him into a cyborg, and since then had killed anybody in his way to try and become as strong as possible. Ok, I was a little worried now. I hoped Hwoarang could take him.

Me and Asuka stayed in the hotel for a while, and I kept glancing at the clock, willing it to hurry up so that I could get to Hwoarang's match and cheer him on. Finally, the clock showed quarter to two, so I left the building to grab a limo to the match. Asuka opted to stay behind as she had her first match later on tonight against Marshall. I wished her luck and gave her a quick hug before running outside. It was time for Hwoarang's first fight, and I wasn't going to miss it.