Michelle Chang

Standing in front of the grave she didn't say anything. The wind blew solemnly around here, wrapping her hair to his neck and pushing her tears down her face faster than normal. The itching feel of the tears caused her to wipe them away slowly and break out of her momentary reverie. Hey eyes focused on the tombstone again and she re-read the words on it, hoping that maybe the name would have changed and she wouldn't be mourning her father. But it didn't change and his name was still there and her heart wasn't mended any.

How did it get this way?

It all started years ago when the tribe had agreed to let some men from a museum perform an excavation on their land. The elders were split about the choice but, in the end the money was too compelling of a reason to pass up, Michelle father hadn't been opposed to the excavation immediately but, when the digging started to move further and further past the point they had agreed upon he had gotten increasingly nervous.

At the time Michelle had no idea why her father was getting so upset about the excavation aside from the fact that the diggers hadn't kept to their word but, there was something else for the first time in her life her father seemed scared, scared of the men digging. Of course his fear was always momentary and vanished as soon as Michelle came into the room but, she saw it and wondered why.

Eventually she forgot about it and watched the excavation like all the other kids (training every day as well) wondering if they were going to find some old fossils or maybe bones hidden by dogs some time before (upsetting the dogs naturally)but day in and day out nothing was found, the excavators were nice though and Michelle would talk to them but, never found out if they were looking for something in particular.

One day there was a lot of commotion at the site and all the kids were told to stay away. The excavators were in a flurry of emotions, Michelle knew they found something interesting and within hours had taken off to the city to get equipment to unearth it completely. It wasn't until that afternoon when her father and some of the men came back did she know that something was wrong, when he heard the excavators had found something his face was not of excitement and happiness like the foreign men, instead he looked disturbed and angry.

That night he stayed out with her uncle and argued with the excavators for hours, she couldn't hear exactly what was being said, her mother was purposely singing loudly to block out the angry noises but, she did remember hearing him say: "They cannot take it"

The next day when Michelle woke her father had already left for town to argue more with the museum people about the nature of their find. So she stayed at the excavation site and stared at the deep hole. For a couple of hours she wondered how they were able to dig so deep, the earth was so tough after one point it was hard to imagine that they were able to dig through it; after that thought failed to entertain her any more, she wondered what they had found down there that had gotten her father so mad. It was that thought that led her to mischief, she knew she shouldn't do it but, it was too enticing she just had to know what was down there.

The excavators had left the hole unattended and hadn't moved the moving ledge that was used to ride down to the bottom of the site. All one had to do was pull the rope on the side and release slack to be lowered down, then pull the rope accordingly to pull oneself back up. It was simple enough to do, too simple not to, so when everyone went in for lunch at the hottest part of the day Michelle began down the excavation hole.

Within five minutes of going down she was scared; it was far more darker than she thought, she looked up and could see the bright sun but, it felt almost a whole world away, for a second she considered calling the whole thing off but, when she looked around she saw a helmet with a flashlight mounted on top, she put it on (it was much too big for her head so it slightly obscured her view) and turned the light on. Another five minutes of descent and she finally touched the bottom of the site. She sighed again and stepped off the platform keeping the light on the ground to see where she was going, it wasn't flat so she had to be careful not to trip over herself, in the corner she could see a cloth set up like a small tent obscuring a portion of the cavern, she surmised whatever they had found was there.

Carefully she stepped around and got closer to the small tent and when she was close enough to look in she moved the tapestry over and suddenly something shone in her light back at her. She hadn't seen anything like it before; it was amazing. It was about the size of a palm and had five gems inside, a ruby, an aquamarine, an amethyst and a diamond dotted the four sides around the much larger emerald. The pendant seemed to be crafted almost entirely of gold above each of the four adorning stones was a segment of the gold that was carved out, maybe as if to be worn.

Her eyes were entranced on the beauty of the pendant but, also at how old this artifact must have been. she could suddenly understand the immense interest in this piece but, she couldn't understand her father's anger, he seemed to want to keep the pendant in the ground, he argued vehemently to 'keep it where it was'. Michelle reached out to the pendant and let her fingers run across the surface, it was still somewhat dirty but, the feel of the gold was still smooth and appealing but, when she touched it, there was an uneasiness that she hadn't felt before. So much so that she drew away from it and the feeling evaporated, she touched it again and it returned.

"MICHELLE!"A voice boomed from above, almost as if the voice of God, bouncing off the rocks and echoing in the vastness of the cavern. Her heart jumped twice, once from the original scream and again from the reverberation. She knew the voice well and looked up slowly, above her in a tiny speck she could see her father and even from that distance she could see a mix of horror and anger in his face. "Get back here now!"

She obeyed and climbed onto the levy and pulled, her father assisted from above, she reached the top within seven minutes and met his face of disapproval. She looked away from his eyes.

"I'm sorry" she said quickly but; he didn't say anything he just looked at her with that face. She couldn't even tell what the look meant anymore it was just sort of a mix of negative emotions blended into one. She looked away again and repeated: "I'm sorry." Within a minute he spoke.

"That was dangerous, what you did," he spoke, she repeated 'I'm sorry' again in a lower tone. "You could have been hurt or killed." He parted her hair from her face and his face softened. "I'm glad you weren't" he smiled and kissed her on her forehead.

"What was that thing down there?" Michelle couldn't help but ask; his smiled turned down a bit, not into a frown but into a knowing smile. Expecting the question.

"It's something our family has kept hidden for generations" He answered simply; she nodded and recalled that uneasy feeling she felt when she touched the pendant.

"Is it dangerous?" she asked; and he looked her square in the eye, with all the seriousness in the world and said:

"Yes."

In the next few weeks Michelle's father lost the fight to keep the pendant buried, within days more people came and took it out of the hole and took it to town. News reporters came and filmed the transfer, Michelle still didn't understand what the big deal was but, she watched intrigued, especially because her father seemed to get more and more anxious the longer the pendant stayed away. Michelle noticed him pacing more and staying out later, her mother told her not to worry too much that he would calm down but, it didn't seem like it.

Finally one day he announced he was going to go see the pendant at the exhibit (an agreement had been made that natives could enter free and see the pendant) and he was gone, Michelle and her mother decided to stay back but, when there was nothing to do they decided to meet her father at the exhibit and see it with him. They left and took a truck into the city and it was always an adventurous time going to the city, from the outskirts one could see the museum all in glass and sprawling over the city.

It wasn't as exciting as they would have liked it to have been when, they arrived they couldn't get in because Heihachi Mishima was visiting the exhibit. Michelle's mother wanted to stay in the city to do some shopping but, Michelle insisted on going back home and so she went alone.

What she saw when she returned was eerie, no one was around and her house had been broken into, quickly she ran to the back of the house to peer into the window and see if she could find a culprit. She did not and so she entered the house cautiously, the entire house was tossed upside down, everything was everywhere but, nothing seemed to be taken. She sifted through the mess until she reached the living room and saw the worse thing of all.

"Michelle…" he whispered, totally different than the call she heard while in the hole. He looked weak and his right hand was draped around his stomach, where blood was pouring. Michelle darted forward and slid to him, like a baseball player attempting to steal a base.

"Dad!" she yelled and took his arm gently and removed is seeing the bullet wound. "What happened?" she demanded. He weakly shook his head.

"I did something foolish," he admitted. "I stole the pendant from the museum." he explained further. "It is the single thing keeping Toshin from awakening, I could risk the chance of doing that," he spoke slowly and in pain but, clearly. "When I took it, some of the security saw me, I fled here and there were men already here. I thought," he winced in pain. "I thought they were from the museum so I pulled a weapon out, they saw it and thought I was going to attack them, so they fired on me," He attempted to stand up more straight. "They seemed scared, they were young boys, they wanted the pendant but, couldn't find it." He was breathing more dramatically. "Here," He pushed something into her hand and she suddenly felt uneasy, she opened her hand and beheld the pendant. "keep it with you always, don't let anyone know you have it, not even your mother." He demanded; he was going to die, she knew it, it was something that couldn't be change.

"Who did this?" she asked. "If it wasn't from the museum where were they from?" she asked desperately; in his final breath he held her hand and said:

"The Mishima Zaibatsu"

Back in front of his grave, Michelle cried again, in a fist she held the pendant close to her heart, remember what he had said to her. In the other she clutched something else, something that was, at that time, just as important to her. She'd never forget or forgive the Mishima Zaibatsu for what they did to her father and there was only one man who could have given the order.

Heihachi Mishima.

She would make him pay with his life, it was the only form of retribution that Michelle could think of. She would do in the presence of the pendant her father's last gift to her, she clutched it so, it pained her hands and she felt as if she might break it, and in her other hand she clutched something else just as strong.

In her left hand were her registration papers for the 'King of Iron Fist' tournament.