He found her curled up in the alleyway, big, wet tears rolling down her face.

Had a dream, had a drowning dream; I was in a river of pain.

Gunfire roared in the streets. People were screaming. Small fires burned. All she could see was the memory of the biggest gun she had ever seen in her life. It would be a long time before anyone parked their car in the street again. Aimed at her.

Only difference: This time I wasn't calling out your name, yeah.

His alien form towered over her, drowning her scrunched up form in shadow. His infrared amber vision bored into her skin. The last thirty minutes had paralyzed her, leaving nothing but a frightened little girl behind. Make her dreams happen herself. She was more than willing to let this stranger, cloaked in darkness, body armor occasionally glinting in the firelight, be her savior.

Has it ended before it's begun?

Which is why, when he dropped to one knee and held out his arms to her, she, like it was the most natural thing in the world, threw her arms around his neck and melted into his warm metal chest.

You hold on, and I try to run, but—

Her pigtails were history. After the running and the turmoil and the exploding cars and grime and tears, her hair was grease-soaked, stringy, limply falling over her face. Her hood was pulled up Jin-style, and if she hadn't seen him lying unconscious in the street with a bazillion little tranquilizer darts poking out of his body, that comparison might've made her giggle. Her hoodie was black, and big floppy tiger ears had been sewn to the hood.

Anybody heading in my direction—away from the city?

The peculiar stranger pulled a luminous green katana from seemingly nowhere. She stared at the man's bony teeth, his skeletal jaw, his empty, burning eye sockets. He lifted them both to their feet. He lifted the gleaming sword over his head and began spinning his hand, spinning his sword around faster and faster like the blades of a helicopter, the rest of his arm simply remaining motionless over his head. What the fuck? she thought. They lifted off the ground.

Anybody wanna change the way they feel? Step inside.

And all she could think was, How ridiculous.

Doesn't really matter where you wanna take me—away from the city.

She sat curled up in an army surplus blanket, heavy-lidded, marveling how the grass glinted in the firelight. Someone wearing a colorful mask and a silly costume offered her a beverage. It looked like Coke. She accepted. The cup was warm. She brought it to her lips and recoiled. The scent of licorice filled her nostrils. She took a sip. The liquid was oddly tasteless, or, in any case, she was too tired to taste anything. She knew that she didn't like it. She also knew she didn't care.

I wanna start again. I wanna start again. I wanna take it back. I wanna start again.

She could remember sitting at an unnecessarily long banquet table, Heihachi at one end, her and Jin facing each other at the other. It had taken her a few moments to realize that the terrifying sea creature on her plate was still alive. And then she had screamed and fallen out of her chair. Heihachi had roared with laughter. Sometimes she wondered if he had kept her around for his own sick amusement. Jin had smirked and said nothing.

Funny how those friends forget you when you tire of their games.

At the age of sixteen, she'd had barely shoulder-length hair, straight as a pin except for an entirely unfascinating inward slant at its ends, her bangs evenly cut and neatly brushed to one side, indulging in the same inward slant. When sporting pigtails, she'd resembled an ugly cartoon baby. It had been her awkward stage.

You miss a show or a party that blows, and they, they've forgotten your name, yeah, and you wonder what you've become.

It was a mystery why Jin had ever gone for her at all. And if he had ever really gone for her in the first place. And now he was gone again. Disappeared. It was a state she was becoming familiar with but not one she was ever sure he'd return from.

They pull you back when you try to run.

Then she saw the gun. There had been so many guns that day. The one she was seeing, the one she couldn't seem to keep out of her head, was the one Jin kept in a small wooden box under his mattress. She saw the gun and what he intended to do with it. Over and over and over again. She saw the gun wedged in his mouth, felt the barrel hard against his teeth. Saw his insides and splintered fragments of skull splattered across the wall behind him.

Well, anybody heading in my direction—away from the city?

She pressed the blanket against her mouth. If she started screaming, she'd never stop.

Anybody wanna change the way they feel? Step inside.

She'd been wandering downtown Tokyo, realizing she had no plan but feeling better now that she at least had a goal. She'd always been able to focus on one point of light, even in the dead of the night. Jin made her happy. She'd always told Panda her woes. She was old enough to realize that Panda couldn't understand her, but she'd still conversed with Panda like children converse with a doll or teddy bear. OMG I think Jin just broke up with me I'm never going to see him again sob. She'd realized she couldn't take Panda with her anymore. She'd realized Jin made her happy. Make her dreams happen herself.

Doesn't really matter where you wanna take me—away from the city.

No matter how many times you get warned, some things are always a surprise. She, of course, had been expecting it. And she, of course, hadn't been surprised at all when it had finally come. She, though, had been scared out of her mind.

I wanna start again. I wanna start again. I wanna take it back. I wanna start again.

'You don't get it, Xiao! You have a life, and you have a dream, but all I have is this, this duty. Don't you see? No, of course you don't. Sometimes you have to make things happen yourself, Xiao. You can't keep depending on everyone else for everything. People won't always be there for you. You have a dream that you want to come true, you should make it happen yourself. Stop depending on me, Xiao. I can't be there for you the way you need me to.'

I left the me I used to be. I wanna see this through.

It had been a woman she'd barely recognized without the skanky red dress and a murder of armed men and a gun the size of a tree trunk. Color draining, airway constricting, losing health units, must move faster, must run, must—freeze.

She'd frozen.

"Look out!"

She'd been saved.

A hard body had tackled her to the side. The place where she'd been standing had exploded. They'd been momentarily hidden behind a parked car, a tangle of limbs. They'd sat up.

"Are you okay?"

His red hair had glinted in the firelight. She'd looked up at him. There'd been soot on his nose. He must've thought she was crazy.

She'd kissed him.

I left the me I used to be. If only you'd see it, too.

Just run and keep running, she'd thought. She'd heard the car they'd been hiding behind explode as her feet hit the sidewalk.

Well, I wonder what you've become.

A Tekken fighter's world becomes smaller and smaller until the other fighters are the only other people in it.

You pull me back when I try to run.

Yoshimitsu returned to the camp. Even in the dead of night, as it was then, their clearing was aglow with light. Men and women dressed in silly masks and colorful costumes wandered in and out, abuzz with activity. Xiaoyu took no part in their commotion. Yoshimitsu said something to a couple of them in a trippy voice. She felt like she was the center of attention, yet no one was paying any attention to her.

Well, anybody heading in my direction—away from the city?

He sat cross-legged before her. She resisted the urge to ask him to pull off his mask. Somehow she sensed that was against the rules. His voice tripped her out. It was like he was on some psychedelic drug, or she was. The story he told her was classic, and when he was finished, she was crying.

Anybody wanna change the way they feel? Step inside.

She finished crying. She was calm. She had found her point of light. She realized that her night had been a test. Those whole two years had been a test. She realized that all her dreams up to that point had been selfish. She had finally found something worth dying for. She would save the Mishima family. Because Jin made her happy.

Doesn't really matter where you wanna take me—away from the city.

It took her much longer to realize that Jin did not make her happy, and saving him was the most selfish mission of all. Happiness is childhood, and the routine feelings of boredom and monotony she felt ever since Jin's first disappearance is just what growing up feels like.

I wanna start again.

Miharu was the first to stop writing. She e-mailed Xiao every day, sometimes multiple times. Every day turned into once every few weeks. That didn't last long either.

I wanna start again.

Yoshimitsu was second. He sent her e-mails updating her on what went on in the Tekken universe. He must have eventually realized that she no longer cared because, eventually, he stopped writing.

I wanna take it back.

Grandpa Jinrei is the only one who still writes her. Reading his letters always made her sad, and there were times she sat around in her apartment for days, crying, after reading one. They're always hand-written. Eventually, she stopped reading them. Unopened letters litter her kitchen table.

I wanna start again.

Jin never wrote once.