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Ch. 6: Just Sunday

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It was a quiet Sunday afternoon. Sensei Kazama didn't complain; he had taxes to pay, and he needed all the peace he could get. However, like always, the quieter the house was, the more distracted and suspicious he would get...

Where was the thumping and the screaming and the glass-shattering noise he usually heard from his six-year-old daughter?

Unable to concentrate any longer, he stopped punching in numbers in the calculator and took off his reading glasses. Then he headed towards her room upstairs.

By the time he had reached her door way, he found it wide-open. And what a strange view he saw.

Just a little past his waist were teddy bear slippers - up in the air. Connected to them were a pair of knobby knees with a dinosaur sticker on one knee. And from there were short blue denim overalls and a yellow T-shirt.

What on Earth was Asuka doing, standing on her head against the wall?

"Asuka?" he asked.

She didn't even turn to him. "Yes?"

"What are you doing?"

Her response was simple: "Becoming a woman."

He blinked in surpirse. "What?"

Asuka said as-a-matter-of-factly, "When Mariko came to baby-sit me, she went to the bathroom and stayed there for a long, long, time - longer than Mr. Jiro when he has a newspaper! Then while I was watcing TV she stood on her head like this. I said, "What are you doing?" and she said, "Becoming a woman.""

For a while, Sensei Kazama pondered on her words. It only took a moment for him to realize what was going on. "Asuka...dear," he said, uncomfortable, "I don't suppose you should do that...just yet. In fact, perhaps Mariko didn't need to do that either."

Asuka sat down. "Why?"

"Well...you'll learn soon enough...when you're older. Now," he picked up Asuka onto her feet, "Why don't you go outside?"

Nodding, she ran out. Sensei Kazama sighed. Only four more years, he thought, plenty of time. No worries. But perhaps Mrs. Sanada should talk to her on that part of The Talk.

(A/N: tee hee. Got that from 7th Heaven. Figure it out yourselves!)

Once outside, Asuka ran out to her back yard with her binoculars. She was given them on her birthday by Mrs. Sanada since she was fascinated by birds and loved to birdwatch. However, she always seemed to get into trouble when she grew bored of a bird in its nest and wandered off to the neighbors' windows...

She climbed to her favorite tree. There, she settled down on her stomach on a thick heavy branch and zoomed in on her binoculars onto the front street. First she tried to look for birds on the rooftops; she didn't find any. Then she wandered off to her front door neighbor's house, where she found Kenichi being chastised by his mother.

Probably for trying to steal my bike and hide somewhere like last time, she thought. Then she zoomed in to her father's dojo. There, she saw a black sports car, and a tall figure climbing out. She zoomed in closer. Asuka only saw the back of his head. He had black hair and a single spike sprouting out. He wore a black leather jacket. Asuka noted that it looked like the kind of jacket she saw in The Matrix - a video one of her baby-sitters had been watching, though she wasn't allowed to watch the rest of it. Then the man turned around and took off his sunglasses. He stared straight at her.

She gasped out loud. He was looking straight at her! She quickly dropped her binoculars and lost her balance on the tree - but she quickly redeemed herself and fell out gracefully on her feet...only to then lose her balance and fall on her rear.

That man...he was simply terrifying. First of all, he had a permanent scowl on his face, with cold serious eyes. And also his left eye was odd enough. If asuka didn't know any better, she would have said that it looked...red...

Yet there was something familiar about the man...something...Asuka couldn't define what she felt. Intuition? she thought. The girls at the dojo talked about it one time, yet Asuka didn't know what it meant. But whatever she felt, she was really curious about the man, and decided to go to the dojo for herself.

Once there, she realized that her father had already beaten her to it. A few of the students, who came regularly to train, lingered inside, interested in the heated argument their sensei was having with the stranger.

"I only came here to see if it was true!" the man was saying, "Jun had been sending me letters non-stop, and now it seems she wasn't lieing."

"I forbid you to see her!" her father yelled. This made Asuka scared. She had never seen her father so mad before. "I don't care if you don't say a word to her, but if she sees you -"

"Too late."

A voice from behind her made her jump and turn around to see Mrs. Sanada, who had followed her.

"Asuka!" her father exclaimed, obviously shocked and angry, "Go to your room!"

"What!" she argued, "But I -!"

"No buts! Go NOW!"

Pouting, she turned her heel and left, not noticing how the man's eyes had not left her since he was informed of her prescence.

I didn't know it then, but the man was Kazuya Mishima, my father. My mother had been sending him letters for the past three months, informing him of my birth and that I was with my uncle. At first he did not believe her - he thought it was just another way of having him come to see her. But she wouldn't stop writing to him, and when she mentioned that I was at Osaka with her brother, he decided to see for himself - and found me.

Before he left, he gave a check to my father - a payment for my private schooling. He had decided to pay for my entire schooling for him...

Sachi Gosetsuke: I'm back! Florida was awesome. My brothers say I look black, lol (not being racist here). I would've updated sooner, but I had a hard time trying to open up this file on my floppy. So please, review!