Chapter 17

In the sunlight, the sand almost sparkled like water - white as snow on the highlights and a soft blue-gray in the shadows. Steady, even lines had been raked across the length of the sand garden and only where the continuity of the sand was interrupted by a delicately placed rock were the lines broken. Around each of the five rocks, concentric rings radiated out, following their contours like surf breaking around the edges of islands. It was a miniature section of the world. The rock islands, like Japan, off on their own in the sea, and the moss dotting the rocks like forest. Marking the perimeter of the sand garden were carved tiles separating the sand from the beetle-shaped rocks commonly found in rivers.

Jin knelt in the shade of the viewing area. It was a small comfort to be here away from the noise and traffic. If he closed his eyes he could almost imagine being back in Yakushima. Unlike a city, a forest was alive without the mindless wander of humans and the constant reconstruction of the buildings. He could almost feel his mother's caress in the wind, carrying away all the anger Heihachi had injected into him.

'If she could see what I've become she'd be ashamed,' Jin thought. Giving into anger, recalling painful memories, these were both things that Jun had always warned against. They fed the devil inside, but without it how could he have the strength to live on with his cowardice? How could he ever make it right by avenging her death? Jin made a fist.

"Will you cause damage this time?" he asked it. "Are you strong enough to avenge Mother?"

"Is this a bad time?"

Jin turned in the direction of the voice. Julia stood in the shade of the ginkgo trees, still wearing her faded jean skirt and leather vest. She was either pragmatic or lacked alternative outfits. Jin guessed it was a little of both. "No, I'm fine."

"Do you miss her?" Julia asked.

"Terribly." Jin turned back to the white sea before him.

"I got your message. Did you find something about Michelle?"

Jin nodded. "He said that he spoke to her briefly, but not what about. He also said that he paid for her plane ticket back to America."

"That's a lie."

"You weren't here. How do you know?"

"Because Michelle never came home. I know my mother, she wouldn't have deserted us ... she wouldn't have deserted me. She wouldn't have ...."

"Are you sure?"

Julia turned her eyes towards Jin. "What about your mother? Wouldn't she do everything she could to protect you? Why would you expect anything less from someone else's mother? Have you ever wondered why Heihachi took you in? From what I've heard, Heihachi isn't much of a family man."

Jin felt the temperature in his cheeks rise. 'Calm,' he told himself, that's what Jun would tell him if she was alive. He felt the anger abate. "You shouldn't talk about what you don't know. Leave my family out of this."

"I would if your family would leave mine alone. First it was Kazuya dragging my mother into his tournament. Now it's Heihachi dragging me into his."

"I've asked Heihachi to allow the Tekken Zaibatsu security force to search around mainland Japan to see if they can see if anything happened to her. There is nothing more I can do for you right now."

"I see." Julia fell silent for a moment. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you from your usual duties."

"Julia, wait." Her pig tails waggled as she stopped. How could he tell her? How could he let her see that they were abandoned children who had never known a father and had lost their mothers? How could he show her the beauty that he had known before Heihachi's necessary conditioning?

"Julia, do you believe in a purpose to everything?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"If you want answers, you have to give some too."

"I want to believe it," Julia said finally.

"Maybe we were meant to meet each other in the tournament like our mothers did. I think you would have gotten along with her. She always loved nature. You know, sometimes when I meditate here, I can still feel her presense."

Jin stepped back to invite her to sit for a while and only then did Julia approach. She seemed so much like a deer approaching a water hole. Her eyes never left his as she came towards where he had sat. Rather than sitting in the lotus position which would lock her legs, she knelt in a way she could bound away instantly. She closed her eyes.

He thought back to all the times that his mother was able to call him without words. She had a gift, and she had tried to cultivate it in Jin. A precaution, she called it, against the coming darkness. As he concentration, the greens in the garden shifted. They brightened and the edges seemed to glow. And she was there again. Jun Kazama with her hair swept back in a white band and a matching summer dress. Behind her, the forest came to life as birds hopped down from trees singing and squirrels scampered towards her like subjects to a queen.

He heard Julia gasp. "It's beautiful," she whispered. "She's beautiful."

And there! The rocks at her feet opened and water cascaded like a carpet before her. A vein pulsed behind his eye. Jin tried to blink it away, but it only beat faster. Warmth flooded his body.

'No,' he thought. 'Please, not now.' Spasms racked his body, forcing him back against the wall. The image changed.

Jun's body sheared apart - screaming. The leaves of the forest curled, turning all reds, yellows, and oranges before erupting into flames. In the center of the forest, a terrible shadow took shape. The branches and the flames withered away from the shadow's approach. Whatever it was, it was wide and hunched over. Leathery wings, like a bat, stretched from its back and long, curved horns extended from its forehead. It turned towards him and its eyes were nothing but holes, seemingly punched directly through its head because Jin could see the fire twisting through the empty sockets.

He was suddenly aware of Julia beside him, shaking his shoulders.

"Jin. Jin!" She turned towards the looming shadow.

"Mother," he prayed. "Help me. Banish the monsters."

Julia clasped her necklace in her left hand and laid her right hand upon his forehead like a mother taking a child's temperature. Her lips moved and Jin began to feel drowsy. The shadow shimmered as it stepped closer, but somehow ... somehow it didn't matter anymore. Mother was here; she could make it all better.

Jin felt his body slump against the wall. The fire was getting close now. He could feel the sweat forming on his skin as the flames expelled their hot breath at him. It felt like his skin was flaking off and his muscles and bones were melting - no longer able to keep their rigid structure.

"Mother ... mother ...."

Something firm pressed into his pliant flesh. It was icy and had the scent of mint. Julia's voice sounded so far away, and yet as she spoke words he couldn't understand the flames began to fold in on themselves. The shadow swiveled in horror as the light around it faded. It gave one last inhuman roar before disappearing.

Jin smiled. Mother was back.

* * *

Xiaoyu had long since gotten used to waiting outside offices while she was attending school in China - particularly math class. She preferred it, actually, to the long lectures of droning, self-important teachers and being with brainacs who were as boring and stuffy of the classrooms they spawned in. It was built into the Chinese to learn by rote - a product of their language and culture. With a language of thousands of characters to memorize to speak and read, there was simply no time to truly ponder and understand. Memorize and move on - what more could you do? Expressing yourself was a foreign concept for most of the students. There was little in the way of recreation for young and ambitious in a world where you either studied or died. A theme park though, that could change the whole concept. Maybe there would be a way to incorporate education into it - make fun and useful. Xiaoyu smiled at the idea and paced outside of Heihachi's office.

As far as waiting rooms went, you could do a whole lot worse than Heihachi's trophy room, thought Xiaoyu. It was the size of a museum wing, with tall glass cases, pedestals, and paintings. A lifetime of collecting and traveling was put on display. Dominating the room was an oil painting of Heihachi sitting in a heavily ornamental plush chair. His left hand rested on his thigh while the right elbow rested on the other leg at just the angle to cradle his chin as he leaned forward. With eyes narrowed and the slightest of smiles tugging at the edges of his lips, the painting gave the impression that Heihachi was already king of the world, he was just feeling generous in letting you think otherwise. Although his hair was already sparse and grayed by the time the painting was done, there was no sign of either of his sons. There was only him - the alpha and the omega. Xiaoyu stuck her tongue out at the painting just for fun.

He seemed to have divided up the room of artifacts into sections based on the country of origins. The first section seemed to be African and Australian and was dominated with wooden figurines with long necks and jutting chins, oddly curved sticks, and various drums and flutes. Xiaoyu could almost picture the aborigines banging on their drums around a fire as their dark skinned warriors slunk through the sparse brush with their spears and weighted sticks after unwary prey. Perhaps she could put that into her theme park. There could be a large field with brushes and trees for cover. Groups of people would be let loose with weapons of foam and soft plastic to have mock battles and hunts.

Xiaoyu moved to another section. Again there were cases of wooden figurines, but these were different. These ones didn't have the elongated necks but masks. One of the figures had a black face, but its snort extended out like an alligator. A collection of feathers were spread out evenly behind its head like a crown or a symbolic rising of the sun. Its arms and legs were thick and heavy looking as though used to throwing large chunks of flesh into its enormous gullet. Feeling a shiver run through her as she pondered what creature gave its inspiration, Xiaoyu stepped towards the next case.

Grateful of no more figurines, Xiaoyu pressed her fingers up to the next glass case. It was filled with stone and earthen bowls and cups with geometric shapes wrapped around the sides. Two knives with blades that looked like black glass angled diagonally towards each other with the tips of their blades nearly touching to form a "v" in front of the containers. Curious if one of the containers was the one stolen from Julia's room, Xiaoyu leaned in to examine them more closely but they all looked the same to her since she never had a chance to see Julia's collection up close.

Her eyes were soon drawn onwards toward the section housing the artifacts from Asian cultures. A collection of clay soldiers, all with unique faces, stood guard in the corner opposite a glass case where a full suit of samurai armor hung on wires so thin they were nearly invisible and gave the impression that the armor itself had been alive but frozen in time. High above, mounted on the wall, two sheathed katanas crossed below a ghostly white face. Xiaoyu squinted her eyes. It was a small, thin mask, feminine in its gentle curves. The eyeholes were just curved lines and the nose jutted out to a thin point with painted whiskers....

The doors swung open and Xiaoyu snapped to attention giving a mock salute to the courier.

"Heihachi will see you now."

Xiaoyu bounded into the room. The first thing that struck Xiaoyu was the light. It seemed to emanate from the floor like a cresting wave swelling towards her. Through the glare, she was able to make out a silhouette rising up from behind a desk like the dead from the grave. Devil horns adorned its head and wings folded down behind its body. Xiaoyu took a step back and raised one hand to guard her eyes from the light and the other to guard her body from attack. Without the glare directly in her eyes, the walls of light became windows so clear that without the reflected light she would have never known they were there. The devil horns became pikes of hair, the wings became flaps of a trench coat, and the devil melded into Heihachi.

"Xiao-chan!" he said heartily. "Come in. I've been expecting you."

Xiaoyu bowed. "Thank you for inviting me to your office, Mishima-san." The formality of Japan was beginning to suffocate her, but there were roles to play. She wouldn't be here - wouldn't have a chance to build her dream - had Heihachi not accepted her into the tournament. Who knew if she would require further favors which she could curry from playing the dutiful granddaughter he never had.

Despite casually waving his hand as though brushing off the honorifics, Heihachi's smile indicated that he was pleased to hear it. 'Point,' thought Xiaoyu.

"What do you think of the tournament so far? Exciting, eh?"

"You bet," Xiaoyu replied giving him a coy wink. Might as well go all out on this one. She ran towards one of the windows, stopping short and making sure that her fingers didn't touch the glass. "Hey, check that out view. You can see the whole western coast from here."

The view from the window was like being frozen at the top of a roller coaster where gravity has spread its fingers and let go of you for a moment. Below the world spread out like tents in a carnival, bright patches of color that led the eye on towards the horizon. The world was a fun house. Gravity asserted itself again when Heihachi's hands touched her shoulders.

"Beautiful, isn't it? This could be yours too one day."

"A theme park would do. Besides, what about Jin? Shouldn't he inherit the empire?"

The hands left her shoulders to hide behind Heihachi's back. "Jin is focused on a task right now. I'm afraid he may not be the same afterwards."

"Why? What's happening to him?" Xiaoyu wheeled around to face Heihachi.

"I know you want to help, Xiao-chan, but it's strictly family business."

Xiaoyu narrowed her eyes and smiled. "Yeah, but weren't you just offering me the keys to the Mishima empire? I'm practically family in that case."

Heihachi laughed. "Nice try, Xiao-chan, but you're not a Mishima yet."

'Technically, I'd be a Kazama if I married Jin,' she thought, but she didn't interrupt Heihachi.

"However," continued Heihachi, "I believe someone may try to harm Jin. While he's more than capable of protecting himself, I do not want him distracted from his goal. I do not want him to have to constantly look over his shoulder for a knife. I know he perhaps does not pay enough attention to you as we both wish, but it is his nature, especially since his mother was taken from him.

"There are many great fighters at this tournament, but none that I can trust - except you. Please, Xiao-chan, watch over my grandson. He had to grow up too quickly and violently. Protect him during the tournament and alert me to any fighter acting suspicious or hostile towards him. If you cannot get to me in time, deal with it as you see fit. Panda, of course, will accompany you, and you may make any requests of me which will aid you in this task."

"Hmm," Xiaoyu said as she turned away. She bit her lower lip gently. It would certainly be handy to have Heihachi owe her a favor or three. No doubt any number of people would kill for that opportunity, but watching over Jin would hardly be a chore. She was practically doing that job already, and Heihachi would know that. Why offer to pay someone to do a job they're already doing it for free? Even Xiaoyu's stunted math skills told her it didn't add up.

'Now, Heihachi,' thought Xiaoyu, 'wouldn't do anything without a purpose behind it. What can he hope to gain from this?'

Xiaoyu looked out the window again. If she could find Jin, maybe he could give her some guidance. It didn't take long for her to find him. She had honed her ability to lock onto him from a distance during the months they've been in school together. Over there, in the rock garden, Xiaoyu could see them. Jin was flailing his arms, staggering back, as if fighting demons while blinded. Julia was rushing towards him as his back slammed into a wall and he slid to the ground. She pillowed his head on her lap and looked around as though afraid someone would see them together.

Xiaoyu didn't turn away as she spoke. "I can request anything from you?"

"Anything," Heihachi confirmed.

"Then I think I have my first request, Heihachi-san."