Tekken Fan Fiction ❯ The King of Iron Fist Tournament 6 ❯ The Tangled Web We Weave ( Chapter 14 )

 

 

No way, Asuka looked at her computer in disbelief. The pairings for the quarterfinals were already up and on the tournament website. Asuka, being the curious girl that she was, eagerly turned on her laptop as soon as she got back to her hotel room. She had half-hoped to fight that new guy Doren Sharon: they both excelled in the way of self-defense, and it would be interesting to try her skills against his.

 

Instead, her next opponent was someone who she had secretly hoped would face if she made it to the finals: Kenichi Masamune, her greatest rival, and perhaps even more than that. On her screen was the following message:

 

The King of Iron Fist Tournament 6

Quarterfinals

Toyko Dome

 

Fight 1: Paul Phoenix vs. Kazuya Mishima

Fight 2: Jin Kazama vs. Jean Sorel

Fight 3: Heihachi Mishima vs. Unknown (Real name not applicable)

Fight 4: Doren Sharon vs. Nina Williams

Fight 5: Asuka Kazama vs. Kenichi Masamune

 

 

During the previous tournament, Asuka Kazama was brutally beaten by Feng Wei, the very same man who had brutally beat her father. When she went back to her home in Osaka, she was but a shadow of the cheerful girl she actually was. She wouldn't even ride her bicycle much anymore. All she would do is train nonstop, and even then she knew that she probably didn't have what it took to defeat Feng Wei.

 

About a week after she came home, Kenichi arrived at the dojo for another challenge. Asuka jumped at the chance, for she was primed to tear apart anyone she came across thanks to doing nothing but throwing punches all day.

 

She was floored thirteen seconds into the match.

 

“What the hell was that? Are you still moping about that Chinaman?” Kenichi had said as he helped up Asuka. “Don't you worry, Asuka-chan. I'll make sure that the next time you face him, you teach him the meaning of pain.”

 

In the ten months that followed, Kenichi and Asuka trained together with the intent of defeating Feng Wei. Kenichi had concluded that Asuka's loss was not because she was weak physically, but because that she couldn't focus herself properly when she faced Feng. “In a fight, it's normal that you'll feel a little bit uneasy. But it's stupid to try only to reject and refuse these feelings. Sometimes, the path of the warrior requires letting in dark feelings, weighing them, and then letting them go." Asuka knew these words well: her father had told them to her once, but she was young when he said them and really had no idea what they meant, so she just thought it was something she would understand when she was his age.

 

But when she heard those very same words from Kenichi, someone who was the same age as her, Asuka finally began to understand what those words mean.

 

In other words, Asuka was trying to hold back her dark feelings of vengeance when she had faced Feng Wei, because she knew that rage would hinder her fight. While that was true, she had also held back some of her fighting spirit and Feng would be able to get the best of her mentally. Rage is common reaction to stuff like that, Kenichi had told her, but in a fight she would have to learn to focus that rage into something greater: excitement; the excitement of facing the man who defeated her father, a warrior himself.

 

It would be at the end of those ten months that Kenichi would be facing an emotionally trying experience of his own. His father, Takeshi Masamune, was murdered by a ninja. As it turned out, he had been trusted with weapons from the Yakuza, and was eliminated when someone found out about it.

 

His father…was a criminal. And he didn't really know how long it had been going on.

A man who he had respected and looked up to all his life; the very same man who helped him forge his good-luck sword, had been betraying his trust for so long. He asked his mother how he became involved with the Yakuza, and he learned very little. All he could learn was that his father was only in the Yakuza because of an old friend.

 

Asuka had a similar thing happen to her: like Kenichi, her father had once been attacked by a martial artist. Only for her, she still had a father to go to afterwards. Kenichi was now left without a dad. Seeing Kenichi begin to waver, Asuka reminded him of the words that he had told her, and his revolve began to strengthen. He would find Raven, and make him tell just who was this “old friend,” that would entrust his father to become a weapons merchant.

 

From that point on, Asuka no longer saw him as Kenichi Masamune, her persistent rival in the martial arts. She saw him as Kenichi Masamune, a noble young man with a strong sense of right and wrong…and she liked what she saw. And that's when the truth dawned upon her: she had fallen in love with him. During her rematch with Feng Wei, Kenichi's words echoed through her head. When the fight was over she had not only won, but had made Feng Wei acknowledge her skills and bow in respect.

 

If not for him, I probably wouldn't have made it past the first round, she thought to herself as she turned off her computer and turned on the TV and picked up the phone, I guess this was just destiny: he wanted to see me strong enough to challenge him again, and here I am: sitting in a hotel room, wondering what our fate will be just beyond the next fight…

 

 

“It's difficult to believe the general would be interested in such an insignificant teenage girl,” Dragunov looked through his binoculars at his quarry in the hotel. He was currently lying on a neighboring rooftop with his trusted aide also looking at their target through his own pair of binoculars. Dragunov's train of thought was broken when he heard in a falsetto voice, “Hello oji-chan! How are you? You're not going to believe who my next oppon-“

 

“CORPORAL!!” Dragunov screamed at his youthful aide as his patience wore out. “What in God's name are you doing?”

 

“I'm reading her lips, sir,” the corporal replied in his normal voice, “this way we can know what she is saying. After all, you told me that I'll need every skill available on the battlefield.”

“Do you have to do it in that infernal voice?”

 

“…I apologize, sir. I did not know that it offended you.”

 

“Thank you,” Dragunov said coldly. While the 27-year-old Spetsnaz officer knew that his corporal was a bright young man, he couldn't help but find his innocent demeanor troublesome. “What did you find out about that name I asked for?” Dragunov looked to his aide, who put down his binoculars and walked over to his now-standing superior.

 

“Sir, Doren Sharon is widely considered the most skilled fighter in the Israeli Special Forces. He is also one of the lead negotiators in the Gaza Strip conflict. His fighting style is a combination of Krav Maga and Police Jujitsu,” the corporal gave Dragunov a dossier and he flipped through it until he found some pictures. One of them was of the Israeli fighting Nina Williams in a tournament that was dated three years ago (an interesting turn of events, he mused, as Nina was to be the Israeli's next opponent), and another was of him talking with another woman. It was this picture that caught Dragunov's interest. The young woman was incredibly lovely, with an impressive build that showed that she was obviously an athlete, and hair as white as snow.

 

The corporal looked at the picture that Dragunov was looking at and said, “The woman with him is Natasha Federov. She's a fighter from Moscow who uses Chinese martial arts. If you like, I can have the KGB pull up-“

 

“I know who Natasha is,” Dragunov interrupted as he gave the dossier and photos back to his underling. So that ring you wear on your finger is from Natasha, Dragunov mused to himself, what a tangled web we weave, lieutenant….