Chapter 1 – Your Father

Yakushima, a southern island of Japan and a place of tranquility in nature. Home to a woman named Jun Kazama, and her son Jin. Jin was 15 years old and had just entered their small house, returning from his day at school.

“I’m home!” he declared as he entered, removing his shoes in the foyer.

“Welcome home!” Jun replied.

He entered the living room area where she sat on the floor by a small table, sipping on her tea. He saw that she had another cup ready and waiting for him to join her. On the table was a manila folder and two red gloves with a pyramid of silver notches over the back of the hand.

“What’s going on?” he asked, sensing immediately that they were about to have a serious conversation…one that did not bode well with him at all.

“Please…sit,” she directed him, gesturing that he sit across from her. “I have many things to tell you.”

He obeyed, crossing his legs as he sat on the floor.

She took a deep breath. “Your father was a man named Kazuya Mishima,” she began, pausing to meet Jin’s eyes and see his reaction. She had never told him his father’s name, only that the man had died before she had given birth to Jin.

Jin furrowed his brow. “Mishima?” He knew that surname; all of Japan, well the world even, did. The Mishima Zaibatsu was a powerful conglomerate run by an older man named Heihachi Mishima.

She nodded. “Yes…he was Heihachi Mishima’s son.”

Jin’s eyes widened. “What?” he asked in disbelief, having thought it more likely the name was merely coincidence and not actually related to that Mishima at all.

Jun bit her lip. Perhaps she had started it out all wrong. He almost seemed angry at her with this news.

She opened the folder that she had strewn on the table and revealed a photo of Kazuya Mishima, along with a file about him.

Jin looked at the picture. If anyone would be his father, it was certainly this man. Jin’s  hair had a unique way of sticking up on its end in the back. He had obviously inherited the trait from Kazuya as well his unusually bushy eyebrows. He examined the file. “What is this?”

“When I met your father, he was the head of the Mishima Zaibatsu at that time. The organization used to sponsor a tournament…The King of Iron Fist Tournament…but they were also involved in many suspicious activities. I entered to investigate Kazuya’s doings when I worked for the WWWC…we believed he was smuggling animals.”

Jin’s mouth gaped open a little in surprise at the things she was saying. He was getting the feeling that having Kazuya as a father was a bad thing. “Was he?” Jin finally asked.

Jun nodded, “Yes, but that’s not important in what I’m about to tell you, Jin. There are much other, stronger forces at work that I must warn you of.”

He could only stare back at her with his puzzled look.

“Your father was a very powerful man, and I don’t just mean that he was the Mishima Zaibatsu’s leader…I mean, he had a strong, unnatural power that stemmed from a being called a ‘Devil’ that was inside him.”

“Devil?” A knot formed in Jin’s stomach as he repeated the word. He did not like the sound of that at all. Wasn’t “devil” the English term for an “akuma”?

“Jin…I cannot explain it all to you because I didn’t understand it myself. But I was drawn to Kazuya quite beyond my comprehension and control by a mystic force.”

This surprised Jin very much. His mother had always showed amazing patience and control in taking care of him and teaching him everything she knew. She herself showed that she had general psychic powers and an amazing connection to the nature they lived in. She had instilled into him that self-discipline was crucial. The idea that something else could have controlled her to do something was quite foreign to him.

“Mystic force? The Devil inside him?” he asked, worried.

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think that was it. I think it was something else.”

Jin wondered but decided not to press further on the matter, waiting to hear the rest.

“Even so…the Devil was inside him during our time together when you were conceived.”

Jin gulped. “Am I…?”

She took a deep breath, and he could tell by the look in her eyes that he would simply have to sit tight. “Not long after, Kazuya died. After his death, the Devil came to me, wanting to enter the womb. I was able to ward it off and protect you.”

Jin kept his eyes fixated on his mother…she would not be this weary if things simply ended there.

“I do not know what happened to the devil after our encounter; it disappeared, and I have not sensed its presence ever since that day,” she said.

Jin was nervous at these words. At the back of his mind, he could distantly sense what this meant. It’s still out there. It still wants you. He blinked…that was nonsense. The Devil would have had plenty of opportunities to come after him during these 15 years. He wandered off alone all the time. His mother had just said she had never sensed it in all that time.

“Jin…” Jun said, pulling him back to their conversation from his drifting thoughts. “I am telling you these things because I can sense that something terrible is coming. It’s not the Devil but something else. Whatever it is…something might happen to me. And if something happens, I want you to go to your grandfather, Heihachi Mishima.”

“What do you mean…what might happen?” he asked even though he knew full well what she meant.

“I might die,” she said pointedly.

“No…” was all he could muster in a whisper. Then, “No Mom…we can fight it! We’re strong! You beat the Devil, I’m sure you can beat this thing too!”

She smiled sadly. “Jin, I’m touched that you have such faith in us, but…I fear that it may be my destiny.”

“Destiny?” he asked incredulously.

“Do not make that face, Jin. Your very birth is a result of destiny. You are mine and Kazuya’s child of destiny.”

“You make it sound like I should be happy to be called that…that it’s special, but you just told me I’m the son of a Devil!” he stood up as he spoke and started pacing around the room.

“No, Jin…you are the son of Kazuya Mishima. He may have had a Devil inside him, but he was also Kazuya, just as you are Jin. Do you understand?”

Jin shook his head. “No! No, I don’t understand at all!” he yelled.

“Jin, look at me…listen to me…” she pleaded.

He looked at her.

“You are a good young man. You are my son. You are Kazuya Mishima’s son. You are not the Devil’s son…that being is not your father. You must make a distinction between the Devil and Kazuya and recognize who your true father is. And you are special.”

He hung his head sadly and conceded. “Alright, Mother…I am the son of Kazuya Mishima…not a Devil.”

“Good…now these gloves you see here used to belong to Kazuya. I am passing them onto you.”

Jin looked at the red and black gloves that had caught his eyes when he first saw the table. He picked them up and tried them on; they were comfortable…suitable even. He wondered what sort of man Kazuya Mishima had been.

His mother had not spoken ill of Kazuya directly; if anything, she defended that he was different from the Devil. Perhaps the suspicious activities he had done were done under the Devil’s influence? “Mother, what was my father like, apart from the Devil?” Jin asked.

“He was…always focused, intent, and confident. He was a proud man. He was quiet and distant, but not as far as he’d lead you to believe he was…” she smiled sadly. “You have some of those traits as well, Jin.”

Jin blinked curiously. “Which ones?”

Jun smiled sweetly now. “I’ll let you think on those yourself.”

Their discussion ended there.