Afterwards: The Fourth Tekken Novel

RefreshiGordo

Christie entered Eddy's office first and motioned for the two of them to enter.
"Sir, who is she?" Kiara asked Heihachi in a low voice.
"Eddy's girlfriend," Heihachi whispered and stepped in, holding the door open for her.
Eddy stood up and looked at Heihachi in surprise as he walked in.
"Who are you?" Eddy asked. "Are you his son? Did he have more?"
Heihachi sighed. "Yes, he did, but no. I'm not his son. He cloned himself."
Eddy scowled at that.
"Before you say anything, I'm actually here to apologise for whatever he did in the past because I'm not the same as him despite being his clone," Heihachi added. "I feel regretful for what he had done to a lot of people, including your parents, since I have his memories. I come in peace."
Eddy and Christie exchanged glances before the former motioned for Heihachi to take a seat. Heihachi turned to Kiara, who also motioned for him to take a seat, then shrugged and went towards the chair in front of Eddy's desk. Eddy sat down too, and so did Christie, but Kiara offered to stand and sip at her grape soda. She was still having so many questions with the clone business that Heihachi mentioned, but wasn't really bothered to ask them, at least not now.
Heihachi lowered himself to sit on the chair, but the chair ran away from him. He forgot that it was a rolling chair and didn't hold onto the armrests as he sat himself, causing the chair to move away from him instead of staying under him. It all happened so fast, and the next thing they knew, Heihachi was on the floor with his legs in the air.
"Master Heihachi, are you alright?" Kiara was the first to run to him.
Heihachi quickly stood up and turned to see where the chair had gone. To his surprise, it bumped into the large oak door that was at least fifteen metres away.
"I'm fine," Heihachi sighed, refusing to feel humiliated at this incident. He casually went to the chair and retrieved it before firmly holding onto the armrests, seating himself once again. Heihachi regarded Eddy, who was still in shock at whatever that just unfolded, then cleared his throat. "This incident will not leave this room." He turned to Kiara. "Don't tell anyone about this."
Kiara nodded, hiding a smirk. "Yessir."
Heihachi turned back to Eddy. "You were going to say something?"
Eddy stared at him in surprise. "Questions. Just lots and lots of questions."

Xiaoyu's woodworking session ended up turning into a gossip session.
"I feel like you should've just gone to see her," Alisa said, hugging one of Xiaoyu's pillows as she sat on the fluffy carpet. "Like she still did contact you."
"Then why didn't she just approach me when I was right in front of her in Sheralbon yesterday?" Shasha frowned, picking up the manual for the new bookshelf that Xiaoyu just bought. She stared at it and frowned. "Xiao, I can't read this. It's in Chinese."
Xiaoyu snorted. "I can read what it says, but that doesn't help me understand what's going on."
"Do you have a picture of the finished product?" Shasha sighed.
Xiaoyu nodded and took her phone out to search for it. Alisa was still more interested in Xiaoyu's funny looking pillow.
"Is this resembling a sunflower seed?" Alisa asked, smiling at the pillow.
Shasha snorted. "I think it is. We call it kuaci in my country."
"I just thought was funny, and it's also really comfy," Xiaoyu chuckled. "But yeah. How do we build this shelf?"
"You said you wanted to show us the finished product?" Alisa asked. "Do you want me to help access it?"
Xiaoyu shook her head. "No, thanks. I don't want you to hack my phone again."
Shasha wasn't even surprised that that was a thing. In the end, Xiaoyu sent them screenshots of the finished product from the online shop's page and the three of them stared at it for a few moments before resuming to build.
"Okay, I think I have a rough idea," Shasha said, scooting closer to the parts of the bookshelf. "Alright, let's start."
They started the base of it, creating a rough foundation, and they soon got the idea of the shelf.
"Did Ella contact you after the call?" Xiaoyu asked, holding onto one end of the wood that Shasha was screwing onto another. "Like, a text message?"
Shasha shook her head. "No. But she was online."
Alisa sighed, organising the rest of the pieces. "Friendships are so complicated."
"It's not supposed to be," Xiaoyu reminded. "Like, this isn't friendship at this point. Friendships aren't supposed to be one-sided."
"Yeah, I've tried so hard to contact her and she doesn't even want to contact me herself and used someone from her dad's company," Shasha sighed. "At this point, I don't know if it's just her being an introvert, being a coward, or just plain lunacy."
"Lunacy..." Alisa repeated the word. "It is defined as the state of being a lunatic."
Xiaoyu snorted. "Define lunatic, then."
Alisa shrugged. "A crazy person."
The other two girls burst into laughter.
"Okay, that's funny," Shasha chuckled. "I like how you didn't even try to go technical with that."
"Nothing to be technical about that, right?" Alisa smiled. "By the way, the two of you are supposed to work on one side first. Why are you guys screwing on the other side for the first piece?"
Shasha stopped short and pulled the other frame piece away. "Right... where's the second shelf?"
Alisa picked up a shorter piece and handed it to Xiaoyu.

Heihachi sipped on his orange soda as he left the building with Kiara. "You are to tell no one about what you just witnessed in the office," he said. "You understand?"
Kiara nodded. "Right, Sir. But I need to ask, what's with the clone business? You're a clone?"
"If I tell you, you won't tell anyone about what happened?" Heihachi asked, hinting at an agreement.
"Of course, Sir," Kiara smiled.
Heihachi's limousine arrived and the two got in. It was silent for a few moments, with Kiara just giving Heihachi an expectant look while he sipped his soda.
"Okay, here's the thing," Heihachi sighed. "Remember the Old Fart?"
"Your grandfather?" Kiara said, remembering the interactions of the night before.
Heihachi frowned. "He's not my grandfather. He was the one I was cloned from, the real Mishima Heihachi."
"Oh..." Kiara had no idea what to say.
"And those people that came over yesterday?" Heihachi added. "The guy that thought we were dating?"
"Yeah...?" Kiara inwardly groaned at that.
"He's the older Heihachi's son. He suffered a lot growing up with him, the Old Fart wasn't a very nice guy to begin with."
"Oh..."
"So yeah, you know my backstory," Heihachi finished the last of his soda and placed the glass bottle down on the cup holder in front of him, then regarded her for a moment. "So, any reactions?"
Kiara shrugged. "Nah, I don't find this surprising in the least. My previous boss was involved in some pretty shady stuff as well."
"Like what?" Heihachi asked.
"Organised crime, money laundering, counterfeit money," Kiara said. "Remember I said he moved to a different country? Yeah, he's not coming back since he landed in their jail."
Heihachi snorted. "Oh, well..."
"He was into some science things too, not cloning, but was involved in some illegal test subjects," Kiara continued. "Most of them were killed."
"Sounds familiar," Heihachi shrugged. "The Old Fart was involved with things like that too. This ain't a secret, by the way, the whole world is familiar with this. I'm actually surprised that you haven't heard of all of this."
Kiara shrugged. "I don't follow up with trends and gossips for the most part." She looked out the window for a second before turning back to him. "Where are we off to now?"
Heihachi smirked. "The Mishima Zaibatsu."