Despite the burst of energy fueled by his hatred of Gouki, Ken was tiring out quickly and he had yet to land a telling blow against the demon. Gouki had ducked and weaved, dodging most of Ken’s attacks, and adding those that actually landed to his own momentum, drawing Ken far away from his partner, Ryu, so that Ken could not help his friend.

Perhaps more importantly, Ryu could not come to Ken’s aid. Realistically, Ken knew that he had no chance against Gouki by himself, but his rash charge had taken away the opportunity to team up with Ryu. Now they fought their own battles.

Alone.

The demon had changed, he thought. Ken had caught a glimpse of him during the third Street Fighter tournament, or thought he had. Gouki’s hair was greying--there were white streaks running from his temples now...age was catching up to him, it seemed. But his power had not lessened; indeed, it had grown.

Ken decided to feign exhaustion before he collapsed for real. Placing his hands on his knees, Ken took ragged deep breaths. Gouki stopped as well, seeing that Ken had ceased to chase him. While Ken frantically reconstructed his chi, summoning up all of his reserves for the upcoming battle, Gouki looked around, back towards where they left Ryu and Sakura, cocking his ear as if to listen.

Satisfied, he turned back towards Ken. "This is as good a place as any to kill you," Gouki decided.

"Talking won’t get it done," blustered Ken, then he mentally cursed himself for his brash words. The more he stalled, the more chance he had to recover, to let Ryu finish off the girl and come help him...the more time he had to live.

"Hmmph." A single grunt of agreement from Gouki, and the awesome warrior began to raise the level of his chi. His eyes burned fiery red, and the air around him began to shimmer. Stomping the ground, he settled into a horse stance and flames leaped from his body. The ground began to shake, rippling waves of rock surfing towards Ken.

Finding that maintaining his footing was impossible with the ground rocking below him, Ken took to the air. Quickly covering the distance towards his foe, the young master threw out a series of punches as he landed, trying to find a hole in Gouki’s defenses. Sensing weakness, he readied a Shoryuken, but as he took off, Gouki pushed forward. With a deep growl, the demon shifted his weight while releasing his chi. Ken found himself propelled backwards by an inexorable force. Having relinquished his footing throwing out the "dragon punch," Ken could not stop himself from slamming hard into the mountain wall.

Before he could recover, Ken heard Gouki intone the word, "Messatsu." Eyes widening, Ken looked over towards Gouki, who still had not moved from his place. The demon had taken the wide horse stance once more, fists at his sides, shaking with pent-up power. They glowed fiercely, then Gouki brought them forward and together, releasing a huge wave of energy towards Ken.

Unable to counter, Ken crossed his arms in front of himself, exhaling with a loud, "Kiai!!"

The Messatsu Gou-Hadou hammered Ken through the mountain wall, triggering a rockslide. Soon, he was covered in a ton of debris.

By the time the dust had settled, Gouki was nowhere in sight. He was already heading towards his true destination, having taken care of the minor obstacle Ken presented.

He did not notice the quiet, cloaked figure who had watched their fight with detachment, but had noted Gouki’s departure with interest. He noticed with even greater interest that Gouki’s hair had turned almost completely white from despite the relatively minor chi expenditure during his battle with Ken.

Most interesting, indeed. The dark figure followed Gouki at a distance, determined to solve, and perhaps profit from, this mystery.

The sheer power of Sakura’s chi was not as frightening as its nature. Dark and foreboding, it raised painful memories in Ryu...and tempted him beyond endurance.

Struggling to repress his urges, Ryu set himself, an immovable bastion of serenity in the midst of Sakura’s storming chi.

Unable to batter Ryu into submission with her internal might, Sakura moved to the offensive, running full-out towards Ryu. At the last second before impact, she warped behind him, trying to cross him up. Her legs kicked out in a furious flurry, each aimed at a critical area, but Ryu calmly ducked the onslaught and took her legs out from under her.

Sakura fell to the ground but quickly rolled to her feet, her pride hurt more than her body.

Ryu stood his ground, determined not to let Sakura have the satisfaction of goading him into attacking her, but neither would he allow her to harm him. The effort that Sakura expended in calling upon the Dark Shotokan would soon exhaust her small body, or so he hoped.

He remembered the eager young girl that had followed him like his shadow during the Alpha tournaments, a girl who fought for the thrill of battle, never for greed or ambition. She had sought him out to be her teacher, to guide her in the path of Shotokan. And he had refused. In truth, Ryu was dealing with his own inner demons. He, too, had turned to the forbidden arts that Gouki practiced, in his quest for vengeance. But he had turned back towards the light, ending his vendetta and thus, the power that evil had over his soul.

Or was it over? As he looked at the evil etched upon the face of this young, bright girl, he cursed Gouki for having knocked the pedestal of innocence out from under her. Ryu sublimated the hatred, trying to maintain calm within his mind. Perhaps Sakura’s current fate was his own fault, for having failed to guide her. On her own, angry at his rejection, eager for attention, she would be drawn to Gouki like a moth to a flame.

And be burned to death.

Seeing that Ryu would not attack, Sakura cast about for some means of provoking him. Looking up at the cliffs above, she cried out enthusiastically, "Kill him, Gouki-sama!"

Ryu spun around, "Ken!"

Putting the true danger in his back.

Sakura delivered a short, spinal kick, sending Ryu reeling forward, then warped in front of him and sunk her foot into his stomach. A third, heel kick slammed into Ryu’s temple, spinning him around. Sakura propelled her Hadou-ken after the stunned Ryu, knocking him to the ground.

She pursued him, spinning low. Ryu saw this technique before and jumped up to save his legs from a battering assault of leg sweeps, but Sakura surprised him and launched into the air towards him, spinning around and around with her leg outstretched, kicking him multiple times, pounding him higher and higher into the air. As her momentum ran out, Sakura and Ryu hung over thirty feet in the air. She delivered the coup de grace double-fisted overhead onto the back of his neck and sent him hurtling to the ground, landing in a heap.

Even Ryu’s remarkable protective chi could not absorb all the blows of the Haru Ichiban. The neck strike had almost caused him to black out. Shaking his head, he tried to focus his vision. Ryu had seen that technique, as well, but it had been executed by Gouki in the third Street Fighter tournament. The Messatsu Gou Hasen was developed by that demon, but obviously Sakura had learned it and added her own touch to it.

As Sakura landed, Ryu struck, his fist aimed at her stomach. Sakura threw both hands down to block, but Ryu gave the punch an assist with his chi and lifted the girl into the air. Following after her, Ryu picked off her defending limbs with sharp jabs and kicks to the inside elbow and knee, backhanded her higher into the air with an elbow, but instead of following through with the punch after the elbow, pushed his other hand forward and executed the Shinkuu Hadou-ken.

Sakura fell into the blast, bounced off, fell back into it, and skipped multiple times off the surface of the Shinkuu Hadou-ken like a stone off of water. When she was far enough away that the attack’s power dissipated, Sakura landed heavily onto the ground. But as she stood up, she was smiling, in victory.

"Yes, fight me. Do not insult me by holding back, like you did that last time we fought," she spat out the words with the blood in her mouth. "I’m not a little girl anymore!"

A brilliant light flashed around her, and she leaped forward in a deadly stance. She caught Ryu and delivered a devastating series of punches and kicks to his vital points, a technique guaranteed to kill.

When she finished, Sakura was surprised to find Ryu still standing before her, seriously injured but hardly dead. Ryu had survived the deadly technique, but he obviously could not continue to absorb punishment and hope to wear Sakura down; Ryu would die long before that happened. Though he hesitated to strike the girl with killing force, Ryu had no choice but to do so now.

"That was your idea of full force?" he asked derisively. "I’ll show you full force!" He suddenly threw hard punch to Sakura’s jaw. As she reeled back, Ryu performed another Shinkuu Hadou-ken, and this time, Sakura received the entire power behind his blast.

This time, Sakura skipped off the ground long after the blast’s power faded. When she stopped bouncing, she lay on her back, unmoving.

Ryu walked up to her, bending down to one knee. "You have never killed before, have you? It’s not that easy...that Shun Goku Satsu could have killed me."

Sakura opened her eyes...and took his hand.

"I was wrong...Gouki never expected me to defeat you...I had no chance...he wanted you to kill me...while he killed your friend...release the rage within you. You are the student he wanted." Sakura began coughing violently. Ryu held her head higher so that she wouldn’t choke on her own blood.

"Go...save Ken-sama," Sakura managed to gasp. "Save...yourself." She collapsed.

"Sakura!" Ryu checked her breathing. It was uneven, her heartbeat was erratic. He quickly fed inner power to her temples. He joined her chi with his, gasping at the sudden strain. He pushed aside the dark chi still coursing through her blood, then focused on her heartbeat and breathing. Feeding power in time with his own heartbeat, Ryu forced her heart to beat with his, forced breath into her lungs. Soon, her heart was beating on its own at a regular pace, and her breathing became less labored.

Nearly exhausted by the chi transfer, Ryu rested a moment before following the path that Ken and Gouki had taken, leaving his past, his opponents, defeated but alive.

A deadly combination, he thought. Whatever happens, it ends here.

Hey, the action's just starting to heat up! Check out Scene Two!