Night. Precisely three o’clock AM. Ken was sleeping in his bed, peacefully, silently,
still. Yet, his brow was soaked with the prespiration of the fever, his body trembled in the
violent chills he experienced. The screaming would begin soon enough; they were the end result
of what Bison had done to him that he dared not tell Ryu.
His dream was a turbulent one. A tall, muscular man walked towards him, his eyes
covered by the shadow of his red cap. A cape of navy blue swept out from behind him, and
everything came together in a wave of blood when his fingertips caressed Ken’s face. Ken
didn’t like Bison’s hands; those big, sandpaper mitts that abused his body with their
roughness.
A low, pleading moan escaped his slightly parted lips. Ryu woke with a start from his
slumber in the armchair he had pulled close to Ken’s bed. Reaching down into the bucket at his
feet, he braved the icy water and retrieved a washcloth. Placing it on Ken’s forehead, he soothed
the fever, if only momentarily. The red circles around his friend’s eyes looked especially painful
from the hot tears that spilled over and trickled down the high cheekbones before shattering on
the pillow.
“Ken, wake up!” He shook his friend gently, but there was an element of dispair and
urgency. “Ken! Come on!” Ryu cried out. Ken’s eyelashes fluttered before rising to half-mast.
They were a soft brown, the color of an oak tree’s bark. Yet the irises held a greater
understanding of life and what power it held. Now, even that spark was gone, torn from him by
a madman possessed on world domination. Ryu loathed Bison for taking that fire, that energy,
that look that reassured him of Ken’s eternal friendship.
“Ryu.....,” his voice was a hoarse, rasping whisper that was barely audible to the stronger
man’s ears. “It hurts.....so much.....” He shook even as he exerted himself to utter that many
words. “Bison said if he couldn’t have me...you couldn’t either. He infected my body with
something....”
“Shhh....you’ll be fine, Ken. Just stay with me.” He stood up then sat next to Ken on the
vast bed. Gently pulling him up, he secured his friend in his arms, feeling the clammy flesh and
momentarily sharing Ken’s pain. The fever made him colder still, as his head rested on Ryu’s
shoulder. “I promise nothing will happen to you, Ken,” he breathed.
Ken enjoyed Ryu’s comforting embrace; the strong arms that made him feel secure
whenever he was in them. “Ryu, you were always the stronger one of us,” he thought to himself.
“Now I know it’s true.” He snuggled closer against Ryu’s warm chest and listened to his steady
heartbeat. “Even your heart is strong. I can hear it’s quiet energy,” his mind was slowly shutting
itself down, back into sleep.
Ryu felt Ken’s long, soft hair against his neck. It’s red-blond tendrils slid down his back
and rippled over the muscles before stopping and hanging there. Ken had ceased tying it back as
the virus weakened him progressively. He couldn’t do much of anything these days, as his
system was wracked with suffering. Ryu remembered all the doctors and specialists he had
taken him too:
“It seems his blood is turning into battery acid.”
“He has a twenty per cent recovery.”
“It’s a miracle he’s alive.”
“He’ll be dead by morning.”
“He’ll be dead by morning,” thought Ryu as he hugged Ken closer to his body.
“Ken, promise me you won’t die.”
“I won’t. Gotta stay here, for you,” came the soft voice. “For now, just hold me, okay?”
Asked Ken.
“No problem,” came the reply. “Anything for you. For now, just rest.”
Ryu pulled the blanket around Ken and held his fragile body. Ken moved in closer to
Ryu’s warm chest before falling asleep. He himself began to doze and had fractured dreams of
his partner before suddenly feeling the presence of another in the room.
Awakening, he gently lay Ken’s body back on the bed and stood up. Leaving the room,
Ryu walked out the front door and into the vast yard; making his way up the path to the huge
fountain.
“I’ve come, Hoshi Ryu, as you have requested,” came the female voice.
“Arigato, Chun-Li. We require your computer hacking expertise.”
“I am at your disposal, Ryu. What do you need me to break into for you, big man?”
“Shadowloo’s medical database. It’s for Ken....Bison injected him with some sort of
prototype virus and his chances for survival don’t look good. Shadowloo must have a cure, or at
least something we can use to make an antidote. I’ve got to save Ken....without him, I’m..” Ryu
felt his own tears welling up. “I can’t live without him, Chun-Li. He’s everything.”
“I understand. We better get right to it then,” resolved his friend and opponent. “I’ll do
everything I can for him. In the meantime, you go get some sleep. You look awful from taking
care of Masters-kun for so long,” she replied. Her voice couldn’t stop wavering either. She
knew what it meant to lose someone that close...her own father, Dohrai, was silenced when he
refused to pay the “protection tax” Bison tried to impose on his village.
“Come inside, then.”
They mounted the stairs together, and entered Ken’s room. Ken was sleeping peacefully,
even though his organ systems felt like they were liquidating. Steering her to a side door, he
turned on a light and exposed the most expensive, most powerful workstation one could buy.
“I never knew he was this rich,” said Chun-Li as her eyes widened to saucer-size
when she saw the machine. “Just give me a cup of coffee and three hours,” she said. “And I’ll
have the antidote and some of Bison’s funds wired to my account. Hee, hee! Good Guys: 1, Bad
Guys: 0! And Ryu? Get to bed!”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Good boy.”
Chun-Li set to work, dialing up into Interpol’s server and downloading some of her own
hacking tools from her computer. Installing them on Ken’s server was a matter of minutes
before she managed to find the criminal infobahn. Dialoguing through several pipelines, she
stumbled upon a backdoor into Shadowloo’s mainframe.
“Bingo! Now all I have to do is break into the medical records and we’re all set,” she
thought gleefully as her fingers played Chopin on the keyboard.
In the meantime, Ryu was pacing nervously about the room, completely ignoring Chun-
Li’s order. His eyes riveted on Ken, who was still asleep. He hadn’t reached the fever dreams,
yet, as he still felt he was in his lover’s arms.
“Ken, I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you from Bison,” he thought. Suddenly, Ryu felt
the need to grasp Ken close to him, and never let him go. He looked so vulnerable, so
defenseless, even though he could easily match his partner’s power level.
“Ryu! Come quick! I think I found something,” came Chun-Li’s sing-song interjection.
“Ha ha ha! Yetta!” She jumped up and down like she did the first time she beat Bison into
knockout. Only she, Ryu, and Ken, were able to master that feat; they posed the greatest threat
to Shadowloo.
“What is it, Chun-Li? Did you find a cure?” The hope in Ryu’s voice echoed throughout
Ken’s set of suites. “Is Ken going to be all right, now?” His large, dark eyes were transfixed on
her hazelnut irises. “Come on, out with it?”
“Or what? You’ll Shinku-Hadouken me?” She taunted. Her smile soon turned poker-
face, as she could see Ryu’s spirit energy collecting around his hands to form a small blue ball.
She lowered her voice to seriousness tinged with sympathy. “I know how it feels to lose
someone,” she thought. “I’m not going to see Ryu made unhappy if Ken dies.”
“This means a lot to you, doesn’t it, Hoshi Ryu?” She approached him and enveloped
him in strong embrace, for her small frame paled in comparison to his. Many of her past
opponents underestimated this quality and failed to compensate for her speed and strength.
“Yes. If I lose Ken....I lose more than my best friend. I lose my love, my hope, and my
dreams in one blow to that bastard Bison,” he spoke in monotone, yet it wavered with sadness
and the energy of one who hasn’t slept for the past few days.
“We won’t lose him, I swear it!” She was so determined all of a sudden, to make sure
that her friend’s love wouldn’t be shatterered by some wannabe dictator. “Which is why I am
going to tell you that I found a cure for Ken....somewhat anyway.”
“Somewhat?”
“Somewhat in that the formula for the cure isn’t in their record banks. But, the database
does say which person holds the key to the antidote. You’ll never guess who that is!”
“Who! Tell me, Chun-Li!” Ryu’s voice emoted his anticipation at the person who held
the supposed “miracle cure” was. Instantly, members of Shadowloo, names and faces, flooded
through his mind. “Balrog? No, he’s been imprisoned for drug trafficing. Vega, nahh. He’s too
busy licking his wounds from when Blanka bit his face off. Sagat...can’t be...man’s dead.”
As if reading his mind, Chun-Li’s eyes widened. Her whole person seemed to swell to
balloon proportions. She was ready to burst. “You’re no better than Sakura, but what the hell,
girl, you can only be young once!” She thought.
“Ryu, it’s Cammy, and she’s only eighteen. Younger than Sakura!”
“Who is Cammy?” His perplexed expression caused Chun-Li to gasp and then giggle.
“She worked with Guile a few years ago, then she was captured by Bison and
brainwashed. But if I know Cammy, we can help her and Mr. Masters!”
“Domo arigato, Chun-Li,” he bowed with all of his humility. “For everything you’ve
done for me and for Ken. Things will start looking better soon!”
“I am happy I was able to help you, Ryu. I’d better get some sleep if we’re going to go
after Shadowloo tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” His voice was shocked, appalled, and yet he knew it was either tomorrow
or never.
“Yes. Shadowloo also documented that its Headquarters were to be moved to an island
off the coast of Tahiti. Did I forget to tell you that?”
“Uh-huh.”
Meanwhile, in the adjacent room, Ken stirred and the moaning that bordered on shreiking
began. The familiar thrashing of the bedclothes and the sudden, inexplicable shattering of a
glass lamp signaled that Ryu needed to be at his lover’s side.
Sprinting into the bedroom, Ryu caught sight of the damage incurred. “More than last
time,” he thought as he carefully maneauvered his bare feet around the glass shards. Ken was
lying on his side, so that his forearms were invisible to his friend. But the dark, red stain on the
white sheets wasn’t. Leaping onto the bed with a strength that rivaled that of Akuma’s, Ryu
collapsed to both knees and took Ken’s profusely bleeding arm into his lap. The red, sticky fluid
made lotus-flower patterns on his white gi.
“This is not very good! Ken, are you all right? Dammit, Ken! Wake up!!” Shouted Ryu,
who was, at this point, nervous as hell. “Damn,” he thought. “If I can’t wake him up, I can’t
stop this bleeding.” “Come on, Ken!” Gently, but firmly, he slapped his lover’s face. The light
brown eyes snapped open and regarded him curiously.
“Ryu....? My arm....the pain,” he rasped cautiously. He could feel his life’s river
diverted out of his arm. “Slowly dripping away,” Ken sighed. “Towards that light...”
“No! Don’t go there!”
“I gotta.”
“If you go, I can’t bring you back.”
“Would that be so bad? I’ve been nothing but a burden to your dream of becoming a
Shotokan master.....,” the blood-tears commenced to spill out of his eyes.
“If you left me........I would have nothing,” Ryu himself was now moved to tears.
“Please, Ken. Don’t leave me here alone.”
“My arm....what happened?” He asked, cautiously peering at the six inch chunk of
Austrian crystal embedded in his flesh. “It hurts...more than this damn virus.”
“Ryu? I heard a shout. What’s going on? Oh my God!” Shrieked Chun-Li as she
entered the room. The blood had now tinctured the sheets a dark color, the color of a wilted
rose, blackened from water deprivation. “What happened to his arm?” She stared at the
motionless limb and the piece of glass that rose up from it like a flag of distress.
“He cut himself during one of his convulsions. Did you bring your field medecine kit?”
Ryu was desperate to stop Ken from bleeding out through the gash in his veins.
“Yeah...lemme go get it,” she spoke quickly as she sprinted down the hall, her voice
echoing throughout the antichambers. In a flash, she returned with a small backpack that had a
large red cross sewn on the back.
“Okay! Ken, I’m going to need you to stay with me.” His blank eyes looked up at her in
near-defeat. “I want you to grab ahold of Ryu, and grit your teeth while looking away from your
arm. Because when I pull that shard out, it’s going to hurt a lot. On three. Ready?” His pale
face nodded. “One....two....three....NOW!” Her delicate hands, encased in sterile gloves, yanked
the shard out. A small fountain of blood bubbled up from the open gash, before running down
Ken’s forearm, further soaking the sheets with the essence of life.
Moving rapidly, Chun-Li cleaned out the gash, sutured it, before wrapping it in a gauze.
“There, it should hold. The laceration wasn’t deep enough to warrant an ambulance, but I want
you to stay with him just in case he starts feeling cold. Okay, Ryu?”
His only
response was a thankful nod of his head.
“I’m going to sleep in the adjoining room. I’m dead tired from that red-eye from Hong
Kong. Wake me up if you need anything at all. Good night, my friend.”
He got up and embraced her. She could hear his jagged, uneven breath; could feel the
hot splashes of relief on her shoulder. “Good night, Chun-Li. And thank you....for everything.”
Ten minutes later, the light in the connecting room went out, and Ryu decided it was
time to stop pacing. Ken was breathing steadily now, so there was no need to obssess over his
injury. Yawning softly, he stretched his arms before sinking into the fresh sheets next to Ken,
who promptly rolled over and snaked his arm around his friend’s muscular chest.
“Ken...you awake?” He whispered, tentatively.
“Uhhh....yeah....,” the eyes responded, locking onto Ryu’s own pupils.
“How are you feeling?”
“Sleepy.....but I’m not going to die on you. You were the one who saw Sensei Gouken’s
neck snapped by Akuma; you don’t need to lose another person you love,” came the reply.
“For me?” Ryu asked. “Why me?”
“Because....I loved you since that day we met eight years ago. I’m not going to let you
go, and I know you would do the same for me. That’s what keeps me living....you.”
Ryu wrapped his arms tenderly around Ken’s frail body and drew him close. “But
forever...me protect you. Now, sleep. You’re going to need your strength tomorrow. We’re
going off against Bison,” he whispered.
Ken trembled. He always did since his imprisonment on that stinky jungle outpost in
Thailand. “How can he be so insensitive,” he thought as Ryu’s embrace grew tighter, more
possessive. Snuggling against the warm, rippled flesh which surrounded him, Ken leaned his
head on his lover’s shoulder and planted a small kiss right above the jugular.
“Your arms make me feel secure.....don’t ever let me go,” he said as he drifted off into a
very deep slumber.
That morning, Ryu Hoshi was dreaming. He remembered the one technique that Gouken
hadn’t taught to Ken, but had instructed Ryu in. The “healing wind”, which would relieve its
target of the pain of his injuries.
“Hoshi Ryu, this technique is very ancient and can only be executed in one’s slumber,
because of its age. It was once very potent and served both the executor and the executed quite
well. However, if you use it, you will sleep for one day, as it uses your very chi to enact a hyper-
healing.”
“Should I teach this to the new American student?”
“No. He is too young,
to inexperienced. Ken Masters is very strong, but his control over his inner energies is still in a
state of flux. Were he to use it, a coma would be the probable outcome.”
“Very well then, Sensei. I will keep this technique secret until instructed otherwise. I
swear to use it only in the most urgent of situations.”
“You have learned well, Hoshi Ryu. Now, to execute this technique, stretch a single
piece of string over your heart and let your arrow fly. Your energy arrow will pierce the afflicted
and restore him using your energies.”
In his sleep, Ryu was running after Ken during a routine practice run. For some reason,
the flaxen-haired young man was beating him in the obstacle course.
“You won’t catch me!”
“We’ll see about that.”
One man tackled the other and pinned him. Looking into his eyes, beyond the confines
of the astral plane, the realization of what must be done hit him like a bolt on high. Ken seemed
so tired, so beaten, so desperate that Ryu couldn’t help but love him. The desire to protect this
love was so vital, so natural, that he involuntarily took his bow, and fired the arrow right into
Ken’s precious heart.
“Hadou-healing!” The arrow screamed into the organ and flooded it with a blue essence,
a pure energy construct. At the same time, the archer was writhing in extreme pain.
It was ten AM when Ken woke from his sleep, feeling renewed, energized, and clean.
His gash had completely healed, but he still felt the virus lurking within him, remissive, but still
present. Tears came to his eyes when they met Ryu’s figure, sleeping so still that it appeared he
was barely breathing. “No one has ever done that for me before......has given up his day’s energy
so that I could get better,” he thought as the tears dripped off his cheekbones. Leaning down and
securing Ryu’s body in his own, he kissed the man’s lips tenderly before falling asleep himself.
“Domo arigato, Ryu-san. Thank you for this gift.”
Wrapping his lover’s arms around his own waist, Ken moved closer to the muscled, taut
flesh next to him. The steady heartbeat served as the perfect rythmn between the two, a bond
that was yet to be tested to its very limits.