Ai No Message
By: Seiya Kou and Silver Rayne

Part 5

- Seiya Kou

06.01.99

"Ken, I'm sorry I let you down," Ryu brooded as he stood in the place where Bison had vanished with his lover. "I couldn't protect you...I'm so sorry!" Rare was a time that Ryu wept for any reason. This was different, though. His mortal enemy had just reclaimed the other Shotokan master again, with a finality that caused the sobs to get caught in his windpipe. Forcing them down, Ryu emitted a bunch of choking sounds. Suddenly, he felt his own arms encircling his chest, and his heavily-muscled frame hit the steel floor.

"Ryu!" Shouted Chun Li, who was busy trying to revive Cammy with little success. It was obvious that the girl was near-death, and yet, something within her brainwashed shell clung to life with a desperation unknown to this universe. "Are you okay?" She questioned as she knelt down beside her fallen comrade, whose sobbing had caused him to fall on all fours; his body trembled mightily.

"Ken....oh, God.....Ken...."

"Shh....It'll be all right. Ken can take care of himself, now that Bison's mind control over him is broken."

"No..that's not it..."

"What is it then?" Chun Li tried very hard not to allow her anger into her tone. She was clearly frustrated over the events of these last two days: that endless corridor wandering with no bathroom and a former M-16 special operatives agent leading her around a metal infrastructre whose routes her newly-cleared mind had difficulty recognizing.

"When I was in Ken's mind, repairing what Bison had done," his sentence was cut off by his sudden intake of breath. "I realized then, that Ken will never be free from Bison's mind control. That bastard buried a psychic spike deep within Ken's very soul...even if we were to defeat him, the consequent psi-backlash would wipe him out." The tears fell quietly now; gently streaking their beautiful agony across Ryu's quivering skin.

"Not so! I will not allow Bison to do this to you again, Hoshi Ryu!"

Chun Li and Ryu looked over simultaneously to see a young M-16 agent standing on wobbling legs, holding the back of her head as if the only injury she's received was a migraine at being slammed into a titanium-strength wall.

"Holy shit!" Chun Li swore as her brown irises caught sight of the full extent of the curative powers welded so closely to Cammy's DNA structure. "How is such a thing possible?"

"I told you before, Chun Li, my genes have been......reorganized by the Psycho Drive's power. I cannot die of disease or injury, unless the virus was ebola or the trauma was dismemberment.....ohhh!" She clutched the sides of her skull as if her mind had exploded.

"Cammy!" Shouted Ryu. "Are you okay?!" "Don't let her die now," he pleaded silently as her cries grew louder. "She's our last hope for Ken's life."

"I'm fine, Ryu. But I can't say the same for Ken," her voice was wavering at the thought that her failure in defeating Bison the first time would have eternally broken the bond of the heart that bound both Ryu and Ken together forever.

"How do you mean?" His hands took hold of Cammy's shoulders, pulling her close. Her clear, aqua-colored eyes regarded the tears that so steadily dripped out of his dark brown irises. Wiping them away, she whispered in a very small voice: "human emotion". Then, she started to cry as well. "Cammy?"

"Ryu...I've been deprived of emotional stimulus for the last five months...I'm sorry...Ken's predicament elicited this response in me too soon."

"Go on," coaxed Chun Li as she produced a small handkercheif. "I can't believe I'm actually sympathizing with this Shadowloo ex-mind slave," her mind raced as she dried Cammy's face. "You have to speak now, Cammy. If you don't, Ken's life is forfeit."

"Bison is going to re-infect Ken with the Taisen virus....only it's different this time. He's modified the illness in such a way that my blood may not be able to help him....Ryu....I'm not sure if I can save him! And if I can't, then I'm at fault for allowing myself to become part of Shadowloo all over again...I broke your love....your precious love for each other..," she whimpered as she felt her body pitch forward in a dead faint.

"Oh terrific!" Exclaimed Chun Li, throwing up her hands in disgust. Withdrawing a small syringe from the folds of her Wushu uniform, she injected the unconscious Cammy with a miniscule dosage of adrenaline. The girl sprang to life with a loud gasp, coughed, then glared resolutely beyond Ryu's shoulder. "Come on, Cammy! Let's get those Shadowloo bastards once and for all!" Turning to Ryu, she winked. "Let's get them...for Ken!"

"I'm way ahead of you, Chun Li!" Ryu shouted as he sprinted deeper into the dark corridor ahead of him.

"Cammy? You okay?" She received a nod in response. "Okay then, let's be off!" The trio proceeded deeper and deeper into the entrails of the metallic structure, and into an uncertain future.

"I'm sorry, my dark prince, that it had to come down to this," said Bison as he filled a rather large syringe with a glowing violet liquid. "But these times have been rather difficult on the both of us, and I need your cooperation at all times."

Ken only moaned, as Bison had psionically cut him off from his ability of speech. He was in agony, as his tormentor had been upsetting the harmony Ryu had just set in his mind; making it a dark wasteland of chaos. Vague swirls of memories stabbed his neocortex with such vengeance; as if they were unsure if they were welcome in their former home.

"Ken, I'll always be here for you."

"Yetta, Masters-kun! We did it!"

"I love you, Ken."

"Love you too, Ryu."

"From now on, your soul and body are mine, Ken Masters. You will become my dark prince; my kingpin in tearing Ryu Hoshi's heart to ribbons for his transgression. I've had to go through enough agony cloning my former body; and just when I have it perfect, HE comes along and burns it up with his Shinkuu-Hadouken. No matter, now, though. You're mine....forever."

"Never! Only Ryu!"

"Forget him, and embrace your inner desire for evil."

Ken reacted violently to the chemicals that were just injected into the vein in his neck. His body shook with frightening tremors, the sweat on his brow dripped steadily, his whimpering grew progressively louder as his immune system tried to fight off the Taisen agent.

"Fight all you like, Masters-kun, in the end, you will be mine!" Bison's hideous cackle reverberated around the small lab as he forced a sizeable psycho-spike into his captive's mind, bending his will backwards to his master's.

When Ken awoke ten minutes later, he was not the same. His mind had been soundly thrashed by the combined effects of the Taisen virus and the rape suffered at the hands of Bison's Psycho power. He raised his eyes to Bison's own irisless circles of hatred; and studied them with the pupiless eyes bestowed upon him by his maker.

"Shh, Ken. You're in great pain, right?"

"Yes."

"And you would like this pain to go away, correct."

"Yes."

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, master Bison."

"Very good. Ryu and those two infernal little Interpol mucks prevent the pain from going away. Destroy them! Break them! Hate them!"

"Destroy, break, hate."

"Yes!"

"Kill Ryu...?" The voice was uncertain, as if for a moment the gelatinous mass between his temples regained its solidarity and autonomy. "Kill....Ryu?....Ryu?"

"Yes, my pet. And his pretty friends."

"Reviewing directives: terminate life functions of Hoshi, Ryu; White, Cammy; and pretty friend, Chun Li."

"Correct, but before you execute these orders, come here."

Ken's body willingly obeyed, for it had no other choice. Bison telekinetically released the straps binding his dark prince's frame and hauled it over to sit on his lap. Snaking his large mitt of a hand towards the lower anatomy of Ken's cock, he stroked it roughly, bringing it to full erection. At the same time, Bison experienced a stirring in his own loins, and Ken was momentarily lifted as his master's pants were removed to provide easier access for what his passions demanded he do.

As if sensing this, Ken swiveled around, leaned into the pungent smell of Bison's flesh, and wrapped his arms around the thick neck of his master. "I want this...now!" Shouted the dictator as he forced himself up his prisoner's constricted anal passageway without the aid of a lubricant.

Ken Masters cried out, but his scream was silent. Internal. As the blood poured out of the small cuts of his insides and mingled with the semen forced into him by his lover, Ken's mind conjured an image. The image of a tall, muscular man with a red headband tied around his forehead. The man was smiling, holding his arms out, calling his name with such warmth, to share this embrace. And Ken could feel this aura of sheer love enveloping him with the gentle heat of security and promises that would never be broken.

Then Bison began his second assault deeper within his semi-conscious prisoner.

"Ken, there is so much unexplored tightness and fire that Ryu experienced. It, and everything else you've dared to call your own, are now mine."

"Yes, master Bison."

"Good. This may hurt." Tilting Ken back at a forty-five degree angle, and shifting his legs so that they were on top of his prey's, Bison gave one mighty thrust into the furnace of his body, not caring what flesh he was ripping as he was propelled by his lust to destroy his lover's virginity once and for all; to violate Ryu's claim to Ken's many years of self-preservation.

Climaxing violently, the internal crimson blood mingled with the white fluid, tinting it a brilliant rose color as it steadily dripped from Ken's body.

"A rose," he thought as his body finally short-circuited from the sheer agony of having a thick and menacing instrument being relentlessly driven inside of him as far as possible. "A red rose..."

Meanwhile, in Italy, a red rose of beauty and power beyond comprehension heard a cry for help slice through the astral plane of the mind, before being silenced by a flash of Psycho powers that had increased since they were last observed.

Calmly placing down her cup of tea, Rose stood silently and faced the setting sun, her soul powers pointing her violet eyes of intrigue and mystery towards Tahiti and destiny.

"Madame Rose?" Asked her butler, who had the dark skin and thick build of someone native to Milan. "Is there anything else I may bring for you?"

"Yes," she replied, her voice devoid of the fear she felt inside. "Get me a ticket to Tahiti. The flight must be departing in about fifteen minutes. I don't care if there aren't any aircraft going there; just explain to them that money is no object and if necessary, I shall pilot the plane myself."

"As you wish, Madame."

Five minutes later, Rose boarded a 747 airplane which was headed directly for the coast of Tahiti. Three hours before the craft was supposed to land, she looked out at the sunset and lavender clouds she had admired from her villa in Florence.

"Wherever you go, Master Bison, I will follow to banish your psycho powers once and for all. You've played God with too many lives; you have abused the vast powers of the mind, and you have destroyed the love of two who were destined since creation to be locked together in eternal embrace. For these transgressions and crimes, you will be punished." Withdrawing the card of Temperance from her Tarot deck, she caressed it with her soul powers until she understood the situation as well as the three who were racing through the tunnels in Bison's hidden outpost.

"Keep fighting, my friends, your dilligence does not go unrequited. Fear not, I will join you shortly, to mend the broken and to destroy the evil which caused your agony."

"Ryu! We're.....going.....to have....to look.....much harder than this," begged Chun Li as she grabbed a metal railing for support.

"She's right...it would be advisable that we split up and search independantly," sighed Cammy as she slumped down against a concrete wall and hugged her kness to her chest.

"No! We must stay together, especially if we come across Bison and his powers."

"Or me," came a familiar voice as a shadow became a silhoutte against a background of dusky distance.

"Who's there?!" Shouted Chun Li as she whipped out her magnums. Tossing one to Cammy, she kept her eye on the target that stood fifty meters away from the gun barrel. "I'm warning you! If you don't show yourself by the count of three, my good friend Cammy here, fastest shot in the M-16, will pump your body full of lead casings!"

"And of couse, the lovely and talented Chun Li with her tazer, both directly from Southern China." Mimicking a southern American accent, Cammy continued to taunt her invisible opponent. "The jade of the east would love to deep fry your ass.....southern style!"

"Cammy! Chun Li! Don't!" Shouted Ryu as they cocked their firearms in unison.

"Yes, don't, girls. You wouldn't want to plug Ryu's lover, now would you?"

Out from the shadows stepped Ken, or what had once been the man Ryu loved with all his heart. This Ken made Akuma look as tame as Dan Hibiki, the self proclaimed "greatest martial artist of the world".

"Ken! What have then done to you?!" Gasped Ryu as his lover stepped out into the full light. He was wearing the standard Shadowloo uniform: A black shirt that was ribbed, tight black pants, a small, yellow necktie, and a single black ribbon which held his long, raven-dyed tresses back. The man's flesh was pale, as if its blood no longer infused it with life. As Ken's body became illuminated, Ryu's keen eyes could discern the drops of a fever-sweat on his brow, as well as the mindless eyes of a gravely ill and very possesed Shotokan master.

"Master Bison has given me all that I've ever craved, Hoshi Ryu. Power! Power to obliterate you in combat!" Ken crossed his arms and teleported five inches directly in front of his former best friend. "Attack me if you dare, I will crush you!" Lunging out with his knee, Ken's limb smacked directly into the the bones of Ryu's ribcage. A loud, crunching sound was heard by all of the warriors in that room as two of the man's ribs were cracked with a ferocity that only meant one thing: Ken was going to kill them all.

"Ryu!" Shouted Chun Li as she rushed forward, her magnum firing off eight shots in rapid succession, all of which the longhaired shadow deflected with his thick, metal wristpads, similar in composition to those which Cammy wore. "You bastard! He was coming to save your life!" Tossing her firearm aside, she rushed toward him, inverted herself, and called upon the most powerful attack which she could summon. "Hazan Tensho Kyaku!!" Spiraling up into the air, Chun Li's boots made contact with Ken's chin, and lifted him up into the sky for punishment.

His body hit the floor with a loud thud, while Chun Li landed gracefully on her feet. She was about to execute a defensive backflip when Ken shot up from his inert position, and made the stance for the fireball that rivaled her own kikkoken.

"Shinkuu Psycho Hadouken!" He called out as a large orb of purplish energy shot towards the world's strongest woman, engulfing her body in the combined physical agony of the Hadouken and the mental torture of the Psycho Shot. Her clothes smoking, Chun Li slumped to the ground before passing out from the after effects of the synthesis of the two energies.

Ken turned his emotionless glare towards Cammy, who was on her knees with Ryu's head in her lap.

"Ryu! Come on...wake up!" She cried as Bison's dark prince drew closer. Coughing up some blood, Ryu sat up in a half-daze, as if refusing to believe his love was the enemy.

"Cammy...he got me...so hard to breathe...," his voice struggled, as it lacked the breath needed to propel it from his lips. "You're going to have to fight him...you still have some Psycho power within you...I can feel it." Then, Hoshi Ryu completely went unconcious, the tears of blood stained his white gi a light rose color as his mind faded with the image of his Ken, his Ken who had been taken away from him by the man that was supposed to be dead.

"Right, Ryu! You just rest, okay?" Gently laying her friend's head on the floor, Cammy took her fighting stance and waited for the fight to come to her.

"Prototype, do not interfere," came the soulless voice. "The Master still wishes you alive."

"I think not! Living under Bison was hell enough!"

"Very well then, Cammy White. I must now carry out my directive to terminate your life functions!"

"Like Hell you will! Come on, I know you have it in you to beat Bison's control!"

The response she received was a sphere of violet energies set flying towards her. Expertly, she ducked the assault and backed up against the wall, collected the remnants of the Psycho powers left within her.

"Join us, Cammy, our offer still stands," came the voice which she had once herself possessed; the voice of mindless, controlled evil coursing through her body. She was little more than Bison's puppet....and whore. And now, Cammy White was staring at the male version of her former self.

"Forgive me, Ken," she whispered as she tucked her body into a tight ball and somersaulted up to the ceiling. Momentarily catching hold, she targeted him with deadly precision. "Lock on!" Shouted Cammy as she launched her heel down towards Ken's midsection. Making contact, she split her legs, and pushed off the ground with another burst of energy. "Killer Bee Assault!" She cried as her body flooded with the remaining Psycho power, igniting Ken's uniform with a bluish fire.

By the time Cammy had launched both their bodies up for the final hit, Ken flew upwards in a headstand, placed his right harm in the proper position, and shot himself down at her defenseless body, shouting "Psycho Shoryureppa!" Cammy's body was instantly engulfed in the same blue holocaust she had used on her victim.

"You have done well, Ken, and for that, you shall be rewarded," said Bison as he appeared in front of his slave'slips before slipping them between his own. "Now gather their bodies and bring them to the Psycho Drive..'

"Yes, Master."

As he fastened the bindings about Ryu's arms, Ken hunched over and let out a yelp of sorrow.

"Ryu....what have I done?" He questioned himself as he stared at his lover's face, locked in the painless sleep of unconsciousness. "I've hurt you badly....I broke your heart and your body....oh, God!" Ken gently caressed his sleeping friend's face as he felt the first and only tear he could shed. His body began to tremble with dry heaves, quaking with the horrible truth that Bison had smeared to support his own ends.

Yet, the mind control was too great; the system too complete. As he leaned down and pressed his lips upon Ryu's, his orders came flooding back to him. Recoiling as if he had embraced a Cobra, he secured the final strap and waited by the console for Bison to appear.

Ken thought it was a sick joke of his master's when a firm hand pressed a short blade against his back and threatened to push it deep into his left kidney. His eyes went very wide as he came to the realization that the hand was not thick and pawlike, but rather, slender, delicate, and determined.

"Speak not, Ken Masters, or all shall be known," whispered a female voice that Bison had lectured him time and time again to ignore.

"I have nothing to say to you, Rose," he leered as he turned around to call his master.

"Soul Spark!" A small ball of harmonious energies exploded in his head. His heart was instantly filled with an incomprehensible warmth as he slumped to the ground. Rolling him over, Rose woke him and studied his blank expression with her deep violet irises. "Listen carefully to me, Masters-kun. Bison has lied to you, and raped your mind and your love with his Psycho power."

"He did no such thing!" Ken protested softly at the mention of his Master's name in connection with foul, sordid deeds performed on him.

"But you know it's true," Rose whispered as she snaked her long arm around to Ken's buttocks before withdrawing her hand, which was coated with a viscous whiteness. "He had you, Ken, when he wasn't meant to. You see, you were meant for Ryu, and he was created to love you always."

"You lie, Rose! You speak horrid things of my beloved Master Bison!"

"The Soul Power never lies, Ken. As awkward as this may sound, you possess it as well, since you were wronged by the Psycho Power, which was unfairly driven into your body. One can overcome the other, but only if you want it to."

"Ryu....to love me for always?" He paused nervously, considering what it would feel like to be loved, and not perpetually violated.

"Yes," her eyes were glowing with excitement as she had liberated another innocent soul from the path of evil. "Eternally, Ken. He can offer you so much more than Bison is able to!"

"What should I do?" Ken asked, his eyes nervously drifting over to his unconscious soulmate.

"Use your power to revive him. Through this innocent sex, you will be able to heal both your minds and your bodies. While you accomplish this, I shall take Chun Li and Cammy into another room and restore their minds, while providing the illusion that all four of you are present in the Psycho Drive room. Your Soul duplicates will act as if they were real, and Bison won't suspect a thing. We'll then reconvene at his throne room, where he intends to elevate the Psycho Drive machine to, and launch a massive assault to end his evils."

"Yes. Rose, before you go?"

"Hmmm?"

"Thank you...for everything."

"Don't worry," Rose smiled as Ken's mind emerged from the murkiness of Bison's cloud of hatred. "We'll set right what Bison ruined." With that, she teleported away with the two female warriors firmly attached.

End of Part 5