"Bless me father for I have sinned. My last confession was ... well ..."

"Go on, my son," a deep voice called from behind the elaborate window. The shutter was pulled down, obscuring Cranky from the priest's no doubt threatening glare. Cranky was a sinner, and he knew it, cheating on the only woman that managed to capture his heart.

"It's been awhile," Cranky replied.

"Do you have any wrong doings to share with me today?" the priest asked gently.

"I'm a womanizer, Father," he explained. "And I never had a problem with it. Not until recently."

"You've just realized the nature of such a sin?" the priest asked.

"It's not that, Father Marquez. I always knew adultery was considered a sin to the church but yet ... I never cared. But I've stumbled upon a very special woman without even realizing it - until it was too late. I think ... I think I've lost her."

"Our Lord is a compassionate one. No doubt you will be forgiven. But as humans, it is far beyond our capability of forgiving something so serious."

"You don't think she'll forgive me?"

"If she opens her heart to yours, she will forgive you. Women may appear to be confusing to men at times, but the truth is, they are merely mortal, just as we are. We all make mistakes, and it's that simple truth that will allow her to forgive you."

"Yeah but Cammy is ..." Cranky bit his lip. Didn't confession have some degree of anonymity? It probably wouldn't be the priests fault in this case - Cranky was the one who spilled her name.

"Hold on, did you say Cammy?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Do you mind if I were to lift the screen?"

Cranky wanted to say no, but he wasn't given the chance as the screen to the window suddenly came flying upwards. The priest's face peered through the window and Cranky saw him for the first time. He was younger than Cranky thought - a Latino man with an olive complexion, green eyes and short, thick dark hair cut close to his scalp. If he didn't know any better, Father Marquez could've been a
mob man - the role seemed to suit his hard face, the few wrinkles present looking like dark cracks in cement.

"You cheated on Cammy?!" Father Marquez asked, seemingly appalled.

"Uh ... yeah," Cranky said, scratching the back of his head nervously.

"Dude, you are SO dead," he replied, with a fearful smile, his previous fatherly aura diminishing with that simple phrase.

"H ... how do you know her?" Cranky asked, pointing a shaky finger at him.

"I was best friends with an ex-lover of hers," Father Marquez explained. "He went by the name of Ken Masters. And, man, they went through some really tough times. I've seen Cammy's bad side and I'm
thankful I never got that involved with her."

"Ken Masters is the name of the man looking after a good friend of mine." Talk about a coincidence. This was Cranky's first time at confession at some random church he picked off the street and the priest who worked there had ties to his social network.

"This friend of yours," Father Marquez asked, his eyes looking upward in a brief moment of thought, "is he a younger fellow? I'd say around his mid teens?"

"Yeah ..."

"Well if I'd known you were a good friend of Kenny's ..."

"The kid's a smartass," Cranky said. "God only knows he needs someone like Ken to look out for him."

"Careful," Father Marquez warned half-jokingly, "you're in the house of God."

"Of course, I'm sorry, Father."

And suddenly, the air in the confession booth got very cold without warning. Cranky had a hard time telling whether it was really the air, or just his body reacting to something ... sinister. Apparently
he wasn't the only one who felt it as a worried look crossed Father Marquez's face.

"Do you feel that?" the priest asked.

"Yes," Cranky said. "Somebody's in here, in the church." The both of them simultaneously got up onto their feet and exited the confession booth, coming into full view of each other for the first time. Cranky clenched his fists tightly, sharp eyes darting back and forth around the church to get a good look at the intruder.

Father Marquez, on the other hand, gripped a rosary in his left hand, rubbing its beads with his index finger and thumb, his mouth moving quickly but silently like he was uttering a soft prayer.

"Does it usually feel like this when a sinner walks through the doors?" Cranky asked as the chills continued to run the course of his spine.

"This is far more serious than a mere sinner," Father Marquez replied. "The chi is ..."

"Catholic's don't believe in chi," Cranky suddenly found himself spitting out. He hadn't gone to church since he was a young boy, and had stopped practicing his inherited religion even before that, and
yet he still knew.

"I believe my senses," Father Marquez shot back, "and no doubt you feel it to. How can one not believe what his body tells him?"

"Father," Cranky said, pointing to the large cross hanging at the very back wall of the church. The figure of Jesus was unchanged, with the same sorrowful expression on his long face, with minor added detail - streaks of blood were streaming from the figure's eyes, dripping down his body, gathering at a small pool on the altar.

"I've always known that crying statues of Jesus and Mary were to exist, but I've never known one of the statues in this very church to be one of them."

"I don't think this is typical of the church's statue," Cranky said. "Given this chi we're sensing ... could it be powerful enough to force the statue to weep blood?"

Candles stood lit in their respective shelves on either side of the altar. Each golden dot of light flickered together in synchronism, as if some unseen and unfelt breeze was blowing at them. A dark mist seemed to envelop the fine white tile that made up the parish floor. Cranky looked down at his feet and noticed the mysterious mist infiltrate the church, as if consuming it in its evil energy.

"Father Julian Marquez," a sinister voice called from the main entrance of the church. Cranky and Father Marquez looked towards the source of the voice but the now open doors revealed nothing but the darkness of night.

"Stand back, Father," Cranky said, positioning himself in front of the nervous priest, hoping to shield him from the intruder. "I'll take care of whoever it is."

The figure revealed itself through the darkness of the church entranceway, and Cranky felt a chill run up his spine as he laid his eyes upon the demon. It was powerfully built from head to toe, muscle bulging from every limb. Its skin was thick like leather and just as dark. The hair standing straight on his head in red, fiery waves was the same shade of red that his eyes glowed. It wore a karate gi ripped at the sleeves. Around its waist, where a belt would normally be, a thick rope was tied around its waist. But what caught Cranky's eye the most was the strange set of beads present around the demon's neck. They looked Buddhist in nature yet this demon was anything but good.

"I need some information, Father," the demon demanded, moving steadily toward the two men, a red aura emanating from his form. He completely ignored Cranky but he would not accept being ignored. Just before the demon could reach Father Marquez, Cranky stepped in between the two of them and shot him a threatening glare.

"I don't care who you think you are," he said, "but if you wanna get to the priest, you're gonna have to go through me."

"Please, Cranky," Father Marquez said, "this is unnecessary. If all he needs is information, then I am glad to give it as long as no harm comes to anyone."

"Where is your friend, Ken Masters?" the demon asked.

Father Marquez's shocked expression revealed that he wasn't anticipating such a question. But the nature of that question itself was enough to tell him who this demon was.

"Akuma?" Father Marquez asked. Ken had told him many times before about the strange demon that killed his master. Ken made him out to be more of an enigmatic being, living life in the shadows, but here he was standing right in front of him!

The demon smiled.

"I see you've heard about me."

"Why do you seek him?" Father Marquez asked.

"Word's been going around that he's been looking for a confrontation with me. In fact, I hear both of Gouken's students do – only that Ryu is self-aware enough that he's preparing for our fight. Ken on the other hand …"

"I don't know where Ken is," Julian snapped. He was telling the truth, but he may as well have been lying. Even if he did know where Ken was, there was no way he was going to let Akuma know, though Ken might actually want him to tell Akuma.

"I'm going to ask you one more time," Akuma said, taking a step closer, but his face unexpectedly smashed into Cranky's foot, that had embedded itself into his face as Cranky had turned and performed a back kick.

The blow caught Akuma by surprise as he staggered back, clutching his face in pain, little droplets of blood seeping through the cracks between his fingers. "Don't you take one step closer!" Cranky threatened.

"Do you have any idea who you're dealing with?" Akuma asked.

"Not much, if I can make you bleed so easily," Cranky replied, shooting a cocky smile.

"I'll show you what bleeding is like." The demon warped forward impossibly fast, shadows trailing behind his form. His body moved across the space that separated him and Cranky without even moving its feet. It was so … ghostlike. He didn't have enough time to snap out of his stupor when his cheek met with a vicious back fist and knocked him into the air.

Even as Cranky landed, Akuma was had already moved into his next attack, somersaulting high into the air and performing a flip at the peak of his jump, coming down hard onto Cranky's fallen form with one extended leg.

Cranky saw the incoming attack in time and rolled off to the side, letting Akuma's foot strike and crack the tile where his head was just a second before. Cranky kicked his body up into a standing position and before Akuma could recover from his strike, launched a triple kick – one aimed low, waist level, and high. Each kick found its target successfully but Akuma was hardly affected. On the third kick, he'd seized Cranky's ankle with one hand, grabbed his inner thigh with the other, and threw the young Irishman over his head and back onto the ground in front of him.

It had been a quick fight, over before it had barely begun. Father Marquez looked at Cranky, lying in a broken lump on the floor with a pool of blood now forming around his body. He then shot a glance at the demon Akuma who was now approaching.

"Now where were we?" he asked, with a large fanged grin spreading across his dark face.

XXXXX

"So Shadowlaw has him," Chun Li said, raising the small, white porcelain teacup to her lips and taking a sip of the fragrant Chinese tea.

"They're really back this time," Guile said, slapping a hand to his face.

"I'm sure of it," Ken continued, "who else would be so interested in Kenny?"

"Gee, I don't know," Chun Li said, her tone heavy with sarcasm, "given the kind of technology he's embedded with, everybody?"

"We shouldn't have re-exposed him to his past," Ryu said regretfully, looking down at his food. Ken had made a phone call over to Chun Li yesterday regarding Kenny's kidnapping, who flew down to Osaka the following day – coincidentally meeting up with Guile who'd already been on his way for the street fighter tournaments. In front of Ryu sat a bowl of steaming hot rice. The smell was appetizing but he couldn't bring himself to eat it, his mind full of guilt and regret. Kenny wasn't supposed to be back in this Shadowlaw bullshit. He'd sworn that much to himself nine years ago. Yet … it was happening all over again.

"Well we can forget about the past," Guile said slamming a pair of chopstick on the dark, redwood table, his frustration aimed more at the fact that he couldn't hold the chopsticks properly. "What's important is that we make sure Kenny is safe, and we take down Shadowlaw … again." Chun Li, picking up the same pair of chopsticks that Guile had thrown down, took a piece of deep fried Vietnamese egg roll and placed it on his plate for him.

"This is exactly what happened nine years ago," Ken noted, staring blindly off into space. "I wonder if Bison's got plans to start another Shadow Soldier army.

His words had more of an effect on Chun Li that he'd expected. She shuddered, remembering that for a short period of time, however brief, she actually served under Shadowlaw, in direct contrast to the life goal she'd set out of herself.

That was the nature of the Shadow Technology. Once embedded into a person's body, it took over, customizing the body, adjusting the organic abilities to its needs. Physical attributes such as strength, sight, agility and speed were increased. But the ability to think of oneself was filtered out. She was nothing more than a drone of a specialized Shadow army, working for Shadowlaw at the command of their dictator, M. Bison. Fortunately for Chun Li, she hadn't been under its power long enough for her to carry the technology permanently.

But Kenny … he was the original Shadow Soldier, having the chip implanted in his body when he was merely a child. Lucky for him, because the technology inside of him was independent of Shadowlaw, it didn't surface as much. But now that Shadowlaw had him, chances were they would keep it on all the time – and the really Kenny would just … vanish. Guile put a hand on her shoulder.

"If it does," he said, speaking to everyone though he directed his gaze at Chun Li, "we've got to watch out for each other during the upcoming street fighter tournaments. Ken and Ryu nodded in agreement. "I'll notify Cammy and Delta Red about the recent events. They should be on the lookout should Shadowlaw in fact be planning to use the technology they'll acquire from Kenny."

"We're going to need all the help we can get," Chun Li added. "It scares me to think of what they'd be capable of doing this time. It's been years since we've heard of Shadowlaw and suddenly they're back with a vengeance. What have they been doing all this time?"

"Isn't it your job to make sure organizations like these don't spring up?" Ken asked smartly.

"That's quite enough, junior," Guile said, jumping to Chun Li's defense. "You should be grateful that we haven't reported you to the authorities, keeping Kenny illegally in your custody when you knew he was of great interest to us."

"You thought he was dead."

"For choosing to keep the truth from us-"

"So you finally believe he's alive!" Chun Li jumped into the verbal brawl. A moment of silence ensued.

"I think it's safe to say he's alive," Ryu said. "The question is, where do we go from here?"

"Simple," Guile replied. "We wait for the tournament to start, and take our search from there. And while we take them down, I'll get to avenge Charlie's death."

"And I my father's," Chun Li added.

"Let's just not lose track of the fact that we have a mission here," Ryu advised. And all four of them nodded in agreement.

Author's Note: Father Julian Marquez is a character borrowed from a friend, and fellow author, Vammy. Thanks for letting me use him, Vammy. He will contribute well to this story.