Note: Despite what happens with him in this snippet, I don't want to paint Shun'ei as a jobber of sorts from stories like this, even if he looks like a total tryhard design-wise – though to be fair, it's not like he's done much yet considering he didn't do much in XIV while Team Japan canonically won that tournament.


A rare sight was seen on this day – Shun'ei, the latest 'hero of the story' in this tournament's history, in deep hospice – or the closest thing to one, settled back to a locale closer to his China grounds thanks to the Psycho Soldier team's connection.

Meitenkun was usually pretty restless in the downtime outside of training and the tournament, but he felt like he had insomnia seeing his best friend in such pain.

And further into the distance – the pseudo-leader of the new 'Hero Team', Benimaru, palmed his own forehead in frustration.
"I swear, I really feel the inexperience on these guys. It's not easy having to play 'clean-up', y'know."
He was lucky to manage to earn Team Hero the win at the end...

Alongside the lively blond, mentor Tung Fu Rue wasn't too budged by Shun'ei's condition, for he knew much more about what the kid was capable of, in ~most~ situations.
"Anyone can learn from the pain – to adapt and adjust to the evolving battlefield. It's to be expected when faced with a truly tough opponent."

Benimaru itched through his hair. "Yeah, you could say that..."

"Try not to move too much..."
Athena still had a long way to go bringing Shun'ei back to a good enough condition to get back into the fight for the next round...

On Shun's end of things, he could still feel the fluctuation of enemy electricity tingling his body, overwrapping it in complete negative energy.
He grunted deeply, his throat wrecked for the moment. "Ugh... would you mind if I say if you're doing a bad job?"

"I'm not a nurse, Shun – I know I might suck at this..."
Athena's hands maintained a hover around both ends of Shun'ei's head, glowing with that positively-pink aura.
"Can you at least describe what it felt like out there – from one prospect to another?"

And from there, the freshly-repressed memory came back into Shun'ei's mind, no matter whether he wanted it to, or not.


Hours earlier...

Shun'ei's windpipe was being forcibly closed off by probably the strongest legs he had ever encountered on an opponent – as Shermie was going to town on him in retaliation to seeing her partners go down, with Shun'ei's strength really knocking off her bandmates after what looked like easy pickings with the sleepy Meitenkun.

A wide and confident smirk maintained on Shermie's face.
"Don't try to hide it; you're enjoying this just a little bit, right? A lot of those boys do..."
She then glanced away from her, erm, 'victim?'
"Is this doing anything for you guys~?"

A short distance from the center of the battle, sat by with their recovering wounds, with their own personal comments to the utter domination going on.

Chris chimed, "Shermie, when are you not fun to watch~?"

Yashiro advised, "Focus on the hands – that's where most of his weird shit comes from!"

No one would doubt if even hands like Shun's were unprepared for this – even the more veteran competitors would've been rusty against this, after 2 decades of the formerly 'New Faces' Team's absence.


"...I don't wanna talk about it..."

Shun'ei could still feel the compact, crushing feeling around his neck from where that fashionista dealt her damage. Two KoF tournaments to his name, and he still almost felt like he didn't belong if he wasn't prepared for 'Team Orochi'.

On top of that, he could swear he couldn't find his headphones after that fight – he felt like he was losing pieces of himself along the way...

"Oh, you've got to be kidding..."
Athena's groan lifted Shun'ei's eyes up to attention.

"What's wrong?" he asked, as he saw her pick up her phone.

"You won't believe who just buzzed me..." she answered.

"I think she just buzzed all of us..."
Off to the side, Psycho Soldier teammate Kensou noticed that he and Benimaru were among the others to get intruded by a notification.

This including Shun'ei – he could barely lift an arm to pull his own phone out and bring up Twitter...

...where he was immediately met back with a picture of Shermie on his feed:
Despite being knocked out of the competition at Benimaru's hand, the redheaded vixen was still as mindgamey as ever – ignoring her hospital surroundings, she reclined with utmost seductiveness, and Shun'ei's headphones wrapped over her head, as she smiled at the camera like she wanted the recipient to send her a dick-pic.

The message atop the image read: "You forgot something – wanna come get it~? ;)"

Along the peers around Shun, the image earned elder master Chin's fascination. "Aaaahhh... to be 70 years younger again..."
And Chin's fascination earned Kensou some vomit rising in his throat. "Gross."

Before Shun'ei could gander longer on the company around him, he was met with a pillow flying into his arms – and he quickly realized whose pillow it was, from the empty-handed Meitenkun's concerned eyes.

"Meiten?" He knew Meitenkun rarely ever shared that pillow.

"If you're thinking of getting back to her, you're probably gonna need it." Meiten being serious was fairly rare.

And from the oddly-menacing energy that Shermie image oozed with (beneath the 'tent-pitching' nature of her very existence), Shun'ei immediately recognized the risk of an idea like that.

...aaaaand then he considered a different plan.
"...I'll just buy a new pair."


Not gonna lie, I should've really started on this in the days after Shermie's KOF XV trailer came out (which was officially over three weeks ago), because this story is pretty relevant to that – particularly the ending moment with her Climax Super.