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Sakura's House...

Just outside of Tokyo...

One week from her meeting with Karin...

During one last practice session...

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The two women had been fighting for a while, Sakura in a blue karate karate gi, Elena clad in the white top and legless pants she wore for combat. Sakura barely managed to parry the blows of Elena as she rained down kick after kick, slash after slash onto her. Elena continued her deadly dance, flipping into a handstand and striking Sakura in the face.

Sakura rolled with the blow, backflipping and striking Elena in the chin as she got back to her feet. Elena fell back from the blow, her teeth clacking together loudly, causing her to bite her tongue hard and draw blood, but she never lost her step, never lost her rhythm, and charged Sakura, an aura of black energy forming around her hand as she aimed for her trainer's neck...

Sakura caught Elena by the wrist, shouting "ENOUGH."

Elena grunted, trying to continue her swing. Sakura held fast, though, and said, "Enough. We're finished. You're ready to fight Akuma now, I can see that."

Elena grinned, and stood up again. "So be it. May I contact the person who offered me a ride, then?"

Sakura nodded, and bowed. "Yes. Just give me a chance to get a drink, then I will go with you."

Elena nodded, pulling a card from her pocket and heading into the house. Sakura followed her, taking the opposite direction she took and heading into the kitchen.

Sakura sighed weakly as she pulled a water bottle from the refrigerator and took a deep drink from it. She thought back over the past few months, trying to review things in her mind, trying to figure out how it had all come to this.

But her thoughts drifted quickly to the fight, reviewing what had happened, what she and Elena had did wrong, what they had done right, what felt good, and what didn't.

Sakura chuckled weakly. It felt good, training with Elena. All her old skills had come back, stronger than ever. She had even taught herself some new tricks. And seeing how strong Elena was growing gave her an almost motherly sense of pride. Hopefully, if what she had planned worked, she'd be able to keep training the young girl under better circumstances.

If her plan worked, though. Because if it didn't...

She shook her head. She refused to think of it. Her idea HAD to work.

It had to...

Elena came back into the room, grinning savagely. "We meet him at Byakko Harbor in three hours."

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Three hours later...

8:59 PM...

Byakko Harbor...

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The girls waited impatiently in the foggy darkness. The docks were completely abandoned, save for a few recreational boats that rocked slowly in the water.

"Where the HELL IS THAT BOAT!?!" Elena snarled after a moment.

"It'll be here. It's not time yet, we're here early."

Elena just snarled, and started to pace around the docks.

About a minute later, Sakura's watch beeped nine times, startling both women. As soon as the watch finished beeping, a new sound reached them, the sound of a powerful motorboat. The two women watched as a dark shape came up through the fog, quickly making its way to the docks. When the black-armored boat pulled up to the peir, Sakura gasped.

On the side of the ship was a winged skull, the symbol of Shadowloo.

"Elena, wait a moment!"

Elena chuckled. "They told me to expect this reaction from you. The man who contacted me in my hospital bed was the current leader of Shadowloo, Michael Balrog, who took the whole mess over after I.C.P.O. agent Chunli and U.S. Army Captain Warren Guile led the demolition of the majority of M.Bison's holdings after Bison was slain in the aftermath of the second World Warrior tournament. They've been operating in strict secrecy since then, hiring outside sources to take care of their enemies. I've accepted their offer to go after Akuma for them."

Sakura shook her head. "Elena, you can't really expect them to keep whatever promise they made..."

Elena sneered. "The only promise they made was for me to get a chance at avenging myself against Akuma. They are keeping that promise NOW. Are you coming with me or aren't you?"

The boat's hatch opened, revealing a smirking young Thai woman in a red and black Shadowloo uniform. Elena folded her arms, smirking at Sakura.

Sakura fumed for a moment, then nodded, heading towards the two seats behind the soldier's pilot's seat. Elena chuckled, and joined her, reclining back in the boat and closing her eyes, letting fantasies of what she was going to do to Akuma pass through her mind's eye.

Sakura just glared, first at Elena, then at the Shadowloo trooper. "No tricks, now. Just take us to Akuma and stay at the ship until we're done here."

The trooper just nodded, and closed the speedboat's hatch, closing the three of them in darkness lit only by the light of the boat's controls.

They rode in silence, the only sound coming from the boats engines. Sakura fidgeted nervously in her seat, unable to believe that her comrades seemed so relaxed. They were going to confront one of the most dangerous men alive, and these two women were acting like they were going on a date!

The Shadowloo trooper turned back to Sakura and Elena, and said, "We're gonna be a while. Our satellites say that Akuma's at his island now, and it's a few hours away from here. There's snacks and drinks in the compartments beside you, a bathroom is available behind your seats, and if you want you can take a nap. These seats are comfortable."

Both of them nodded. Elena opened one of the wide armrests, pulling out a package of beef jerky from the pantry section, and a bottle of orange juice from the cooler section. Sakura opened her cooler section, and pulled out a small bottle of sake, sipping it idly as she stared up at the dark roof of the boat, her mind slowly wandering...

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The past...

Thailand...

Underground Shadowloo base...

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Sakura fist sliced through a soldier's helmet, sending him flying away into a beating-induced slumber from which he would not awaken for a long while. Sakura quickly looked around, assessing the situation quickly.

Unconcious soldiers lay around them, all save for one: A katana-weilding Asian girl, one of M.Bison's twelve Dolls, Satsuki, was dueling with Sakura's pink-suited 'sensei', Dan Hibiki. Dan, amazingly enough, seemed to be holding his own. The Brazillian man-beast they had met on the way here, whom Dan called Jimmy and whom the natives called Blanka, was ripping his way through a crowd of troopers behind Dan and the Doll, literally bouncing around them all like a pinball. Sakura nodded, and shouted, "I'm gonna head off to see if anyone else needs help! Can you handle yourself here?"

Dan rolled underneath a wild slash from Satsuki and gave a thumbs-up, winking. "Show them all the unbeatable power of Saikyo-RyuUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHH!"

Dan's voice jumped up several octives as the doll immediately whirled from the dodge and uppercutted Dan in the nuts from behind. Sakura winced as Dan doubled over, and decided that Blanka would be more than enough to protect Dan from his own stupidity. She ran through the halls, passing several other fighters battling soldiers or dolls. Finally, she found someone she knew: Karin Kanzuki. She was fighting bravely against a trio of muscle-bound Shadowloo soldiers, her powerful punch combinations and kicks managing to knock them away from time to time. But from the bruises already on her face, she had suffered greatly in this fight. Finally, one of the men struck her just underneath her chest, knocking the wind from her. He then struck out with a powerful thrust kick that slammed Karin into the wall behind her. She groaned, blood oozing from her mouth as she slumped to the floor.

Sakura bit her lip, debating on what to do. She wanted to help the little brat, but she knew all that would do is make Karin angry. Still, she couldn't just leave her...

The soldier who defeated her chuckled, and looked to his comrades. "She IS a bit of a babe, for a teenager. Don't you think, boys?"

The other two men nodded, chuckling viciously as they got an idea of what their comrade wanted to do. He took off his helmet, revealing his heavily-bearded face. He licked his lips, grinning at Karin's prone form, and started to unbuckle his belt.

"The boss doesn't frown on such things, we managed to get away from that lunatic soldier and the wanna-be samurai, all the heroes are either busy or on the other side of the complex, Vega ain't here to prevent us from 'ruining her beauty...' Hell, boys. I don't see why we couldn't have a little fun with her."

That settled it. This was too much like the time she first discovered she could use chi, when she and her friend Kei were attacked by a trio of jocks looking for some 'fun.' No woman deserved what those sickos were planning, not even Karin. She dashed down the hall, running faster than she ever had before, and immediately launched herself at the bearded man just as he finished pulling his uniform pants down. Her fist met with his jaw, knocking him down and sending him skidding back into his comrades. She immediately hit them with her most powerful Hadokens at point-blank range, the energy bursts being larger than her whole body, hitting with the force of a metal hydraulic piston and knocking them all further back.

Without checking to see if they were down, she immediately went to Karin and put the young woman's arm around her shoulder. "C'mon. I'm getting you out of here."

Karin snarled weakly, and said, "Dammit, Kasugano, your help is the last thing I need."

Sakura shook her head, frustrated. "Karin, for once in your goddamn life, stopping having such a one-track mind and forget about avenging your defeat on me. We are all in WAY over our heads here, and need to pull out. I have a friend, a Jamaican named Dee Jay, waiting for me and the people I came with outside. He'll keep you safe while I go back for the others."

Karin chuckled weakly, and coughed up some blood. "Go back for Ryu, you mean. Talk about your one track minds..."

Sakura had to laugh. Karin was right, she was going to search for Ryu. But she meant it about getting Karin out first.

"FREEZE, bitches!"

Sakura turned, and paled. The bearded man had pulled his pants back up, and now had his rifle trained on Sakura's head. His comrades, a skinny man and a fat man, also had their rifles aimed at them.

Sakura whimpered inwardly. She couldn't safely drop Karin in time to stop the attack, and couldn't fight at all while supporting her!! She closed her eyes, bracing for the end...

"K-Kasugano... Behind them..." Karin stammered.

Sakura looked, and gasped. The bearded man grinned as he took aim, thinking that Sakura was looking at him. But no... She was staring at the blood-red, glowing eyes that had appeared behind the three guards, lingering in the shadows.

The bearded man laughed. "No one, especially no CHICK, does that to me. Waste 'em on my mark. Ready... Aim..."

Skinny man's chest exploded as a fist burst through it, shredding his heart and killing skinny man instantly. Blood sprayed the two girls, who screamed as skinny man went limp, dropping his gun. The fist withdrew as bearded man and fat man turned, firing wildly in the direction of the glowing eyes.

A leg in black gi pants and a wooden geta shoe spun out of the shadows, striking fat man with enough force to turn his head a complete three-hundred and sixty degrees. Fat man collapsed, blood oozing from his eyes, nose, and mouth. Bearded man, panicking, looked at his comrade's corpses, then back at the glowing set of eyes.

"WHO ARE YOU!?!?! STOP HIDING, DAMN YOU, AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN!!!!"

A deep, sonorous voice answered, "You are not a man. You are a troll. A simple-minded thug. And a perfect example of why it wasn't worth the effort for me to come here. But very well. Prepare for judgement."

The eyes slid towards bearded man, growing closer and closer. Bearded man screamed, and Karin and Sakura screamed along with him as a pair of powerful hands reached out of the darkness, grabbing bearded man by the shoulders.

A bright, blinding flash engulphed the hallway. Karin and Sakura clutched their eyes tightly against the flash, stars dancing before their vision nevertheless, the haunting sound of bearded man screaming in agony as the sounds of a beating unlike anything they had ever heard reached their ears.

Eventually, the sounds faded. Sakura chanced a look, and saw a powerful, heavily muscled man in a black gi with firey red hair standing over bearded man's body. Bearded man's body was unmarked, but his face was contorted in horror, and he was unmoving, completely and totally dead. The red-haired man chuckled softly and turned to the two frightened women. He smiled, the expression making his chisled, fierce face look even more unnatural. And still his blood-red eyes glowed brightly...

"Don't worry, I'm not after you or any of your friends. None of you are ready to face me yet. None of you are ready to face Akuma."

He vanished without another word, leaving the two frightened young women to figure out what had just occured before them...

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Now...

Inside the boat...

After three hours...

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Sakura whimpered and writhed in her sleep. Elena chuckled softly. Apparently, her sensei was NOT a heavy drinker. She sighed, and turned to the trooper.

"Does it REALLY have to be so long a trip?"

The woman nodded. "'Fraid so. This boat is radar-shielded & basically everything shielded, but I have to take the long way around to avoid patrols from the local armada and the US ones nobody's supposed to know about."

Elena scowled, and decided to take a nap herself. She closed her eyes and started to breath steadily, her breaths eventually slowing as she herself drifted off...

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A crowded park in Tokyo...

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Elena stood before her opponent. Akuma stood across from her, a wicked smirk on his face, his eyes glowing demonically. Elena returned the grin and immediately went into her jenga. Now there were no flaws, no weaknesses to exploit, and Elena could see in the sudden nervous frown on Akuma's face that he knew it as well.

She allowed herself a second's grin, and immediately dashed forward. She immediately began her deadly dance, black auras surrounding her hands and feet as she rained down blow after blow onto Akuma's body. The black-suited warrior just barely managed to parry each blow, but it didn't matter. Elena feinted a punch, causing Akuma to bring his arms up to block it. Elena changed directions automatically, dropping to her hands and swinging her legs in a slashing motion, her Lynx Tail technique. Akuma's legs were swept out from underneath him. Immediately, she slashed her hand across Akuma's side, gasping with pleasure as she felt her aura blade bite deep into his flesh.

She backflipped away, wanting to admire her work. But when she landed, she stared in confusion.

Instead of Akuma with his hip split open, it was Ryu, whom she had befriended at the third World Warrior tournament. The white-suited warrior touched the wound on his chest, grimacing at the sight of it, and stared at Elena sadly. He shook his head and got back up into a fighting stance, clutching an arm across the wound.

"It... It's a trick..." Elena said to herself. She shook her head and continued her attack. She threw a few kicks at Ryu's head, which he parried easily. She faked her last kick and instead struck a solid, spinning blow to Ryu's back, causing him to cry out in agony, slowly dropping to his knees.


Elena blinked involuntarily. And in that one millisecond, things changed again. Instead of a brown-haired, white clad Asian, a blonde, red-clad American was clutching his back in agony.

Ken Masters. Another friend from the tournament.

Elena shook her head in confusion. She tried to stop and get her head together, but suddenly her body started to act on it's own. She flipped, bringing down a kick to Ken's shoulder. In that instant, Ken shifted, his body and clothes changing, until he had become Alex. Elena spun, landing a hit to Alex's head so hard that the sound echoed. The big man fell to the ground, his skin darkening, clothes shifting, until he had become the British boxer, Dudley.

Her body still acted without Elena's will. She slashed her hand down at Dudley's neck, a large aura blade forming around her hand. Dudley barely rolled out of the way, and was on his feet in a moment. Visibly unsteady, but on his feet.

He chuckled weakly. "I say, luv. You've come a long way, haven't you? Let's continue then!"

Dudley dashed forward, his fists lashing out wildly in punches that Elena's body simply swatted aside. Finally, after the tenth punch, Elena's body backflipped, the bladed aura around her foot splitting Dudley's chin as her Scratch Wheel connected. He squawked, caught completely off guard, and fell back. Elena landed on her feet as Dudley hit the ground hard, a cloud of dust obscuring him. What rose from the cloud was not Dudley, but a young woman she become very close to during the tournament.

Ibuki.

The ninja girl, still bleeding profusely from the hip wound recieved earlier, immediately dashed towards Elena, seeming to disappear. She grabbed Elena's arm and pressed her fist against Elena's side. An instant later, a small energy burst erupted from Ibuki's fist, hard enough for Elena to feel ribs crack as Ibuki let go, the force of her Raida technique sending the ebon-skinned fighter flying back almost into the crowd. Elena groaned weakly, looking up just in time to see Ibuki leap up and dive down towards her with a kick.

Elena, her body still acting of it's own volition, rolled aside, immediately rolling into an axe kick that struck Ibuki forcefully in the back of the head. The blow hit with hammer force, knocking the ninja HARD into the pavement, the road and Ibuki's nose shattering under the force of the blow.

Elena reached down and picked her up, but she had already changed into Yang. He rolled from her grasp and pushed himself off of the ground, launching himself feet first into Elena's chest.

Elena grunted, but continued to fight, her body never missing a step. Internally though, she was confused. Why did her opponent keep changing into people she had befriended in the past?!

Halfway through the fight, Yang had become his brother Yun. Elena's face sneered, and sent the young man flying into a lamp post, almost bending the solid metal pole completely in half. Yun slumped down to the ground, his body swelling, muscles doubling and tripling in size... until he had changed completely, becoming Hugo.

The massive man still bore the wounds he had recieved in other forms, but seemed much less affected by them. He roared, charging Elena like a bull, moving so shockingly fast that Elena didn't have time to block before he ran into her, flattening her with a massive clothesline. But instead of letting her stay down, he picked her up off of the ground. He leaped high into the air, spinning like a top. When he reached the apex of his jump, he moonsaulted, placing Elena underneath him as he landed HARD, the rough concrete cracking under his weight as he basically squashed the young woman under his bulk.

Hugo chuckled softly, and got up off of Elena's limp form. Inside, Elena wondered if this apparition was going to kill her, and end her life, denying her revenge...

Hugo roared again, and elbow-dropped her. But Elena vanished, reappearing behind the confused big man. Her eyes glowing demonically red, she reached out for Hugo, unsuccessfully trying to stop herself from doing this, the move that Akuma had used on her so long ago, the Shun Goku Satsu...

Elena's world became light, and the sounds of brutal, thunderous beating as the attack took place on Hugo's brutish form. In a period of one minute that felt like one hundred, it was over. Elena stood over her victim's body, a flaming aura surrounding her as the kanji for 'TEN' glowed on her back. She turned to face her foe...

...And saw that it was Narumi. Elena's first friend upon her immigration to Japan. She lay at Elena's feet, her school uniform tattered and torn, blood oozing steady down her leg and chin, her glasses shattered into a thousand pieces.

NO!!! Elena screamed internally. She had just wanted Narumi to stay out of things for a while, she never wanted this to happen!! Oh God, what have I done?!?!

Elena's body continued to act on it's own. She smirked down at the battered, bloodied young woman laying limply before her. She looked down on her with something akin to pity, her aura still ablaze. "Your heart is pure, Narumi. Too pure to be fully affected by my attack. You survived the Shun Goku, and this proves that you are not worthy of being a warrior."

Narumi gripped Elena's leg, staring up at her with a mix of hatred and fear.

Elena smiled, noticing this expression, continuing. "Yet there is a small measure of hope for you. It seems my beating has taught you to hate. Perhaps..."

She thought for a moment, and smiled. She reached down and gripped Narumi's hair, dragging her roughly to her feet. She whimpered, trying to pry her hand loose.

"Once there was a great warrior called Sagat. Because of the scars inflicted on him by two young warriors, he became hateful. Vengeful." Elena's smile widened. "Powerful. It was beautiful. He sold his soul to M.Bison just so he could get revenge on the one who scarred his chest. And when he lost his eye before that, he killed that fighter outright! It was one of the greatest displays of true power that I had ever heard of. And yet he threw it all away for something as pathetic and meaningless as honor."

Narumi just stared at her former friend, tears streaming down her face. "W-what are you going to do to me?"

Elena raised her other hand, clenching it into a fist and extending two fingers. "I will do to you what Go Hibiki and Ryu did to Sagat. It is my hope then that you will grow from this experience, and come challenge me again."

Before Narumi could protest, she thrust her hand forward, jabbing into her right eye. Narumi screamed, her eye bursting under the thrust. Blood oozed down her face as she squirmed helplessly in Elena's grasp.

Elena wiped her fingers clean nonchalantly on her leotard, and gathered the flames of her aura again, this time wrapping the fire around her leg. She let go of her, but backflipped, her leg slashing with her Scratch Wheel technique. She struck her just above her waist as she fell, her foot slashing her from her hip to her shoulder, the skin igniting where it was touched by the technique.

She screamed, flying back over the heads of the crowd watching the fight, and landing hard on the pavement. Elena just chuckled, teleporting to her side.

Narumi stared back at her through her remaining eye, moaning weakly. Tears washed some of the blood on her face away as she tried to look her in the eyes, trying to find some reason behind her actions.

Elena just snorted, and said, "Come find me when you are ready, Narumi. Come find me when you have embraced your hatred, and given in to the Murderous Intent. For only when you are ready to kill will you be a true warrior."

She kneeled, putting the schoolgirl's face as close to her own as she could get. She grinned wickedly, in an uncanny impression of M.Bison's trademark smile. "When you are ready to kill me, that is when you will become worthy of my attention."

Elena vanished without another word, her words echoing in Narumi's ears, as some of the spectators finally recovered from the shock of the battle, getting out their cell phones and calling an ambulance...

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The boat...

Gokuento...

Now...

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"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Elena woke up screaming, tears in her eye. She gasped heavily, trying to calm herself down. It failed miserably, and she began to sob into her hands. Sakura woke with a start, and immediately noticing Elena's tears, put her arms around Elena's shoulders.

"It's okay... It's okay, you must have had a nightmare..."

Elena shook her head miserably, more like her old self than she had been in over a year. She leaned into Sakura's arms, letting the karateka embrace her, wanting some sort of comfort. She needed it desperately, because if the dream meant what she thought it meant...

The Shadowloo trooper, wearing her helmet again, turned back to the two of them.

"We're here. Akuma's island."

Elena froze. At the mention of his name, of how close she was to her vengeance, all her doubts were washed away in a new wave of hate. She vanished from Sakura's arms, and reappeared on the beach.

She snarled, staring into the forest, ignoring the boat as it opened, allowing Sakura to get out.

"AKUMA!!!" Elena roared, "YOU TOLD ME TO COME FIND YOU WHEN I HAD EMBRACED MY HATRED!!! YOU TOLD ME TO COME FIND YOU WHEN I WAS READY TO KILL YOU!!! I HAVE COME NOW!!! I HAVE COME TO END YOUR SICK, FOUL EXCUSE OF A LIFE, AND CLAIM THE TITLE OF WARRIOR, A TITLE THAT IS RIGHTFULLY MINE!!! I AM COMING FOR YOU, AKUMA, AND THERE IS NO PLACE YOU CAN HIDE!!!"