I don’t have much time left until boarding time, Ryu thought as he looked at the large electronic clock mounted outside of the bathroom he just walked out of. I better head over to my gate so that I don’t miss my flight.
Though it was difficult to find a place that would allow him access to a computer during the very early hours of the morning, Ryu eventually stumbled across a 24-hour cyber café after leaving the school, giving him the means to print out his plane ticket that Ken provided for him. True to his word, Ken was able to give Ryu the means to leave Hong Kong as soon as possible, though Ryu called Ken later to make a slight adjustment to his flight.
He would be returning to Japan, but his flight would be via a two-day “delay” in Thailand. While defeating Akuma was the biggest thing on his to-do list, Ryu had to make sure that he wasn’t running to his death. When it comes to gauging how far I’ve come since the first Street Fighter tournament, there’s only one fighter I can really rely on. We’ve fought so many times over the years, and each time our battles could have gone either way. The only way I’ll be able to have faith in myself against Akuma?is if I defeat that one fighter, decisively and without dispute.
So engrossed was Ryu in thinking about his rival in Thailand that he didn’t notice someone accidentally bump into his shoulder when he passed by. “Hey, watch where you’re going, pal,” a loud and boisterous male voice called out, breaking Ryu’s train of thought and forcing him to turn around. “You can’t just go bumping into people like that without saying you’re sorry!”
“Oh, uh?I’m sorry about that,” Ryu said as he bowed his head in apology and made eye contact with the stranger. “I guess I wasn’t pay attent?ion.”
Ryu’s voice drifted off as the two men recognized each other. The stranger that bumped into Ryu, wearing a pink karate gi with a black belt and undershirt, and long brown hair tied back in a ponytail, was not really a stranger at all. “It’s you,” the man blurted out as he walked towards Ryu while at the same time obliviously bumping past other pedestrians. “Sakura told me that you were in town, but I guess you just couldn’t help but follow in the same footsteps as the Master of Saikyo-ryu, Dan Hibiki!”
Like Ryu, Dan Hibiki was a street fighter that once trained with Master Gouken, though his early expulsion from the school led him to create his own martial art called “Saikyo-ryu,” roughly translated as “the Strongest Style.” While Saikyo-ryu had a fancy name befitting for someone as confident as Dan Hibiki, the founder’s own martial arts record was less than rosy. He had gained a reputation among the street fighting community as having more bark than bite, and was treated as a joke as a result.
To those who knew him better than that and looked past the bravado and taunting, however, Dan was a dedicated fighter who understood more about the deeper meaning of martial arts than he was willing to let on. It was from Dan that Sakura learned the art of ki projection, and it was with his guidance that Sakura delved into the world of street fighting so that she could search for Ryu. Even though most of the other street fighters found Dan annoying, Ryu owed Dan a great deal for keeping an eye on Sakura and making sure she stayed out of trouble when he couldn’t protect her.
For that, Ryu would always see Dan as his friend, even if the feeling wasn’t entirely mutual.
“It’s been a while, Dan,” Ryu said as he outstretched his hand in friendship. “How have you been?”
Looking at the hand with a perplexed look, clearly not expecting Ryu to shake his hand in friendship, especially with how often Dan would say that Ryu’s moves were just a cheap knock-off of his own when it was more like the exact opposite, the Saikyo-ryu fighter cautiously reached out and clasped the hand in a slow handshake. “I?I’ve been just fine, thanks for asking,” Dan answered before pulling his hand away and flexing his thick biceps. “It’s been a long road, but I’ve finally opened 30 Saikyo-ryu branches across Eastern Asia! People are coming from all over to learn from the master and take the glory of Saikyo as their own!” Lowering his arms and reaching into his sleeve, Dan pulled out a business card and handed it to Ryu. “You should come over to one of the main schools in Japan: I bet kicking your butt would get a lot of publicity!”
“Heh?I’ll think about it,” Ryu said as he put the card in his own gi, bringing Dan’s attention to the white t-shirt he was wearing.
“Hey, Ryu, what’s with the shirt?” Dan’s voice suddenly became belligerent, as if Ryu had offended him in some way. Seeing the look of confusion in Ryu’s eyes, the Saikyo-ryu master pointed an accusing finger at Ryu. “You’re trying to steal my fashion sense, too, aren’t you! First you imitate my moves, and then you wear a shirt under your gi just like I do! Can’t you anything original!”
“?what are you talking about?” Ryu blinked once as he noticed the rage boiling in Dan’s face as he marched over to him and got in his face. Feeling Dan’s hot breath coming down on him, the wandering warrior’s confusion continued to well up. “I wasn’t even thinking about you when I put this on. This shirt was just a gift from-”
“Look, just play along,” Dan’s yelling suddenly dropped to a cautious whisper, his eyes shifting from left to right as curious bystanders started to gather around them. “I’m going to Brazil to visit Jimmy and I need to keep interest in my school high so I can still have business when I get back. I’ll make it up to you later.”
Looking at the clock to see how much time he had left until it was time to board his plane, and then to the terminal a few meters away that he needed to be at, Ryu smiled and tossed his bag to the side. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were challenging me to a street fight, Dan,” Ryu said as he jumped away and assumed his fighting stance. “Show me what you’ve got! Come at me with everything you have!”
“That’s right, Ryu,” Dan shouted as he pumped his fist and flexed his bicep once again. “I’ll show you, and the world, that nothing can beat the Glory of Saikyo!” As soon as he finished taunting, Dan charged forward with his fist raised, immediately giving away his method of attack to Ryu. He’s going to just charge forward and see what I’ve got, Ryu thought as he exhaled and waiting for Dan to come at him. Once Dan had entered striking distance, Ryu reared back his fist and prepared to attack. If nothing else, Dan’s guts are master-level.
As as a result of Ryu’s patience in attacking and Dan’s lack thereof, the two martial artists wound up punching each other in the face full-force, making a loud thud as their gloved hands collided with each other like hammers. The recoil of the attack send Dan sprawling backwards until he rolled across the ground and stopped on his bottom. Ryu, on the other hand, stumbled backwards several steps before regaining his footing and rubbing his jaw. “Ow?that was a pretty good punch,” Ryu said as Dan groggily stood back up, “You’ve been practicing since the last time we met, haven’t you?”
“?SHUT UP,” Dan screamed before wincing in pain, noticing that the spot where Ryu tagged him was turning purple. “Don’t diss the power of Saikyo!” Charging his blue-green ki into his left hand, the master of Saikyo-Ryu thrusted his arm forward and hurled a baseball-sized ball of energy towards Ryu. The “Gadoken” had often been described as an inferior version of Hadoken, even by Dan’s friend Sakura who went so far as the call it, “the Hadoken’s handicapped brother.” It would often disappear as quickly as it reappeared, thus making it a very poor substitute for the original technique taught in the Ansatsuken that Saikyo-ryu was rooted in.
However, this Gadoken traveled considerably farther than what Ryu was used to, surprising him enough to lift his hands up and block the attack instead of waiting for it to peter out like it normally would. Ryu let out a soft grunt as the Gadoken bumped against his arm and burst into sparkles. Not bad, he thought as he lowered his arms to see Dan charging at him once again. His Gadoken feels more like a solid hit than the quick slap that it usually feels like. Let’s see what else he’s got.
Hopping into the air once he was within striking distance, Dan lifted his knee and attempted to bop Ryu with a quick Dankukyaku. Unfortunately for Dan, Ryu didn’t hesitate this time and he safely ducked under the attack only to rise back up and strike Dan right under his chin with a Shoryuken. While Ryu normally shot for the heavens with his Shoryuken, he instead decided to jump only a few feet into the air for the attack so that he didn’t drive Dan’s lower jaw into his brain. Sakura probably wouldn’t appreciate him sending Dan to the emergency room before he left, though she might have thanked him for forcing doctors to wire his jaw shut.
When Dan crashed down onto his shoulders instead of landing on his feet like most everyone else did when taking such a light move, Ryu wondered if maybe he applied too much force. “?Dan?” Ryu called out when he noticed that the pink-clad warrior hadn’t yet gotten up from the attack. Walking over to Dan and standing over his fallen body, Ryu noticed that his eyes were rolled up into the back of his head. “Are you OK? Dan!”
Suddenly, Dan’s eyes suddenly returned to their normal position, his eyes suddenly burning with vigor. “KORYUKEN,” Dan screamed as he launched himself off the ground and high into the air, striking Ryu hard underneath his chin with a flying uppercut just as Ryu had done to him. He was playing possum, Ryu thought as he sailed through the air like he had just been hit with a golf club. With both fighters landing on their feet, Ryu tasted blood in his mouth and realized that he had lacerated his tongue when the attack connected. He might have become stronger, but he’s still the same Dan at heart.
Already seeing that Dan was charging towards him, Ryu lifted his leg and spun around for his Tatsumaki Senpukyaku. Even if Dan himself had become stronger, his moves were still just imitations of moves that he had been using for years. Using the real thing would give Ryu a serious advantage, unless Dan had invented moves that weren’t linked to the original art at all. Hearing Dan skid to a halt as Ryu spun towards him, the wandering warrior waited for his kick to connect against his body.
What he received instead was yet another Koryuken that hit the inner part of his knee, eliciting a shout of pain from Ryu as he careened through the air and flopped down onto his face. Attacking Ryu’s spinning leg with another Koryuken was nothing short of reckless and downright foolish, but somehow Dan managed to get the job done and knock Ryu out of the air. I’m going to have to try that with my Shoryuken the next time I face Ken, Ryu thought as he stood back up, though a sharp pain went through his leg when he did so. I wonder if that would work on Akuma, as well?
Seeing Ryu stumble a bit as he put pressured on the attacked leg, Dan once again hopped into the air and delivered a jumping knee followed by two aerial sharp kicks to Ryu’s head and shoulder, his completed Dankukyaku. With Ryu still feeling the effects of getting a Koryuken to his knee, Dan landed on the ground and performed a second Dankukyaku, this time with all of the attacks hitting Ryu’s head with the final kick knocking Ryu over like he’d been hit with a club.
Brushing the cobwebs out of his head, Ryu stood back up as best he could with only one good leg and fired off a Hadoken to provide at least some kind of respite from Dan’s assault. It was a desperate ploy that would have normally been avoided by skilled fighters, but Dan took the full brunt of the blue fireball and stumbled backwards to give Ryu some room to breathe. “I bet you think you’re so tough because your fireball is bigger than mine,” Dan shouted as he angrily shook his fist at Ryu while the wandering warrior gingerly bent his leg to make sure nothing was broken. “Well…well, size isn’t everything, you know!”
After deducing that everything was where it should be in his leg, Ryu charged forward and gathered his ki into his hands. Suddenly I can see how Dan could have defeated Gen, Ryu thought as he watched Dan rear back his fist for a shuttle punch, holding his other arm out in front of him. Dan might be a goofball, but if you give him an inch to breathe, he’s capable of pulling off an upset. I better get serious before I wind up on my face and-w-w-whoa!
Just as Ryu was about to strike, he felt something bump up against his leg, once again causing him great pain and forcing him to lose his footing. Stumbling towards Ryu uncontrollably, Ryu turned his head to see an umbrella hanging out of a suitcase that had passed by them and cursed his luck before turning back just in time for Dan’s right fist collided with his body, over and over again until his arm became faster than the eye could track. “DANRETSUKEN,” Dan gave voice to his attack as his right-handed barrage pummeled Ryu all across his body.
However, instead of concluding the barrage with one final strike, Dan instead continued the barrage, with every hit becoming slower and lighter. When the final hit did come, a pushing kick that knocked Ryu onto his bottom, Dan put his hands on his knees and took deep, tired breaths. “H?how about that?buddy,” Dan gasped out as he heaved to get some air in his lungs. “What?do you think?of my?Danretsuken?”
“To be honest, Dan,” Ryu said as he pushed himself off the ground and wiped the sweat from his brow, “I’m really impressed with what you’ve shown me so far. You’ve created some pretty cool moves that no one else has, and you’ve even added some new tricks to your repertoire. To me, that’s the sign of a true martial artist.” Dusting himself off and resuming his fighting stance, Ryu gave Dan a friendly smile. “I’m really enjoying this battle so far, Dan: thanks for challenging me!”
“Hmph! We’ll see how long you say that after you see my new surefire victory move,” Dan said before inhaling and exhaling deeply, swirling his arms around clockwise while his ki flashed in his hands. His ki has risen greatly: looks like he’s ready to put this away. Planting his feet and letting out a sigh of relief now that his leg had stopped throbbing, Ryu focused his own energy and prepared for Dan’s attack. I better do the same if I don’t want to wind up on my back.
“Haooooooooh?” Dan let out a deep breath before suddenly sucking inward and thrusting both of his hands forward in a wide arch, unleashing his gathered energy in a wave surge of power. “?GADOKEN!”
Unfortunately for Dan, while his attack was wide and impressive-looking, it wasn’t wide enough to keep Ryu from jumping into the air and successfully vaulting over the Haoh Gadoken. “T-that’s not fair,” Dan stammered as he watched Ryu flip over his surefire victory move without any kind of damage. “You can’t just dodge my awesome move and expect to-”
Dan’s protests were put to an end as Ryu drove his fist down onto Dan’s face, immediately following with a swift Joudan Sokutou Geri ? the Sword Kick ? to Dan’s sternum that sent him sprawling backwards. Noticing how much trouble Dan had getting up from the attack upon landing, Ryu charged forward and went in for the kill. He must have spent all of his energy on that Haoh Gadoken. Guess it’s up to me to teach him that he can’t throw it all out there if there’s a chance the enemy can get away!
“Why, you-”
“SHINKU TATSUMAKI!”
Dan attempted to stop Ryu in his tracks with another Gadoken, but Ryu was faster and delivered multiple propeller-like kicks to Dan’s jaw with an enhanced Hurricane Kick. The fourth and final revolution sent Dan spiraling away headfirst into a trashcan, spiking him into the receptacle with his legs hanging out as a result. After some wilding kicking, the Saikyo-ryu Master managed to return to his feet?but the trash bin was still over his head and torso, preventing him from doing much of anything except stumbling around blindly?
?right into Ryu’s Shoryuken, this time with all of the warrior’s power behind him. While the trash bin absorbed the brunt of the impact, it was painful enough for Dan to yelp in pain as he was lifted upwards only to fall back down to the ground. “Denjin,” Ryu grunted as both his hands started to crackle with blue electricity as he watched Dan fall to the ground beneath him. He couldn’t leave anything to chance: if there was a time to deliver the finishing blow, it was now. “?HADOKEN!”
Throwing his hands under him, Ryu unleashed his gathered energy onto Dan just as he hit the ground. Due to the electric properties of Ryu’s Denjin Hadoken, as well as the metal properties of the trash bin, the Master of Saikyo received all of Ryu’s power in the form of a very painful shock that caused him to convulse wildly while incoherent babbling sounds came from within the trash bin over his head. The convulsing didn’t end until Ryu had already landed gracefully on his feet and resumed his fighting stance, and Dan fell to his knees before flopping over onto his face defeated, the trash bin still trapping him.
When Dan didn’t move thirty seconds later, Ryu started to worry that the pink-clad warrior was suffocating instead of the bin. Quickly running over to the fallen Dan, Ryu wrapped his hands around the bin and gave it a sharp yank to pull the bin away from him to reveal Dan’s hair sticking up on end from his Denjin Hadoken. “Are you alright, Dan?” Ryu looked down at the Saikyo-ryu innovator who still had his face to the ground (though he was careful not to get too close, unless he wanted to get another sneak attack).
“?DAMMIT,” Dan screamed with such fervor that even the even-tempered Ryu jumped back a bit in surprise. The pink-clad warrior pounded his fist on the ground as tears streamed down his cheeks. “Why, why, WHY can’t I beat you after all of this time! I’ve been training so hard?why can’t I finally beat you and prove once and for all that I’m the strongest street fighter!”
Before Dan’s sobbing fit could get into full swing, Ryu reached down and placed a hand on his shoulder, causing him to look up in surprise. “You’ve become much, much stronger since the last time we fought,” Ryu said with a comforting smile. “I had to really think on my feet to beat you this time: you’ve improved leaps and bounds and it was a huge honor fighting you, Dan.”
“You?you serious?”
“You bet I am,” Ryu outstretched his arm to help Dan back to his feet, with the Saikyo-ryu fighter looking at the hand perplexedly. “It’s very easy to see why Sakura speaks so highly of you. Next time I’m nearby, I’ll definitely stop by one of your dojos and watch you teach lessons. Maybe I can pick up a trick or-”
“Now boarding, Gate 26 to Bangkok.”
Interrupted by the sound of a female computerized voice calling out the name of his flight, Ryu helped Dan back onto his feet and shook his hand one more time. “Dan, thanks for an interesting fight: I was in a bad mood and you really helped me shake off the cobwebs.”
“Well, uh?yeah, you weren’t so bad yourself, pal,” Dan replied with the same bravado he had when he the fight first started. “I was just going easy on you today because if you bled all over your flight, all of the attendants would be over you and you’d delay everyone. I’m not cruel enough to keep these fine people waiting on their flight just because I got carried away.” However, Ryu wasn’t really paying attention to Dan’s excuses, instead focusing on a very, very familiar ki signature that was quickly approaching him. “Hey, Ryu! Pay attention when I’m-”
“Dan,” Ryu suddenly put both his hands on Dan’s shoulders as he felt the ki signature coming closer. “Chun-Li is going to be coming over here very shortly: whatever you do, DON’T let her follow me into the gate.”
“What are you talking about?” Dan asked as he lifted his head to see what he thought was Chun-Li’s head in the distance hidden in the sea of pedestrians (though with her hair buns gone, it was hard to be sure it was her). “I don’t know what kind of issues the two of you have, but you better leave me out of-”
“Dan?”
Dan’s protests were cut short when he notices Ryu’s body trembling and his voice cracking. “Please?don’t make this harder than it already is.” Slowly lifting his head, Ryu’s eyes wavered to reveal a very pleading, pathetic look that Dan had never seen before from the warrior. In fact, it was the sort of sad, desperate expression that would have been completely out of the character for the one known as the “Wandering Warrior” and widely hailed as the Ultimate Street Fighter.
However, it was the kind of look that told even the foolhardy Dan what kind of situation Ryu was in. “Y-yeah, man. I understand.” Dan nodded his head and patted Ryu’s shoulder, signaling for him to quickly grab his bag and head for the terminal. Seeing the woman with the long brown hair that bore a striking resemblance to Chun-Li getting closer, Dan went into motion and put himself between her and Ryu.
“Ryu! Get out of my, Dan! Ryu!”
Ignore it, Ryu, the wandering warrior told himself as he did his best to turn a deaf ear to Chun-Li’s protests. Keep telling yourself that this is for the better. No matter how much your heart aches?this is something that has to be done. Going up to the ticket counter and showing the teller his ID and ticket, the wandering warrior received approval to step onto the airplane with Chun-Li still calling out his name.
“Ryu! RYU!”
Unable to stomach it any longer, Ryu paused at the gate and slowly turned his head to see Chun-Li reaching out for him, being held back by Dan’s strong arms. Their eyes met, and for a moment, it was as if everything around them stopped existing. The sadness in Chun-Li’s eyes, telling Ryu just how much he was hurting her even after explaining things to her in his letter, was enough for the wandering warrior’s heart to sink even deeper than it had earlier.
He wanted to badly to run into her arms, and tell her that he’d never leave her side?but if he did that, all he’d do is run the risk of hurting her even worse later. Forgive me, Chun-Li, Ryu thought as he turned his head away and walked into the gate. I promise I’ll make it up to you when I return.
As Ryu heard Chun-Li cry bitterly into Dan’s shirt, the wandering warrior felt tears well up into his own eyes, as well. I’m coming back, he reminded himself as he walked onto the plane and looked for his seat, his sad expression attracting the attention of some of the passengers. So why does it feel like that I’ve just left behind everything that matters to me?
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