Many inspirations and people in my life have urged me to fulfil this duty to Street Fighter fans, to the gaming community and to myself. There is no doubt that without playing my first game as Ryu at the age of 9, I would have never been on this road with him.
Ryu has certainly provided me with much inspiration throughout my life but there are certain individuals to whom I must acknowledge.
I have many thanks to give - first and foremost, I would like to thank my special test readers Matthew Abraham, Edwin Cartagena, Ken Houston, Joseph Rodriquez, Jared Shurin, and Aslom Ullah for taking the time to provide critiques of my work before passing the manuscript on to the wider community.
A huge warm thanks goes to Michael Hicks, Mark Norfolk, Andy Remic and Bhavna Wadhera for seeing me through difficult periods of the dreaded writer's block. My deepest gratitude goes to my editor Georgianna Groen who magically turned a 140,000 word concoction into a 80,000 word master piece. Extra special appreciation goes to my former agent Adam Korn, Josh Austin and Joshua Izzo of Capcom for showing such enthusiasm for my work and contribution.
My deepest gratitude goes to my illustrator Jung Shan from Taiwan for taking the time to bring this novel alive with her amazing artwork. Jung's Chinese ink style is second to none and her contribution alone completely turned this project around. Eternal gratitude to her.
Finally, I would like to extend my biggest thanks and gratitude to my husband and gaming partner Anthony Figueroa to whom I dedicate this book to. His constant encouragement and love of video-games kept me on this path of the writer's way.