Ryu sat on the chair, leaning heavily with his hands on his knees. Only small gaps of light crept into the darkness as he lifted his hands to his face. His fingers squeezed, relaxed, squeezed, relaxed, massaging the bridge of his nose. He was furious. And devastated. How could he have let his friends fall into Akuma’s hands? How could he have failed someone else so close to him?
He rocked on the wooden chair for a moment, grabbing his short hair roughly in between his fingers. It was clear from the moment he had laid eyes on Ken’s death-like state that the Raging Demon had been freed on him. He knew that each of its strikes to the body causes an internal explosion, like a million fireballs pulsating through every hairline. Of course, Ryu would know. He was its victim too. He had felt its evil punishment during his last fight with Akuma. Uncomfortably, he thumbed the thick skin over his heart. He could still feel the scar on his chest. It was a horrible reminder of when Akuma pummeled his fist through him, one dangerous strike after another.
Ryu heard a terrible scream. Jolted by the intensity, he was stunned before he remembered it was Ken. He still wasn’t used to it. By the sounds of his friend’s anguished cries pressing through the walls of the house, Ryu knew he was fighting to survive.
He found it puzzling that Ken was able to scream at all. Pressure points inflicted on his skull and neck had caused many of Ken’s irregularities, disabilities of adeptness at speaking or responding normally. Perhaps having placed him in the biggest room wasn’t the best idea. The large size only amplified his terror-filled shrieks, even to the top floor where Ryu was hiding.
Deeply, he breathed into his hands, unsteadily settling himself back on the chair. His jaw popped and flexed as he succumbed to his memories.
“My husband...Ken. You have to come. Ryu, p...pl...please I can’t f...find him any...wh...where,” Eliza sobbed over the phone moments after the fight was over.
“It’s okay, Eliza. I’ll find him. Where are you?”
“I do...doon...don’t know. So...some place in Ohio – Mi...Mirror Tale Ss...Ss...Stadium, that’s a...all I know. Oh my God, Ryu, he’s gone, b...b...blood everywhere, and, and Guy, I think he’s de...de...” Eliza burst into tears.
“Guy?” Ryu choked upon hearing the opponent’s name. “I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
“Ke...Ken’s...pilot...Talk to Maa...Malcolm, speed dial 3, use the j...jet plane.”
Ryu rocked a little faster, unable to stop the flashbacks from attacking. He had only managed to find Ken because of an eminent dark aura he felt behind the backstage of Mirror Tale. Judging by the blood trail, Ken had been dragged from the main stage and left there to suffer while the paramedics rushed to Guy’s aid.
Ryu had been so afraid of what he would find that he trembled. He had discovered Ken in a position very similar to his dead Master. Ken’s dark brown eyes had turned the dull murky gray of distance and lifelessness. Ryu frantically bunched a t-shirt against his friend’s broken chest, yelling at him to keep awake, but Ken fell unconscious uttering Akuma’s name.
Ryu knew that no one survives the Raging Demon. Not usually. If the Raging Demon was unable to kill any of Gouken’s students, that meant Akuma was failing. Even if it didn’t save Gouken, the act of selflessness was their tact.
“Loyalty and family get in the way of victory,” Akuma used to say.
“Maybe I do have too much to lose to be a great fighter,” Ken once confessed to Ryu.
“Ken, what if the opposite is true? Maybe you’re complete now because you have a son to fight for,” Ryu had reminded him.
“Akuma has many people in league with him,” Ken’s voice echoed in his mind, a small pathetic smile of disagreement painted on his face. “And maybe she’s one of them.”
Ryu looked up, confused by the thoughts that consumed him. Ken’s hellish screams kept piercing through the corridors.
“It couldn’t be her,” he spoke aloud, struggling to comprehend Tawnya Blaze at all.
He breathed harshly, shivering with the mere thought of her. Then he sighed in exhaustion. Ever since meeting Tawnya, Ryu hadn’t slept. Whenever he was unable to shut off his mind, he would watch over Sakura while she slept. He was careful not to leave a trace of his presence in the room.
His fatigue had been apparent then, but now, after what had happened to Ken, Ryu sat there with an unshaven face, looking far worse than ever.
“RYU SENSEI!” Sakura yelled, sprinting into the room looking flustered.
The stress in her voice made Ryu look up. He watched her approach him in an awkward jog, her face overcome with worry. He bolted upright, his eyes red and his face anguished. She wore a plain black t-shirt and blue denim shorts that made her legs look long. Sometimes, he forgot that Sakura was a grown woman despite her schoolgirl demeanor. He wanted to smile upon seeing her, but struggled to without squirming.
“Ryu Sensei,” she blurted, unable to calm herself down.
She gripped her knees, then shook her head, out of breath. It was harder to find Ryu in Ken’s big house. She had searched everywhere, from the first floor on up, until finally discovering him way up here, in the last room on the every top floor.
This room was much smaller than the other guest room, with two dark mahogany cupboards that complemented the warm sand-colored walls. The fuchsia orchid on the Italian study desk was slightly wilting in a way that looked exactly like Ryu.
He was looking down at her now.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, with a failed attempt to sound upbeat.
For a moment, Sakura contemplated whether to sit on the hard marble floor, or on the bed. Watching Ryu flinch at Ken’s scream, she instinctively kneeled in front of him. Her hand ran over his wrist, caressing the skin there in hope that it would calm his panic-stricken face.
“Check this out,” Sakura said, waving a palm-sized card in his face. The image blurred as she shook it. “This handy little thing was the tournament invitation Ken received. Eliza just gave it to me.”
Ryu examined it, puzzled by what she meant. The card was embossed with a dark rose, with information in small black print that also formed the stems and the thorns. He couldn’t make out the words in his sleep-deprived state.
“The owner of the card is Rose,” Sakura continued, squeezing Ryu’s hand. “Remember her? That weird psychic lady you met at the Alpha tournament?”
“Mystic Rose?” he mumbled, seeing a faint image of Rose at the back of the wall. Back when he first endured the Dark Hadou, Rose was the only person, other than Ken who helped him through his terrible torment. Her spirit was pure and her psychic ability was powerful. She had read her tarot cards for guidance. Ryu remembered her well.
“Umm, yeah,” Sakura cut in, hoping that they were talking about the same person.
“This is Rose’s card?” he repeated slowly.
“Yeah! She told me it was hers, moments before she warned me that psycho Blaze was going to fight m--"
“Wait,” he commanded with authority. “Rose was present at the fight?”
“Well, yeah,” Sakura said, as if this was common knowledge.
“And she warned you about Tawnya Blaze?”
“Sorta, if you understand poetry that is.” Sakura twisted her face whimsically. “Isn’t it weird that Ken and I have the same card? Hmmm, it’s got me thinking, Rose might have some links to Fei Long.”
“Fei Long?” he prompted, watching Sakura stiffen at the thought of his name. “How?”
Sakura squirmed, as if she didn’t want to talk about something so uncomfortable. Her shoulders hunched, and she nervously weaved the card through her fingers. Ryu blinked, his expression unchanged.
With a deep sigh, she hung her head loose, tightening the white headband around her forehead. She glanced up at him from under her lashes, wanting him to break the silence, but her impatience made her wail out, “It’s all my fault!”
“You mustn’t say that,” he responded, patting her tensed-up shoulder, but Sakura hid her
face in shame.
“It is,” her voice muffled into her palms. “I brought you and Tawnya Blaze closer together because of my article. And the sad thing is, I had no choice.”
To Ryu’s surprise, Sakura’s eyes were watery when she revealed her face to him again. She took in a shaky deep breath.
“I had a card like this,” she said, tapping the embossed card that rested on Ryu’s lap. “It was waiting on my desk one day with a note that simply said ‘F.L’. Of course, I didn’t know what that meant until Fei Long came knocking on my door, a few days afterwards.” She suddenly broke into a wavering smile.
“And of course, I had to let him in. I literally had a superstar waiting outside my bedroom. That’d excite any girl, right?”
She laughed nervously. “But he didn’t come with good intentions. He knew I hated Tawnya Blaze the moment I saw your name carved on her arm...”
She trailed off, chewing at an already misshapen fingernail. As Ryu held still, waiting patiently for her to continue, a knot of nerves hit her hard in the gut.
“I told Tawnya Blaze to forget about you or else I would write something nasty about her in LA Express. Fei Long probably read the letters I sent her and tracked me down somehow. After buttering me up with flowers and candy, he told me to write the article as planned and to specifically mention you both, or else he would have me deported to Japan.”
She felt Ryu’s hand tighten around her fingers. She gulped, not wanting to talk anymore, but the words flooded out in rapid Japanese.
“I didn’t wanna get deported. Ryu Sensei, I had to write it, I just had to. I wasn’t ready to leave America. I didn’t wanna return to my stinking life in Japan, washing dishes and living on ramen. And you weren’t in my life there, which totally sucked. And I couldn’t stand my parents telling me to go back to school. They don’t understand that at my age, people would laugh at me. And when Fei Long came into my home and said all those things, of course I thought, shoot, I don’t wanna make an enemy out of Fei Long of all people--”
“Ken was attacked by the Raging Demon at a tournament that Rose had invited him to.” Ryu interrupted so sharply that Sakura stammered on her last word. She was panting, and feeling her heart drum horrendously.
“Umm,” she thought for a moment. “Maybe this was Fei Long’s tournament. Everyone knows how he loves hosting real fights after completing a film.”
She watched him, his face non-committal. Waiting for a response, she chewed on her nails again.
“If you were in my shoes, what would you have done?” she mumbled. Silence. “Okay, that was a stupid question, ‘cause I know you would have gone back to Japan rather than get bullied into an evil plan like I did.”
Still silent, Ryu shuffled onto the double bed. Sakura pressed her lips together, withholding mindless comments that were surely making him angry. She watched his chest rise up and down ever so gently as he stared at the high white ceiling.
The corner of Sakura’s mouth tightened with pale dots. Finally she blurted, “Oh please say something, Ryu Sensei. This is totally eating me up.”
His gaze turned from the ceiling to her. The longer he stared at her, the greater the level of intensity in his eyes. The information Sakura had given to him was churning.
“I think it’s about time we paid Fei Long a visit. But first I have to make sure that Guy is okay.”
He bunched a pillow under his head, and then he closed his eyes, missing Sakura’s look of shock. She had thought Ryu would be angry at her for what she had done to him. She had been waiting for him to scold her.
But no. She could see that he was done talking.
“Wait a second,” she said, almost shouting. “That’s all you have to say to me?”
His cheeks lifted slightly at her expected outburst.
“It won’t be long till you can practice your fighting techniques on a real target,” he said, smiling with his eyes closed.
Within minutes, Ryu fell asleep.
*****
Chapter 31:
RACE