Sakura Yugure shakily attempted to rise to her feet in a Tokyo park. She had met what seemed to be her friend Mei earlier that day, and had spent some time behaving like a normal schoolgirl: However, the illusion had been shattered by Mei's apparent surrender to the Satsu no Hadou and her following attacks on Sakura. In the course of the fight, Sakura had discovered that what she faced was not in fact Mei but a Shadoloo android sent to capture her, and had been on the verge of losing when they had been interrupted by the arrival of another fighter, who had destroyed the android in a single maneuver, but now stood facing Sakura herself.

"Get up, girl. I have business with you," intoned the dark form of Shin Akuma.

Sakura finally achieved an upright stance and set her back to the tree behind her, both to defend that area from attacks and to help her remain standing. "W-what do you want?" she asked.

Akuma crossed his arms over his chest and scowled down at her. "You are pathetic, child. You could have won that battle in a dozen different ways but held yourself back. Why?" he asked her, his stern manner almost that of a teacher demanding an explanation from a wayward student.

"Give me a break!" Sakura protested. "Not only was that thing not even human, but for most of the fight I thought it was my best friend!! No way would I ever fight to kill her!!"

Akuma 'harrumphed.' "Foolish. An opponent is an opponent, an enemy an enemy, no matter their appearance or past actions. Mercy has no place in our lives, girl. I will see to it that you learn better."

Sakura frowned back. "I do things my way, just like you do yours. Mercy is *my* choice-" she broke off as part of Akuma's statement registered. "Wait. What do you mean, *you'll* see to it that I learn better?"

Akuma gave her a savage grin. "You are now my student, child. I shall guide you into the path of the fist, where you shall remain for the rest of your life, until one superior to you kills you."

Sakura swiped one hand in front of her in vehement denial. "NO WAY! I may be born of the Satsu no Hadou, but I don't have to follow that path, and I never will! You just take your 'instruction' and stuff it!"

Akuma's grin never wavered. "I think you will find you are mistaken. Two days and two nights, girl: then we shall meet again, face to face and fist to fist. I wish you a full return to health in the meantime." With that, Akuma vanished into the blurred images of the Ashura Warp.

Sakura spent several more minutes against the tree, gasping for breath and trying to sense if Shin Akuma was still nearby. Finding no sign of him, the fuku'ed fighter pried herself away from her support and staggered off in the direction of the Rindou dojo.

That night, Sakura sagged into bed. Even a long, hot soak in the bathtub hadn't cured all her aches from the battle with Mei, and she was bone-tired and still felt empty inside. {It'll take a lot more rest for me to restore all the *chi* I used up fighting that Mei-thing,} she thought muzzily as she settled her head back against the pillow. {Acchan and the others didn't help much either, not with all the fussing they made over me once I got back...}

That had been considerable, given that Sakura had looked, in Akiko's summing-up, like "hell warmed-over." Gaunt, tired, and limping, the former schoolgirl had created quite a stir when she arrived. Akiko, Kho-Om and Mr. Rindou had all descended on her like mother hens, an analogy that caused Sakura to snort when she thought of it, even in bed as she was. {I'm not some fragile doll...} she complained to herself as she began to drift off to sleep.

She returned to awareness to find herself on a featureless grey plain cloaked in fog. "What the-" she commented, turning in place to try and determine her location, or at least her situation.

It turned out to be summed-up in an acronym used by the American military: "FUBAR", for "F***ed Up Beyond All Recognition."

Shin Akuma was standing there not ten feet behind her. "Your training is pathetic, girl. You couldn't even sense me influencing your dream-state, much less defend against it. Much the same situation as your martial training, child. You couldn't defend yourself against me if you tried." With that, he began a slow, measured advance, coming closer one step at a time.

One step.

Sakura wound up and unleashed a Hadoken, but Akuma merely leaned aside and let it pass him by.

Two steps.

She reared back and let go with a side power-kick, but a simple side shift took him out of its path.

Three steps.

Sakura cocked her arm at her side and lunged over the bare meter separating them, her hand blurring in the rapid punches of her Sho-Oh-Ken uppercut.

Akuma simply blocked; if he were bothered by the multiple impacts on his forearms he showed nothing of it. As Sakura descended from her uppercut, he lashed out with his left fist, smashing it into her temple with such force that Sakura crashed reeling to the ground, her head swimming.

She felt herself being grabbed by the collar and hoisted up: when her eyes would finally follow the commands of her brain once again, she wrenched them open -

- to see Akuma holding her up with one hand while keeping the other cocked in a claw-strike stance that would smash through her eyes into her brain. "You, for all your power, are no more than a frightened child, girl... and you are *mine!*"

The claw came rocketing forward.

Sakura awoke with a shriek: it was morning and she was still in the Rindou dojo, but this was of little reassurance to the young girl, who sat in her bed, pulling the tangled covers up around her sweat-soaked body. "A dream... it was just a dream," she murmured to herself in reassurance.

Then she saw it, stuck over the post at the end of her bed.

Akuma's glove.

{He was *here....!*}

That whole day, Sakura was nervous and stiff, losing badly to Akiko in the Sunrise Surprise Attack, and from Sakura's point of view the day went downhill from there.

Worry about the dream was subverted to another kind of fear when, just for a second, she sensed Akuma's *chi* nearby. It was gone a moment later, but Sakura's concentration on her task - repainting the compound wall - was ruined, and she had fallen into a defensive stance without even realizing it. This performance was repeated several times through the day, stretching Sakura's nerves to the breaking point, and by dinner, the young girl was outright snappish with the others.

Bedtime was both a relief and a source of dread for her. {What if *he* comes into my dreams again...?} she worried, but fatigue was setting in, aided by the sapping of her energy from a full day of jumpy nervousness, and she slid into slumber soon enough...

...only to soon find herself on the grey plain once again.

"Now for your second lesson in how hopeless you are, girl," Akuma growled at her.

Sakura scowled right back. "I've been hurt before, you bastard. you can't frighten me with that trick again. You want me as a student, which means you can't kill me, and I won't give up just because you're torturing me. You might as well just go away."

Akuma gave her a tight smile. "Good. You're perceptive. But let me ask you, how much do you know about the manipulation of dreams?"

Sakura kept frowning. "Why should I tell you?"

Akuma'a grin widened. "Not much then. Did you know that it's possible to weave several dreams together?"

Sakura withdrew a step, surprised by the shift in topic. "No - what does that have to do with anyth-"

She cut off, horrified, as Kho-Om appeared on the plain near Akuma. "Aiyah!" she exclaimed, surprise making her fall back on old speech patterns for a moment. "Where-"

She got no farther before Akuma slammed his elbow into the side of her skull, wrenching her head around with a horrific *CRACK.* Her eyes went glassy as the blow made itself felt, and she fell with a single whispered, "Doushte...?" (Why...?)

Akuma vanished, but his voice echoed in his absence. "You can't stop me, and you can't even defend your companions... not as long as you deny your killer nature..." he intoned, as Sakura dashed forward to Kho-Om's side, crouching beside her surrogate mother.

"Kho-Om! *COMB!* Get up, say something - please be okay..." Sakura cried, sobbing as she realized the Amazon's neck was broken, that the proud, understanding teacher she had known would never get up again.

The plain, Kho-Om's body, and everything else faded to black around Sakura as she sobbed out her grief.

And then, three eerily familiar voices spoke as one, not with sound but seeming to echo inside Sakura herself.

~This cannot be allowed,~ the treble chorus intoned. Sakura looked up through tear-blurred eyes. Three silhouettes - one red, one blue, one green - floated before her.

~I defend,~ the blue one stated.

~I avenge,~ the red one followed.

~I put the wrong things right,~ the green one finished.

~Call on us,~ they stated, speaking as one once again.

With that, Sakura woke up. Putting the apparitions out of her mind, the distraught girl kicked away her tangled covers and raced to Kho-Om's room, yanking the door open in her haste. "Kho-Om! Are you all right?" she half-yelled, the ugly image of her death still lingering in Sakura's mind.

Kho-Om sat up suddenly in bed, shocked awake by the sound of Sakura's voice. "What? What is it, Sakura?" she asked muzzily.

"Oh, thank the kami, you're okay..." Sakura sighed in deep relief. Pausing for a moment to collect herself, she asked, "Kho-Om, were you having any kind of... disturbing dream tonight?"

"No, not that I remember. Why?" the Amazon warrior replied, a puzzled expression on her face.

{He lied!} Sakura thought in mixed anger and relief. "Oh... I just had a dream about someone hurting you, that's all - a very vivid one," she explained lamely. "I was worried," she went on as she turned to leave. "I guess I'll stop bothe-"

She cut herself off mid-sentence as her hand encountered something tied around the inside door handle of Kho-Om's room. Unwrapping it and lifting it up, she looked at it in horror.

It was one of the ties Akuma used to fasten his topknot - and it had been left in Kho-Om's room.

{He was here - *again.* He's leaving me a message,} Sakura thought in rage. {Making it clear he can come and go, threaten who he pleases.} Holding her temper, Sakura nodded a good-bye to Kho-Om and stepped out of the room, closing the door softly behind her.

The fist holding the topknot-tie was shaking in rage. {I'm going to KILL him!}

Not bothering to wait for daylight, she headed out for the vacant lot near the dojo. {We'll have our reckoning there.}

Sakura came down from her final leap to land in the vacant lot. A moment later, Akuma warped in, his savage snarl already in place. "Are you ready to learn your first lesson, girl?" he asked.

"How about I teach *you* that it's not healthy to attack my friends," Sakura growled back, then attacked.

Her fists and feet flew to the tempo of her thundering pulse, like the heartbeat of rage: her entire focus was on the destruction of this monster standing before her.

Akuma's hands and feet also blurred, moving in rapid blows and blocks. The first blow went to Akuma: a quick punch that left a swelling bruise along Sakura's cheekbone. The psychotic Satsu master also claimed the second and third strikes, driving past Sakura's nearly nonexsistent defense as she berserkly attacked to hammer home a two-punch combination to her midsection.

Sakura dodged his next strike, a kick at her thigh, by hopping upward and landing in a tuck on Akuma's shoulders. Exploding her legs outward, she drove him to the ground as she propelled herself away.

(Note: This is her kick-button throw.)

Landing, she turned, her hands cocked back and drawing power in to annihilate her enemy with the Shinkuu-Hadoken - only to find him vanishing in the blurred outlines of the Ashura Warp. Releasing her hold on the *chi,* she spun about to try and locate him-

Too late.

As she finished turning to her rear, Akuma was already warping in. Before she could react, his feet left the ground and he glided forward with arms extended to grab her. By reflex, she blocked.

{Fool! That's the Shun-Goku-} she began to berate herself.

She never got to finish the thought.

Pain.

That was all she was aware of, the pain.

That and the fact that she was lying on the ground, flat on her back.

{If I turn over... I can use my arms.. and maybe.. get up,} Sakura's agony-fogged mind reasoned out. Heartened by this, she shifted her weight, and rolled over.

And her body promptly caught on fire.

Well, that was how it felt, anyway.

When the echoes of her scream faded, another voice intruded on her awareness. "Pathetic. You are a weak fool!"

{Shin Akuma,} she labelled the speaker. "Why...?" she managed to croak out, opening her eyes and raising her head to find that she was still in the vacant lot.

"You were doing battle with me, and you ask 'why?' Did my attack destroy your brain as well as damage your body?" Akuma snarled scornfully.

"Not... why you did..." Sakura managed, her throat beginning to work as it should again. "I mean... why was it... so bad..? You hit me with that once before... when we met in the Alpha tourney.. my first one.. and it wasn't nearly.. so bad.. and I'm stronger now.. so *why?*"

She turned her head to regard Akuma, who was standing over her, as he replied. "So, you know nothing of the Shun-Goku-Satsu, eh? Then here is your first lesson, student."

Sakura thought, {I could object... but I need time... I'll let him call me that this once..}

Akuma went on. "The Shun-Goku-Satsu is a maneuver designed to be effective against almost any foe. The attack strikes many times, this is true, but that is not the reason for its devastating efficiency. When we take hold of our victim, our *chi* channels into them, the Satsu no Hadou seeking out all the rage, hatred, fear, guilt - all the darker emotions in the heart of the victim. Those emotions are then used as a catalyst to turn the victim's own power upon them from within, mirroring and amplifying the affect of our blows from without. Do you understand?"

She nodded as she regained enough focus to control her *chi,* and began to heal herself as she replied. "So all my improvement, and my becoming a darker person, since we last fought... really did nothing but make me a better target for the Shun-Goku-Satsu."

Akuma nodded. "Exactly. Now get up and resume our fight, girl - I can see quite well that you're ready to continue."

Having healed, Sakura stood up. "Maybe, but your attack also shocked me out of my rage. I won't play your game anymore, Akuma. If you're going to kill me, do so: but that's not what you're after, is it?"

Akuma scowled so deeply Sakura wondered if his skin was actually going to crease the bone beneath: but then he looked away, over to the corner of the lot, and his expression became a savage grin. "Ah! There goes the girl your artificial opponent was modeled after," he commented.

Sakura glanced over to the corner of the lot in panic. Just visible through the wood-slat fence was indeed Mei, jogging along on her way to school with her book bag on her back, oblivious to the occupants of the lot. Sakura turned a horrified gaze back on Shin Akuma, guessing what was coming next.

"Perhaps I'll kill her, *then* would you be properly motivated??" he asked, beginning to stalk over towards Mei.

Sakura started after him, anger warring with panic within her-

~Call on me! I defend!!~

-and she reached within herself and answered the cry. Anger flared, panic was shunted aside, her aura flared blue, and the rage she felt was banked - just as it had been once before, fighting Moloch Aensland - by a core of utter ice.

She leaped.

Landing mere inches in front of Shin Akuma, she immediately began a short Sho-Oh-Ken, catching the killer offguard and knocking him back away from the fence and the girl walking along behind it.

"This will no longer be tolerated," she said coldly, staring at Akuma as he rolled to his feet.

"Then let the anger go!" he roared back, lunging in at her. Gauging his movements, she sidestepped the flying kick he attempted with a bare inch to spare and backfisted him in the spine as he passed.

He stumbled, but recovered - and in recovering, threw a roundhouse kick that she had no opportunity to dodge. Taking the attack as it knocked her tumbling aside, she assessed the damage, judged it to not yet merit healing, and rolled to her feet, taking up a defensive stance.

"Fool. You must attack, or I will overwhelm you!" Akuma lashed out verbally.

"Incorrect. Ryu has defeated you in exactly this manner," Sakura retorted coldly. Measuring the front kick Akuma threw and judging it to be a feint, she declined to respond, and thus was able to block the hurricane kick he used to follow up. As he landed from the move, she dropped low and swept out his legs.

He replied by thrusting a double kick at her while still prone. "You are *not* Ryu!" he roared, the kicks knocking her backwards - and one clipping her head, jolting her out of the glacial calm she was in.

Rolling to her feet, a bit confused and wondering what just happened, Sakura shook her head - then gasped in panic to see Akuma again coming in with his arms outstretched for the Shun-Goku-Satsu. In desperation, she grabbed at his arms, catching them before they reached her. "I don't get it," she half-sobbed. "What's gotten into you? Why come after me? Why now...?"

Suddenly, she reeled under a set of what she later called emotional impressions.

[Shame. My elder brother Gouken's choice to corrupt our Shotokan style, changing it from the simple and deadly thing of beauty I have learned into a weak parody of itself.]

[Frustration. Gouken was dead, but his two students were thriving, making Shotokan well-known... as an art for the weak fools!]

[Desire. The need for a student, a legacy to carry on the *pure* Shotokan after me, drawing me again and again to Ryu and the power within him... only to be rebuffed each time.]

[Anxiety. I am getting no younger. Ryu and Ken - unsuitable as students of the true Shotokan. The Sakura girl - far too innocent. Dan - pfah! Ryu's dark side - unattainable. What cannot be found cannot be trained.]

[Hope. The girl's dark side loose? Perhaps Shotokan will remain pure...]

Sakura shook her head and fought the urge to fall to her knees, while Akuma stumbled backward.

"What - what did you do, girl??" Akuma demanded.

"I'm not so sure myself," Sakura replied. She looked up at Akuma with new eyes, seeing the quiet desperaton in him. "You really want this, don't you?" she asked.

"The pure art *must* be carried on! It has been with us since ancient days - it would be a travesty to allow it to fade from memory!" Akuma admitted.

Sakura smiled slightly. "You've forgotten something, though. A martial style, just like a living species, must change, adapt, and multiply, or it'll die. Maybe Gouken saw that - have you noticed that each of Ryu and Ken's Shotokan maneuvers lead directly into yours? The true Shotokan is right there, within the 'popular' one... just waiting for someone to rediscover it. And thousands of people know of it, are beginning to practice it - just like I did."

Akuma stared at her for a moment, shocked. Rallying, he replied, "But with no one to teach it, the style will still be lost! I grow no younger."

"I grow no *older,*" Sakura retorted with a tinge of bitterness, "did you know that? My body is a construct of my power - like a Darkstalker's. I may never die, I'll have to watch my friends grow old and pass on... well, at least *some* good might come of it," she replied. Looking up at Akuma, she cocked an eyebrow at him. "I'll make you a deal. I can't promise to practice Shin Shotokan - it's too different from what I've been using - but I *will* come to you in that temple cave of yours and learn it. As long as I live, if I find someone who both can learn the style and wishes to, I will teach them."

In a rarely-seen moment, Akuma's jaw dropped.

"Yes, that means you don't have to try and trick me into it or drive me berserk any more," Sakura added.

As the revelations registered in Akuma's mind, he nodded. "Very well. I shall await you," he said, extending his hand.

Sakura took it, shaking it firmly to seal the pact. "I don't know exactly *when* I'll get there, but I *will* get there... sensei," she finished.

Without another word, Shin Akuma blurred and vanished in the Ashura Warp.

{Hmph! He didn't even say thank you,} Sakura thought. {I have to admit, that *was* a surprise,} she went on. {And what's up with me? Hearing voices? And sensing things like that... I thought it was just because of the Satsu energies mixing with the Psycho Power when I saw Acchan's past.} Vaulting the fence, Sakura made for the dojo - for home. {I wonder - was it just the Satsu this time, too? Mine mixing with Akuma's, and causing the same reaction? Or is it something else? And what about my dream, or how what happened to me today was so similar to how I felt fighting Moloch Aensland in my dream? No two ways about it - I need to find out more about myself! Maybe Acchan can give me some advice. I'll ask her tomorrow,} Sakura resolved.

With that, she made one last leap over the compound wall, arriving just in time for lunch, and firmly put all else out of her mind. {For the rest of today, though, I'll just enjoy life.}