~Flashback: 10 seconds ago~

"Acchan!!" Sakura Yugure got out of a half-closed throat in a voice that was half gasp, half growl.

"I know, Sa-chan... I feel it too," Akiko Tendo answered.

"So powerful...unlike anything I've ever encountered... but who is it? I don't know this aura," Kage no Kasuga asked, the psychic growing agitated just from observing how distressed the two girls were becoming.

"Trust me, you'll *never* forget it once you know it," Sakura ground out in a voice growing dark with hate. "He makes that kind of impression on people."

She paused for a moment, then as Kho-Om and Itamu Rindou ran into the room, attracted by the sounds of distress, she announced the aura's identity.

"It's Bison. He's here, in Nerima."

"The one who ordered the attack on Kho-Om's village is here!?" Itamu Rindou asked, for once showing an emotion besides grief as he grew angry from just the thought of *that* man being near Kho-Om again.

"I *KILL!*" Kho-Om herself growled, reverting to old speech habits in her distress.

"STOP."

The one word came from Akiko Tendo and seemed to carry the weight of authority with it, heavier than the largest mountain. In her more usual musical voice, she went on, "We have to plan this - he's most likely here to recapture me, and as such, he wouldn't come if he were unaware of the abilities of everyone here. If we rush out like a rampant mob, he and his servants will just pick us off one by one."

The sobering thought brought rationality back to the room, and everyone nodded. Akiko turned to Kage. "Kage, I know telepathy isn't your forte, but can you somehow shield us from him? We can't fight him if he just forces us to fight each other... or takes me over again," the lovely redhead finished with a shiver.

Kage scowled. "I can't shield our minds directly, but I *can* project a zone of psychic energy - static, basically - that will ensure he has great difficulty using his powers, at least from any distance."

Akiko nodded. "Good. Please, start now - I don't know how near he'd need to be in order to..." she broke off for a moment, shivering again.

As Kage scowled in concentration, Sakura picked up the thread of conversation. "That's all well and good, Acchan, but all that means is that we're under siege here. Unless someone goes out there and either drives him off or - preferably in my opinion - drags his butt in here to face retribution, he'll just wait until he *can* get someone. You all need to eat - you can't stay here forever."

Seeing Akiko turn her face resolutely to the door at those words, Sakura wasted no time grabbing her blood-sister's shoulder. "*NOT* you!" she exclaimed. "He's gotten his hooks into you once already, doesn't that make it easier to do it again??" the schoolgirl pointed out. "And not you either, Kage - you have to stay here and protect the dojo group."

"Who you - I mean, who *do* you suggest then, Sakura?" Kho-Om asked, reaching behind her and pulling out an improbably large sword from concealment. "Itamu and I will gladly assist in this."

Sakura sighed. "Actually, you can't go either, Kho-Om-obaasan, and neither can Itamu-san," she answered. "Bison might control you too - either of you - and then he'd probably make you fight each other just for his sick whims." Both amazon and dojo master looked distressed at the thought of that.

"Then who do you suggest, young lady?" Itamu Rindou asked. "Your argument would seem to apply to any would-be hunter save for Kage-san."

"Actually, it doesn't apply to me," Sakura replied. "Acchan, remember when I grabbed the collar? Not the mind-stuff, what happened physically?"

Akiko paused for a moment, then gasped as the realization hit. "It started sparking and shorting out! Even though you hadn't crushed it or torn it!"

"Exactly," Sakura agreed with a grim smile. "His power and mine just don't mix... which means I'm the only one here he can't control that way."

"You, therefore, are the logical one to bring this *scum* in to us," Kage noted grimly. "I do not like this - we will, by your own estimation, be powerless to help you if you get in over your head."

Sakura smiled jauntily, ignoring her inner feelings of nervousness and outright fear. "I'll just have to make sure I don't then, ne?" she said, and then Ashura Warped out of the dojo before anyone - especially herself - could convince her not to go.

From a cloaked aircraft, Cammy spoke to her Lord Bison with no little amount of trepidation. "Lord, wouldn't it be better if you brought along more help? Either me or more of the Dolls, maybe even another Shock Trooper squad."

Sheathed in azure radiance, floating majestically in mid-air, M Bison smiled maniacally as his cape flapped regally in the wind. "Calm yourself my beautiful flower, I am here for my prize and that is all. These children pose no threat to me. They will not harm me lest I allow them to. Ah yes, I do believe that young Miss Yugure is throwing down the gauntlet." With those words, the Lord of Shadowloo teleported away.

As Sakura warped into the familiar outlines of the vacant lot near the Rindou's place, she took a few deep breaths to settle her stomach, which seemed to have inherited the mother of all butterfly swarms. {This is stupid! Sure, he almost killed me last time we met, but that was before the Apocalypse thing, much less my division! I've gotten stronger twice over since then... and even back then, I was almost more than Bison could handle,} she thought wryly, recalling how her Midare-Zakura had pushed Bison's body over the edge and started a process of dissolution that Ryu's Shin-Shoryuken had finished.

(This is Sakura's SF Alpha 3 ending, BTW.)

{Yosh'! (OK!) Down to business. Now how do I get Bison to come here..?} After a moment's pause, she shrugged. {He always was obsessive about power... If I flare my *chi* and let him sense it, that ought to get his attention.}

Suiting action to thought, Sakura summoned up her power without focusing it into a technique, letting her aura flare in all directions, opening up her *chi* to the senses of anyone in the vicinity.

Sure enough, after only a few seconds of this, Bison appeared in the far end of the lot from her in the blue glow of the Psycho Teleport.

Sakura nodded in mock politeness. "Hello. I must say, you're looking healthy considering what happened to you last time we met."

Bison stretched langourously. "Ah yes, death clears the mind wonderfully. Ryu did me a favor when he vaporised my old body. The insights I gained allowed me to break through the final barriers to true mastery of the Psycho Power."

She scowled. "Whatever. I'm just out here to tell you to *stop* bothering Tendo Akiko-san," she said sternly, using formal Japanese name order in her angry mood.

Bison giggled lightly, "But what if I'm not here for her, Miss Yugure? What if I had another prize in mind? Not as beautiful perhaps but a pretty blossom all the same, and a night bloomer to boot."

Sakura's scowl got a bit deeper as a twinge of nervousness tightened her belly muscles. "Well then, I suspect you already know that you can't control my mind or you'd have tried it already," she commented, tensing for action. "So since I'd never in my life serve such a sick, pathetic b**tard as you willingly, why don't you just go home?"

"And why don't you come with me? Why waste your time with these insects when I can show you the true meaning of power?" Bison shot back, his eyes glowing with Psycho energies.

Sakura tightened up her stance one more notch, driving one foot an inch into the packed earth beneath it for bracing, but was abruptly deprived of the solidity she sought as Bison lifted his hands towards her, palms out, and with the odd feeling of having had... something... not quite material wrapped around her, she was lifted upward and her feet left the ground. She drifted higher, quite out of reach of any support with which to stop herself, and fought off panic. {There must be some way out of this!} she thought, and studied the energy holding her aloft with all her senses, hoping to find a way to escape.

What she noticed, almost immediately, caused a wave of something entirely different from hope to surge up from inside her. She tried to keep it under control, but like a flood, it would not be dammed up, set loose by the tension of the last few minutes and her recent realization. Finally, she lost the battle and had to show her emotion...

...and softly at first, began to laugh an ironic, savage laugh.

Bison frowned as, from her position hanging helplessly in the air before him, the Yugure girl began to laugh. First a small chuckle, then snickering, then outright howling mirth, arching back and forth as she tried to work it all out.

"What do you find so *amusing,* miss Yugure?" he demanded. As if a switch had been flipped, her laughter shut off and she stared balefully at him.

"You don't get it, do you?" she asked, in a tone that suggested that the statement she was making was unbelievable. "Even though you said it yourself, you don't get it."

"Perhaps you might explain," Bison growled at the presumptuous girl. When she simply cocked an eyebrow in reply, he jerked her a few yards higher into the air, reminding her, "Your position is rather tenuous to refuse me!"

"When we first fought, in the forest near your hideout in Thailand, you said the Satsu no Hadou was much the same as your Psycho Power," she explained, but added to Bison's infuriation with a tone that a teacher might use to educate a slow student. "That leaves you with one problem."

"That being?" Bison growled back.

"You *wield* the Satsu no Hadou," Sakura explained, while pulling her arms up over her chest as if grabbing something just above her shirt. Bison felt an odd twinge in the back of his head, like an itch in his mind. Before he could devote any attention to it, however, the Yugure girl spoke again. "I *AM* the Satsu no Hadou!" she screamed, yanking her arms out to their full extension, hands still grabbing at nothing...

... and Bison snapped his head back in anguish as the aura of Psycho Power he'd wrapped her in to lift her with was torn asunder by her bare hands.

Straightening back up, he opened his eyes to see her land lightly on her feet, already in a combat stance. "For Akiko, for the Amazons, for Ryu, and for everyone else you've violated, Bison... you're going down," she said.

Not giving the would-be conqueror time to recover from his shock, Sakura dashed in, hands and feet already at play. Before Bison could raise his defenses properly, she hit him with a quick combination of jabs and shin-kicks that put him off-balance, then clasped both hands together and swung them upward, catching Bison under the chin and launching him into the air. A *chi*-powered jump sent her up there after him, and her foot lashed out in a rising ax-kick which landed in the same place as her double punch had. He blocked her follow-up punch and pushed away from her, moving out of her reach as he began to drop - but Sakura recalled her sparring match with Akiko on the day that the android Mei had arrived, and sent a Hadoken down after him, knocking him from the sky like a shot-down airplane, complete with trail of smoke.

He crashed headfirst into the base of the fence around the lot, and as Sakura landed, she crowed, "Doko da?!" ('What about that!?')

Her cocky grin went away, though, as Bison calmly got up, seeming little worse for wear, and wiped a small trickle of blood away from the corner of his mouth. "That one was free," he sneered at her. "Care to try again?"

Shaking her head as if to throw off the sudden foreboding that was gathering about her, Sakura charged again - but not quite in the same way. {I'm not fool enough to repeat a technique against an opponent like this,} she thought, and at the last second altered her charge into a short, hopping jump, which was in turn changed into the airborne, *chi*-aura Sho-Oh-Ken.

For a moment, as Bison failed to counter, Sakura dared to hope that Bison had been taken in by the double feint - but her emotion shifted to horror as she felt his blocking arms begin to shove upward. {Oh hell, it's the classic Shoryuken counter-} was all she had time to think before Bison flew up after her, smashing her in the back of the head with both fists and sending her to the ground even as he himself bounced much higher. {Gnngh! He's a lot stronger than I remember,} the girl thought as she braced for impact.

Sakura hit the turf and immediately rolled forward, springing to the side as soon as her feet were under her. Sure enough, as she glanced back to her landing spot, Bison's feet smashed down in a double-foot stomp right where her head would have been. "Oh, come on," Sakura called out derisively. "Like I couldn't see *that* coming! You've been using that combination since the first time you fought Ryu!"

"Then perhaps something of a more recent vintage," Bison shot back, and his hand shot forward, launching a ball of Psycho Power Sakura's way.

"That's nearly as old!" Sakura scoffed, and launched a Hadoken to counter what she thought was a Psycho Shot.

By the time she saw her attack blasted aside by Bison's without stopping it, it was too late to react as Bison grinned wickedly at her.

"PSYCHO EXPLOSION!"

The detonation of Psycho Power slammed into her like a dozen freight trains, and she collapsed to the ground, her body twitching from the electricity-like affect of the energy and bleeding from mouth and nose.

Sakura lay on the ground, every nerve aflame with agony. As Bison bent over her supine form, she spat a gobbet of blood into his face. {Just keep gloating a while longer. Once I heal up, your ass is mine, Bison!}

Unperturbed, he stood straighter and wiped the blood off while addressing her. "Don't you see, dear girl, the flaw of your thinking? You may be the Satsu no Hadou but you can only defeat me by becoming what I am. To gain the power to topple me, you must give yourself fully to its tender embrace. And when that happens, you shall become as I am; a God, killing or sparing on whim. The laws and moral constraints of lesser mortals will matter not to you when power undiluted flows in your veins. Come Sakura, show me your power. Show me that you are one of us!"

Sakura gathered her strength as the last of her injuries began to mend. "I've *Been* among those who could call themselves Dark Gods, Bison. You don't even compare," she spat back, remembering Demitri and Morrigan. Finally healed, she sprang back to her feet.

As she lunged in with an overhand punch, Bison snapped a hand out and caught her fist, wrapping his larger hand over hers and starting to squeeze. Before he could apply enough pressure to break bones, she lashed her other fist out in a roundhouse punch, which he likewise caught, and Sakura planted her feet and drove forward, causing Bison to grunt and brace himself before pushing back.

For a moment the two were locked in tableau, both channeling power into their muscles and pushing all the harder, and a flash from Kage's memories flew unbidden into Sakura's head.

"Come on, kiddo. The name's Michael Bison, and I'm getting you and your friends out of here. The Agency ordered me to shut down this place and I can't see why you boys can't just 'disappear' when I blow this place to Kingdom Come."

"Why...?" Sakura grated as she pressed harder against Bison's grip.

He grunted in effort as he replied, "Why what, miss Yugure..?"

"Why are... you what you are?" she replied, her speech spaced around her surges of effort. "You were... a *good* man once! Kage Kasuga-san... showed it to... me in his memories..!! WHY DID YOU CHANGE!?" With that last shout, she shifted her weight and lashed upward with one foot, axing Bison under the chin with it again and breaking the grip that had them deadlocked. "Why?? What could have possibly happened to a man who would risk his life saving ESPers from Project Zero to make him into YOU!?!?" she shrieked, cocking both hands back as Bison reflexively blocked.

"SHINKUU-HADOKEN!!"

The torrent of energy shoved Bison back across the yard, and Sakura stood panting where she was as Bison came out of his blocking stance, showing little of the fatigue Sakura was feeling.

Sakura blinked once as M. Bison abruptly teleported. Reacting instinctively, she whirled around, only to have M. Bison appear behind her, in the direction she was initially facing. She felt him crush her neck with a grip like an iron vise. "Michael Bison was a pathetic weakling." Sakura gasped as Bison stole a huge chunk of her life-force. "He knew what must be done but he lacked the will to make the appropriate sacrifices." The world whirled around Sakura as she fell to one knee. Bison's leech technique had drained her energy so rapidly, she felt like a burst balloon. Her knees felt like jelly and her arms hung limply at her sides. Struggling futilely, Sakura tried to fight off Bison's insidious power even as the spark of her consciousness dimmed. "Awaiting me in the dojo is a weapon such as the world has never seen. When I bring it to its full potential, nations will tremble. Once *your friend* falls under my power, I will grind the entire world beneath my feet."

A cold power flashed through Sakura as she registered the meaning of Bison's words. {~This cannot be allowed!~} something said inside her heart.

{~Defender!~} she cried out within herself, recognizing the sensation and the voice.

{~I am summoned, and I come!~} the reply came.

Sakura's aura flashed icy blue, as did her eyes. New, cold clarity rushed through her and her strength returned. Her hands flashed up to Bison's wrists and smashed knifehand thrusts into the vulnerable joints, knocking Bison's hands away from her throat as she began to turn to face him.

"You shall *not* harm Akiko-sama," she stated flatly, "while I yet live." Bison might have replied, but Sakura was still turning, and her leg extending itself.

"Haru-Ichiban," was all she said as she initiated another of her Super Maneuvers.

The vertical hurricane kick snatched up Bison and whirled him about and up until the move terminated, dropping them both back to the ground from fifty feet in the air.

"You shall not prevail so easily, lord of corruption," Sakura said, firmly into the Defender's mindset now. "I *will* Defend her from you."

Bison noticed the change in stance and overall demeanor easily. Instead of being nervous about the abrupt turn in tactics, Bison's face held an expression of unholy glee. {So she is the one, the Balance. Once the circle is complete, mankind will know its true destiny,} he thought. "Very good girl," he said with his trademark grin. "But is it good enough?"

Sakura made no verbal reply, instead beckoning the madman towards her with the front hand of her fighting stance.

Bison wasted little time obliging, moving in with a Knee Press which flowed smoothly into a pair of jabs, all of which Sakura picked off with spot blocks without making the error of 'turtling' - blocking constantly and thus giving up the initiative to your foe. A kick combination was similarly stopped, and a sliding footsweep was countered with a single-spin Shun-Pu-Kyaku - Sakura's arcing variant of the Hurricane Kick.

Floating back on currents of air by dint of his Psycho Power, Bison laughed internally as he saw her defensive posture. She had potential but sadly it was marred by the petty constraints she placed on herself. She would learn better in time. If she survived.

Sakura never changed expression, simply watching Bison with her ice blue eyes. He threw a Psycho Shot which she ducked underneath, scooting closer as she did; when he threw a second, she immediately punished the mistake by hopping into the air and unleashing the *chi*-aura version of the Sho-Oh-Ken, singeing Bison with the energy and lofting him into the air.

Regaining his equilibrium, the Lord of Shadoloo maintained his altitude, looking down at his opponent. Even without any offensive action on his part, she was already in a defensive stance. "You must do more than block and counter, girl, if you ever hope to defeat a serious opponent." Swooping down like a hawk, his fist cracked against Sakura's skull in a vicious jab. Wasting no time, his hands moved to grab the young karate-ka. Recovering with inhuman speed, Sakura pushed herself away from him and excuted an acrobatic backflip in order to put some distance between her and the madman. Grinning madly, Bison belted her out of the air with a Nightmare Knee Press even as she was just about to land.

The impact, as with her fight against Shin Akuma before, was enough to knock her out of the Defender mindset and back to herself. She *could* have turned that to her advantage - had she gone for a sudden attack, seizing the initiative from her opponent as she almost always tried to do, she might have gained and held an advantage as Bison readjusted his tactics to her normal style.

Instead, she hesitated for a fatal moment, and Bison rocketed backwards, sheathed in blue. Sakura screeched, knowing what was coming, and tried to summon up the Shinkuu-Hadoken to counter... but she was too short on both energy and time.

"PSYCHO CRUSHER!!!"