Of Love, Honour, and Revenge Ch. 14
By Matt Lawson

“Hey, kid.”

Someone was talking to her, but her eyes were closed.

“Hey, kid.”

She didn’t have the strength to open her eyes. She felt dead to the world, unable to comprehend everything around her.

“Wake up.”

She wanted to keep them closed, shut out her eyes from the world that had destroyed her.

“Wake up, kid.”

But she couldn’t. Slowly, her eyelids lifted, but all she could see were blurred images of gray and dark blue.

Sakura’s eyes slowly cleared and she could see where she was. She was in some sort of prison cell, a metal door shut and locked between her and the outside. She tried to walk, but she couldn’t Her feet didn’t reach the ground. She looked up, and saw why. Her hands were held up high, held together by a small length of chain, which dangled from the ceiling above her. She was held by the chain, and couldn’t move anything, save for her legs and head.

“Glad to see you’ve woken up.”

The voice was everywhere, but she couldn’t see where it was coming from.

“Where are you?” she said faintly.

“Try and look to your left.”

She swung to her left, and turned her head to as far as it could go.

“Now look downwards.” the voice continued.

She saw a small square window that contained three iron bars. Behind the bars, she could see a bald face, wearing an eye patch on the left eye.

“Who are you?”

“I’m a prisoner here, just like you.”

She nearly fainted, but managed to hold on. “Where am I?”

Sagat chuckled. “Just like a school girl, so inquisitive. You’re a……guest, of the crime syndicate Shadowloo.”

“Shadowloo? But Ryu killed their lord, didn’t he?”

“So I thought. But he is alive now, and you’re his prisoner. He’s going to use you as bait to trap Ryu.”

“No……” a tear ran down her eye.

“I’m sorry. Bison’s always been like that. I’ve known him for nearly five years.”

“So he also imprisons his friends?”

“I was never a friend to him, I was his second-in-command. He said he would help me find your friend so that I could pay him back for giving me this scar. And to think I believed him!”

A smile crept on Sagat’s face as he realised his foolishness in taking a step that cost him his freedom.

Sakura wondered what he meant. “Do you hate Ryu? Why?”

“Years ago, I was a Street Fighter champion for a number of consecutive years. I was unstoppable. Then Ryu came and changed all that. He ruined my pride, and became the Street Fighter champion, him, a mere boy. This scar serves to remind me of my defeat.”

He rubbed the place where the scar was. Immediately he felt his pain, and grimaced.

He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Sakura interrupted him. “Ryu isn’t bad.

He’s saved more lives than you will ever know. You don’t know if you think of him that way.”

“Maybe your right…..maybe I’ve been so consumed by my hatred since the loss of my pride, I don’t know him. But I’ll promise you this. I will make him pay for the scar.”

Both was silent. Then Sagat spoke.

“Are you alright?”

“I don’t feel so good. I haven’t felt this bad, even when I was bullied at school.”

“So, you’ve had a miserable childhood, huh? I can understand.”

“How would you know?”

“I was bullied by children when I younger. I had a father who beat me, a mother who suffered from depression because of him, and a village that cast me out when, in the fit of rage, I killed the man who’s son was my main enemy.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“You’re the first who would. I’ve never told that story to anyone else.”

Another long silence. Sakura wondered about her new-found friend, wondering whether she could trust him. Since there was no-one else there, she was the only one she could talk to.

Sagat raised his head, then made a toast with his empty glass.

“To prisoners.”

At that point, a man Sagat had not expected to see entered the door.

“Not you again.”

“Hello, Sagat.” Dan Hibiki said. “It’s nice to see you here, surrounded by four walls. It’s a very suitable place for a man like you.”

“What are you doing here, Hibiki?”

Hibiki answered with a punch in Sagat’s jaw.

“Shut up, Sagat. I’m going to make your life a miserable h*ll for what you did to my father.”

Saga, rubbing his jaw, actually laughed. “Don’t tell me you’ve taken up with these smacked-up *ssh*les.”

Another punch. Sagat stumbled to the floor.

“You’ve gotten better since I last saw you.” said Sagat with a smile, even though his jaw hurt like h*ll. “Though you certainly haven’t gotten any wiser.”

“Shut up. Guards!”

Two Shadowloo guards, each with FAMAS assault rifles, entered the cell.

“Take this prisoner to the Bullpen.”

They walked up to Sagat. One of them thrust the butt of the rifle into Sagat’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him. In the cell next door, Sakura could only hear them grab Sagat by the arms as he gasped for air, then he heard the sound slowly disappear. She then heard ‘Hibiki’s’ voice.

“D*mn, I’m lovin’ this rush of power.”

Then he walked away, and Sakura was alone again.

A tear rolled down her eye as she cried.

The ‘Bullpen’ was a KGB torture instrument used during the days of the cold war. It consisted of a metal fence that the prisoner was strapped to. The fence was connected to a series of cables wired to a generator. When the torturer pressed the button, electricity would be passed through the fence and anyone attached to it, the amount depending on the number of volts the operator set it at.

With the collapse of the KGB, the Bullpen was never operated again due to the Geneva convention. To aid finances, the Russian government sold the Bullpens to the highest bidder. Somehow, Bison managed to acquire one Bullpen. If he didn’t want to achieve any information by brainwashing, he sent his captives to the bullpen.

Right now, Dan laughed as Sagat struggled, surrounded by several thousand volts of electricity. In his time in a Hong Kong prison, he was beaten by a warden when he was received. He never made a sound. But back then, the warden used a stick and beat him around his legs as he was chained from the ceiling like Sakura, which, although painful, was not exactly lethal. Here, they were using something far more dangerous, and far more lethal.

The groan increased into a crescendo until it was a full blown scream. Dan was slowly increasing the voltage level against his most hated enemy. Against anybody else, he would never have done such a thing, but this was different. Sagat killed his father, Go Hibiki, in a fight that was blew up in the very dojo Go owned. Dan, as a young boy, watched the whole thing. Since then, Dan never forgave Sagat for what he’d done. His hatred , made Dan an unpopular man as he traveled round the world looking for ways to fight. He had been to the dojo that Ryu and Ken trained in, but left after a year because his anger made him unfocused and unstable. In the end, he mixed different styles between the Shotokan Karate that was trained by Ryu’s sensei, and the style that he learnt from his father to create Saikyo, which, in Japanese, meant ‘the strongest’. He planned to use it on Sagat, but never got the chance. Now, he felt like he didn’t need to. For the first time in his life, he was satisfied with what he was doing.

However, it was time to stop. If he rotated the dial even further, he would end up killing Sagat. He wouldn’t mind, only it would have ended his fun, and he wouldn’t have something to look forward to later. Besides, he had business with the construction work going outside the base. The airbase was nearly ready, he would have to look over the remaining construction details.

He switched off the Bullpen. Sagat’s head slumped forward as he was released from the electricity. Dan turned and saw Adon standing at the door.

“What do you want?” Dan asked with an angry voice.

“Nothing, I just wanted to say hello to my old teacher.”

Dan left with a snort. Adon walked up to the weakened body of Sagat and lifted his head.

Sagat looked at Adon with his remaining eye half open.

“Nice, isn’t it. Now you have three enemies that know you more personally than most.

Bison, me, and that man. How does it feel to be in h*ll?”

He kicked Sagat in the head. And Sagat was unconscious.

Akuma sat in his own personal room, his legs folded in the lotus position. Behind him were several dead slaves who had dared to escape. OM the floor where they lay, pools of blood spread across the stone floor.

He had made a good deal with M. Bison. Bison had control of Shadowloo once again. He had the power to take over the world. His soldiers and pilots would be highly skilled, even better than they were before. In return, Akuma was allowed to deal with any slave who tried to escape, plus to do whatever he wanted to do with Ryu. Bison had done well in turning this once glorious Aztec temple into a base worthy of causing mass destruction.

The second step of his plan was complete. All that they needed to do now, was find Ryu.

Suddenly, another slave was pushed through the door, and the door locked behind them.

“So….you tried to escape.” said Akuma, without a hint of emotion. He stayed sitting in the lotus position.

The slave scratched at the door, muttering Portuguese, a language Akuma could not understand, and didn’t even want to.

Akuma stood up, and slowly turned to face the slave. The slave stopped scratching, and held his back against the wall. He showed fear, his eyes glaring into the face of the devil himself.

Akuma slowly walked towards him, his eyes alight with fire.

The slave continued shouting in Portuguese, then his voice rose into a loud scream as Akuma walked over him.

The two guards standing outside the door winced as they heard the wailing scream rise to an inhuman pitch – and then cut off sharply, stopped by a heavy wet crunch.

Bison heard the noise too. And he smiled.

A couple of hours later, a slave walked in carrying a wet mop. His pupils dilated with fear as he saw Akuma sitting cross-legged, with a pile of dead bodies laid in a pile. By the sight of the one on top, he knew it had been freshly killed.

Akuma spoke, his thirst for death currently sedated. “You can carry the dead bodies out of here, now.”

The slave picked up the bodies one by one, and loaded them onto a trolley. After the pile of nearly twenty slaves had been removed and dumped onto the trolley, he mopped the blood-stained floor with the mop, making sure every speck of blood had been cleared.

When the now-red mop was placed in the bucket of water, he left before Akuma said anything else.

He never told anyone about the sight he had seen. The slaves did not know the peril of a failed escape.