Street Fighter Fan Fiction ❯ It's Never Lonely at the Top ❯ Invitation and Hunger, Part 2 ( Chapter 2 )

When Sakura returned to the dojo, it was filled with almost two dozen other students dressed in cloth gis of varying colors. She had only a passing familiarity with the students, as she spent most of her time training in the early morning before everyone else got there. One of the students bowed toward Sakura and her friends as they put their bags away in the dressing room, and then promptly went back to practicing katas with his sparring partner.

A few minutes after Sakura returned from the dressing room, Dan Hibiki, the leader and owner of the Saikyo-ryo dojo walked out of his office wearing his traditional pink gi.

"All right, everyone!" he bellowed. "Listen up!"

The room fell silent, and everyone stopped what they were doing to bow toward their sensei. Dan looked upon his students and smiled, ordering them to stand up.

"I see that you've all been training hard in the last few days, and I'm proud of the progress you've been making," he said. "However, there is still more work to be done before you all can become 'true masters'."

"Isn't there always?" remarked one student. The others around him chuckled quietly.

Dan unraveled a scroll in his hand and read it aloud in front of his class. "We've received another challenge from the Gold Fist dojo a few blocks down the street," he said, "and their master wants to hold a 'friendly' match here. Apparently, he still thinks that his dojo can beat ours, even after we trounced his top fighter in Osaka last month. Can you believe that?"

Sakura shook her head in disbelief. It felt like the thousandth time she had fought against members of the Gold Fist dojo. They were strong, but the hits she took from the punches and kicks weren't what aggravated her. With all of the physical and spiritual training she had gone through, she could recover quickly from the beatings. It was more about the way her would-be opponents conducted themselves that got under her skin. They always sent their strongest bruisers against the smallest and allegedly most fragile Saikyo members, got in a few good shots, lost, and then celebrated as if they had won. It had become almost routine for them, and Sakura and Hinata wondered whether it was worth it for them to even continue trying if the Gold Fist members never changed their tactics.

"Those guys never learn," said Sho.

"The match takes place here in one week," said Dan, "and I want you all to be in the best shape possible. Perhaps if we beat them decisively this time, they'll get the message and pick on someone on their level."

"But how will we get that many kids to agree to meet in one place?" said the other student from earlier. This time, the rest of the class failed to react to his attempt at a joke.

"We're going to begin our preparations for the upcoming match right now. Keep up your training, and push yourselves as hard as possible. We're going to show them exactly why Saikyo is one of the strongest dojos in the region!"

Dan ended his speech with a celebratory fist pump. The other students cheered along with him, and then went to find their usual sparring partners. Sakura teamed up with Hinata and walked to a mat near the front of the room where Dan could see them, while Sho filed to the back to take on one of the burly black belt fighters.

"All right, Sakura," said Hinata. "Are you ready for this?"

Sakura assumed her fighting stance, raising her arms to protect her face. "You bet I am," she said.

Almost immediately, Hinata came charging at Sakura with her arm stretched out. She threw several punches at Sakura, with a few of them hitting her gloved hands, and the others sailing barely beside her head. Sakura retaliated with a few punches of her own, aimed squarely at her opponent's gut. Hinata anticipated the move and caught Sakura's hand before slapping her lightly in the face.

"Gotcha!" Hinata said with a playful giggle.

"Hey!" said Sakura. "No fair holding!"

"I only did it to protect myself. You can't win a battle on offense alone, you know."

Sakura smirked, and turned around to flip Hinata over her shoulder, guiding her friend so that she landed on her back without injuring herself. "You're right. Sometimes, the element of surprise is key."

Surprised at how quickly she got taken down, Hinata sprang right back up and dusted herself off. "Very nice!" she said. "I'll bet you can't do it again, though."

Sakura attempted a spinning back kick, but Hinata ducked under it and tried tripping Sakura's other leg from behind, sending her crashing to the floor. Without Hinata to guide her on the way down, the landing was a bit more painful than she was used to. Sakura managed to get back up, but her back started to ache and she was unable to move around very quickly. She tried to ignore the pain and restrict herself to using simple punches and kicks, taking care not to deliberately injure herself or Hinata in the process. Hinata fired back with another barrage of punches, punctuating each blow with a loud "Ha!" They were too quick for Sakura to avoid this time, but she absorbed a few of the hits without noticeably flinching.

"Come on, Hina!" she said. "I know you've still got more in there."

"Are you sure about that?" asked Hinata.

"Yeah...I can take it. Don't worry about me."

Hinata charged toward her sparring partner again, alternating between basic punches, low kicks, and defense. The sweat from her brow clouded her vision a little, but she could still see well enough to score a few hits on Sakura. She planned to push the two of them as hard as possible for their upcoming match, just as they always did.

I sure wish Karin were here to see this, she thought.

Karin sat still in the back of the athletic room in her mansion, meditating in complete silence. She was unable to completely clear her mind, as her thoughts eventually drifted back to Sakura without fail. The incident at Setsuka's bar made her wonder just where their friendship was going. Before, the two girls simply exchanged smiles and friendly chatter. Now, she found herself receiving chocolate and hugs in public. It unnerved Karin a little bit, but she felt happy to receive positive attention from a woman she once considered her rival.

"Karin-sama?"

She heard the voice of Ishizaki from across the room.

"You know, it's rude to come into this room room like that without knocking," she said. "Now I have to start all over."

"Yes, of course," said the butler. "Before you resume your mental training, your father has requested to see you in the family room. He said it was quite urgent."

Karin got out of her meditation stance and walked over to the entrance. "I'll be on my way."

When she returned to the family room, she heard her father huffing and panting after returning from one of his daily jogs. He wiped his glasses with his handkerchief and used it to wipe the sweat from his brow.

"Hello, Father," she said. "You look like you had an adventurous time outside."

"That I did," said Katsuo. "There's very little that beats a run around the downtown area. If only there weren't so many people walking the streets. I had to dodge a group of joggers coming from the other direction, and I was forced into the street and nearly got hit by a car."

"That's terrible! You should have told them to move out of your way."

"I tried that, but there were so many of them, and they just kept on running."

Karin waited for her father to sit down in his favorite chair before approaching him. "You said that you had something urgent to ask me," she said. "What is it?"

"I wanted to know whether or not you've made a decision on whom you're going to invite to dinner tomorrow."

Karin looked at her father with trepidation. She knew what she wanted to say, but was unsure how well her father would receive it.

"Actually," she said, "I made a decision a little while ago."

"Excellent. Just give me a name, and I'll contact him right away."

Katsuo reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small cell phone. Karin held up her hand and stopped him before he could begin dialing a number.

"Actually, Father, that won't be necessary."

"And why not?"

"Well, the gifts that I received this year were a little...lacking. Therefore, I don't feel that it would be appropriate to invite any of them to the mansion."

Katsuo was puzzled. It was the first time Karin had ever refused a post-White Day dinner date. He hadn't anticipated her turning down all of the gifts given to her.

"I...see," he said. "In that case, I'll have to cancel the dinner. We'll send thank-you letters to the boys, and inform them that they won't be coming to the mansion this year. You can start writing them immediately."

"Wait a minute!" Karin said boldly. "There...is someone who I would still like to invite over here."

"But, Karin, you just told me that none of these gifts interested you."

"That's true...but I'm still within my rights to pick a successor if someone else gives me something I like...and this person was generous enough to share their chocolate truffles with me at lunch today."

Katsuo folded his arms, waiting for Karin to humor him with her suggestion. "All right, then. Let's hear it. Who have you chosen?"

After a few moments of silence to ponder her answer, and a few deep breaths to slow down her heart rate, she finally uttered a name. "Sakura."

"Sakura? Do you mean the young woman who's always talking about fighting? The one who goes to the dojo run by that idiot in pink? That Sakura?"

Karin was slightly relieved. Her father's tone of voice was far more inquisitive than dismissive. She had expected him to reject her claim entirely because it went against the original rules of their short tradition. However, in the last few years he had gotten to know Sakura, Katsuo learned to appreciate her energetic spirit, and despite the occasional fights she and Karin had, he knew that the two of them got along well enough.

"Is there a problem, Father?" asked Karin.

"N...no, of course not," Katsuo stammered. "If you wish to invite your friend over for dinner tomorrow, then that's perfectly fine with me."

"Excellent! I'll draft her invitation right away. Thank you!"

Karin gave her father a hug, and then walked over to the drawer next to the television set to retrieve a pen and several sheets of paper to use for writing her letters. Writing the first set of letters was easy—before her father had gone off on his jog, he had given her the names of the boys to her to allow her to write the messages to them quickly. She already knew most of their addresses, so it was only a matter of transcribing the letters and getting them in the mail before the end of the day. Sakura's invitation, on the other hand, proved to be troublesome for Karin. She wanted it to sound elegant and dignified without making it overly obvious that she was, basically, asking her out on a date. At one point, she even found herself muttering, "Damn it, Sakura! Why do you always have to complicate things?" Still, she kept a big smile on her face as she penned Sakura's letter, hoping that she would enjoy it when it was given to her later that night.

It took Karin nearly half an hour to complete them all, as she alternated her time between writing them and watching a soap opera that just happened to be on television at that moment. She stamped each of the letters for the boys and placed them in a pile, sealing each one with a kiss. Sakura's letter was placed in an envelope away for the pile, for Karin planned to deliver it to her guest personally. Once she was confident she had finished them all, she requested for her father to allow her to drive to the post office to complete her delivery. At least when that was done, Karin could rest for a little while...