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"..."

"Your date with Gill."

"My date-- Doctor! I think you underestimated my brother's brain damage!" She was only semi-serious, of course. Luckily, she could see Doc Ningsih through the transparent wall dividing his office and the infirmary proper. He was at the phone and seemed very involved in his conversation. It was unlikely that he had even heard her.

He lifted his right hand in a dismissive gesture. There was something in that simple movement that dropped a very clear hint: denial wouldn't have helped Laura's position one bit. "Oh, don't try to deny it! I definitely wasn't brain-damaged when I saw it the other day."

"'It'?" Oh, Lord, how could he even-- what could have he ever seen?

"That pair of evening shoes." The shoes! The damn shoes, of course! I had completely forgotten to dispose of them! Serves me right for choosing to go barefooted to a romantic dinner! "I don't pretend to know everything about the contents of your wardrobe, but I know for sure you're not the kind of person who would spend more money than dad earns in three months for a pair of shoes."

She tried regaining a semblance of composure. "A-hem-- what makes you so sure that Gill was my date, with all the men who're currently residing on this station?"

"Because news of the break-out star and show-stealer of this world tournament going to a date with the Big Pepsi Man himself would be incredibly damaging for the former's reputation. You know, conflict of interest, rumors of 'preferential treatment' and 'sleeping her way to the top' and all that." Amazing. He never watches any TV but he talks like every TV detective who's making clear to the suspect that he knows that it was him-- or her. "She could go to great lengths to make sure that there are no witnesses of her little misdeed-- like tying up and gagging her own brother and locking him up in a trunk to fight a savage battle against suffocation for six long, excruciating hours. Then disguising the whole ordeal as the action of a big, loving sister worried that her little brother is losing his fighting spirit."

There was something very familiar in the way he spoke that last sentence. And Laura didn't appreciate that her patented, overly dramatic style of explaining things to her younger brother was being reproduced so well by somebody else. On the other hand, the way Sean had connected the dots was actually kind of impressive. In the end, she concluded that keeping up the pretense any longer would have been pointless. "Well-- in my defense I thought it sounded like a convincing excuse. Wouldn't have been the first time I tested your resolve."

"Oh, it definitely wasn't! But it was also a little too tame for your standards." He turned his head so he could make eye contact with his sister. She was prepared to see resentment clouding Sean's gaze, due to all the ordeals he had had to endure because of her -- her bare foot pushing his head under the surface of the water while she was comfortably getting a tan and enjoying pineapple juice on the inflatable raft, barely listening to him begging for her to have mercy upon his about-to-burst lungs -- the fire ants she had added to his escapology training from suspended position to make the whole experience a little more challenging -- the seventeen hours he had spent digging out of his sand burial and walking back the twenty-five kilometers to their bungalow, wearing only a pair of swimming trunks and with the last downpour of the rainy season accompanying him all the way -- and those were only the ones she had organized for her little brother's fifteenth birthday! She would have even welcomed such a sight because she could bear that. Instead, to her discomfort, he was smiling at her. A beautiful smile with a hint of nostalgia for the old times. Another awful sign. It's useless-- I just can't get him to be angry with me rather than with himself and I love him too much to try to lift him up with tired, meaningless platitudes.

"Well, as soon as we go back home, I authorize you to tell all about this to Fabio. You know how much he loves a good detective story."

"Heh-- I wasn't that good as a detective, really. You two offered so many clues in the past two weeks that I don't know how I didn't manage to connect the dots before."

"Clues? Are you for real?"

"Sure I am. The way he couldn't take his eyes off you while he was greeting us on the day we reached the space station. The fact that he personally congratulated after every victory with only one of the four fighters to achieve the 4-0. And you might have been flushed after your final victory, since Ibuki is no push-over, but I could still tell that your face was a deeper shade of red while you were clinging to those huge hands of his. To put it simply, no way there wasn't some chemistry at work!"

Laura was legitimately impressed. Ever since he was a child, her brother had always been alternating moments of carefree absent-mindedness to others of almost maniacal focus, but she didn't suspect that he was able to pick up such tiny details in other people's interactions on a regular basis and «connect the dots», according to his own words. "Wow-- are you sure you want a career in studying dead languages? You'd be an absolutely killer private eye! You could be the scourge of unfaithful spouses and absentee workers."

"Heh, thank you." At first, she thought that sounded like he was trying to suppress a chuckle-- then he made her realize that it may have been directed towards himself. "At the very least, I'm already piling up job options now that I'm quitting martial arts."

Wow, what a way to ruin the mood, Sean! "Ok, I admit it. I wasn't one hundred percent honest while depicting my current love life, but setting that one exception aside for one moment--"

"Right, let's set aside that the number one candidate for the position of richest and most powerful man on Earth, who also happens to be a-- how did Manuela put it?-- 'a hunk of mythological proportions' and could have in one way or another any woman he got a liking for, is all starry-eyed any time he looks at you. Really, no big deal when it comes to this comparison!" He shrugged. And he readily regretted that movement since he immediately grimaced with pain and started to massage his left shoulder.

Laura ignored him. Especially because the idea of a starry-eyed Gill was ridiculous enough in and by itself that it didn't deserve a reply. "-- setting that one exception aside for one moment, it's not like I have to use a whip every time I get out of our house to keep pretenders away. Sure, a lot of people may be interested in watching, I could never deny that, but there's a wide gap between window-shopping and actual shopping." But he had a retort ready for that statement. Anyone who knew her had it.

"You're not swarmed by every breathing person with a Y-chromosome because everyone in Rio knows about your last recorded date, that evening at the Quitéria when you discovered that your sweetheart had saddled a 'friend' of his with your dinner's check. And your reaction was to put him in a submission hold! In the middle of the restaurant! Until he peed himself!"

"Well, serves him right for taking advantage of those who are less fortunate than him!" Her reaction would have probably not been that extreme if she hadn't seen the poor fellow who had chosen so unwisely the person to call his best friend. The way he had gotten up from his seat and limped towards her to greet her had given Laura more visions of unnatural angles formed by the limbs of a human being than she had thought possible. And the day after their first meeting, at the beach, seeing the Great War battlefield barely disguised as his back in all its post-surgery grotesque glory had left her with a lump in her throat for the whole day. She forcefully drove those memories out of her mind; she had already reached her quota of disturbing images with the finale of Sean's match. "But that doesn't prove that what I said was wrong, since that was my last date until two nights ago."

"I'm not going to deny that." Then, he added something else-- something enigmatic-- as he had done other times during that conversation. "Sure, you should thank me for that. Or beat me up. Really, it's your choice."

Once again, Sean had blindsided her with his words. "Wait, wait, wait-- how can you have a role in this matter?"

He began rubbing his chin while the expression on his face had become vague in an almost mocking way. "Well-- let's just say that a lot of daring but not-too-daring young men were incredibly relieved when they heard that Laura Matsuda's younger brother had come back from North America. You know, a few of them, the less bright ones probably, had tried to do that trick with her older brother, but-- they're probably still regretting that."

A thought had started forming in Laura's mind. She tried to chase it away as soon as it took a more defined outline since the picture it painted of the people who had been contacting Sean was way too pathetic to be even considered. "They-- tried to--"

"Get to you through me? Yes, they did! From those who just wanted your phone number to those who wanted me to arrange something to bring you and them together. Or even perfect strangers who demanded that I start singing their praises any time you were around. A really pitiful collection of sad cases, I can guarantee. For about four months since I was back, leaving home without being approached by one of them was a rare occurrence. But trust me: whatever they asked, I always answered 'no'."

Four months-- besieged by creeps. Lord, why did you never tell me, Sean? "Well, look at this from my perspective: being the object of attention of every perv in a 100 km radius is not that much more desirable than being ignored."

Sean removed the cold bag from his temple and slightly lifted his head from the pillow, so that he could turn towards his sister. "You wish they were just random pervs! They always presented themselves as people who were already acquainted with you and, as far as I can tell, they were all people you hang out or used to hang out with." His face betrayed two different kind of emotions: the frustration of someone who feels like he's taking too much time to explain the most elementary thing in the world and all the embarrassment that had been piling up during four months of such awkward encounters. On Laura's side, she was both dismayed that her hopes had once again been dashed, as it had been the case so many times in the last hour, and halfway between dejected and appalled because of the latest revelation.

For the second time that day, the middle child of the Matsuda family felt more distressed than she cared to admit. "Ok, this is kind of disquieting."

"And still the awful truth." After that last sentence, frustration and embarrassment seemed to retreat from Sean's expression, leaving the field open to a totally different emotion, one that was making the angles of his mouth move mischievously towards his ears. "For example, does the name Gilson ring any bell?"

"Gilson? But-- but-- doesn't he have a girlfriend? And one who thinks that their relationship is a very serious one to boot? And he wanted you to put in a good word about him?! That's-- awful!"

"Hm, not bad! And what about Jorcey Anisio?" Sean was really starting to look like a person who was having the time of his life-- and that was still not making Laura feel any better. Quite the contrary.

"But-- but-- Vitoria was sure he was gay! Just very, very deep in the closet!" A classic. Note to self: never trust people who brag about their 'gaydar' skills.

"Very good! And I suppose you also remember Tonhão from São Paulo, Pedrinho and Ruy 'o gladiador'?"

"All of them tried to use you as a way to get to me?!?!" And to think that I would've loved to verify if the legends about Pedrinho's Big Peter were actually true!

"Huh, huh. Oh, and I was almost forgetting the real treat! Toh Mang Ling!"

Laura froze. For a couple of seconds she couldn't articulate a single syllable. In the end, her only answer was a very weak "That Mang Ling?"

"If you're thinking about an absolute beast of a woman, one meter and eighty of physique carved from granite, feet the size of rafts and shaved hair on the sides and back of her head, then yes-- that Mang Ling." and with that he put the refrigerated bag back in position and went back to stare at the ceiling.

This shines a whole new light on that conversation we had in the showers after her match at the Y-Gym. "Ok, now that I found out that my magnetic personality--" and right on cue, Sean managed to outdo himself in the sly smile department once again "my magnetic personality has effect on other women too-- just wondering-- how did you say 'no' to her? She may have sides of her that I didn't know of, but I know for sure that she didn't like getting a 'no' as an answer."

The reply was delivered in the most neutral tone possible. "Easy. I told her about my long string of failures as a martial artist, added that because of it you had lost any kind of respect for me, that in fact you didn't even like having me around and we amicably agreed that I wasn't the best suited person for that kind of job."

Laura was absolutely baffled. She definitely knew that her brother could be quite the annoying whiner when he was given the chance to list all the times life had treated him roughly, but the idea that he could use those events and shortcomings as a way to depict himself as alone, unwanted, unloved-- the mere concept of an alternate Laura Matsuda treating her own little brother like trash for not being up to her standards was giving her the impulse to vomit. "And she believed that?" she asked, perhaps with a tad too much energy.

"You may be the only one in the world who doesn't." was his somber answer.

She felt that such a statement was more than a little unfair towards their relatives, who wouldn't have called her fraternal love for her younger brother into question in a million years and knew perfectly well that the somewhat rough treatments she had subjected him in the past were just Laura's way to incite him not to become soft in such a crucial time like puberty. But presuming that the way your family members view you and the way those living in the outside world coincide, or just that the former have sway on the latter, was a mistake worthy of a simpleton. Something Sean definitely was not.

3-0 for Atlético Sean!!! What a humiliation for Internacional Laura!

For a few moments they lingered, immobile and utterly silent, him lying on his bed and her sitting down. Then Sean had the bright idea of saying possibly the worst thing he could have said in his situation.

"Really, I don't know how things could go wor-- hmmmph!" Laura had never had time for superstitions, propitiatory rituals and other fixations of the sort, judging them as contrary to her sincere Catholic faith. On the other hand, Colleen's message from a few minutes before had reminded her that, perhaps, tempting fate was not a good idea. So, when she heard her brother say the Nine Words of Impending Doom, her first instinct was to prevent him from slipping up so badly. Unfortunately, even with her quick reflexes she hadn't been fast enough to cover his mouth and right on cue the automatic door opened to reveal three well-known figures who entered the infirmary in triangular formation: Ryu, Chun-Li and out in front Ken Masters.

Simultaneously, Doc Ningsih came out of his office, black briefcase in hand, and politely greeted the visitors. "Sirs-- lady-- how can I help you?"

Ken was the one who replied. "Sorry for the inconvenience, Doctor. We'd just like to talk to your patient, Sean Matsuda." To all appearances, he looked perfectly calm and collected, but Laura noticed that there was something slightly off in his body language. Like he was hiding how uncomfortable he was really feeling.

"Oh-- Ok, sure, you have my permission. Just-- don't upset him too much, he seriously needs some rest. Now, if you want to excuse me, my colleague in infirmary 2 asked me to join her there for advice on a medical situation. It should take fifteen minutes at most." and with that he headed off towards their position, disappearing behind the automatic doors a second later.

The three new visitors on the other hand made their way towards the Matsuda siblings. Once they reached them, Ken broke off a little from his friends and positioned himself in the gap dividing two beds, the one opposite to where Laura was sitting. After a few moments of silence, the teacher greeted his former student. "Sean."

The younger Matsuda removed the refrigerated bag from his temple, pulled himself towards the head of the bed and propped himself up with his elbows and the two pillows he had been resting his head, so the he looked more like he was sitting rather than lying down. His greeting was a simple "Mr. Masters." Ever since he had come back from North America, Laura had never heard him address Ken as anything other than «Mr. Masters».

After some more moments of silence, Ken spoke again. "In lights of your latest-- and last fight in the tournament, they--" he stumbled, but it was by then clear that his decision to come and visit Sean hadn't come exclusively from him. Laura couldn't make up her mind whether that was a good thing or not. But considering what kind of day that had been for her brother, it was probably catastrophic. "I realized that I need to tell you something."

She cleared her throat. Not that she wished to attract anybody's attention, but the tension permeating the room was really starting to have an effect on her too. "Ehm... Hum... Maybe I should get out of the room. I mean-- I suppose you two want some privacy while you discuss your teacher / student-- things." She hated the thought of leaving her brother alone to face the ultimate heartbreaking experience of his life so far, but she was also sure that Sean wished for an audience witnessing that sad spectacle almost as much as he wished that to happen in the first place. She stood up, hoping that Ken's companions would have taken the hint and followed her out of the infirmary.

The fighter in red turned towards her, an indecipherable expression on his face. "Oh no, quite the contrary. I'm asking you to remain. I think you should be here too to hear what I have to say. It's also the reason Ryu and Chun-Li have accompanied me, after all."

Caralho! This is gonna be painful. She started feeling a sensation of increasing warmth in her ears, nape and face-- something she hadn't felt in a decade or more. And even in those days that was something that happened when she was caught, sometimes literally, with her hands in the cookie jar, but this was another matter entirely. Her deep empathy towards her little brother had always been part of their connection and never had that connection been stronger than in the moments when he was hurt. With their emotional states so inextricably tied together, Sean's apprehension for what Ken was about to say was also hers. Even worse, she didn't even feel like her normal self but rather like ten-year-old Laura, the girl who could run to her maternal grandparents' house to ask for a safe refuge from her mom and dad because of a new entry in her disciplinary file at school. Sean was at least trying to face his destiny with all the grace and stoicism of an underage boy who had suffered two severe heartbreaks in less than one year could muster. Laura, on the other hand, was fighting against the impulse of chewing her own lip until a piece came off.

A question from Sean took his sister back from her childhood memories. "What did you want to tell me, Mr. Masters?" In theory, it was a perfectly innocent question-- way too formal for somebody who had lived under Ken's roof for sixteen months, but utterly harmless. In practice, the youngest person in the room had spoken those words with the solemnity of a convict sentenced to death would say 'I'm ready' to a firing squad. Laura felt the temperature in the infirmary dropping of an additional few degrees.

"I--" He paused and turned to his friend in the white gi, as if asking for guidance. Ryu glanced back at him but his facial features didn't move of a millimeter. He just tilted his head, almost imperceptibly, towards the boy lying down on the infirmary bed. A silent reminder that it was a matter between Ken and his former student. He tried the same thing with Chun-Li, but the World's Strongest Woman elbowed him in his left side before he could even make eye contact. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and started talking again, this time with a little more passion in his tone and eyes.

"I've been meditating for a long time on the sixteen months I spent as your teacher. From the day you came to stay at my family's mansion to the argument-- the final one of the many we had-- that made us both figure out that my teaching was going nowhere. And I've come to the conclusion that you wholly deserve to know that--"

Here it is. Here it is! Poor, poor Sean. Curse your rotten luck. And curse that wretched sister you have, who did nothing to spare you from all of this! She tried distracting herself from the incoming onslaught, so that the trio didn't have to withstand the view of two Matsudas suffering a psychological breakdown. She lifted her gaze to the ceiling and focused on the infirmary's lighting system-- it came to her mind that she had already seen LED tubes like those up there, in a library-- she remembered that place, two and a half hours of car trip through Carioca traffic away from home-- she had gone there with mom to find a rare book about pre-classical Latin authors-- she was reminded of the look of surprise and utter delight on Sean's face when he found out that they had managed to trace a copy of that volume -- and that made her remember that her brother was right next to her, lying on a hospital bed, all bruised and miserable, ready to receive the roasting of his life from the man he had been admiring since he was old enough to throw his first fist! Damn it! Even my imagination is conspiring against me!

"I'm sorry." Ken's last words came out almost as a whisper.

Everything in the room came to an absolute standstill. Laura was of course the one person in the room who knew Ken Masters the least, but according to her admittedly partial view of him, anybody who wished to get an apology from him would have needed a pair of pincers and a lot of strength of arms to get it.

Probably believing that he had misheard the last few words, Sean took the risk and spoke again. "Mr. Masters--"

With a quick movement, Ken showed his former pupil the palm of his open left hand. He definitely had other things to say. "No, please, let me finish. If in my life I've received one true blessing. One even more important than being born in a family which would have guaranteed that I would've always been free from want. That blessing is the gift of true companions and friends, Ryu and Chun-Li right here being the best examples of that. When the members of that criminal society drugged my food and took advantage of my slow reflexes to try abducting me with minimum trouble, I remember thinking that I would have given my left arm to have one of them at my side. But instead I got a fifteen-year-old that had been spending the whole day following me across Rio as I moved from one business meeting to another, hoping to get a few seconds of attention from me. A fifteen-year-old who hurled himself into the fray without a single moment of hesitation and took care of five men, some of them armed, with nothing but his jiu-jitsu skills. Who brought me to his family's home so that I could recuperate without asking anything in return. Who went against the wishes of his family-- and mine-- and accompanied me as I paid retribution to that society, bringing with himself nothing but a yellow, worn-out gi and the biggest heart I've ever seen in a young man. Is it that surprising that I thought I had been blessed once more and found a new friend, of the kind that really makes life meaningful?"

Laura wiped the layer of cold sweat on her forehead with her right hand. Well... *phew* I suppose Apocalypse is not coming today.

"But then, you did something I hadn't anticipated. You fell on your knees and begged me to take you as my student. After you had saved me from being kidnapped and having been my partner and equal while we were fighting those criminals, you were humble enough to presume you had everything to learn from me. When I, when I was your age, could at most brag about being as brave, steadfast and skilled as you showed to be while silently giving my thanks that the prospect of having to prove those qualities was pretty remote. I could have told you-- I should have told you that if you had followed your way and your way only, judging from how far it had already brought you, you were likely to surpass me in-- how long? Six years? Seven? Not many, anyway. Instead, in my infinite arrogance, I granted your wish and took you to California. And there-- I ruined everything. That's why I'm sorry."

Ken paused again. He brought a hand to his brow, so that his eyes were mostly covered. The reason behind that action was very clear to Laura. His gestures, his tone of voice, everything about him signalled that he wasn't just sorry. He was downright dejected and he didn't want to be seen by Sean with eyes bright with tears. As soon as he had regained control, he resumed talking.

"You see, ever since I was a child, I always had trouble maintaining good relations with teachers. The only exception to the rule is Master Gouken. He may have chastised me more times than I can remember for my attempts to bring him to despair-- and in retrospect I'm honestly not proud of a few of them-- but my respect, even admiration for him never, ever failed. It shouldn't come as a surprise then that when I was given the opportunity to teach you, my first thought was to do everything the way Master Gouken used to do when I was a student. If he's the only teacher I ever respected, following his every step while having a shot at doing his job should be a pretty safe way to success, right? But while I was right considering him the best teacher I had ever met, I hadn't quite grasped the real reason he deserved such a title. He was-- he's so good because he knows his students. He's so good because he's always able to dig their individual strengths out. Given all your previous training in your family's style of jiu-jitsu, he would've never taught you the Ansatsuken the way he taught me, just like he didn't try teaching me the way he did with Ryu. But I was too prideful or just plain blind to recognize that. I ignored the hard path you had been marching on for a whole decade and I forced you to learn how to walk again, as if you were a lazy, spoiled child like I was when I first met Gouken. And I think that's exactly the problem with me as a teacher. I showed that I'm still that lazy, spoiled child since it downright takes one to do what I did to you: making you unlearn the style you were already mastering with excellent results to replace it with a confused, barely-coherent version of mine. And for all of this-- I'm so, so sorry." He wiped a tear away from his cheek. On her part, Laura had always suspected that making her brother focus his energies exclusively on learning the Ansatsuken style after years spent on deeply different techniques like the ones of Matsuda Jiu-jitsu was a very poor way to move his training forward but hearing the same thing said by the person who had been responsible for that choice-- She had definitely misjudged Ken Masters as a person and, for her brother's sake, she'd never been so happy for having been wrong.

Sean finally spoke. "Mr. Masters, don't be so tough on yourself. I don't think that you were the sole responsible for my failures as a--" But he couldn't finish his sentence.

"No, you don't understand!" The dejected look had disappeared from Ken's eyes, replaced by something halfway between desperation and manic fury. Sean was visibly and understandably startled when his former teacher grabbed him by his arms out of the blue and began talking to him with a voice betraying a strange frenzy. "You've been idolizing me ever since you were seven. It's only natural that you can't see me as the abysmal failure I am! I robbed you of sixteen months of your life for nothing! If it hadn't been for me, you could have won every single one of the matches you fought in this tournament! Because if you had never had the misfortune of meeting me that night in Rio, that crowd out there in the amphitheater would still be there chanting your name! It would have been better for you to leave me to those criminals!!!"

Laura gasped when the red-clad fighter had grabbed her injured brother that way, but the shock of seeing Ken suddenly behaving in that very uncharacteristic way had almost paralyzed her. Chun-Li had also reacted more or less the same way on the spot, but she had regained her composure in no time and, a little worried, had put a hand on her American friend's shoulder and tried to shake him out of that sudden agitation.

"Ken!"

But Ken was not willing to collaborate. "I was blind-- I was so, so blind! To show that I'm a teacher as good as Gouken, I might have destroyed your career, your passion, your dreams! I beg you, stop seeing me as some sort of legend! Whatever modest accomplishments I may have reached in my life, I squandered them all by treating you the way I did. Accomplishments? What am I saying, now? Have I really accomplished anything noteworthy in my life to begin with, except ruining you?"

The martial artist's frenzy seemed only to get worse with each sentence. Sean's face was by then frozen in a panicked look and Laura's ought to look more or less the same. The second time, Chun-Li's interjection came with much more force.

"KEN!"

But it sorted the same effect of the previous one. Now hugging his former pupil's torso in a desperate embrace, tears copiously flowing on his face, his voice reduced to a raspy shout, Ken kept dismantling his life and deeds with no regard for anything and everyone in the room. The shock clearly painted on Sean's face was probably the only thing that was making him ignore the pain. "I didn't earn my money-- I inherited it! I don't even administer it-- my board of directors does that in my place! All the adventures I had with Ryu and Chun-Li-- I was never the one who got ourselves out of trouble! Oh, for-- I see it, now! I SEE IT! I've always been such a failure in my life, such a non-entity, such a spoiled, overgrown rich kid that I couldn't stand seeing a boy who grew up without any of the comforts I enjoyed being that much better than me!! THAT'S THE REAL REASON I SUCKED SO MUCH AS A TEACHER!! THAT'S HOW AWFUL I AM AS A PERSON!!!"

Then Sean finally had a reaction. He was clearly terrified but in the end he managed to shout "JESUS CHRIST! I beg you, sensei, I don't deserve this much!"

"Alright, Ken, enough of this!" Chun-Li decided that the time to play an active role had come. Without too much effort she broke Ken's desperate embrace with two nice tugs, one for both of his arms, and readily proceeded to drag him away from Sean and towards the exit, centimeter by centimeter. "Come with me, you really look like someone who needs a stiff drink. Don't you think? Wouldn't you like some junmaishu to raise your spirits a bit? Or maybe something stronger? A cup of honjozoshu could be just what you need--"

But Ken wasn't in the mood to cooperate. Still crying, sobbing and trying to yank himself away from her grip, he was doing nothing to ease Chun-Li's job. "Alright, maybe more than one cup-- as long as you come with me and STOP ACTING LIKE THIS!" Her peremptory call to order seemed to work, since he started to act a little more reasonably and the rest of their trip to the infirmary exit was a lot easier.

The Chinese policewoman and an unrecognizable Ken Masters disappeared behind the automatic doors, but quietness didn't come back. There was no time for awkward moments of silence after what had just happened. A still very much dazed expression on his face, Sean asked to no one in particular "What the f-- er, what in the world was that?" By reflex, his gaze moved to Ryu, who on his part-- also looked very much unlike himself on that occasion.

Ever since his best friend had told his former student that he was sorry for not being the teacher he deserved, Ryu's face had been displaying a very uncharacteristic grin. That had turned into a chuckle while Ken was on his knees begging for forgiveness and then into a full-blown laugh while he was being held and dragged away by Chun-Li. What had looked like a sign of the incoming Apocalypse to the two brothers was apparently a source of hilarity for him, judging from the tears he was wiping away from his face. He spoke while still trying to suppress laughter, proving to be very fluent in Brazilian Portuguese. "Well, I think both of you can now boast with your friends of being present while a Ken Masters' apology was unfolding. Not as rare as an all-planet alignment but close enough."

If possible, the look of shock on Sean's face seemed to double. "That-- I mean, all of that was just an apology?"

"Absolutely. Ever since we were children training under Gouken's tutelage, Ken has always had a very unique way of approaching the subject of acknowledging when he's wrong. For him, apologizing is not unlike hitting his own self-esteem with the strongest Shoryuken he can conjure. And when Ken hits something with a Shoryuken that strong, in and out of metaphor, that thing shatters. There's no other outcome. In all the years I've known your former teacher, I can count on one hand without using all the fingers the number of times I've seen him in that state. Eliza could maybe add one, two tops, to that count and that's it. Anyway, every single time he has to cope with a situation where he feels he owes an apology, that is the way it ends. No exceptions." he emphasized that last concept by tracing an horizontal line in the air with his open hand, palm downwards.

"He-- whuh-- really?" were the only words that a still very much stunned Sean could utter.

"You'll have to trust my words on that but know that I'm a terrible liar." Though, in the day when she found out that the brashest ego she had ever met was actually more delicate than a crystal figurine and that the impassive warrior par excellence could laugh at his best friend making a scene, Laura would have been ready to believe that the two of them had lived double lives as critically-acclaimed Thespians for decades.

In the end, since her brother didn't show signs of being ready to come out of his stupefied silence, she was the one who asked what was probably passing through that shocked mind. "Does he really-- er-- believe everything he said?"

"Of course not! Well, except for the part where he admitted that he hadn't understood what made sensei Gouken such a great teacher. No wonder about that, though, since I spent the last eight months trying to hammer that concept into that hard head of his." Once he said that, it was clear that the topic was over for him. "Well, now I'm going to see that Ken doesn't finish this place's reserve of rice wine in one session. Not without some help, at least. By the way, Sean, I don't care if Ken regrets the way he taught you Ansatsuken, I just find your two-legged version of the Tatsumaki truly impactful. And Laura, my congratulations again for that impressive 4-0." And with that he took a respectful bow and started walking towards the infirmary door with noticeable energy. As soon as the automatic shutters had closed behind him, brother and sister looked each other in their eyes. None of them looked to be sure that the previous five minutes had actually happened. On the other hand, Laura noticed that there was a different light in her brother's pupils, hidden under all the disbelief. A light that rekindled her hopes.

"Well, that was... something." Sean finally said, breaking the part-gobsmacked, part-incredulous silence permeating the infirmary. He turned his head towards the entrance again, as if he was expecting another surprise visit for that evening, when a very familiar voice called his name from the opposite direction. A call dripping all the teasing and playful ominousness a human being could ever be capable of.

"Sea-aaaan!"

"Huh?"

Her fingers began to wiggle, animated by glee and anticipation for what was going to come. "Did you invoke the name of Our Lord and Savior?" It was just the perfect way to change the topic of discussion once and for all.

The combination of the predatory look on his sister's face and the way her fingers were moving was pretty revealing of Laura's intentions, if one knew her well enough. And who knew her better than her own little brother? Sean tried to defend himself, but he already knew that only a miracle could have saved him in that moment. "What? No, I--"

"Don't lie to your big sister, you little Shintoist heathen!" Her recently manicured fingernails immediately and treacherously set to work. Seventeen years of being an attentive older sister meant that she had the map of her younger brother's weak spots pretty much tattooed in her brain and, while his injuries prevented her from exploiting a few of them, she still had access to plenty of them. He had fewer chances than the proverbial snowball in hell in a fight like that. "You invoked the name of Our Lord and Savior! You invoked the name of Our Lord and Savior!" Laura could already hear Doc Ningsih scolding her for treating her recovering brother like that, but she just couldn't bring herself to care. It was so beautiful to see a glimmer of light between all the clouds of gloom she had previously tried and failed to sweep away.

"No, NO! Laura, no, ple-eEEe-ease! Not the sides, NOT THE SAAAAAH-IDES! Ok, ok, I did it -- I DID EEEEEEE-eet! Uncle -- UNCLE!!"

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"..."

"Your date with Gill."

"My date-- Doctor! I think you underestimated my brother's brain damage!" She was only semi-serious, of course. Luckily, she could see Doc Ningsih through the transparent wall dividing his office and the infirmary proper. He was at the phone and seemed very involved in his conversation. It was unlikely that he had even heard her.

He lifted his right hand in a dismissive gesture. There was something in that simple movement that dropped a very clear hint: denial wouldn't have helped Laura's position one bit. "Oh, don't try to deny it! I definitely wasn't brain-damaged when I saw it the other day."

"'It'?" Oh, Lord, how could he even-- what could have he ever seen?

"That pair of evening shoes." The shoes! The damn shoes, of course! I had completely forgotten to dispose of them! Serves me right for choosing to go barefooted to a romantic dinner! "I don't pretend to know everything about the contents of your wardrobe, but I know for sure you're not the kind of person who would spend more money than dad earns in three months for a pair of shoes."

She tried regaining a semblance of composure. "A-hem-- what makes you so sure that Gill was my date, with all the men who're currently residing on this station?"

"Because news of the break-out star and show-stealer of this world tournament going to a date with the Big Pepsi Man himself would be incredibly damaging for the former's reputation. You know, conflict of interest, rumors of 'preferential treatment' and 'sleeping her way to the top' and all that." Amazing. He never watches any TV but he talks like every TV detective who's making clear to the suspect that he knows that it was him-- or her. "She could go to great lengths to make sure that there are no witnesses of her little misdeed-- like tying up and gagging her own brother and locking him up in a trunk to fight a savage battle against suffocation for six long, excruciating hours. Then disguising the whole ordeal as the action of a big, loving sister worried that her little brother is losing his fighting spirit."

There was something very familiar in the way he spoke that last sentence. And Laura didn't appreciate that her patented, overly dramatic style of explaining things to her younger brother was being reproduced so well by somebody else. On the other hand, the way Sean had connected the dots was actually kind of impressive. In the end, she concluded that keeping up the pretense any longer would have been pointless. "Well-- in my defense I thought it sounded like a convincing excuse. Wouldn't have been the first time I tested your resolve."

"Oh, it definitely wasn't! But it was also a little too tame for your standards." He turned his head so he could make eye contact with his sister. She was prepared to see resentment clouding Sean's gaze, due to all the ordeals he had had to endure because of her -- her bare foot pushing his head under the surface of the water while she was comfortably getting a tan and enjoying pineapple juice on the inflatable raft, barely listening to him begging for her to have mercy upon his about-to-burst lungs -- the fire ants she had added to his escapology training from suspended position to make the whole experience a little more challenging -- the seventeen hours he had spent digging out of his sand burial and walking back the twenty-five kilometers to their bungalow, wearing only a pair of swimming trunks and with the last downpour of the rainy season accompanying him all the way -- and those were only the ones she had organized for her little brother's fifteenth birthday! She would have even welcomed such a sight because she could bear that. Instead, to her discomfort, he was smiling at her. A beautiful smile with a hint of nostalgia for the old times. Another awful sign. It's useless-- I just can't get him to be angry with me rather than with himself and I love him too much to try to lift him up with tired, meaningless platitudes.

"Well, as soon as we go back home, I authorize you to tell all about this to Fabio. You know how much he loves a good detective story."

"Heh-- I wasn't that good as a detective, really. You two offered so many clues in the past two weeks that I don't know how I didn't manage to connect the dots before."

"Clues? Are you for real?"

"Sure I am. The way he couldn't take his eyes off you while he was greeting us on the day we reached the space station. The fact that he personally congratulated after every victory with only one of the four fighters to achieve the 4-0. And you might have been flushed after your final victory, since Ibuki is no push-over, but I could still tell that your face was a deeper shade of red while you were clinging to those huge hands of his. To put it simply, no way there wasn't some chemistry at work!"

Laura was legitimately impressed. Ever since he was a child, her brother had always been alternating moments of carefree absent-mindedness to others of almost maniacal focus, but she didn't suspect that he was able to pick up such tiny details in other people's interactions on a regular basis and «connect the dots», according to his own words. "Wow-- are you sure you want a career in studying dead languages? You'd be an absolutely killer private eye! You could be the scourge of unfaithful spouses and absentee workers."

"Heh, thank you." At first, she thought that sounded like he was trying to suppress a chuckle-- then he made her realize that it may have been directed towards himself. "At the very least, I'm already piling up job options now that I'm quitting martial arts."

Wow, what a way to ruin the mood, Sean! "Ok, I admit it. I wasn't one hundred percent honest while depicting my current love life, but setting that one exception aside for one moment--"

"Right, let's set aside that the number one candidate for the position of richest and most powerful man on Earth, who also happens to be a-- how did Manuela put it?-- 'a hunk of mythological proportions' and could have in one way or another any woman he got a liking for, is all starry-eyed any time he looks at you. Really, no big deal when it comes to this comparison!" He shrugged. And he readily regretted that movement since he immediately grimaced with pain and started to massage his left shoulder.

Laura ignored him. Especially because the idea of a starry-eyed Gill was ridiculous enough in and by itself that it didn't deserve a reply. "-- setting that one exception aside for one moment, it's not like I have to use a whip every time I get out of our house to keep pretenders away. Sure, a lot of people may be interested in watching, I could never deny that, but there's a wide gap between window-shopping and actual shopping." But he had a retort ready for that statement. Anyone who knew her had it.

"You're not swarmed by every breathing person with a Y-chromosome because everyone in Rio knows about your last recorded date, that evening at the Quitéria when you discovered that your sweetheart had saddled a 'friend' of his with your dinner's check. And your reaction was to put him in a submission hold! In the middle of the restaurant! Until he peed himself!"

"Well, serves him right for taking advantage of those who are less fortunate than him!" Her reaction would have probably not been that extreme if she hadn't seen the poor fellow who had chosen so unwisely the person to call his best friend. The way he had gotten up from his seat and limped towards her to greet her had given Laura more visions of unnatural angles formed by the limbs of a human being than she had thought possible. And the day after their first meeting, at the beach, seeing the Great War battlefield barely disguised as his back in all its post-surgery grotesque glory had left her with a lump in her throat for the whole day. She forcefully drove those memories out of her mind; she had already reached her quota of disturbing images with the finale of Sean's match. "But that doesn't prove that what I said was wrong, since that was my last date until two nights ago."

"I'm not going to deny that." Then, he added something else-- something enigmatic-- as he had done other times during that conversation. "Sure, you should thank me for that. Or beat me up. Really, it's your choice."

Once again, Sean had blindsided her with his words. "Wait, wait, wait-- how can you have a role in this matter?"

He began rubbing his chin while the expression on his face had become vague in an almost mocking way. "Well-- let's just say that a lot of daring but not-too-daring young men were incredibly relieved when they heard that Laura Matsuda's younger brother had come back from North America. You know, a few of them, the less bright ones probably, had tried to do that trick with her older brother, but-- they're probably still regretting that."

A thought had started forming in Laura's mind. She tried to chase it away as soon as it took a more defined outline since the picture it painted of the people who had been contacting Sean was way too pathetic to be even considered. "They-- tried to--"

"Get to you through me? Yes, they did! From those who just wanted your phone number to those who wanted me to arrange something to bring you and them together. Or even perfect strangers who demanded that I start singing their praises any time you were around. A really pitiful collection of sad cases, I can guarantee. For about four months since I was back, leaving home without being approached by one of them was a rare occurrence. But trust me: whatever they asked, I always answered 'no'."

Four months-- besieged by creeps. Lord, why did you never tell me, Sean? "Well, look at this from my perspective: being the object of attention of every perv in a 100 km radius is not that much more desirable than being ignored."

Sean removed the cold bag from his temple and slightly lifted his head from the pillow, so that he could turn towards his sister. "You wish they were just random pervs! They always presented themselves as people who were already acquainted with you and, as far as I can tell, they were all people you hang out or used to hang out with." His face betrayed two different kind of emotions: the frustration of someone who feels like he's taking too much time to explain the most elementary thing in the world and all the embarrassment that had been piling up during four months of such awkward encounters. On Laura's side, she was both dismayed that her hopes had once again been dashed, as it had been the case so many times in the last hour, and halfway between dejected and appalled because of the latest revelation.

For the second time that day, the middle child of the Matsuda family felt more distressed than she cared to admit. "Ok, this is kind of disquieting."

"And still the awful truth." After that last sentence, frustration and embarrassment seemed to retreat from Sean's expression, leaving the field open to a totally different emotion, one that was making the angles of his mouth move mischievously towards his ears. "For example, does the name Gilson ring any bell?"

"Gilson? But-- but-- doesn't he have a girlfriend? And one who thinks that their relationship is a very serious one to boot? And he wanted you to put in a good word about him?! That's-- awful!"

"Hm, not bad! And what about Jorcey Anisio?" Sean was really starting to look like a person who was having the time of his life-- and that was still not making Laura feel any better. Quite the contrary.

"But-- but-- Vitoria was sure he was gay! Just very, very deep in the closet!" A classic. Note to self: never trust people who brag about their 'gaydar' skills.

"Very good! And I suppose you also remember Tonhão from São Paulo, Pedrinho and Ruy 'o gladiador'?"

"All of them tried to use you as a way to get to me?!?!" And to think that I would've loved to verify if the legends about Pedrinho's Big Peter were actually true!

"Huh, huh. Oh, and I was almost forgetting the real treat! Toh Mang Ling!"

Laura froze. For a couple of seconds she couldn't articulate a single syllable. In the end, her only answer was a very weak "That Mang Ling?"

"If you're thinking about an absolute beast of a woman, one meter and eighty of physique carved from granite, feet the size of rafts and shaved hair on the sides and back of her head, then yes-- that Mang Ling." and with that he put the refrigerated bag back in position and went back to stare at the ceiling.

This shines a whole new light on that conversation we had in the showers after her match at the Y-Gym. "Ok, now that I found out that my magnetic personality--" and right on cue, Sean managed to outdo himself in the sly smile department once again "my magnetic personality has effect on other women too-- just wondering-- how did you say 'no' to her? She may have sides of her that I didn't know of, but I know for sure that she didn't like getting a 'no' as an answer."

The reply was delivered in the most neutral tone possible. "Easy. I told her about my long string of failures as a martial artist, added that because of it you had lost any kind of respect for me, that in fact you didn't even like having me around and we amicably agreed that I wasn't the best suited person for that kind of job."

Laura was absolutely baffled. She definitely knew that her brother could be quite the annoying whiner when he was given the chance to list all the times life had treated him roughly, but the idea that he could use those events and shortcomings as a way to depict himself as alone, unwanted, unloved-- the mere concept of an alternate Laura Matsuda treating her own little brother like trash for not being up to her standards was giving her the impulse to vomit. "And she believed that?" she asked, perhaps with a tad too much energy.

"You may be the only one in the world who doesn't." was his somber answer.

She felt that such a statement was more than a little unfair towards their relatives, who wouldn't have called her fraternal love for her younger brother into question in a million years and knew perfectly well that the somewhat rough treatments she had subjected him in the past were just Laura's way to incite him not to become soft in such a crucial time like puberty. But presuming that the way your family members view you and the way those living in the outside world coincide, or just that the former have sway on the latter, was a mistake worthy of a simpleton. Something Sean definitely was not.

3-0 for Atlético Sean!!! What a humiliation for Internacional Laura!

For a few moments they lingered, immobile and utterly silent, him lying on his bed and her sitting down. Then Sean had the bright idea of saying possibly the worst thing he could have said in his situation.

"Really, I don't know how things could go wor-- hmmmph!" Laura had never had time for superstitions, propitiatory rituals and other fixations of the sort, judging them as contrary to her sincere Catholic faith. On the other hand, Colleen's message from a few minutes before had reminded her that, perhaps, tempting fate was not a good idea. So, when she heard her brother say the Nine Words of Impending Doom, her first instinct was to prevent him from slipping up so badly. Unfortunately, even with her quick reflexes she hadn't been fast enough to cover his mouth and right on cue the automatic door opened to reveal three well-known figures who entered the infirmary in triangular formation: Ryu, Chun-Li and out in front Ken Masters.

Simultaneously, Doc Ningsih came out of his office, black briefcase in hand, and politely greeted the visitors. "Sirs-- lady-- how can I help you?"

Ken was the one who replied. "Sorry for the inconvenience, Doctor. We'd just like to talk to your patient, Sean Matsuda." To all appearances, he looked perfectly calm and collected, but Laura noticed that there was something slightly off in his body language. Like he was hiding how uncomfortable he was really feeling.

"Oh-- Ok, sure, you have my permission. Just-- don't upset him too much, he seriously needs some rest. Now, if you want to excuse me, my colleague in infirmary 2 asked me to join her there for advice on a medical situation. It should take fifteen minutes at most." and with that he headed off towards their position, disappearing behind the automatic doors a second later.

The three new visitors on the other hand made their way towards the Matsuda siblings. Once they reached them, Ken broke off a little from his friends and positioned himself in the gap dividing two beds, the one opposite to where Laura was sitting. After a few moments of silence, the teacher greeted his former student. "Sean."

The younger Matsuda removed the refrigerated bag from his temple, pulled himself towards the head of the bed and propped himself up with his elbows and the two pillows he had been resting his head, so the he looked more like he was sitting rather than lying down. His greeting was a simple "Mr. Masters." Ever since he had come back from North America, Laura had never heard him address Ken as anything other than «Mr. Masters».

After some more moments of silence, Ken spoke again. "In lights of your latest-- and last fight in the tournament, they--" he stumbled, but it was by then clear that his decision to come and visit Sean hadn't come exclusively from him. Laura couldn't make up her mind whether that was a good thing or not. But considering what kind of day that had been for her brother, it was probably catastrophic. "I realized that I need to tell you something."

She cleared her throat. Not that she wished to attract anybody's attention, but the tension permeating the room was really starting to have an effect on her too. "Ehm... Hum... Maybe I should get out of the room. I mean-- I suppose you two want some privacy while you discuss your teacher / student-- things." She hated the thought of leaving her brother alone to face the ultimate heartbreaking experience of his life so far, but she was also sure that Sean wished for an audience witnessing that sad spectacle almost as much as he wished that to happen in the first place. She stood up, hoping that Ken's companions would have taken the hint and followed her out of the infirmary.

The fighter in red turned towards her, an indecipherable expression on his face. "Oh no, quite the contrary. I'm asking you to remain. I think you should be here too to hear what I have to say. It's also the reason Ryu and Chun-Li have accompanied me, after all."

Caralho! This is gonna be painful. She started feeling a sensation of increasing warmth in her ears, nape and face-- something she hadn't felt in a decade or more. And even in those days that was something that happened when she was caught, sometimes literally, with her hands in the cookie jar, but this was another matter entirely. Her deep empathy towards her little brother had always been part of their connection and never had that connection been stronger than in the moments when he was hurt. With their emotional states so inextricably tied together, Sean's apprehension for what Ken was about to say was also hers. Even worse, she didn't even feel like her normal self but rather like ten-year-old Laura, the girl who could run to her maternal grandparents' house to ask for a safe refuge from her mom and dad because of a new entry in her disciplinary file at school. Sean was at least trying to face his destiny with all the grace and stoicism of an underage boy who had suffered two severe heartbreaks in less than one year could muster. Laura, on the other hand, was fighting against the impulse of chewing her own lip until a piece came off.

A question from Sean took his sister back from her childhood memories. "What did you want to tell me, Mr. Masters?" In theory, it was a perfectly innocent question-- way too formal for somebody who had lived under Ken's roof for sixteen months, but utterly harmless. In practice, the youngest person in the room had spoken those words with the solemnity of a convict sentenced to death would say 'I'm ready' to a firing squad. Laura felt the temperature in the infirmary dropping of an additional few degrees.

"I--" He paused and turned to his friend in the white gi, as if asking for guidance. Ryu glanced back at him but his facial features didn't move of a millimeter. He just tilted his head, almost imperceptibly, towards the boy lying down on the infirmary bed. A silent reminder that it was a matter between Ken and his former student. He tried the same thing with Chun-Li, but the World's Strongest Woman elbowed him in his left side before he could even make eye contact. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and started talking again, this time with a little more passion in his tone and eyes.

"I've been meditating for a long time on the sixteen months I spent as your teacher. From the day you came to stay at my family's mansion to the argument-- the final one of the many we had-- that made us both figure out that my teaching was going nowhere. And I've come to the conclusion that you wholly deserve to know that--"

Here it is. Here it is! Poor, poor Sean. Curse your rotten luck. And curse that wretched sister you have, who did nothing to spare you from all of this! She tried distracting herself from the incoming onslaught, so that the trio didn't have to withstand the view of two Matsudas suffering a psychological breakdown. She lifted her gaze to the ceiling and focused on the infirmary's lighting system-- it came to her mind that she had already seen LED tubes like those up there, in a library-- she remembered that place, two and a half hours of car trip through Carioca traffic away from home-- she had gone there with mom to find a rare book about pre-classical Latin authors-- she was reminded of the look of surprise and utter delight on Sean's face when he found out that they had managed to trace a copy of that volume -- and that made her remember that her brother was right next to her, lying on a hospital bed, all bruised and miserable, ready to receive the roasting of his life from the man he had been admiring since he was old enough to throw his first fist! Damn it! Even my imagination is conspiring against me!

"I'm sorry." Ken's last words came out almost as a whisper.

Everything in the room came to an absolute standstill. Laura was of course the one person in the room who knew Ken Masters the least, but according to her admittedly partial view of him, anybody who wished to get an apology from him would have needed a pair of pincers and a lot of strength of arms to get it.

Probably believing that he had misheard the last few words, Sean took the risk and spoke again. "Mr. Masters--"

With a quick movement, Ken showed his former pupil the palm of his open left hand. He definitely had other things to say. "No, please, let me finish. If in my life I've received one true blessing. One even more important than being born in a family which would have guaranteed that I would've always been free from want. That blessing is the gift of true companions and friends, Ryu and Chun-Li right here being the best examples of that. When the members of that criminal society drugged my food and took advantage of my slow reflexes to try abducting me with minimum trouble, I remember thinking that I would have given my left arm to have one of them at my side. But instead I got a fifteen-year-old that had been spending the whole day following me across Rio as I moved from one business meeting to another, hoping to get a few seconds of attention from me. A fifteen-year-old who hurled himself into the fray without a single moment of hesitation and took care of five men, some of them armed, with nothing but his jiu-jitsu skills. Who brought me to his family's home so that I could recuperate without asking anything in return. Who went against the wishes of his family-- and mine-- and accompanied me as I paid retribution to that society, bringing with himself nothing but a yellow, worn-out gi and the biggest heart I've ever seen in a young man. Is it that surprising that I thought I had been blessed once more and found a new friend, of the kind that really makes life meaningful?"

Laura wiped the layer of cold sweat on her forehead with her right hand. Well... *phew* I suppose Apocalypse is not coming today.

"But then, you did something I hadn't anticipated. You fell on your knees and begged me to take you as my student. After you had saved me from being kidnapped and having been my partner and equal while we were fighting those criminals, you were humble enough to presume you had everything to learn from me. When I, when I was your age, could at most brag about being as brave, steadfast and skilled as you showed to be while silently giving my thanks that the prospect of having to prove those qualities was pretty remote. I could have told you-- I should have told you that if you had followed your way and your way only, judging from how far it had already brought you, you were likely to surpass me in-- how long? Six years? Seven? Not many, anyway. Instead, in my infinite arrogance, I granted your wish and took you to California. And there-- I ruined everything. That's why I'm sorry."

Ken paused again. He brought a hand to his brow, so that his eyes were mostly covered. The reason behind that action was very clear to Laura. His gestures, his tone of voice, everything about him signalled that he wasn't just sorry. He was downright dejected and he didn't want to be seen by Sean with eyes bright with tears. As soon as he had regained control, he resumed talking.

"You see, ever since I was a child, I always had trouble maintaining good relations with teachers. The only exception to the rule is Master Gouken. He may have chastised me more times than I can remember for my attempts to bring him to despair-- and in retrospect I'm honestly not proud of a few of them-- but my respect, even admiration for him never, ever failed. It shouldn't come as a surprise then that when I was given the opportunity to teach you, my first thought was to do everything the way Master Gouken used to do when I was a student. If he's the only teacher I ever respected, following his every step while having a shot at doing his job should be a pretty safe way to success, right? But while I was right considering him the best teacher I had ever met, I hadn't quite grasped the real reason he deserved such a title. He was-- he's so good because he knows his students. He's so good because he's always able to dig their individual strengths out. Given all your previous training in your family's style of jiu-jitsu, he would've never taught you the Ansatsuken the way he taught me, just like he didn't try teaching me the way he did with Ryu. But I was too prideful or just plain blind to recognize that. I ignored the hard path you had been marching on for a whole decade and I forced you to learn how to walk again, as if you were a lazy, spoiled child like I was when I first met Gouken. And I think that's exactly the problem with me as a teacher. I showed that I'm still that lazy, spoiled child since it downright takes one to do what I did to you: making you unlearn the style you were already mastering with excellent results to replace it with a confused, barely-coherent version of mine. And for all of this-- I'm so, so sorry." He wiped a tear away from his cheek. On her part, Laura had always suspected that making her brother focus his energies exclusively on learning the Ansatsuken style after years spent on deeply different techniques like the ones of Matsuda Jiu-jitsu was a very poor way to move his training forward but hearing the same thing said by the person who had been responsible for that choice-- She had definitely misjudged Ken Masters as a person and, for her brother's sake, she'd never been so happy for having been wrong.

Sean finally spoke. "Mr. Masters, don't be so tough on yourself. I don't think that you were the sole responsible for my failures as a--" But he couldn't finish his sentence.

"No, you don't understand!" The dejected look had disappeared from Ken's eyes, replaced by something halfway between desperation and manic fury. Sean was visibly and understandably startled when his former teacher grabbed him by his arms out of the blue and began talking to him with a voice betraying a strange frenzy. "You've been idolizing me ever since you were seven. It's only natural that you can't see me as the abysmal failure I am! I robbed you of sixteen months of your life for nothing! If it hadn't been for me, you could have won every single one of the matches you fought in this tournament! Because if you had never had the misfortune of meeting me that night in Rio, that crowd out there in the amphitheater would still be there chanting your name! It would have been better for you to leave me to those criminals!!!"

Laura gasped when the red-clad fighter had grabbed her injured brother that way, but the shock of seeing Ken suddenly behaving in that very uncharacteristic way had almost paralyzed her. Chun-Li had also reacted more or less the same way on the spot, but she had regained her composure in no time and, a little worried, had put a hand on her American friend's shoulder and tried to shake him out of that sudden agitation.

"Ken!"

But Ken was not willing to collaborate. "I was blind-- I was so, so blind! To show that I'm a teacher as good as Gouken, I might have destroyed your career, your passion, your dreams! I beg you, stop seeing me as some sort of legend! Whatever modest accomplishments I may have reached in my life, I squandered them all by treating you the way I did. Accomplishments? What am I saying, now? Have I really accomplished anything noteworthy in my life to begin with, except ruining you?"

The martial artist's frenzy seemed only to get worse with each sentence. Sean's face was by then frozen in a panicked look and Laura's ought to look more or less the same. The second time, Chun-Li's interjection came with much more force.

"KEN!"

But it sorted the same effect of the previous one. Now hugging his former pupil's torso in a desperate embrace, tears copiously flowing on his face, his voice reduced to a raspy shout, Ken kept dismantling his life and deeds with no regard for anything and everyone in the room. The shock clearly painted on Sean's face was probably the only thing that was making him ignore the pain. "I didn't earn my money-- I inherited it! I don't even administer it-- my board of directors does that in my place! All the adventures I had with Ryu and Chun-Li-- I was never the one who got ourselves out of trouble! Oh, for-- I see it, now! I SEE IT! I've always been such a failure in my life, such a non-entity, such a spoiled, overgrown rich kid that I couldn't stand seeing a boy who grew up without any of the comforts I enjoyed being that much better than me!! THAT'S THE REAL REASON I SUCKED SO MUCH AS A TEACHER!! THAT'S HOW AWFUL I AM AS A PERSON!!!"

Then Sean finally had a reaction. He was clearly terrified but in the end he managed to shout "JESUS CHRIST! I beg you, sensei, I don't deserve this much!"

"Alright, Ken, enough of this!" Chun-Li decided that the time to play an active role had come. Without too much effort she broke Ken's desperate embrace with two nice tugs, one for both of his arms, and readily proceeded to drag him away from Sean and towards the exit, centimeter by centimeter. "Come with me, you really look like someone who needs a stiff drink. Don't you think? Wouldn't you like some junmaishu to raise your spirits a bit? Or maybe something stronger? A cup of honjozoshu could be just what you need--"

But Ken wasn't in the mood to cooperate. Still crying, sobbing and trying to yank himself away from her grip, he was doing nothing to ease Chun-Li's job. "Alright, maybe more than one cup-- as long as you come with me and STOP ACTING LIKE THIS!" Her peremptory call to order seemed to work, since he started to act a little more reasonably and the rest of their trip to the infirmary exit was a lot easier.

The Chinese policewoman and an unrecognizable Ken Masters disappeared behind the automatic doors, but quietness didn't come back. There was no time for awkward moments of silence after what had just happened. A still very much dazed expression on his face, Sean asked to no one in particular "What the f-- er, what in the world was that?" By reflex, his gaze moved to Ryu, who on his part-- also looked very much unlike himself on that occasion.

Ever since his best friend had told his former student that he was sorry for not being the teacher he deserved, Ryu's face had been displaying a very uncharacteristic grin. That had turned into a chuckle while Ken was on his knees begging for forgiveness and then into a full-blown laugh while he was being held and dragged away by Chun-Li. What had looked like a sign of the incoming Apocalypse to the two brothers was apparently a source of hilarity for him, judging from the tears he was wiping away from his face. He spoke while still trying to suppress laughter, proving to be very fluent in Brazilian Portuguese. "Well, I think both of you can now boast with your friends of being present while a Ken Masters' apology was unfolding. Not as rare as an all-planet alignment but close enough."

If possible, the look of shock on Sean's face seemed to double. "That-- I mean, all of that was just an apology?"

"Absolutely. Ever since we were children training under Gouken's tutelage, Ken has always had a very unique way of approaching the subject of acknowledging when he's wrong. For him, apologizing is not unlike hitting his own self-esteem with the strongest Shoryuken he can conjure. And when Ken hits something with a Shoryuken that strong, in and out of metaphor, that thing shatters. There's no other outcome. In all the years I've known your former teacher, I can count on one hand without using all the fingers the number of times I've seen him in that state. Eliza could maybe add one, two tops, to that count and that's it. Anyway, every single time he has to cope with a situation where he feels he owes an apology, that is the way it ends. No exceptions." he emphasized that last concept by tracing an horizontal line in the air with his open hand, palm downwards.

"He-- whuh-- really?" were the only words that a still very much stunned Sean could utter.

"You'll have to trust my words on that but know that I'm a terrible liar." Though, in the day when she found out that the brashest ego she had ever met was actually more delicate than a crystal figurine and that the impassive warrior par excellence could laugh at his best friend making a scene, Laura would have been ready to believe that the two of them had lived double lives as critically-acclaimed Thespians for decades.

In the end, since her brother didn't show signs of being ready to come out of his stupefied silence, she was the one who asked what was probably passing through that shocked mind. "Does he really-- er-- believe everything he said?"

"Of course not! Well, except for the part where he admitted that he hadn't understood what made sensei Gouken such a great teacher. No wonder about that, though, since I spent the last eight months trying to hammer that concept into that hard head of his." Once he said that, it was clear that the topic was over for him. "Well, now I'm going to see that Ken doesn't finish this place's reserve of rice wine in one session. Not without some help, at least. By the way, Sean, I don't care if Ken regrets the way he taught you Ansatsuken, I just find your two-legged version of the Tatsumaki truly impactful. And Laura, my congratulations again for that impressive 4-0." And with that he took a respectful bow and started walking towards the infirmary door with noticeable energy. As soon as the automatic shutters had closed behind him, brother and sister looked each other in their eyes. None of them looked to be sure that the previous five minutes had actually happened. On the other hand, Laura noticed that there was a different light in her brother's pupils, hidden under all the disbelief. A light that rekindled her hopes.

"Well, that was... something." Sean finally said, breaking the part-gobsmacked, part-incredulous silence permeating the infirmary. He turned his head towards the entrance again, as if he was expecting another surprise visit for that evening, when a very familiar voice called his name from the opposite direction. A call dripping all the teasing and playful ominousness a human being could ever be capable of.

"Sea-aaaan!"

"Huh?"

Her fingers began to wiggle, animated by glee and anticipation for what was going to come. "Did you invoke the name of Our Lord and Savior?" It was just the perfect way to change the topic of discussion once and for all.

The combination of the predatory look on his sister's face and the way her fingers were moving was pretty revealing of Laura's intentions, if one knew her well enough. And who knew her better than her own little brother? Sean tried to defend himself, but he already knew that only a miracle could have saved him in that moment. "What? No, I--"

"Don't lie to your big sister, you little Shintoist heathen!" Her recently manicured fingernails immediately and treacherously set to work. Seventeen years of being an attentive older sister meant that she had the map of her younger brother's weak spots pretty much tattooed in her brain and, while his injuries prevented her from exploiting a few of them, she still had access to plenty of them. He had fewer chances than the proverbial snowball in hell in a fight like that. "You invoked the name of Our Lord and Savior! You invoked the name of Our Lord and Savior!" Laura could already hear Doc Ningsih scolding her for treating her recovering brother like that, but she just couldn't bring herself to care. It was so beautiful to see a glimmer of light between all the clouds of gloom she had previously tried and failed to sweep away.

"No, NO! Laura, no, ple-eEEe-ease! Not the sides, NOT THE SAAAAAH-IDES! Ok, ok, I did it -- I DID EEEEEEE-eet! Uncle -- UNCLE!!"