Chapter 167: Shadaloo · Killer Bee (Patreon)

Karo Yoshinari felt Yang's gaze, but he paid it no mind. He simply turned and walked off to wait for the formalities of entering the main tournament.

Yang followed him over. "Hayami Katsumasa has no intention of letting the fishing port go," he said.

Karo's face had been dark, but now he froze on the spot. He turned his eyes back toward Yang, staring in disbelief, as though stunned that Yang knew, or perhaps simply baffled that he would say such a thing.

Beside them, Misasa faltered for a moment too. He hadn't expected Yang to bring this up out of nowhere.

Hayami Katsumasa thought he had been discreet, but as his old rival, how could Chairman Katahara not have prepared plenty of countermeasures against him?

Misasa then swept his gaze around the area, as if he'd realized something. Only after confirming there were no recording devices nearby, and that the only warrior left within earshot was Tokita Ohma, whom Lord Katahara had judged to be a safe party, did he let out a breath of relief.

Even so, he said, "Yang, we'll talk about this later."

Yang nodded in understanding, but his face still showed complete indifference. "Whatever. It's just one more fight either way. No difference."

Misasa nodded. "True enough. But from what I know, Hayami Katsumasa has brought in quite a few outside forces this time to secure his victory."

"…Outside forces?" Yang raised an eyebrow, curious.

Aboard the S.S. Annihilation, inside Toyo Electric's private box, a man with silver hair and a small tuft of beard sat gritting his teeth. His expression was fastidious, but the left half of his face was eaten away by corrosion scars, a mass of raw, scarlet flesh.

Hayami Katsumasa had kept his fists clenched the whole time he watched the ring. Only after confirming that Karo Yoshinari had advanced to the main tournament did he finally let out a breath.

Then he sneered. "For an illiterate fisherman, he's clever enough to know he should cull those useless minnows… But that's the extent of his use. In the end, he's only a discarded pawn."

As he spoke, Hayami turned toward the hulking giant behind him, built like a monster made of muscle.

"When all is said and done, Julius, you are my true trump card for seizing the chairman's seat!"

The giant, named Julius Reinhold, stared at Yang on the screen, standing there with both hands in his pockets. He nodded silently. "I won't let you down."

Hearing this, Hayami nodded in satisfaction, a flicker of trust and smugness in his eyes.

Julius Reinhold. Toyo Electric's exclusive fighter, 205 cm tall and 210 kg. He looked like a big, dumb lug, but he was in fact a fully accredited doctorate graduate from Germany.

His body wasn't a natural gift. It was an artificial muscle monster, forged through high-intensity scientific training, research in sports medicine, anatomy, physics and psychology, plus massive doses of steroids that would kill an ordinary person. He was the strongest muscle in human history, and he was man-made.

He worshipped strength and rejected nearly all technical training, making him the very model of a Modern warrior.

His nickname was "the Monster." His Kengan record stood at fifty-one fights without a loss, earning Toyo Electric 1.6277 trillion yen in assets. His strength could withstand the full-power charge of an F1 car, and he could lift a 500 kg barbell with one hand, or even roll it into an iron ball. He was Toyo Electric's ultimate weapon, the one that kept the company ranked second in the Kengan Association.

Noticing Julius's gaze fixed on Yang on the screen, Hayami felt a flash of contempt, but he still asked respectfully, "This fellow called Yang. Are you confident you can beat him?"

"He's a bit troublesome… but yes." After a brief silence, Julius nodded and spoke in a low voice. "In strength, I'm confident I'm not weaker. I'm stronger than he is. The only troublesome part is that so-called strength, but my muscles have been hammered and tempered a thousand times over. They have no blind spots, so there's no possibility of my losing."

At first, when he heard "a bit troublesome," Hayami had frowned. But after hearing the rest, he quickly nodded in satisfaction.

He wasn't a warrior himself, but Hayami knew that for a Modern-style warrior like Julius, confidence was extremely important. And now, feeling Julius's absolute faith in strength supremacy and muscle supremacy, Hayami felt his own confidence swell.

With that thought, Hayami clapped his hands after a brief pause. Out of the shadows behind him stepped a man with ash-gray skin, so tall and thin he stood a head above even Julius.

His torso and limbs were extremely long and slender, his frame fine-boned and without any bulk. The whole man was as lanky as a bamboo pole.

His skin was a ghastly gray-green. He had long black hair and a thin goatee, and wore a pair of small round black sunglasses. His fingernails were long and sharp, gleaming with a cold, poisonous sheen and giving off a faint purple mist. He wore a loose robe whose huge sleeves covered all ten fingers.

If Yang had been here, he would have recognized him at once. This was the new Asia division head of the Four Heavenly Kings in Shadaloo, personally chosen by M. Bison to fill the vacancy left by Sagat's departure. He had first appeared in Street Fighter V. His name was F.A.N.G.

"You brought everything I asked for, didn't you?" Hayami asked.

"Of course. Lord M. Bison is quite interested in this tournament." Fang chuckled and clapped his hands. Behind him, a girl with white hair and white eyebrows, her hands sheathed in iron claws, lowered her head and brought forward a low-temperature insulated case.

He used his wide sleeves to wrap around his poisonous hands and open the case. Inside lay a single purple syringe, and on the vial was written a character: "蛊" (gu, venom).

Then Fang said, unhurried:

"The drug inside is infused with Lord M. Bison's spiritual power. In a short time, it numbs the body's limiter on muscle output and strengthens both the circulation of qi and the muscles' capacity to bear it. The only side effects are a surge in aggressive urges and severe exhaustion afterward… But I imagine that's hardly anything to Mr. Julius."

As he spoke, Fang combed his nails with interest through the goatee on his chin.

People called him Nguuhao, but in truth Nguuhao was an assassin organization Fang had founded in Asia before joining Shadaloo. After M. Bison defeated him, Fang was overawed by M. Bison's power. He dissolved Nguuhao and joined Shadaloo.

The organization was gone, but the fearsome reputation of Nguuhao still clung to Fang himself.

From his earliest memories, he had grown up in a den of poison, and not the kind of "poison" people mean when they say *, but poison in the most literal sense. He had practiced poison arts since childhood, and that also made him a specialist in biomedicine and chemistry.

Combined with a warrior's inherently high vitality, it let Fang tell at a glance that Julius's body was an artificial behemoth, built through acquired training using physics, chemistry and systematic regimens.

Such powerful drug tolerance… He would make the perfect test subject.

A pity…

Even so, Fang wasn't overly disappointed. If it was something he wanted, he would get it into his hands sooner or later.

Hearing Fang's words, Julius shifted his gaze to the vial marked with that same character, and his eyes held a hint of suspicion.

He might have been a Nine Dragon warrior at the very top, but Julius was a genuine postdoctoral graduate in biochemistry from a prestigious German university. He was extremely wary of any drug he took. He rarely used veterinary drugs of unknown origin. Most of what he injected was custom-made, a high-purity synthetic steroid or testosterone he refined himself.

"Go ahead and use it, don't worry," Hayami said suddenly, as Julius was still hesitating. "I've already had my bio-lab test it. There's no problem."

Only then did Julius relax. He glanced at the time and said, "All right… Ah, it's time. I need three more shots of synthetic reagent to maintain muscle growth."

"Mm. Get ready." Hayami nodded.

Once Julius had left and no one else was around, Fang asked with interest, "I only just mixed this reagent myself. An overdose can also cause the blood vessels in the brain to burst once the effect wears off… Are you sure you don't want to tell him?"

"No need." Hayami's voice was cold. "He's just a pawn for climbing to the top of the Kengan Association."

He turned to Fang. "Shadaloo's warriors have all been arranged, haven't they?"

"Naturally." Fang nodded calmly, then looked up at Yang on the screen and sighed.

"I could have arranged for Lord M. Bison's own December Squad. It's a pity this fellow Yang did so much damage in Hong Kong. Most of the December Squad's combat unit has been exposed, and they can't show their faces for a while… But no matter."

He looked at Hayami. "This fellow Yang is someone Lord M. Bison named specifically to be captured alive. But… just… this much will do."

Hearing this, Hayami nodded, not caring in the slightest.

After all, Yang's height and weight were impressive, but he still fell a notch short of Julius Reinhold. On top of that, Julius now had Fang's spiritual power elixir.

However he looked at it, the advantage belonged to Julius, and to him, Hayami Katsumasa!

As for this so-called Shadaloo…

Hayami lowered his brows in secret, a flash of mockery in his eyes.

To let a wet-behind-the-ears kid like Yang wreck their plans again and again, they clearly weren't much! They were only stepping stones for me, Hayami Katsumasa, to climb higher once I seize the top of the Kengan Association!

That was what he thought, but since he still needed them for now, Hayami didn't let his thoughts show. Following Fang's words, he turned his eyes once more to Yang on the screen.

"Yang? I hope his luck is a little better. Otherwise… heh heh."

He paused, then frowned as though he'd remembered something. That caught Fang's attention, and he asked outright, "What is it? Is there something you'd like to ask?"

"It's nothing. Only the strength of your warriors."

Hayami spoke in a low voice. "In this Kengan Annihilation Tournament, I placed four pieces, and now the last one has also cleared the preliminaries, which makes five pieces in total."

"And each of those five was the best of the best I could pick. They're warriors among warriors, fighters among fighters. By comparison, your Shadaloo warriors… I don't really know them."

Hearing this, Fang only chuckled softly. "Is that so? Why don't you pick any two of them and treat it as an early round of assessment?"

He went on unhurriedly. "The winner advances to the main tournament. The loser… naturally becomes useless."

Hayami nodded and, after a moment, said, "In that case, I'll send out Adam Dudley and my personal bodyguard, Nikaido Ren."

Adam Dudley was the Brawling Emperor of Texas. Hayami had originally planned to recruit the boxing king Punk Abbot, but then he witnessed with his own eyes Adam Dudley defeat him at astonishing speed. So he dug Adam straight out and brought him under Toyo Electric as a fighter.

As for Nikaido Ren, he was the leader of the Heavenly Wolves and Hayami's personal guard, so his strength needed no explanation. With those two, it would be enough to gauge the quality of the warriors Shadaloo sent.

Hearing Hayami's words, Fang nodded in understanding and clapped his hands.

A moment later, two figures slowly stepped out from behind him.

One was a brawny man in a military sleeveless combat vest. A lock of blond hair swept upward from his forehead, and the right half of his head and arm were covered in grisly stitched seams. An emerald set into his brow glinted faintly.

He wore work trousers, and his mottled right hand was clearly not the original. It hung at his side, so that he looked like a living-dead soldier stitched together from corpses.

The other was a woman in a light-blue garrison cap, with two thick, long braids hanging down her back.

She wore a light-blue, vertical-striped, long-sleeved, high-collared, high-cut one-piece combat suit with a wide-open back, a short golden-yellow tie at the collar, and a dark armband on her left arm. Thick red fighting gauntlets covered both forearms. Her legs were bare, painted with blue lightning patterns, and she wore tan knee-high military boots.

"Charlie Nash, former lieutenant of the US Air Force." Fang gestured at the living-dead man, then pointed to the woman beside him.

"The Killer Bee, Cammy White, captain of the assassin team in Lord M. Bison's December Squad."

Hearing Fang's introduction, Hayami frowned in secret and asked, "Why is there a woman?"

Fang didn't mind. He said mildly, "As long as the strength is sufficient, what does gender matter?"

As he spoke, Fang glanced at Cammy.

Ordinary people didn't know how strong Cammy was, and might even be fooled by her delicate appearance. But Fang knew better than anyone what power this spare body possessed, brainwashed and strengthened by Lord M. Bison personally with his spiritual power.