Chapter 168: Traces of Shadaloo (Patreon)

Aboard the S.S. Annihilation, in a cabin that had been inspected and confirmed free of any surveillance equipment, a man stood rooted to the spot with a resigned look. He had a handsome, androgynous face, sharp eyes lined with eyeliner, and black hair parted to the side.

His build was lean but sharply muscled, and his outfit was bold to match. Tight fabric covered only his chest and groin, leaving his midriff completely bare as he flaunted his physique and presence without a trace of shame.

But that was exactly the problem. He was a man.

Standing in the middle of the room, Nikaido Ren shot a weary glance at Hayami Katsumasa behind him.

"What the hell? Another fight? I just finished one, didn't I, Lord Hayami?"

Ren's reaction was understandable. Not long ago, after the Kengan Annihilation Tournament had been settled but before it officially began, Hayami had ordered him to lead the Heavenly Wolf Pack in assassinating Byakuya News's fighter, the Martial God Takemoto Hisayasu.

Although he had since had time to rest and had fully recovered, the Kengan Annihilation Tournament was about to start. Fighting another battle now would surely affect his condition for the matches ahead.

Hearing Ren's complaint, Hayami only shook his head.

"It's not a duel to the death, just a simple sparring match. Ren, all you need to do is gauge your opponent's strength."

Ren nodded in understanding. Then his gaze shifted to the other side of the room, where a huge man stood covered in tattoos from head to toe. Several of his front teeth had been replaced with metal ones engraved with the letters FUCK. This was Adam Dudley, and disgust flashed in Ren's eyes.

Sensing Ren's stare, Adam didn't care in the slightest. He even bared his metal teeth, as if to provoke him.

Adam came from the streets, and at this stage he was a thug through and through. He fought purely on instinct, but between his time on an ice hockey team and his experience in street brawls, he had still built a savage, no-holds-barred fighting style of his own.

A moment later, the gate on the far side swung open, and Cammy and Nash walked in without a sound.

When Ren saw Cammy standing across from him, astonishment surfaced in his eyes. Even though he had steeled himself for this, he instinctively looked to Hayami at his side.

"…A woman?"

"Mm." Hayami nodded.

Ren scratched his head, baffled. Then he took a deep breath, gathered himself again, and raised his guard.

His bewilderment was understandable. Men and women naturally differ in physical makeup.

Even though qi lets women close the gap in physical attributes through enhancement, the secretion of hormones like testosterone naturally keeps them from devoting themselves to the martial path as single-mindedly as men.

As a direct result, far fewer women than men have achieved anything in the martial arts.

Even so, countless powerhouses have kept emerging as the times have moved on…

With that in mind, Ren drew a steadying breath and fixed Cammy with a serious gaze, giving her no hint of complacency or carelessness.

But even though he had fully prepared himself for battle, the moment the fight began, Ren was genuinely stunned.

Her frame was slender and small, her height only a meager one meter and something. Yet as soon as the fight started, Cammy White dropped into a crouch. After a brief moment of gathering power, her sturdy thighs snapped like springs and she exploded forward with terrifying, thunderous speed. Like a steel nail, she shot in front of Ren and unleashed a flurry of precise, dazzling, rapid strikes.

Hayami knew both sides' strength. Watching Ren struggle in a losing battle, surprise showed on his face too.

"This… how can it be like this?"

Hearing Hayami, F.A.N.G, who had somehow come up behind him, answered with an unhurried smile.

"Of course. The Killer Bee is a perfect soldier whose body Lord M. Bison personally remodeled. She may look small and frail, but the modifications gave her reflexes and muscle strength in inverse proportion to her size."

As he spoke, a flicker of excitement crossed F.A.N.G's eyes.

Back when he had led the Gu Lords, his subordinates had been swarms of poison masters. Not a few of them were Modern-style warriors like Julius, who fought through power enhancement.

The difference was that Julius relied on scientific training methods combined with heavy injections of synthetic drugs, while most of the Gu Lords' warriors broke through the limits of the flesh with poison and drew out great power that way.

But even in F.A.N.G's experience, no one besides M. Bison had ever been able to mass-produce top-tier killers like these, practically living bioweapons, using spiritual power alone.

If there was anything to regret, it was that women had better aptitude for it, so their conversion rate was higher. Men could also be brainwashed and enhanced successfully, but they were often very unstable.

Someone like Nash had outright died once. Only by combining his own formidable strength, an obsession that stayed lodged and unscattered deep in his soul, and a great deal of luck was the brainwashing conversion barely completed.

And as the finest of all those who had undergone genetic sculpting and spiritual-power modification, Cammy was arguably M. Bison's most capable right hand. She looked small, but the energy hidden in her body was such that even F.A.N.G wouldn't dare claim he could take her down easily!

Right on cue, as F.A.N.G was explaining, Cammy's super reflexes, enhanced through spiritual power, soon forced Ren to leave an opening in the middle of her precise, dazzling onslaught. It was an extremely tiny, fleeting flaw, one that even Ren himself hadn't noticed.

But that tiny flaw was enough. In the next instant, Cammy's thigh flashed like lightning and slammed into Ren's ribs.

A single blow shattered his meridians and sent him flying three or four meters, unable to get back up.

Just as Ren gritted his teeth against the agony and tried to restore the flow in his meridians and stand, another black shape flew in and crashed heavily onto him.

It was none other than the other fighter Hayami had arranged, Adam Dudley.

Compared to Ren, Adam was in even worse shape. He was completely unconscious, and a friction-type laceration nearly three fingers wide and deep enough to show bone had been torn across his chest.

Had a weapon been used? But weapons weren't allowed in Kengan Association matches!

Ren was confused, but Hayami, standing to the side, had seen it clearly. That wound hadn't come from any weapon. The man had simply swung his arm, and his Qi Jin had turned into two spinning golden blades of light that merged into a single wheel and struck Adam's chest, leaving that bone-deep gash.

"Nash's Sonic Boom really lives up to its reputation~" Seeing this, F.A.N.G sighed as if he understood something. "What a pity his temperament was so stubborn. He insisted on defying Lord M. Bison, so now all he can do is serve as a bodyguard in this living-dead state."

Hearing F.A.N.G, Hayami only swallowed. He realized F.A.N.G was quietly threatening him.

Anger flashed in Hayami's eyes. He hated nothing more than being coerced by someone looking down on him from above, because it reminded him of the day Kure Erioh had splashed concentrated sulfuric acid in his face.

But now, with the Kengan Annihilation Tournament about to begin, Hayami only took a deep breath and then smiled.

"Excellent! With the support of you gentlemen from Shadaloo, the day I become Kengan Association chairman must be close at hand! I also hope Shadaloo and the Kengan Association will have even more and better cooperation in the future."

That was what he said aloud. In his heart, he thought nothing of the sort. To Hayami, the Kengan Association and Shadaloo alike were nothing but stepping stones!

One day, all these so-called organizations would kneel at his feet!

F.A.N.G didn't seem to notice what was in Hayami's mind and only chuckled. "Of course~"

"If there's no problem, I'll submit the corrected roster right away." Hayami glanced at F.A.N.G and asked, "As for the two names…"

"Just report them as they are," F.A.N.G said carelessly. "The Killer Bee has never left a single trace, and Nash has been missing for ages. Even if someone recognized him, he'd just be a deserter."

"And me? At the end of the day, I was only a former head of an assassin organization~ The Gu Lords are disbanded now, and I'm just an unremarkable poison user. No need to worry about exposure, and certainly no need to worry about anyone connecting us to Shadaloo."

F.A.N.G had good reason to be so relaxed. All told, only about three months had passed since Yang took down Sagat.

In that time, F.A.N.G had been with Shadaloo for barely a month. The assassins of the underworld were still reeling from the Gu Lords' disbanding and didn't know he had joined Shadaloo.

The same went for Cammy and Nash. The former was a Shadaloo assassin, and not a single scrap of information about her had leaked in the surface world, the underworld, or even online. As for Nash, he had been missing for nearly half a year and his look had changed drastically. Even if he were spotted on Ganryu Island, the outside world couldn't react until after the Kengan Annihilation Tournament ended.

By then it would all be old news. In that case, rather than hide, it was better to appear openly, put those needless speculations to rest, and seize everything they needed through bold, aggressive methods.

It was just a pity…

"…" Looking at the hastily drafted entrant list, Yang fell silent. Then he turned to Chun-Li beside him and asked, with a strange look on his face, "Sis, are you sure this is the entrant list for the Kengan Annihilation Tournament?"

"Yeah, why?" Chun-Li glanced at Yang curiously, then looked back at the list in front of her. She couldn't see anything wrong.

Yang laid his hand on Byakuya News and BOSS Burger.

It was actually a little touch of cleverness from the author of Kengan Ashura. He didn't mention real-world names outright the way the Baki series does, but the companies serving as background scenery in the world of Kengan Ashura all have real-life prototypes.

For example, Byakuya News is modeled on the Asahi Shimbun, and BOSS Burger on Burger King. In the same vein, there's the Nentendo game company, based on Nintendo, and Destinyland, based on Disney, and so on.

And among these…

Looking at Chun-Li, Yang said, "If I remember right, the head of the assassination unit in Shadaloo's December Squad is named Cammy White, codename: Killer Bee."

"Huh?!" Chun-Li stared in shock, then instinctively looked at the newly appointed fighter in the Byakuya News column.

Chun-Li had in fact been curious about this fighter. She was the first woman Chun-Li had seen among Kengan Association fighters, her background was a mystery, and appearing in a tournament of this caliber clearly meant she was strong.

Having said that, Yang moved his hand to BOSS Burger.

"Charlie Nash, if I remember right, used to be a lieutenant in the US Air Force. After noticing spiritual-power brainwashing and related developments among the military's top brass, he began investigating Shadaloo and eventually vanished without a trace."

Chun-Li sucked in a breath. "So you're saying these two companies… are both controlled by Shadaloo?"

Chun-Li was curious about where Yang got his information, but she had never doubted it. Yang had already proven the accuracy of his intelligence countless times.

And Chun-Li, whom Old Gen regarded as his own granddaughter, knew well that the assassin world held many hidden taboos…

Ever since Old Gen had instinctively killed a ninja who came to assassinate her when she was little, he had never mentioned such matters to her again.

More importantly, Chun-Li believed Yang wouldn't deceive her. He had always been a man with a mind of his own, and he must have his reasons for doing this.

Yang shook his head.

"Not necessarily… Byakuya News, BOSS Burger, Nentendo, Ajiro Fisheries. All four are puppet companies backed by Toyo Electric Power, pawns sent together to fight for the chairmanship of the Kengan Association."

"Among them, Byakuya News's previous fighter was killed by the Heavenly Wolf Pack, the personal guard of Toyo Electric Power's president Hayami Katsumasa, and replaced with Nikaido Ren. And now Nikaido Ren has been replaced by the Killer Bee, Cammy White…"

"I'd guess Hayami Katsumasa found outside help before the Kengan Annihilation Tournament to make sure he becomes chairman."

Hearing Yang's explanation, Chun-Li felt her scalp prickle.

Shadaloo was no ordinary organization. It was a terrifying criminal empire with the power to overthrow nations. And now Shadaloo was aiming its spearhead at the Kengan Association. In other words, it was setting its sights on Asia's fighting world.

What had been a dispute confined to the Kengan Association had suddenly become a power grab by an international terrorist organization.

"I have to contact Father right now!"