Legend of The Lightning Legs

04 - Learning The Shotokan Way

Chun-Li lowered herself slowly into the bathtub filled with ice. She let the numbing water take over the pain that she felt throughout and before long it was all gone. It was bad enough that she was now caught up in an illegal fighting tournament, but her body was getting the worst part of it.

She was staying in a small guest house for the night along with her new friend, Ryu. She was trying to find out the secret to his powerful qi and had grown attached to him as they traveled. Their sparring sessions had become more intense and as it got closer to the day of her fight, he pushed her harder to learn his technique. He was a competitor but he was worried for her; since she was scheduled to take on an American soldier. She closed her eyes and let the numbness work it’s magic and thought back on the training that Ryu had given her earlier that day.

~*~*~*~

“Chun, your dragon punch has good form, but your upper body strength is just not enough to make it effective. Maybe we should have you lift some weights, or do fifty pushups with me.” Ryu said, as she stood in her stance awaiting his instructions.

“My upper body strength? You didn’t say that when I punched you.” She spat back, annoyed.

“No, no-no! I don’t mean that you are weak. It’s just that MY version of the shoryuken requires a lot of strength. It is meant to finish an opponent, no...oh nevermind.”

“No, finish up Ryu. What is wrong with my shoryuken?”

“What’s wrong with it? It is going to get you killed.” He said while rubbing his face as if his frustrations with her could be wiped away.

“So, my punch is weak--”

“I never said that, you said that. What I said is that your strength is not enough to perform a proper shoryuken.”

Ryu had been going over his legendary dragon punch technique with her all day, but he was growing frustrated at her inability to do much damage with it. The two warriors had agreed to exchange a specialty technique; Chun-Li would learn the dragon punch, and Ryu would get a bit more speed in his hurricane kick.

“No fair, Ryu! I showed you the bird kick, and you can now spin just as fast as I can. You owe it to me to learn a proper shooweeken, and you need to honor that promise.” She said, as she dropped her stance and placed her hands on her hips. He could see that there was no winning with her, and it didn’t help that she was so cute in her objections.

“Okay, Chun, but first of all. It is Sho. Like, let me ‘SHOW’ you something. Then RYU--Ryu--like my name, and then Ken, like my big mouthed brother that I told you about. Sho-Ryu-Ken, got it? How do you expect to master the technique, if you can’t even spare the time to learn it’s name?”

“SHORYUKEN!” Chun-Li screamed, and then dipped her body low and rose up with the rising uppercut to catch the pad that Ryu held aloft for her to target. Her strong punch moved the pad enough to impress Ryu, but he knew that if she tried it in a real fight, her opponent would not be finished.

“That’s better, but I don’t think that you should use it in a fight. You’re just not ready.” He said and then shook his head and made to walk away.

“Wait a second, sempai, not so fast.” She said, stepping in front of him. “Show me the move again, do it on that tree over there. I want to see just how strong your dragon punch really is.”

“Are you serious?” He asked, looking over at her to make sure that she wasn’t messing around.

“No, seriously. Show me where I’m wrong.” She said. In her mind she felt that he was being overprotective of her because she was a woman, and she was not going to have it.

Ryu kept on shaking his head and walked over to the large maple tree whose branches sheltered the area that they trained in. She saw him stand below a particularly large branch and close his eyes to concentrate.

“Don’t focus too hard now, Ryu. Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.” She mocked him as he stood there for several moments as the wind blew in gently, causing his headband to flap around a bit. When she was tired of waiting for him to do it, she made to say something more, but Ryu shot open his eyes and she saw a fire within them that frightened her.

“METSU!” He screamed as he slammed his left fist into the trunk of the tree. It felt like time stopped as the bark exploded and the leaves began to rain down on them from the impact.

SHO!” He yelled again, this time slamming his right fist into the trunk which made a cracking noise. The tree seemed as if it would split it in half.

“RYUKEN!” And with that last yell, he rose into the air where his fist caught a large branch and broke it in half. As he landed in front of her--his gi smoking from the fury--the fire was gone from his eyes.

Chun-Li had not moved during the entire demonstration and she stared at him with her mouth open. He walked over to her and touched her shoulder and whispered into her ear. “Like I said, you are not strong enough for shoryuken.”

“Hmph!” Chun-Li exhaled, frustrated, but she thought on the technique, what she had seen, and why she was so intent on learning it.

In the past when her opponents came at her with acrobatic, aerial techniques, she would merely move out of the way or block them. Ryu’s dragon punch punished anyone who left the ground, and most of the time they couldn’t recover from it. The busted maple tree was evidence that when powered-up, there was no recovering from a proper dragon punch. She needed a devastating move like that, and if Ryu was right about her upper body, then she would need to improvise with her legs.

She clenched her fists, tightened her bangles and exhaled.

“Ryu, sempai. Please hold the pad higher, and get ready!” She said, her face a twisted mask of determination.

Ryu did not know what to expect, but assumed that Chun-Li was going to do the dragon punch again. He expected her to fail but he loved her fire; she was unlike any woman that he had ever met before. She was a warrior and she was determined to win no matter what.

“Okay, Chun-Li, for the win now. Show me what you got. Show me the shoryuken!”

“AARGHHH....TENSHO-KYAKU!” Chun-Li screamed.

She then roundhouse kicked past Ryu’s face, then spun into a hook kick, repeating the series of spinning kicks while rising into the air. The spinning kicks were so fast that they hit Ryu’s pad several times, knocking it out of his hands. Before he could recover, Chun-Li caught him by his shoulders, somersaulted over his head and then landed behind him.

“That wasn’t shoryuken, but it was amazing, Chun! Your kicks hit so hard. Even more impressive - you screamed it out in Japanese!”

He gave her a thumbs up and a goofy grin, and she punched him playfully in the chest.

“Hmph! Thats out of respect for a good sempai, Ryu.” She said, winking at him. “Now let us fight for real, so that I can see if the tenshokyaku will be a good replacement for the dragon punch.”

They fought well into the evening and Ryu did not hold back. Chun-Li was grateful that her assumptions with Ryu were all wrong. He hit her with several of his signature techniques, but she countered with several of her own--including her new tenshokyaku. The sparring was enough to give her confidence and by the time they were finished, she knew that no-one would be able to withstand her lightning legs.

~*~*~*~

Chun-Li stood up from the ice bath and grabbed a towel to dry off and wrap her body in. Ryu had to be one of the best fighters of their time. He used an ancient technique that the world knew little of, and the way he used his qi to wreck the maple tree was the stuff of legends. Chun-Li thought about him and how his teaching had made her better and stronger. She had stood up to him convincingly during their sparring match and though she was bruised and battered, he had reminded her of who she was. She was the strongest woman in the world and now all that was left was for her to show Vega.