I'm too lazy to proofread this. If it's bad, I'm sorry.
So late last night, on the 7th of June, the Warner Robins crew was heading home from another Atlanta tournament. It was 'bout 2:30AM... so I guess early morning is a better way to put it. Vip3r had already fallen asleep as it was well past his bed time. Blackstar, who was the commandeer of the journey, had entered the "No Zone", the zone where no conversation between him and myself may take place because it will quickly dissolve into a mindless shouting match over the most irrelevant topics. But in the darkness, there lurked one more member.
Laswagga.
Aggravated, frustrated, and annoyed by the existence of what he claims is the "True" master of the Shotokan fighting style.
This is a second hand re-telling of his knowledge of many members of the fabled "Street Fighting" soap opera.
*note: a lot of the details were left out, and the story isn't in complete order. It was 2:30 in the morning. Coherent thoughts were harder than ambiguous 1frame links at that point. "Sakura is the best shoto there is," claims Laswagga.
I promptly disagree with his claims. I mean... I main the chick, I know what she has to go through. She's traditionally designed to want to stand next to somebody and swing on people. She struggles to get in, normally has to gamble (either by bullshit approach tools, or "expensive" mechanics), only for a chance to get in somebody's face and do her damnedest to avoid the impending DP. She has her own DP, but she's so fake, she doesn't have all of the letters in it. Sho'oh'ken, ya know what's missing? THE INVINCIBILITY (Save SF4, mind you). So she over finds herself being bullied at close range by many characters as she swings for her dear life. But don't let her hit you, not unless you have too much health and you REALLY want to get rid of it.
But all of that, isn't enough for Laswagga. No. Even with that, she's still the TRUE Shotokan master. "Are you serious? Sakura's is so lazy she can't do the moves right and she STILL does them better than Ryu? Get outta here with your nonsense, Dogy." I hit him with the ._. face. He rants on, "come on, her low forward is BETTER than Ryu's. It reaches further, and she can combo from it. But she's so bad, she can't even get hers on the ground. She's a female, why is she not flexible enough for that?" He continues on, "Ryu spent years mastering the move. Trained under a waterfall using low forward, and this lazy bitch SEES him do it and can perform it better than he can??" I respond with, "Too bad Ryu's is actually better for all intents and purposes, and they're the same length." "Ya know what happens when Ryu does low forward to Rose? He eats a stiletto. (Counter poke s.MK) You know what happens Sakura does a low forward to Rose? ROSE GETS COUNTERHIT!! O_O" "No, she gets her c.mk stuffed the same." I say.
Laswagga shuffles onto the next topic. "Don't get me started on the tatsu. Ryu is the MASTER of the Tatsu. But guess what? He doesn't get ANYTHING for hitting it! He literally FLYS across the screen, kicks people in the mouth, and only knocks them FURTHER so he has to chase them again. Meanwhile, stupid-face-Sakura over here saw him do a Tatsu ONE time and now she can do it better!" I have a pretty disgusted look on my face, masked by the absence of light "Dafuq?? She can't reliably get through fireballs with her Shunpuu." (I'm a Sakura fan, so I do call her "Tatsus" Shunpuus, as they're listed). "Come on man," he rebounds "She went in her back yard, stuck her foot out, jumped, and spun in a circle. Now she can hop over Ryu's fireball, kick him in the mouth, and combo him into ultra. Seriously?" I start laughing uncontrollably at the idea of Sakura standing on a well-cut backyard hopping and spinning like a second-squad cheerleader. "But, Ryu can do a crossup Tatsu on somebody's wakeup. Sakura can't do that." "YES SHE CAN!", he called my bluff, "Not only can she do it, she can COMBO from it." Exposed. Through more low-key conversation, he went on to claim that Shunpuu, specifically LK, was completely safe where as Tatsu is always unsafe. At this point, I kinda cave in and decide to make matters worse for Sakura. "Ya know something you haven't griped about yet? Air Shunpuu". "You're right," Laswagga explains, "She still has her escape Shunpuu... why??" At that point, I kinda just laughed it off.
"She's so lazy, she's so bad, yet she can copy the same moves Ryu has trained for years to perform, and can do them BETTER than he can. She's a prodigy and a master." He continued on. "Her fireball is a piece of trash that fizzles out, and she needs a running start to do her DP, but she gets much better results than ANY other Shoto, she's amazing." I stop him in his tracks. "Her DP sucks, always has sucked, and unless 'her Gods' change her fundamentals, it will ALWAYS suck." He snaps "Are you serious? She's got a FOUR FRAME DP? What does Ryu have? A long winding uppercut." (Sidenote: We're actually talking about their c.Fierces, and not their actual DPs. It's a running joke). I pondered for a second, then chuckled. "Yeah, I can't really argue with her 4 frames of fury. It's pretty good." "Yeah," follows Laswagga. "Ryu does this great windup, and Sakura just does a fist bump. Which one is harder to deal with?" I roll my eyes.
"I want you to think about something" states Laswagga. "Gouken is the master of Shotokan; he can shoot his Hado in different directions and has the "Forbidden Shoryuken". Akuma can shoot his in different directions as well. Can Ryu shoot HIS Hadoken in different directions?" "... In Marvel 3 he ~~" *slap* "Can Ken shoot his Hado in different directions?" "In Marvel 2 he ~~" *slap* "CAN SAKURA??" .... -siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh- Yeah, that guy Laswagga. "She's the TRUE master. She can do stuff that only the teacher himself and his brother can do. Not even the two students, who've trained for many many years, can do what this bitch thought of in 5 minutes. How are you going to tell me she's NOT better?""Uuuuuuum. Cause she was taught by Dan." I casually respond.
（╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ from Laswagga. "We're not worried about those other characters. Heck, even DAN'S better than Ryu when you think about it." (There was a 5 minute explanation of how Dan is a better character than Ryu. It was comical, but not related to the topic at hand).
"Sakura's lazy, but she's also pretty evil. She's the reason why Street Fighter is the way it is." Laswagga protested. "The hell you talking about?" I question. "You know why Evil Ryu has that hole in his chest? That's where Sakura kicked him." The only response I could possibly muster up at this point is ".... lolwut?" "Yeah. There was one day where Ryu and sparring with Sakura. He was trying so hard to keep her out with his Hado, but she kept walking in. She'd block, walk in, block, walk in. The first time got got in, Ryu backed her out with his terrible low forward. But she didn't stop. She kept coming! So this time, he said 'Aight, when she gets in this time, I'm gunna fuck her up!', but Sakura timed him and jumped in his face. When she got there, she blew his chest up with a close roundhouse. It was so clean, it left a footprint in his chest. Ryu was so pissed that she actually got through the Hado game that the footprint tore open and he became hellbent on keeping her away. That's how he became evil."
I couldn't help but laugh. It makes perfect sense. (That's not how it happened at all if you don't know the story of Street Fighter). Even this got a rise out of Blackstar, who we thought was a car driving zombie at this point
"Ya know what I hate about Sakura the most, though?" I looked at him with a puzzled look. "Na, what's that, man?" He quietly said "Sakura's the reason Karin's not in the game" "... huh??" There's..... no logic behind that whatsoever, but I'm ready to hear what kind of midnight concoction he had for this one. "Ya see, Sakura choked Karin out and left her in a back alley." He explained. I laughed, because one of my favorite Sakura moves is her sleeper throw from .. every game that's not SF4 (or Namco X Capcom), so, in my mind, I could totally see it happening. "Why would she even do that? They were somewhat kool with each other." "She got tired of Karin abusing her boyfriend." o_o Dafuq?? Yeah, he said it. "Wait.. so you mean to tell me that the fat guy is Sakura's boyfriend." "Yup" "So... Sakura fucks fat dudes?" "Yup." I rolled my eyes in disgust. "Any why, exactly, is Sakura's 'boyfriend' always trying to protect Karin for Sakura?" Laswagga smirked as he replied "Because she pays well." I facepalmed, but I couldn't argue with the fuel for the fanfic; Sakura lives in a place not fit enough to be a copy/paste district for an anime, and Karin flies into the fight on a damn helicopter. I guess she could pay off somebody's man, lol. "Yeah, Sakura got tired of Karin always abusing her man, so she choked her out and left her in a back alley." I faked some disgust at this point. "She also choked out Ingrid. That's why neither of them have been in a Street Fighter since." ... ok now THAT one kinda sucked, lol. (I've always wished for Capcom to put Ingrid in another game. And in it, not some hypothetical "She could have done something random with the story that I don't care about" that she has in SFxT)
"Yeah, man. Sakura's pretty mean. She killed Bison." He carries on. "She's the reason Bison has multiple bodies." I glared at him with a standard 'orly' face. "So, Ryu didn't have anything to do with Bison?" Laswagga interrupted my momentum "Actually, the reason Ryu and Bison hate each other so much is because they're fighting over who's going to kill Sakura."
I started reaching for straws at this point, "So, is she the reason Ken went Violent as well?" "Hell yeah. As bad as Ken is, he was already upset that Ryu was better than him. He's rich and he has flames on his Shoryuken. Even then, that dumb chick is better than him. So one day, he rolled out of bed and he was literally pissed about it. That's where Violent Ken came from." (Perfectly explanation for such a RANDOM character).
"You know what else Sakura did?" Queried Laswagga. I mindlessly responded, giving in to the fact that anything was possible at this point. "She stole Dudley's car." Blackstar and I did a tag team "wtf" stare at this one. It's just absurd no matter how you look at it. "Uh huh. She stole his car and framed Gill for it. She set him up." "But she can't even drive!" I exclaimed. "Sakura don't give a fuck 'bout driving the thing, she just wanted to steal it." Laswagga responded.
She's just a ruthless, reckless youth.At this point, Blackstar asked a few questions about Third Strike, starting with some humorous comments from the tourney where a few people claimed that Hugo was actually a "very good" character. (As in, he had solid, good tools. Not as in he simply functions with subpar tools). In this conversation, we got onto the topic of Sean.
Blackstar momentarily looked over his shoulder and asked "Why is Sean so bad in Third Strike." The obvious answer is Capcom nerfed him to hell to end his month-long hit confirms from Second Impact.. but we're clearly all about smoke and mirrors at this point. I fire first with "He was trained by Ken.... and he's Black." Laswagga picks up the spare "Well Ken's obviously the laziest teacher ever. Sean throws basketballs, can't properly do a tatsu, and just... jumps for a shoryuken." He pauses, then hits a strike in the next frame. "The real reason, though, is because Sakura threatened him." I threw my hands up and wait for the continuation. "She came up to him and said 'Hey, you better stop being good or I'll choke you out like I did to Karin'. He started sandbagging because of that" Still staring at the ceiling, I wanted to hear what kinda reasoning explains mediocrity containing pure superiority. "How the heck could SAKURA, of all people, threaten Sean to sandbag when he could have just headbutted her for half her life?" Laswagga chuckled at my question and said, "Because Sean's dumb." ..... I mean... he DID take from Ken. That's actually worse than learning from Dan, in my eyes.
Beyond this, there were a few more small battles, but nothing of real note. Some small talk about various iterations of Sakura where we noted that she's had a divekick, a dark form, and a few other things.
In the end, we created the embodiment of pure evil, manifested into an innocently eager, free spirited high school girl. She kills, she steals, and she apparently can go as far as literally flying across a canyon to destroy everything in her path. She answers to no one, and follows only to get close enough to launch people out of orbit as she continues on her reign of terror. All while being too lazy to create her own techniques worth any real merit nor acknowledgement.
She is a murderer.
She's lazier than I am. (Who's too lazy to proofread this post)
She is, the TRUE master of the Shotokan style.
She is
Sakura Kasugano!!
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