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[satsui_no_hadou]

It was a peaceful day on Gokuentou. The monsoon season had come and gone, and now it was just pleasantly brisk out; a refreshing breeze rippled the blades of grass over the hillside. The shattered remains of a robot death squad littered the canyon floor, as Mai handled taking the larger pieces to the scrap pile, and little Amy- "NO

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[shouoken]

It hadn't taken Sakura long for her contacts in the martial arts forums to track down Akuma's island. Really, that was far easier than expected. She'd always expected Akuma to be more secretive about where he lived. A quick ride on a train found her in the small fishing village closest to the island.

The real difficulty wasn't in finding the place, she realized. It was in actually finding someone who'd take her there. Most of the men with any way of getting there absolutely refused to get too close to that island. It was as if they thought the place was haunted, or a demon lived there or something. Not even pleading and puppy eyes helped her case.

Finally, after hours of begging around bars, she found someone who was heading near the place. He refused to actually take her to the island, but if she wanted to swim from his boat to the hell-place, she was free to try. And so, hours later, the island of Goukentou found a schoolgirl walking onto the shore. She shakes her head to scatter the water out, and tugs her (dry) jeans and shirt

[satsui_no_hadou]

Gokuentou provided an interesting variety of terrain for that size of island. (Partly thanks to selection, partly to cultivation.) Depending on whether she landed on the landward or seaward side, there would either be a steep, rocky slope to climb or a dense copse of trees; either way, the view ahead would be strictly limited.

Of course, if she did go with the seaward shore (a more likely choice), she could cut through the rice paddy instead of the little woodland. Great idea, huh? Because who wouldn't want to be chest-deep in soggy mud when they're trying to hunt down a legend.

[shouoken]

The landward side was, really, closer to where she'd been dropped off. As much as she pleaded, the old fisherman had refused to spend more time than he absolutely had to around the island. It frustrated her, but there wasn't much more that she could do about it.

She frowns, eying the slope, and sighs. There wasn't much choice there. Master Ryu wouldn't just hang around, whining about having a slope to climb. So, with a determined look in her eyes, the schoolgirl fighter steps up to the challenge and starts to scale the cliff. It's trickier than she'd thought, the cliff is nothing like the small climbing walls back home. But, after what seems like forever, Sakura manages to match the challenge and flops over the edge, panting slightly.

"...Well. That's one challenge down."

[satsui_no_hadou]

And there was quite a bit to see, on this side.

From the mountain dominating the entire north of the island, the land made a gradual, sweeping curve down the rocky slope she found herself upon, and down to a desolate canyon. There was something... wrong about that place, even aside from all the little rounded thingees (And some shiny bits) littering the place... but then, one could say so about the entire island; this was just more so than the rest