On May 14th  your friendly neighbourhood Rogue Advisor set the task to create an original Street Fighter Character to win a rather humble prize.

Using the awesome Hero Machine 2.5 you, beloved reader, had the challenge to create a unique awesome character. I present to you the winner. Yay.

雪詩織

Yuki Shiori

By Natalie Raymond, Forest Gate, UK.

Special Moves

Suriru Ni Odoru Enjeru Tachi, (Angels dancing in the thrill): By repeatedly hitting LP button she unleashes a flurry of slender throwing daggers, each causing tiny amounts of damage, (about as much as a blocked special move), and only have a range of roughly 2/3rd the screens width.

They render her immobile whilst she throws them, reducing her defences.

Itoshiki Rival, (Beloved Rival): This is a taunt move, by pressing back twice and LP or LK, she will flick her hair back in a provocative manner, blow them a kiss and giggle girlishly.

It leaves her vulnerable but if she pulls it off it will enrage the opponent, causing them to charge blindly at her. Very handy to do before the following move.

Asu E Tatchidaun, (Touchdown to tomorrow): She can jump onto the edge of the screen and jump off again, effectively double jumping like Chun-Li does, if timed properly she can somersault and land directly behind her opponent if they are close enough, (see above).

Kuraishisu-Ikari Wo Komete Hashire, (Crisis-Run with Anger): This is a charging technique, tap forward twice to close the gap, if timed correctly this works very well with the next move.

Wasurenaide, (Don’t Forget): In close proximity to an opponent  especially a grappler or wrestling type, press forward twice rapidly. Yuki will blow a powdered substance in their face, stunning them for a few seconds, the effects having made them forget where they are and what they were doing.

It does no damage, and has an extremely short range, virtually point blank. But does allow her a brief advantage.

Akuma To Tenshi No Kisu, (Devil and Angel’s Kiss): By pressing down, forward down, forward then any punch in one smooth movement, Yuki will throw one of her manrikigusari, (the ninja-tastic weapons she has in  each hand), which will momentarily stick in them

It has a range of about 2/3rds of the screen, and causes damage damage based on which punch used, but LP is faster.

She has about a millisecond before her opponent instinctively pulls it out, but if she’s fast enough and presses the same D-pad and punch button, the other will stick into them and she will then she will spin, pulling both of the weapons out of them causing additional damage. The manrikigusari then return to her hands.

Mayonaka No Etoile, (Midnight Opera): Press diagonally away, down then back followed by either all three punches or kicks.

This is a teleportation move; she’ll disappear in a puff of smoke and reappear either directly behind her opponent if all three punches were used, or as far away from the opponent as possible if all three kicks were used.

This could be anywhere on screen calculated by the greatest possible distance from the opponent.

Konya Wa Hurricane, (Tonight a hurricane): Press down, forward down then forward + any punch, this is kinda like a hadouken move but the little hurricanes she releases are quite slow, more often than not that’s the point if the move, like most of her other moves, to tactically position her opponent for the actual attack she wishes to use. She can also perform this whilst jumping, the release of the small hurricane allows her to stay in the air for a short time.

Misuteriasu Naito, (Mysterious Night): Press LP-LP back LK+HP, the screen will go dark for a moment, the only thing to be seen are a flurry of blows from Yuki in rapid succession, leaving her opponent on the floor. Similar to Akuma an evil Ryu’s special move.

Bio: Her birth name was Yuiko Tanaka and she was raised by fairly wealthy parents in one of the more pleasant districts of Osaka, she never had to want for much and this led to her becoming undisciplined and lazy.

She was an only child, so without any siblings she was spoiled rotten by them. Even allowing her to set up a music recording studio in her home and starting an all girl band with her equally lazy and rich friends, she was the vocalist and sometimes rhythm guitarist. They were called ‘The Blade Runners’, and actually had quite a following.

At one of their gigs in a fairly high profile venue called ‘Boomers’, they played one of their best gigs ever, they seemed totally professional. Fortunately for them a talent hunter from Toshiba EMI was at the gig, and they were about to get a contract for at least three albums.

That night they celebrated, a little too hard. Full of booze and recreational drugs Yuiko grabbed a bottle of water from the bar and decided to walk the six miles home to sober up enough that her parents hopefully wouldn’t realise that she’d been up to stuff her parents would have her grounded for.

After the first mile and a half she decided it was a bad idea and started trying to hitch a ride home. A limousine pulled over and offered her a ride. In the back of the limo she engaged in polite conversation with a portly man named Kobayashi San, who had two silent large ‘friends’ with him. They said not a word, she reckoned they were his carers at first, as Kobayashi San was so old.

It all seemed pretty hospitable at first, as far as she was concerned, anyone with a limo was rich and therefore respectable. They weren’t, they were kidnapping her. The two silent ‘carers’, she now realised were in fact hired thugs. They quickly bound and gagged her, she struggled as best she could, but with all the alcohol and drugs in her she didn’t put up much of a fight.

For days, maybe weeks she was like this, not knowing where she was, only knowing something was happening when she was manhandled from the car.

Once off the car her bonds and blindfold were removed, when she looked around she saw why they were no longer necessary. She was far North, she knew that because she was surrounded by snow capped mountains. Whilst lazy in her studies, she knew well enough the geography of her own country. She was in Hokkaido. Hundreds of miles from home.

Her kidnappers locked her in a cabin and left her there with the bare minimum of living utilities. This was far removed from the luxurious lifestyle she was used to.

As soon as she was locked up, she overheard the kidnappers making some phone calls, luck was beginning to find her, the hangover was gone now she could think clearly and the cabin walls were thin and she could hear almost every word. They were holding her for ransom, but what they did not realise is that they had taken the wrong person.

Yuiko knew this meant she wasn’t valuable to them anymore. She had to escape. And fast, she scanned the ramshackle hut for anything to get her out.

There weren’t any windows and the door whilst weak was reinforced with iron bindings and plenty of chains and other locks. Desperately searching she found only a broomstick  At least she could give one of them a whack before they killed her.

As she sat there, resigned to her fate, a ray of sunlight made her squint. It originated from a very weak looking ceiling. She could hear her kidnappers arguing outside, luck was with her again, she had some cover noise.

She made haste piling up the crappy and sparse furniture in the cabin to climb up to the ceiling and began bashing it with the broomstick. The ceiling gave way easily but the arguing outside had stopped and she could hear the bolts and locks being opened on the other side of the door. This brought her more precious time.

She climbed through the ceiling to the roof and had feeling of horror, all around was vast fields leading only to mountains, and she still had to make an eight foot drop without breaking her legs and somehow outrun large thugs to getaway. After sizing up the jump, she slowly positioned herself at arms length dangling from the edge of the roof, but she couldn’t find the courage to let herself drop, that was until she heared the door open and the thugs, not realising she was on the roof start ransacking the cabin looking for her.

This gave her all the motivation she needed, she let go of the roof and fell awkwardly, dislocating a shoulder. That wouldn’t stop her from running as fast as her legs could carry her. She ran faster than she thought she could ever run, partly due to fear for her life and partly from all the cardiovascular exercise she’d had dancing on stage and in nightclubs.

By the time the thugs realised where she had gotten too, she had a good head start. the thugs were on the roof, guns at the ready, but they made the mistake of simply jumping straight down the eight foot drop, the first one landed running, gun pointed in her direction, the second landed badly, twisting his ankle and misfiring his gun, shooting his colleague in the butt, slowing him considerably, but not quite enough, he was still closing the distance.

As he closed the distance he began to fire, most bullets missing except for one, hitting her in the calf, flooring her. She got back up and tried to hobble away. As the thug was reloading his gun a flash of thrown steel came out of nowhere, neatly impaling his trachea and slowly choking the thug to death on his own blood. She heard a blood curdling scream from the cabin and then another.

Then an old man suddenly appeared next to her as she lay on the floor, blood gushing from her calf and looking exhausted. He threw her upon his shoulder and with speed she never thought possible ran towards the mountains.

For weeks the kindly, yet mysterious and a little scary old man nursed her back to health in a secret training compound high in the mountains. They had many conversations during this recovery period. Turns out his name was Kage and he was the last of the Yuki clan of ninja. With no one left to pass his ninjutsu secrets to he offered to train her. She happily accepted, never wanting to feel that weak or afraid again.

For five years, she trained rigorously under the kind old ninja’s tutelage and learned all the Yuki clan secrets. Ninja training she found was unique from clan to clan.

The Yuki clan’s teaching method involved singing to complete each technique, something that came naturally to her. When her training was complete, Kage renamed her, she was now Yuki Shiori, roughly translated into English; Snow poem.

When the the old man had nothing left to teach her he suddenly became very ill, as if passing his knowledge to her was the last thing he was fated to do before he expired. When the old man passed away, she equipped herself with a vast array of ninjutsu gear and buried her Sensei. Then made her way back to the cabin,

Two thugs corpses were there, so she looted them for money, and the limo was also still there, the corpse of Kobayashi San slumped by the driver’s seat door, throat slit from ear to ear and a wide eyed look of incredulity on his pale lifeless face. Looting his body was a true windfall, rolls of cash in golden money clips and expensive jewellery that she could pawn on her journey back to Osaka in the limo she had no qualms about stealing.

After weeks of driving south for weeks  she finally made it back to Osaka. She dumped the stolen limo, and headed straight for her parents house. At first they were overjoyed to see her, but they sensed the dramatic change in her and from then on were apprehensive around her, almost fearful.

Being 26 years old now, and having a shed load of looted gangster cash, she decided to get her own place, in the apartment above the bar where she had played her last gig. She got the old band together, her voice was even better than ever, almost preternatural, she barely even required a microphone to be heard.

But with paying rent on the apartment and funding the band without a proper day job she was rapidly running low on funds. Then she heard about the Street Fighter contest . . . . .

Until next time. Keep creating.