Sakura

In 1987, Sakura, at only 14, began to participate in street fighting after she saw Ryu on her way to her classes at the Tamagawa Minami High School and trained to emulate his style since. She recalls the first two fights she got into were when older bullies stole Tsukushi's portable gaming device and won it back upon defeating them, and when she fought off a college upperclassmen who were perversely harassing Kei with his friends, the latter of which was how she got the attention of Shibasaki and Karin who would also later participate in street fights about two years after Sakura. Six months later on the same year, Sakura started skipping school to search the world for Ryu, Sakura embarks on a long journey to find him and become his student. Along the way, Sagat notices her techniques are similar to Ryu's and demands she tell him where he is. She doesn't know herself and comments on how rude he is and the two fight. At age 16, she was still fighting, and decided to travel the world to find Ryu once more and find out what street fighting is really all about. She started off in her native Japan and fought the sumo wrestler E. Honda, who mentioned Ryu was going off to such places as India and Thailand. Thereafter traveling with her sensei, Dan, she met his friend Blanka along the way and was promised a match with him. Sakura even ended up fighting Maki again, who complimented her on being able to handle her fighting style, Bushinryu, better than last time.