The Ansatsuken Lineage: Goutetsu, Gouken, and Akuma
Ryu and Ken of Street Fighter share a single master. Their school carries a name with real flavor — "Ansatsuken" (the Assassin's Fist). Its lineage forms the very skeleton of the Street Fighter world.
The founder, Goutetsu
The founder of Ansatsuken was Goutetsu, master to both Gouken and Akuma (some sources also call him their father, though officially his role centers on "master"). Goutetsu passed his entire art to his two disciples — never imagining he would ultimately die at the hands of one of them.
A pair of brothers
Gouken and Akuma were Goutetsu's two star pupils, and blood brothers. The elder, Gouken, was gentle by nature, refusing to kill, walking the path of "protection and restraint". The younger, Akuma, was the opposite — obsessed with ultimate power, he willingly let the Satsui no Hado consume him.
Akuma's choice ended in tragedy: he killed his master Goutetsu, then turned his blade on his own brother Gouken.
Murder and a false death
Why did Akuma kill Goutetsu? Because Goutetsu had chosen to abandon the Satsui no Hado — and in Akuma's eyes, that was unforgivable "weakness". After slaying his master, Akuma turned on his brother.
But Gouken was not defenseless. Through years of resisting the Satsui no Hado, he had awakened an opposite power — the "Mu no Hado" (the Power of Nothingness). It was this force that blocked Akuma's Raging Demon, leaving Gouken in a state of false death rather than true death.
The next generation
With Gouken presumed dead, the world wrote him off. His two students — Ryu and Ken — went their separate ways: Ryu became the "lone seeker of the way", Ken returned to America to inherit the family business. A third student, Dan Hibiki, took a very different, far more comedic path.
As for Akuma, he became a "demon" adrift between good and evil. Not purely wicked, not a force for justice — his only wish is to find a worthy opponent, especially the one who carries the Satsui no Hado yet refuses to yield: Ryu.
Three generations, murder, false death, and the warrior's path — the Ansatsuken line is the root of every story in Street Fighter.