The King of Fighters '96: Neo Geo Collection/Game Intro

The Game Intro option has three choices at the Opening Demo, the Official Story, and the Hidden Inside story. To access the Inside Story, highlight the Official Story text and press either up or down, the text will then change to Inside Story and the KoF logo will also change colors. The Opening Demo is simply the game's attract mode.

Official Story: Unlike the mystery surrounding previous KOF competitions, KOF '96 has become a major international event sponsored by a number of huge corporations.

Preliminary contests have been held in various areas throughout the world, and among the top nine teams are, naturally, the usual KOF contestants who have been looking forward to test their abilities in an official competition.

This time, however, there is a team among them who cannot fail to raise eyebrows, composed of Geese Howard, Wolfgang Krauser, and Mr. Big. The three who once attempted to conquer the world are now but mere contestants in this tournament.

Is their objective, perhaps, to do away with the Bogard brothers or the disciples of Kyokugen karate!?

If that weren't enough to surprise... Iori Yagami appears once again, teamed up with a pair of mysterious women.

How will the rivalry between Iori and Kyo Kusanagi, that has cursed their two families since ancient times, play out this time around?

This is KOF '96, held as an officially recognized sporting event, over which dark clouds have already started to gather....

Inside Story:

Yamata no Orochi, the eight-headed dragon of legend slain by Susanoo...

although defeated, the dragon's dark power lives on in the Orochi Hakkesshu, the eight most skilled fighters of the Orochi clan. Even now, they scheme to plunge to world into an eternal darkness.

The Hakkeshu... feared by all since time immemorial for their dreadful powers to smash stone and rend flesh, they called themselves the "Yamata no Orochi" after the loathsome eight-headed serpent.

Their descendants exist to this day, and having now broken the seal, the Hakkesshu are trying once again to thrust the world into darkness. There appears to be someone above the Hakkeshuu directing and controlling them, but who that is, and what they are plotting, is as yet shrouded in a veil of mystery.

After Yamata no Orochi was defeated, two fighting styles emerged: the Kusanagi and the Yasakani. They were called the strongest fighting styles on the face of the earth... but deep within their hearts, the Yasakani longed for the power of Orochi, and in time, they became possessed by its dark glamour.

And so the Yasakani strayed from their path. They unsealed the power of Orochi and the Hakkesshu, but the Emperor of Japan learned of their plotting and by his decree, the Yasakani were imprisoned away deep in the darkness.

In the meantime, one of the now-unsealed Hakkesshu kidnapped one of the Yasakani's wives and sacrificed her to Orochi.

He then approached one of the imprisoned Yasakani and whispered lies: "To atone for the sins of your clan, the Kusanagi have killed your wife."

with these words, the trust between the Yasakani and Kusanagi which had spanned 1200 years, in an instant changed into hatred.

"The wretched, hateful Kusanagi...! Do you want your revenge? Then join us, and with the power of the Orochi, you shall have it..."

Taken in by this deceit, the Yasakani signed a "blood pact" with the Hakkesshu, an oath of revenge sworn against the Kusanagi. The Yasakani then became known as the Yagami, and they created the most dreadful of techniques ever known to man, the Yaori. From that day forward, the Kusanagi fought to return this nightmare to the darkness from whence it came, while the Yagami, breaking all former bonds with the Kusanagi, fought only for revenge.

This is the true account of the Yagami, a tragic darkness born 660 years ago.