WindupSkeleton
[14] Master
I found it unusual that Ivy's position on the Character select screen was the opposite of Xianghua's, implying that they could be enemies whereas I clearly don't remember it being canon in any form. But now it appears they have a special dialogue before the battle that is far from being friendly. Besides, in the story mode trailer Ivy made only one appearance and she was strangling Xianghua saying "I like that". So I guess there's enough rationale to assume Ivy's got a new enemy, or maybe rival or a target to eliminate. Since it's always been Cervantes for her, I'm totally intrigued to see how her communication with Xianghua will go (the dialogues must be full of sarcasm) and how their relationship will develop throughout the story, since at the end Ivy must realize she was misled and regret her actions. Will she apologize? Hyped.
Alternatively they were just placed opposing each other because neither has a particular rival (barring Ivy and Cervantes but both are being placed on the right side as the darker-aligned characters anyhow) so it made sense in terms of logistics and has zero actual meaning.