Also if separating KOF94 from the others is gonna be a thing, shouldnt the ship explosion from Rugal be brought into question again?
In KOF 2002 Rugal is a special boss character,
if you win he pulls the same thing he did in 94, ngl but the idea Rugal escapes like the player team you fight him, is way more assumed then other way around, even if you say he was gonna escape too, he was heavily injured in comparison, why cant we go with the idea he tries to kill himself along the teams as last resort, canonically Rugal dies by succumbing on too much of Orochi power, which should be way more then the ships blowing up