Hey there, this is going to be my first attempt at writing a fanfic. This will be focused on my favorite character from the Soul Calibur games, Tira, as she finds herself in the world of Mortal Kombat just prior to the beginning of MK9. I'm going to try my best to fit her into the events of the storyline, and that will probably involve some minor alterations to the plot. However, the major events of the storyline will likely remain the same. This first chapter is mostly just setup and characterization stuff, she'll find herself in the MK universe starting in the next chapter. Feedback is of course welcome. Given both the main character this is focused on and the fact that this takes place in the MK universe, this story will be rated T. Expect blood and some language. Hope you enjoy.

Prologue-Through the Eyes of Madness

17 years. It had been 17 long years since her master had fallen to the spirit sword, Soul Calibur. 17 years of loneliness. 17 years of work, so many times worrying that her efforts would fail, and that she would lose all purpose in her life. She had killed so many people for her master. She had taken so many souls to him, to the being she had sworn herself to. To the one single being that she had ever felt understood her.

Soul Edge.

She still remembered the first time she had heard about it. She had been wandering Europe for some time, killing those she had happened across in her wanderings. It was the only thing that had ever brought her happiness. She had ventured into a small town. She had been bored, so horribly bored, and she had not happened onto any unlucky travelers to kill that day. So she snuck into the town, intending to kill at least one person. But she had not expected what she saw that day.

It was an image that would stick with her for the rest of her life. Buildings had been set blaze. People of all sorts, be they warriors in armor or woman and children, had been killed. No, killed was not the right word. Slaughtered. That was a better description. The ground was soaked with their blood. She could hear the cries of those who had not yet perished, the pained screams of despair and agony. To her twisted mind, the scene was one of serene beauty.

She had to know who was responsible for this. She had to learn his name, had to find him. For the first time, she felt like she had found someone who might understand her, who might accept her for who she was. Someone who wouldn't call her names, who wouldn't hurtle insults at her on sight or call her a monster just for doing what she enjoyed. She dropped from the tree she had been perched on, and walked into the city, her giant ring blade in hand. Practically bouncing with joy, she wandered over to one of those warriors who was still alive.

"Hey, mister, who did this to you?" She asked, her childlike voice practically brisling with joy. The man she had addressed had not noticed her enthusiasm, so busy was he choking on his own blood. However, after a moment, he managed to choke out a single sentence.

"The wielder of Soul Edge….The Azure Knight, Nightmare…" The man coughed suddenly, blood coming out of his mouth. However, he was not in pain for much longer, as Tira's blade descended onto the man, ending what little remained of his life.

"Oh, goody!" She said in that same childlike voice. "I have to find him, I have to meet him!" She looked down on the dead man, taking in the sight of his broken body and smiling at the sight of it. Then she turned to the rest of the burning town. "But first…I'm going to finish this masterpiece. They will all bleed for me." She said, her voice changing into a raspy voice dripping with anger and rage. Even before her mind had been broken, she had always had mood swings, always in danger of going from playful joy to gloomy anger at any moment.

For the next several hours, she had the time of her life, first slaughtering everyone still drawing breath in the town. Then she perched herself up on a tree, and watch the town burn to the ground. It wasn't until troops from the next town over showed up that she left the area. There was no question of what she would do next. She had to find him. It took her a while. She had to gather information about the man, find his location, and that was not easy. She had never really fit in with the normal humans. Her unusual purple eyes, the poor excuses for clothing she usually had on, and of course the ring blade she dragged with her everywhere tended to make people wary of her. Usually she preferred it that way, in the rare event she even had to walk among other people without killing someone. She hated people, hated the noise they made, hated their weakness, hated them for being different.

Eventually she had managed to track down the location of the man. She traveled to his castle, and threw herself before him. She swore herself to the service of her new master, Soul Edge, and its host Nightmare. In return, it has bestowed some of its power onto her. Her master had taught her how to take the souls of the dead, deadened her aging, and tasked her with the deaths of those who stood against the evil sword. She had served faithfully, stood by her master's side even when all the others who had agreed to serve him betrayed him. It wasn't love, not truly. She had never been really capable of feeling that mysterious emotion. But with Soul Edge, she had a purpose. Someone who approved of her killings, someone who she felt truly understood her.

The day he had fallen was the worst day of Tira's life. By then, her mind had already shattered, her joyful and gloomy moods splitting into completely separate personalities. She would never forget looking onto the broken sword, the dead suit of armor that had held the essence of Soul Edge. Both of her minds screamed with rage and sadness. The one being that had ever truly understood her was dead. She fled into the night, hiding in the shadows like the twisted monster she had become. The joy of the common people only made her even more distraught. She could hear their laughter, their joy as they went about their day to day business. It would have enraged her that they could be so happy when she was not, had she been in her normal state of mind. As it was, she was so distraught she was that she could not even bring herself to kill them. Instead, she fled civilization completely, living off of rats and whatever animals she could find.

Days, weeks, months, she lost track of how long it had been. She knew only despair, a pathetic shell of her former self. But that changed one day. She felt a presence, one she had not felt since the death of her master. She felt the aura of Soul Edge. Confused, she looked around, trying to find the source. Then she knew. She reached for her pocket, digging franticly for the shard of Soul Edge she had kept on her. It had been given to her so that she could use it to locate other shards of her master, to make him more complete, more powerful. Ever since her master's death, it had been dead, nothing more than another piece of metal. But now it had come back to life. She felt the aura resonating inside of her, and her hopes were renewed. Her master was still alive! There was still a chance that she could bring him back!

And so she began her preparations. She would need two things, two very important things. One, she needed to find and assemble the shattered shards of Soul Edge, which had been scattered to the four winds ever since her master's death. Two, she needed a new host. The last one had rebelled against the sword, and that rebellion had weakened it. She would need a more suitable host this time. However, she had one in mind. A girl, who had been born with the taint of Soul Edge inside of her. Tira had located her before, when her master was still alive and she had been tasked with finding a replacement host. But the girl had been young. Too young. At the time she didn't have the luxury of waiting. But now she had time. All the time in the world. She could mold her, shape her, and make her the perfect host of Soul Edge.

This task consumed much of the next 17 years. It was not an easy process. The shards were not as strong as they once were, and locating them proved much more tasking then she had thought. Plus she had to be mindful of her new charge. The girl who would become the new host of Soul Edge. She had proven to be a spineless weakling, barely capable of killing even in self-defense, let alone on her own. Tira has to mold her. She made great pains to ensure her new charge was reliant on only her. She would go out, frame her for various crimes, turn the townsfolk against her, and then appear. A dark fairy godmother of sorts, she guided her charge, manipulated her into doing exactly what she wanted.

It was not easy. Even with all her efforts, the girl still maintained some spark of hope, some hope that the humans would accept her for who she was. Tira, broken as she was by her own experiences with the humans, never believed that it was possible. Nor did she really care at that stage. The humans had taken from her the only being that had ever understood her. Why should any of them get to be happy? What right did they have to happiness and hope, when they had taken away her own?

There was a moment when she thought that she would no longer need the girl. She had been keeping the collected shards of Soul Edge hidden away. She was careful not to keep them on her person. She didn't want to be possessed by the sword. She wanted to serve it, but not like that. She wanted to be by its side as the world burned. But another had stumbled onto the shards, and been possessed in turn. Tira, while more than a little annoyed that her efforts with the girl had been wasted, was overjoyed at the return of her master. She abandoned the girl, left and ran for the master's new castle.

But it had been a lie. The man who had taken up the sword was not her master. He was different. He wanted to work in the shadows. Steal souls quietly. Negotiate with the humans. She despised the new, cowardly Nightmare. She cursed his name, swore to end his miserable existence. She left, relocated the girl she had claimed as her own. She had become a servant girl to another man, who had fallen for her. She was to be wed to him. The girl had finally found the happiness she had sought.

Tira knew that she had to crush that hope, that happiness. And so she acted. It was easy, really. A quiet infiltration of the mansion, the slit throat of the man while he lay in a bed next to the girl, a bloody sword placed in her hand. That glimmer of hope she had felt was crushed as she was dragged to the dungeons in chains. Tira reappeared, as she always did, to "save" her. And so the trail of blood and fire continued as the duo continued along their dark path. Tira had one last manipulation to make, one last play to make to break the girl.

The last part was truly the easiest. The girl had a brother. A hard headed idiot who mercilessly killed anyone who he perceived as "Malfested", the word the common people had come to use to refer to people like Tira and her charge, the monsters in the night they feared. She quietly told her charge that she had discovered him, guided her to him. She let them bond for a bit. It was all part of the plan. Then the truth came out. The brother learned of his sister's malfestation. Tira knew he would reject her after that. It never even crossed her mind that he might do otherwise, that he might choose to accept her for who she was. And in the end, her cynical thoughts were proven correct, as the idiot acted just as she had thought he would.

The girl had been broken completely by this final betrayal. Her last, final hope shattered into a thousand pieces, she latched onto Tira completely. And so Tira guided her to her destiny. She manipulated other, stupider people into ending the life of the imposter Nightmare. And when he was dead, she led her to the evil sword. Standing next to it on the castle battlements, she motioned to it for the girl.

"Take it." She said. "It's yours. No one will ever be able to hurt you again once you have the power of this sword in your hand."

Nodding silently, the girl dropped her old sword. She reached out, her clawed hand wrapping around the sword's hilt. A red aura surrounded the girl as the sword took hold of her mind. Tira laughed in joy, her plan finally coming to completion. She skipped away a little, giving room for her master to work. Guided by Soul Edge, the girl reached up with the sword, tearing a hole in the sky as she opened a portal. Tira was unsure what, exactly she was doing, but now her master was in control, so she was not worried. Her master knew what it was doing.

Tira was unsure exactly what happened next. Perhaps the act of tearing a hole in the sky had distorted reality somehow in the nearby area. She was no expert in the exact workings of the evil sword. She only wanted to serve it, to see its vision come to fruition. All she knew was that one moment she was looking at the girl, a smile on her face. The next, she was falling, falling into the void.