It was late afternoon. A warm red sun glowed lazy and mute through shifting tree boughs and glanced off the gleaming new woodwork. Dry gold leaves sighed to and fro in the air on their way to the ground. The stone slabs under his feet were pleasant after a long day soaking up sunlight. Hanzo Hasashi sighed, drinking in the fragrance of what would soon become evening. His students were hard workers, dedicated and stubborn despite his attempts to send them away when they had each turned up at his door. He wanted no one under any illusions about the average lifespan of a Shirai Ryu recruit. He chased his thoughts away from that before he sent himself into a spiral of self-loathing. He was getting better at trying not to think of his past and the disasters he had let happen. He narrowed his eyes and stared into the sun, hoping to sear away the lines of thought that bubbled up of their own accord. It was a good day, he was trying to remember where he had left off thinking. His students were doing well. Not nearly as well as the one he had let go, but he had always known one day Takeda would have to leave. The boy had come back to him a number of times for additional training anyway. Man, he corrected himself, Takeda was a grown man now. Not the child who had tried to run, homesick, from the Shirai Ryu school; not the boy who had looked him in the eyes with terror and disbelief as they stood amidst the steaming stench and remains of the second Shirai Ryu massacre. A good day. Today is a good day.
The crickets were out in multitudes croaking from the thick woods. A thin brook babbled as it bounced its way down the forested hillside. Its quiet peace recalled an older way of life that seemed centuries ago now. Quiet fierce prides hidden in introverted industry. Private people with passion built into their reserved customs and traditions. Days when a word, a step, or a movement conveyed volumes and silences were filled with unspoken understanding. Dedications simple but trying, rites that were defining, promises of duty and loyalty that were binding. Hanzo let his feet take him a longer more secluded route about the Shirai Ryu school. The buildings were bathed in orange light, their simple curves and angles retaining a quiet but functional beauty. Their walls were sturdy, their floors covered in plain rush and bamboo mats, all scrubbed clean of the blood that had drenched them and turned them hot, red and sticky. Today is a good day.
The first sign that today was not a good day came when sky went dark. The sun still shone, but it was somehow distant. It's colours failed to touch the world around him. All went to a still grey. He could no longer hear the crickets and the stream sounded cold, thin and hollow as it slunk on its way. Immediately Hanzo was alert. He unwrapped a long chain from about his waist and held his kunai ready in one hand. He tested the katana on his back so that it was loose in its sheath. He paused in his stride. A lifetime of wariness crinkled his eyes into black slits. He scoured the shadows. His feet splayed and he took a deeper stance. Through the thin soles of his shoes he could feel all the warmth gone from the stone beneath.
His teeth set on edge. Something was not right, but it never took him this long to work out what was out of place. His scanned the treeline again looking for any shape or movement.
His eyes snapped to the flagstone floor before him. Shadows lay across it that had not been there before. He glanced up. Nothing. Shadows cast by nothing. He looked again at the floor. The foreign shadows had mutated, now resembling patterns. He watched in horror as they split themselves into geometric designs, fractaling and spanning out into great turning black mandalas. He stepped back away from them. The shapes raced out suddenly as if fanned by a flame. Hanzo looked down and saw the patterns over his skin, crawling as invasive sluggish tattoos over his fingers, forearms, biceps, over the bright yellow of his uniform. He made to turn his palm over to inspect the shapes. His hand did not move. His breath shortened abruptly. He tried to move his legs, his torso, his neck. Nothing. His chest rose and fell with his breathing, his mouth opened and shut with confusion, his eyes swivelled in desperation; everything else was statuesque and beyond his control. A round of memories from his time in Netherrealm blazed through his mind – memories of being tied into actions he did not fully desire, memories of control slipping away and something more feral taking over. In a spasm of rage he roared. His hands burst into flames. In his anger, fire never truly left him. Flames licked over his immobile fingers but his body remained motionless, fire blazing away uselessly in the cups of his rigid hands.
The centre of the black mandala began to turn on the flagstone yard. Coils of emerald flames and hooped shadow grew from the centre, funnelling upward in a curtain of dark mist and uneasy staggers of smouldering light. The shadowy rings slowly began to drop down, revealing a figure in their midst. He was hooded, clad in black armour with a steel pointed mask obscuring his face. Only two pricks of white lit from under the cowl. Hanzo knew the intruder immediately – a wraith from the Netherrealm, a newer spectre, but one of those closest to the now dead necromancer, Quan Chi. He himself had never had much to do with the wraith. He had obeyed orders to work with the creature, even reluctantly submitted himself working under him once or twice. As far as Hanzo knew, the wraith had no great love for him, but neither had they any great quarrel. In fact, the wraith should be thanking him, given that Hanzo had cleared the Netherrealm hierarchy of it's long term tyrannical dictator, leaving the competition wide open for the taking. If Hanzo recalled correctly, the wraith, Noob Saibot, had never particularly hidden his ambition for power.
"What do you want, wraith. I am a lot more amenable to discussion when not attacked in my own home!"
The wraith was relaxed and fluid in his movements. There was a slightly cocksure pride to his posture that would have irritated Hanzo, but was instead for some reason making him very uncomfortable.
"I have not attacked you, Hanzo Hasashi. I have merely made sure I have your attention. You have a nasty temper on you that I have little desire to fall afoul of. I've removed your tendency to explode into violence so that we might have a moment to enjoy this little reunion."
There was an inevitable, rehearsed quality to those words. Hanzo's lip twitched. He was furious to find that he felt like he was missing something in this encounter. Something important.
"What do you want?" He realised as he said this, that he had not seen the wraith in some time. The spectre had not been present at Quan Chi's death, nor during Netherrealm's invasion of Earthrealm. It was entirely possible he did not know of the necromancer's demise, "Netherrealm has changed much since you were last there. I am no longer bound to it, nor have I any duty to answer to you. The deceiver Quan Chi is dead by my hand. I am returned to life and wish nothing more to do with Netherrealm."
"So I hear." The wraith sounded amused. This was not news to him then. Hanzo frowned, watching carefully as the wraith idly folded his arms. "There is only one problem, Hasashi. Netherrealm is not yet finished with you."
Hanzo felt some of his old hot fury writhing within him. He caged it between gritted teeth as he forced out a response,
"Didn't you hear me? You can do what you wish in Netherrealm. Rule it for all I care. Just leave me out of it."
"Netherrealm has new rulers. I observed them. They are entertaining. And pale in comparison to the power I have gained from the soulnado."
Hanzo's eyes narrowed. He vaguely recalled something happening to this effect. The last tournament was mostly a blur to him. He knew his pride had been sorely bruised after loosing to the young Sub-Zero, Kuai Liang, and at the time that he had missed much of anything going on after in Outworld and Earthrealm. It was said that Noob Saibot had been defeated and tossed into one of Quan Chi's spells. And apparently survived. It mattered little to him. It changed nothing.
"What do I care!? Tell me what you want or get out of my school! I promise you, trespassing on Shirai Ryu territory is a crime not lightly forgiv-"
"Revenge."
Hanzo stopped. His face fell into confusion just tipped with concern.
"I want revenge, Hanzo Hasashi."
There is was again, that spirally wave of discomfort and familiarity that did something unpleasant to his insides. A faint anxiety reverberated in his chest. There was a chilling, sinking, constant pressure. There was an ache that felt like spiked winter air piercing in his lungs as he ran home, swelling hard in his throat along with a growing, drowning impression of impending disaster. Snow falling and covering deep the curved rooftops of a silent village. Let them be alive, let them live, let it not be so. Old memories. Old memories that only ever held the present captive. They had nothing to do with this moment. Nothing. He pushed aside that warning,
"I have no quarrel with you." He spat. "Leave me and my clan and take your shadow elsewhere!"
"Your clan..." The wraith said slowly, "They seem to be doing well. Looking almost as strong as the old Shirai Ryu."
A nervous chill shot down Hanzo's back. The hairs on the back of his neck stood upright. Somewhere, something inside him was shouting down that weighted repetitive prayer that his soul always reverted to. Let it not be so, let it not be so, let it-
"What do you want?!" He could feel his temper tipping as he tried to conceal the fledgling fear curdling in his stomach.
"Revenge."
He said it in such a deadened tone this time that it sparked Hanzo's anxiety into full on fury.
"Then release me!" He snarled, "And we shall see if you can take your petty revenge on Scorpion, Hanshi of the Shirai Ryu!" His fists ignited again and the bright, violent flames rent holes of light into the scene murky with shadow.
The wraith walked toward him, unphased or perhaps even egged on by the display of ferocity.
"But we already have fought, Scorpion of the Shirai Ryu," The wraith's voice was quiet and almost gentle, "And I won."
The flames flickered and failed on his hands. Hanzo found himself looking straight into those empty glowing eyes as his own faltered. For the first time in a long time, real fear entered him. His lips moved without speaking, forming shapes of disbelief and dismay alternately. A long drawn out silence spanned between them. Hanzo swallowed something down as he gathered himself to speak.
"You're dead." He whispered, voice barely above a whisper, "You died... it can't be you."
The wraith tilted his head, moving closer and looking down into Hanzo's confusion. Hanzo was aware of the eager, predatory bounce barely hidden in that step. He became very aware of how strung up and vulnerable he felt. Cold, familiar breath rattled as it passed through the long vents of the black mask. Primal dread kept Hanzo's eyes trained and set on his enemy's.
"Why can't it be me?"
"I... I worked with you in Netherrealm. You never would have allowed it... Sub-Zero would never have allowed it!"
There it was. The admission he had never fully let himself realise. It was obvious to him in many ways, as if he had always known and tried not to see; tried not to believe that in this, as in so many other areas of his life, he had once again been manipulated. The wraith, Noob Saibot, formerly known as Sub-Zero let his wrist move lazily and spun his fingers as though weaving a web. The movement was so close to his face that Hanzo could feel the air move around him. The shadows spanning the floor folded into new shapes under his direction. Hanzo felt a tightness clamp down on his muscles. He thought he felt the old chill of ice in the air, but knew that was impossible, the man before him had lost that power when he died. Hanzo still recalled the image of every fraction of cold his enemy possessed burning out of him in the long furnace of hellfire he had personally raised beneath this man's feet. As the last ice melted, his old enemy had smoked black, burned crisp and still standing, arms curled defensive over his face before death finally took him. The image had seared into Hanzo's memory, a fitting picture to haunt him and add to the list of moments his self-control had irreparably broken his chances for the future. Honourless. He was defeated. There was no honour in what I did. It was not required. It served nothing but my own thirst to cause a fraction of the pain I felt. But I only created more silence. More emptiness that years later is still filling with regrets.
"In Netherrealm I had an agenda that you never compromised," the wraith explained in bored intonations, "You were good at doing what you were told."
Hanzo's attention snapped back to the moment, defensive and bitter. The idea that his enemy had been so close to him all this time, content to do as he pleased and never reawaken the feud that had consumed both of their living lives... Hanzo shuddered at how blind he had been during his time in Netherrealm. How did I not see?! I knew him better than I knew... anything. And how could he keep so silent when our hatred was so personal to both of us. Was it all only a game to him? Never a matter of clan and pride and honour? Was he even in life mocking my fierce loyalty to everything I held dear?! I killed to bring life. Everything I did whilst I was alive was for them. To put security on our table next to warmed sticky rice. To see her smile when there was a little extra left that could be spent on new cottons, richer paper, a little more ink and the small tokens that spoke of a rank we only held in name. And what does a child know of hardship? Would any father not do the same? It was what I was good at. I knew it was never the life any of them wanted for me, I knew it always forced me to fall short of the virtue of compassion but I loved to see my son smile, was that not compassion enough? What did the Lin Kuei ever know of respect, sincerity, honour, self-control... Bi-Han did you ever even respect me as an enemy! I held you in nothing but the highest regard, a foe worthy of my time. You were always cruel, but I always thought you understood... we had to be enemies, but that did not mean there could not be respect. Hanzo's breath juddered through him as he seethed at the mockery in his enemy's voice. His shoulders tried to hunch and arch but the shadows held him tight, he resorted to hissing his fury through clenched teeth.
"I only speak the truth," The wraith said mildly. He stepped away and paced the patterned fractals curling upon the floor, "Quan Chi gave you orders. You followed them well, even operating under my direction when it was required..." He seemed to particularly relish saying that, "Now though... Now, you do not." The first hint of anger strayed into his words, "Now you play at creating a mockery of a past that should stay dead. Now you're on the other side of the battlefield again. So I have come for my vengeance." There was at least something there, some kind of awareness of balance that had to exist between them. That Bi-Han thought this balance disrupted caused Hanzo a wave of concern.
A helplessness seeped through him. He pushed against the invisible force with all he could. He swallowed down a real fear and panic for his situation and that of all his students, once again in the wrong place and time because of their master. He tried to dissipate into flames, a skill that allowed him to teleport short distances. He found his limbs rooted to this plane, perfectly unresponsive and immobile. The sensation brought back unpleasant memories, reminding him simultaneously of the way Quan Chi used to draw his enemies into a trance that took control of their bodies, and of that last memory from his old life. The memory where he looked up into the eyes of the man who stood before him now, as a slow cold encased his entire body, gradually freezing his extremities into numbness, watching as ice slowly choked off his neck and forced his eyelids to pull open and pupils to dilate, before-
"The Shirai Ryu and Lin Kuei have put aside their animosity. It was a senseless violence that we have moved beyond." He tried to keep himself grounded in the present moment, not daring to think how this might end if he could not free himself.
"I am not Lin Kuei."
"I talked all this through with Sub-Zero. We have come to an arrangement-"
"He is not Sub-Zero. And Sub-Zero is far from finished with you."
Again there was that predatory stalk in his walk and his words. Hanzo could feel his skin crawling. He ordered his body to back off from the monstrosity but again he knew only the slow inevitable agony of waiting as his greatest enemy moved towards him.
"I did not mean to kill you. It was a mistake." He realised he probably should have opened with that, and not waited until Noob Saibot looked hungry for a kill.
"You had your chance."
"It was Quan Chi! He manipulated us."
"Quan Chi never manipulated me. Only you."
"I didn't mean for it to happen this way. I should have stopped. I should have let you live."
"And yet you killed me. For a crime I have not yet committed."
Hanzo's face drained of colour,
"What... what do you mean by that, what do you mean when you say 'not yet'...?" His chest was clenched very tightly. The walls of the Shirai Ryu school suddenly looked less sturdy. They were not nearly high enough, not nearly strong enough.
"I think you know what I mean."
"Leave my clan out of this." His voice was somewhere between a plea and a threat, rife with danger and anger and crushed emotion, "This is between the two of us. Let us finished this here and now."
The wraith laughed,
"I already killed you, Hanzo Hasashi. You were only able to defeat me with the undead powers of the Netherrealm on your side. The tides are turned against you. And here you are once more, a mortal, while I have become more powerful than I ever was before. There is no competition between you and I, Scorpion. There never has been. And yet you have still succeeded in causing me problem after problem."
"Set me loose, you coward!" Hanzo snarled. This time flames leapt not just to his hands but engulfed his entire body, churning about him in a tornado of fire. His mind was running through a list of names: the names of every one of his students come in from a world of cold darkness to set their hopes on him; he who never deserved their admiration and obedience. There were other names in his head too. Lists two massacres long rigged with so much guilt he could practically hear his old demons screaming at himself to end it all one way or another, "Set me loose and we shall see who the victor is!"
The wraith stopped and looked at him. He moved his hands like a conductor. Shadows pulled away from the floor to snake liquid about Hanzo. They wrapped around his limbs, torso and neck, and begun to squeeze. They doused Hanzo's vivid scarlet flames with deep ethereal emerald green tongues of their own.
"You are a speck beneath me, Hanzo Hasashi. But I shall do what you could not. I shall let you live, if only to see you watch the destruction of the clan you so long accused me of slaughtering." There was a resolute finality to that statement. Hanzo believed him from the depth of his soul. How could he not when the words might have been his own were their positions reversed.
"Sorry." It spilled out of him as overflow from a lifetime of guilt. It burned to say the word, burned to think it, burned to speak it, burned to hear it come out of his mouth. "It's my fault. The anger was mine. I couldn't control it. Quan Chi manipulated me in my grief, but the fault was still mine." He could not look at the wraith as he said it. In the periphery of his vision he saw his old enemy standing very still, drinking in this confession, "I... I apologised to Grandmaster Kuai Liang. And... I would have... I mean, if I'd known Quan Chi would resurrect you as a wraith as he did me... I'm sorry."
Hanzo ground his teeth. His insides reared and twisted, furious with himself for apologising whilst at the same time grinding himself into pieces with the guilt that kept saying all this, all this is because of you. The Shirai Ryu were once again in danger because of him, because of what he had done, because of who he was. Once upon a time he had channelled every ounce of his hatred toward this man, had firmly believed that he was the source of everything dead and dying and broken in his life. Over two decades later, he was left with nothing but the empty realisation that there was no one to blame. No one but himself. Old habits and fierce pride made him hate the wraith before him, but the cold reality was that there was only target that truly deserved his hatred and loathing.
There was silence from his enemy. Hanzo very slowly lifted his gaze. The wraith's eyes were smiling.
"Really, I should thank you. Had you not killed me, I might never have been reborn. As a wraith I have power I could only have dreamed of as a mortal." The smile dropped and a deadened coldness replaced it, "But for burning me alive, you do not have my thanks."
Hanzo's face flushed with indignation, irritation and ire. He had ground out the words he never thought he would think, let alone say to this man. He had willingly admitted fault, apologised even. His notoriously inept patience was thinning to its last strands,
"What I did was wrong," Hanzo snapped, "But you can hardly take the high ground with me, Bi-Han. Not after you froze me to death the way you did." Cold. So cold that it felt like fire. Slowly loosing sensation, like being buried alive. Watching fingers outstretched for mercy turn brittle and crumble into shards. The creeping fractals latching around his throat, gently, almost tenderly squeezing his windpipe shut. Teasing them into sleep until only the thin gasps in his mouth remained. Eyes wide. Wider than should be possible. Dragged open as his eyelashes frosted and ice collected on their rims, framing Sub-Zero as he looked down and watched him. His expression faintly amused, a little careless, and tainted with a fraction of sadistic pleasure. And the cold. The cold so deep, so inescapable that his very soul had cried out for warmth, had cried out for fire. And the flames of the Netherrealm had answered. They had made one another.
The wraith folded his arms, unimpressed,
"That was business, Hasashi. You got in the way and I had a mission to finish. If you ever had a degree of professionalism then you can surely see that."
It was like a stab through his chest to hear of his death talked of so nonchalantly. He firmly resolved not to let the wraith know with what terror he recalled the event.
"I ceded. You won the fight and I admitted that. You could have taken the scroll and left. You could have let me live."
"It's not my style. It was nothing personal. You were an enemy of my clan who crossed my path. And this is all by the by, Hasashi. When you challenged me in Outworld you claimed you wanted vengeance for the death of your clan, did you not? I was under the impression you understood the terms under which you yourself had to die."
Hanzo reluctantly conceded him that. His head was a confused mess. The lightening reflex part of his brain was still frantically looking for any exit and trying to think how he could protect his students. The irrational part of him that had suffered at this man's hands was trembling at the thought of what a repeat might bring. The barely controlled demon of anger still harboured inside him was screaming at his helplessness and desperate to rip apart this wraith who refused to die. That was the loudest. As always with him, violence and vengeance screamed loudest.
"I told you I did not do it." Hanzo looked up suddenly as the wraith spoke. There was a shadow of emotion in that pronouncement. "I never shied away from owning up to anything I had done. Did you somehow think I would hide it if I had killed your clan?"
"I was deceived." Hanzo said hollowly. He had already admitted all this.
"I told you!" That was definitely said with some desperation. Hanzo for the first time wondered if he might not be the only one here who had nightmares of the moment of his own death, "I told you I did not do it! I as good as asked you to..."
"Spare your life. I know." There was a tense silence. Hanzo was thinking about how earlier he thought he had seen the wraith's eyes flash when he set his fists aflame. As if recalling a similar fire that had issued from Scorpion many years ago. "I know and I am sorry. I'm sorry. But... not my clan. If its vengeance you want, take my life." He needed his enemy to understand. He needed him to know that it could not happen like this. Not to them. Not to those who he kept telling to stay away. How many times had he told his students not to get too close to him, because things around him burned. It was their stubbornness and faith in him that kept them here. A new clan, a new family; tentative foundations built on earthquake shattered ground. Trusting faces that only saw an expert mentor who commanded the flames of hell, and never the screaming thing within that could not watch it all fall apart again. "Not my clan. I can't take it again. Not a third time. I can't rebuild again, I can't-"
"Third?"
He had not meant to say that. He had no intention of telling Bi-Han, Sub-Zero, the greatest assassin of the Lin Kuei, Noob Saibot, wraith of the Netherrealm, about the repeated deaths of the Shirai Ryu. And the shadow of himself left in the wake of each of those ruins. The wraith had already made it abundantly clear that empathy was not in his repertoire. The only emotion Hanzo ever wanted this man to see from him was his anger. He firmly shut his lips, glad for once that he was not wearing his mask so that his enemy could see the defiance in the gesture.
"I want an answer, Hasashi." The wraith motioned with his wrist, as though turning an invisible doorknob. His gloved fingers flexed and Hanzo felt the shadows wreathed about him constrict, tightening especially about his throat. His eyes lit with fury,
"You think this will make me talk! I do not fear you! And I do not fear death!"
The wraith tilted his head. He paused. He made a careless gesture with his hand. The shadows about Hanzo gradually fell away. Hanzo found breathing easier and received air into his burning lungs. He kept his face stubborn and set however, limbs still held in thrall to the shadowed patternwork covering the ground. The wraith continued to watch him with interest. His eyes were taunting, tempting Hanzo with something. He raised a fist and balled it tight. The fractal spirals of shadow slunk as tentacle-like tendrils back to him. As they did so the darkness receded and, like waking from a dream, the light of the evening sun returned pallor to the world.
Hanzo did not waste a second. He plunged into a portal of fire and reappeared high up on the roof of his school, hidden from below by a carved wooden overhang. His heart beat fast in his mouth. His hands were trembling with the exertion he had expended in trying to break out of the sorcery that held him. He needed to think of how best to defend his school. He needed to warn his clan, or perhaps evacuate them. If he warned them they would fight, he could not have any more blood shed over his mistakes. He felt his pride curl inside him. Bi-Han had released him, challenging him to face him. My pride is what kept killing everyone I cared for. Let it go. He chanced a glance back over the woodwork. The wraith was looking straight up in his direction, waiting. Hanzo cursed and retreated quickly behind his shelter. Whatever had happened to Noob Saibot in that soulnado, he was not wrong that he had come out stronger for it. The way the wraith treated all this as a game, toying with him instead of pressing his advantage when he had it... Hanzo had a very bad feeling about confronting him. The bastard only asked me a question. What kind of game is he playing? If he thinks I'm running because I'm afraid- He needed to forget about this. He needed to warn his clan. Even as he thought this, he could feel a set determination pushing him back out into confrontation. He teleported back down to the ground. This time his movements hugged the Shirai Ryu walls. His kunai was ready in his hand, chain loose and ready, dragging over the floor with a slow clink, clink as it dipped in the gaps of the stone. He watched the wraith to see what he would do. He was still. Hanzo slowly moved closer, feet stepping like he was circling mid-fight and not approaching one who stood apparently unarmed.
The wraith tilted his head. Hanzo darted to one side, reflexes primed and breathing heavy as he tried to read the wraith's intentions.
"I'm still waiting for an answer, Hasashi. When last I was aware, the Shirai Ryu had only been destroyed once."
Hanzo continued to circle him, entire body poised to leap at any moment. His eyes were fixed on his enemy. He was frustrated that despite being released and being the only one with a weapon drawn, he still felt like he was not in control of this situation. He cursed his own pride but stayed despite every instinct telling him to leave while he could.
"They died here in their sleep. Slaughtered by one of their own who they trusted, cared for. A student possessed by a dagger imbued with blood magic. The dagger was my responsibility. It was mine to guard. I did not know of its properties. But I should have been more careful." He had meant this to be a short, guarded response, but his words kept coming. All the anger and guilt, all the grief and loathing were boiling within him. Here finally was someone who would show him no mercy, someone who would not shy away from telling him that he was weak, that it was his fault that he could not protect those around him who came to him looking for tutelage, shelter and aid. The others never had understood. They talked to him of second chances, of redemption, of living to make amends. If nothing, Hanzo could trust Bi-Han to be one who, like himself, despised failure. Here was someone who would give him affirmation he always knew – that it was his fault, that it was inexcusable, that a second chance would never smooth over the damage that imperfection had caused. That pain was real and here to stay, and that no honourable cause, grand alliance or future promise would take it away. "Again and again, I make the mistakes and it is others who pay for them. I always survive whilst others always suffer for my mistakes. Even when I finally confronted Quan Chi, even when I was most sure that finally I had the one responsible for every deception in my life... even then I got it wrong again. In my rage I... everyone around me warned me. They tried to stop me. With Quan Chi dead, they would not be able to resurrect those enslaved by him in the Netherrealm. What did it matter. I am Scorpion. Always blind with my own unquenchable hatred. I killed him. Like you would have in my place. No one will trust me now. No one will even look me in the eye. They think I have betrayed them. And I have. And the worse thing is I know if it came to it... I would do it all again. I would kill him again. Like I killed you. Like you killed me. Like we always have done. I wish everything were simpler. I wish it was the old days when I was Shirai Ryu, when you were Lin Kuei and there was a rivalry that was ancient but simple. If I could go back, if I could rewind... no... I wouldn't have changed. But if I could have stayed dead when you killed me..."
There was silence. There was a raw nakedness to the quiet between them, as if Hanzo had not just exposed his own failures but also the history of everything that lay between them.
"You are talking to the wrong brother, Hasashi." The wraith sounded different. His voice sounded much more like that of the Sub-Zero he had been in life. "He is the one you should spend your time baring your conscience to. I never had one and I do not care for it in others."
Hanzo felt the subtle change in dynamic between them. Bi-Han had a slightly defensive posture in the fold of his arms. Something in his tirade about guilt had certainly unsettled the wraith. Hanzo pushed the moment whilst it still hung in his favour,
"I am not talking to the wrong brother. This was always between you and I – all of this." He could feel his hot temper and crowded fury and crippling guilt and ignited emotion seizing control of him again, "Kuai Liang should never have been dragged in – our clans should never have been dragged in! We went down in flames, you and I... and the whole world came with us! There were too many people caught up in the crossfire who had no right to be hurt by us. My anger took away everything and left me with nothing. And you were so proud. You were so proud that I didn't notice you decrying your innocence of their deaths until the last moment. But it was too late for me then. It was all too late. I didn't mean for any of this. I didn't mean to do it all. Make it stop. Please. Put an end to the cycle that I could not. You always... you... you always had more... self-control." He had to swallow down several shades of repugnance to get that last sentence out. He made the mistake of looking up. Bi-Han looked stiff, defensive, distinctly uncomfortable and unsure of himself. Despite all of this, he managed to still get an arrogant tilt to his head and pull together a suaveness as he said,
"Say that again, Hasashi. I like hearing that from you."
Hanzo snarled in fury. His limbs quaked in sheer outrage. A very small, quiet voice in him knew that it had to be like this. That the threat of vulnerability he was dragging out of them both disturbed his old enemy as much as it did him. Bi-Han was defaulting in panic, reviving the quickest routes to familiar hostility and an end to this harrowing reflection upon their mutual past. That very small voice in him almost wished he could stop himself from answering in the way they both knew he would.
"Do you know... how difficult it was... to say that to you? Can't you see I... I am done with talking. And I am done with you, Sub-Zero!"
He threw his kunai full force. The chain snapped forth. Before it hit home the wraith was gone in a whirl of liquid shadow. His enemy might have some otherworldly force under his control, but this was one opponent whose movements Hanzo knew more intimately than his own. Their lives had been a checkerboard of confrontations, two of those had been to the death. The fine honed concentration and pulling apart of every strike, every step Bi-Han made or took was written into Hanzo at an almost subconscious level.
He reeled his kunai back in, waiting for the portal he knew would come. He felt the air move behind him. He stabbed his kunai backward and heard a grunt of pain. There was a second where he tried to pull the spearhead free to stab again, but an arm snaked straight in behind him, a kick hit his spine and he was brought down into a firm choke hold. Hanzo flinched and reached for the flames that would teleport him to safety. Before he could do so, the world was jerked from him and went to a stifling, suffocating black. Through a burning windpipe and straining eyes he saw the Shirai Ryu school through a circle far above him. He fought the grip in time to look down and see the school again below him, this time from a distance much higher up. They burst through the portal and began to plummet together from a height towards the ground. Had he not realised what was happening, Hanzo was very sure his now mortal body would have been crushed on impact with the floor. He let himself fall back into the hellfire that was always moments from gratefully receiving him,. He rode its its furnace through a dimension of flame until he reappeared at a safer distance from the wraith.
Noob Saibot was on his feet, circling Hanzo with all attempts at patience thrown to the wind. One of his hands lingered on his side where Hanzo's kunai had punctured through the armour. Hanzo watched him warily, stepping to match where he stepped, never for a moment letting his eyes leave the wraith despite the show of weakness. The only difficulty with knowing his opponent so well was that the reverse was also true. Hanzo could see in his mind's eye the counter Bi-Han would use to every one of his techniques. I have nothing he has not seen before. Apart from my regrets. That thought sent him down a different line of thinking though. He expects my anger, my full on confrontation. He expects me to underestimate this new power he claims to have. Hanzo curled his fingers about his kunai. He knew Bi-Han would see that. What he hoped he would not see is was his next move.
He hurled the spear forth. At the same time, he created a wheel of flame, forming a wormhole that opened up behind the wraith. The spear came shooting out the other portal aiming straight for the wraith's back. Thrown by the disappearance of the projectile, Bi-Han raised his arms then brought them down with sudden force, six shadows of himself leapt out from him running forth in different directions. One of them took the spear straight in its chest and was dragged back through the portal. Hanzo closed the portal while it was half way through, severing it into two different locations. He cursed and drew his kunai back, stepping away as he did so. He had never seen the wraith produce so many clones of himself before. The shadowy figures dipped into the flagstone floor travelling as black smudges over the stone toward him. He teleported again, this time in close and landed a flying punch straight into Bi-Han's face. There was a grim satisfaction that came of taking away the advantage of the otherworldly powers they had both gained in their eternal struggle for superiority over one another.
Bi-Han staggered back from the punch. Hanzo pressed the moment whilst he had it, following through with an uppercut to his gut and a straight punch to his jaw. He made to sweep Bi-Han with a leg, but again a shadow extracted itself from him, double punching Hanzo and winding him whilst its master recovered. Hanzo's breath caught and he reeled from the surprise force to his chest and stomach. In the corner of his eye he could see Bi-Han straightening. An animal instinct clamped down on him, teleporting him to safety whilst he regained his posture. The wraith tilted his head again, obviously amused at Hanzo's darting tactics. Hanzo ignored him, face twisting with discomfort as he sucked his breath and determination back in. When he teleported back into close combat Bi-Han was ready for him. A fist made contact with Hanzo's temple and an explosion of blinking light and darkness momentarily took his vision. A knife hand to his throat doubled him over and a second slammed down into the pressure point on the back of his neck. He saw total blackness and felt his limbs deadening with the threat of knockout a second away from him. Only a resolve forged in fire and fuelled by the memory of what might become of him at this man's hands saw him cling to consciousness. As he fell he blindly stabbed his kunai down and felt it hit flesh, shearing between the armour plates on the wraith's foot and into the vulnerable skin behind. He received a boot to his chin for the effort, but also a pained cry as the wraith tried to extract the spearhead.
Hanzo blinked away waves of darkness and sickness that filmed over his rattled vision. He opened unsteady eyes to the ungainly sight of Bi-Han on one leg as he tried to prise the spear out of his foot. Hanzo allowed himself a faint smile of vindictive amusement as he massaged his throat and tried to regulate his breathing out of the rasping quality it had taken. He pushed himself to stand again. When he had his balance, he snapped himself back into focus. He seized his kunai chain and wrenched it. The spearhead was freed from Bi-Han's foot just before Hanzo could drag him to the ground with it. The wraith looked at him.
"Are you done yet, Hasashi, or do I have to reduce you to a corpse? Again."
Hanzo wound the chain of his kunai round his fist pulling the links tight against his hand. He spat out a globule of blood that had come up from somewhere. He set his teeth and did not give Bi-Han the satisfaction of an answer. Instead he came in again testing the ground between them and looking for an opening. He was faintly aware that Bi-Han circled with him, opting to allow combat to take place rather than summoning any of the range of powers he had at his command. Hanzo pushed aside the furious thought that Bi-Han might be allowing this confrontation to take place, that he was giving a Hanzo a chance. Even the thought that that might be the case set Hanzo's blood boiling. He tried to calm himself, thinking of the meditation and quiet practice that his now only ally outside the Shirai Ryu, Kuai Liang, had impressed upon him. As he moved, he let himself go. Pushing his chaotic whirlwind of furious emotions to the back of his head. He let his feet move as if in a dance, mimicking the somewhat disjointed step of the wraith as he kept from putting too much weight on his injured foot.
Hanzo took the chain of his weapon in hand and let it drop, spinning it into circles that grew larger and larger as it picked up momentum. The wraith shifted, eyes sizing up the spinning offensive. It would be a matter of ease for him to teleport passed it, Hanzo knew, but he somehow also knew that Bi-Han would not. This combat had taken a personal turn, and for the present it was going to be fists and steel minus any Netherrealm influences. This did not feel like a risky assumption on Hanzo's part. It felt natural. This was just how they were. Enemies who knew each other so perfectly that unspoken rules dipped in and out of play. To be sure, he still had to be wary, someone was going to break the rules at some point, but he had a sinking feeling that would be himself, and that Bi-Han would see that moment as a private victory. As if rubbing it in to say 'you could not defeat me even without my new found power'.
Hanzo let the chain snap down from above aiming straight like a fishing line for Bi-Han's face. Bi-Han tilted his mask out of reach and snatched the chain mid-flight. Hanzo saw the crinkle of a wince crease between his eyes as the kunai snapped and wrapped hard around Bi-Han's fist. Both tugged at the same moment, the full chain pulling taught between them. There was another unspoken game as Bi-Han pulled with one hand and Hanzo likewise strained at the other end. Frustrated with the even match, Hanzo reached a second hand forward and heaved on the chain. The wraith shook his head, as if in disappointment. Twelve shadowy imitations of arms extended forth from his forearm to latch onto the chain. Hanzo managed to let go before all that strength sent him flying. The kunai was wrenched from him and he had to dodge as the flick of its tail flailed passed him. Instead of discarding the chain as Hanzo had assumed he would, Bi-Han retained it, winding it round his fist in mock imitation of the way Hanzo did. He held its tip in the other hand and beckoned with it. Hanzo lost his cool, pulled the katana from his back and charged.
Bi-Han swept to one side as Hanzo approached. He wrapped the blade in the chain and forced it to come to a full stop. Hanzo reached in with his other hand and swung an uppercut into Bi-Han's gut. A heave of breath blurted through the wraith's mask. Hanzo used the second he gained to pull his katana down out of the chain wrap and plunge the weapon forth towards Bi-Han's chest. Again the chain came down, this time crossing Hanzo's arm, tightening and catching his wrist. Bi-Han pulled it taught and with an explosion of energy heaved the chain up and over his head. The throw cleared Hanzo from his feet and he went straight over, forced to breakfall and roll or else have his wrist snapped. Even having executed this, he was left on his back with one wrist still tightly bound above his head, and his katana nowhere to be seen. A panic set in him as Bi-Han stepped closer, the chain pulling ever tighter in his grasp. Hanzo dropped through the stone into a portal of flame and reappeared a safe distance away, cursing himself and seizing his breath back. Bi-Han looked at him again, head tilted in that same arrogant amusement.
The wraith wound up the kunai and chain and discarded it as though it were a toy finished with. At every movement Bi-Han made Hanzo felt his temper tested and riled. Somehow his enemy always knew the precise way to make him tick, to wind him up and force him into foolish rage. Hanzo breathed slowly, stalking the edge of the yard between them while remaining in the shadow of the Shirai Ryu school. His eyes flicked to the discarded chain. He saw Bi-Han follow his glance. He could not risk going for it. His teeth ground against one another and he snarled as he stalked the self-imposed perimeter between him and his foe. He wanted one moment, one instant that would wipe the arrogance off the wraith's face and give him the edge he needed. He suddenly knew what he needed to do. Ordinarily he would have passed the move off. It took too long and could be easily avoided. But for Bi-Han, it would be perfect.
Hanzo stopped, grounding himself and pushing his stance out. He saw the wraith pause, looking to read him. Hanzo strained his hands into claw-like grasps and drew them up from his waist, forcing all his energy through them and summoning flames of hellfire. The flames ignited out of the ground below the wraith. They were small, doing little more than licking hot at his feet but the change was instantaneous. The wraith stumbled back, eyes suddenly wide and seized with uncontrollable terror. Hanzo rushed in immediately. Powering through a fiery portal to land a drop kick on top of the wraith. Bi-Han went down, eyes still attached to the embers of hellfire that had risen beneath him. His breathing was fast and rapid through the vents of his mask, steaming like they had done of old with a cold tell-tale mist. He did not even have his guard up when Hanzo's fist powered into his skull. Hanzo repeated again and again. He reached for the katana on his back before remembering he had already lost it and returned to punching Bi-Han beneath him. His knuckles bled as they met the corners of the angular mask, but thick cracks rocked through its structure. He saw flames in his mind's eye and was thinly aware of a voice inside him that objected to something he was doing. The demon Scorpion within him fought it down and continued pounding away into his old enemy.
The sky went suddenly dark and dead leaves skittered in a new curling wind that pulled around them. Hanzo hesitated. Long shadows were stolen from beneath the eaves of the forest, from under the walls of the Shirai Ryu school. The dark places of the world were swept to one epicentre, bending into a curling vortex, swarming to wrap around the two enemies. Hanzo abruptly regained control of his senses dived to one side as the whirlwind of whipped shadow built up in fervour. A cyclone of green fire burst upright. From within its brightness the wraith rose, hovering slightly before touching back down. Once his feet met the earth, the roar of ethereal flame subsided and the shadows retracted. The darkness lifted, as if having shown its true self and power for only a fraction. The sun shone a little more clearly though it was dipping into the mountainous horizon. Hanzo, with slow sinking horror, realised that once again he could not move. In the show of flame and shadow he has missed the tendrils of black patterns colliding across the floor, summoned to bind him into paralytic stillness. He tried to correct his expression and keep it a mask of indifference. His heart was beating very fast again. His fists dripped blood onto the stone. He was not sure who's blood that was.
Bi-Han righted the askew mask on his face. Hanzo was pleased to see it was fractured in several places with a chunk missing from near the bridge of the nose. His breath caught in his throat as his enemy stepped up close to him. Hanzo was distinctly aware of the myriad ways in which he was exposed to attack while held in this rigid still form by the patterns of shadows roaming over his skin. He could practically feel all the vulnerable pressure points in his body flinching in anticipation of pain. He tried not to shudder as the wraith tilted his face.
"That was most unseemly."
Hanzo kept his jaw clenched shut, praying the end would be quick. At least there will be no ice.
"Using my... disagreeable past relationship with hellfire to get the upper hand. And here I thought we were having a nostalgic reunion, a spar to remind us of the good old days."
Hanzo had no way of knowing how much of that was true and whether Bi-Han had been holding back. He suspected it was not quite as true as the wraith was making it out to be. He had seen real fear. That was enough for him.
"Have done with it, Bi-Han!"
"I already told you, Scorpion, I'm not here to kill you. You lose your temper over the simplest of things. We were having a very amicable conversation until you went and blew up again. I was expressing that I liked hearing you beg, not that I was not listening."
Hanzo spat at him. His mind was a blur of red. All he could think and feel was that he wanted his hands free, that he wanted to be pummelling this man into non-existence.
"As I said before," The wraith continued on oblivious, "I am not opposed to your existence as long as it is an asset to me." He was impossibly calm. Hanzo could barely comprehend the degree of casual disinterest his enemy managed to put on. Hanzo struggled to follow the plain sentences through the bloodlust teaming through his veins. "You want me to spare your clan. Their lives are mine by all right. But lets say for a moment that my cruel, black heart is touched by your heartfelt story of guilt and grief. What are you going to give me to make this a bargain worth keeping on my part?"
Hanzo could feel his anger shaking through his immobilised body. He pulled his mouth shut several times as his words threatened to escape uncensored into the world. He tried to mirror the steel composure his enemy projected. He was aware that this was too good an opportunity to pass up. This might be the ceasefire he needed to keep those close to him alive. He was not so far lost in his control that he had forgotten what really mattered. Them. Those who looked at him with the future written in their eyes. He swallowed down a screaming inferno of resistance that banged on the jail cell of his chest.
"What do you want."
The wraith let that settle in the air between them. He seemed very aware of how much Hanzo wanted to keep punching and stop talking.
"A favour."
"What..." Hanzo again bit down in his teeth, and spoke through them clenched together, "What favour."
"That will be my secret for now. But rest assured, you do not want to deny my request when I make it of you."
His taught limbs were released and Hanzo felt himself drop to the ground, lungs filling gladly as full range of motion was returned to him. He put a thumb to his temple trying to understand what was happening whilst shading the humiliation on his brow. He was being released. He was going to live. His clan were going to live. Eventually he seated himself in seiza and breathed in slow and deep through his nose and out through his mouth. His enemy was still stood so close to him that Hanzo could feel paranoia coiling in great serpents in his gut. Every instinct inside him howled that he remain vigilant, that he be ready for the next attack, that he always be on guard, that he never let his enemy out of his sight. Hanzo remained kneeling. If his enemy had wanted the breath in his lungs to stop, he could have seen it done a number of times in the last few minutes. His body simply had not caught up with the realisation that he had lost.
Silence ensued and Hanzo used it to reach toward something that was closer to peace. He pushed passed the agonising humility of defeat and tried to reinstate balance into his thought. He struggled with himself, and distantly knew the things from home he loved. Ever-moving water, unchanging and unaffected by sorrow, time or suffering. The low voices or woodland birds murmuring to one another and the chatter of crickets below them. The smell of evening petals curling mixed with the sharper amber resins of the gleaming dojo. Somewhere in the deep halls, soft bells marked changes in the hour, repetitive beats of a skin drum counted moves in a kata, the clack and whirl of wooden weapons reverberated in timber and paper rooms he had sanded, and painted patiently himself. With the hope of a violent rebellion removed from him, his mind went to quieter places of stubborn acceptance. He slowly uncurled quivering fists, and though they still felt like they might burst into flame with his temper at any moment, he laid them to rest on his knees. Without looking up, he spoke in a level voice.
"All of this... Was it my aid you were seeking all along, Bi-Han?"
He did not trust himself to look up. Instead, he let his eyes fold shut and drift into that medium dark that took away the blare and shift of distraction.
"That was one desirable outcome." He heard his enemy say, "But also to see your anger. I like seeing you uncontrollable and furious. It makes you easier to manipulate. Always has."
Hanzo's face twitched into the ghost of a snarl. He hauled his anger back to him and stowed it inside. Not trusting himself to speak, be lapsed into the embrace of forgiving silence.
"Good to see you after so long, Hasashi. You never cease to amuse. My regards to Grandmaster Kuai Liang."
There was soft laughter that faded along with the last of the dim shadows that held the yard captive. When Hanzo opened his eyes he was alone.
A light wind creased through the trees and rustled them slightly. The brook chattered away as it continued its descent down the mountain. Crickets picked up the full flow of their chorus as they serenaded the shades of violent violet and paradise pink that lit the sunset sky beyond.
Today was not a good day, Hanzo thought. But in a strange and twisted way, he knew a steady, firm peace that put down deep roots within him and set his resolve enduring and constant. A stillness passed over him, and the haunting images of those he had lost for once did not torture him but increased his determination. He would not lose what he had lost again. Next time he would be ready.
He got up and walked to his fallen katana. He held it reverently in his hands before slowly sliding it back into its sheath. He bent to where his kunai had been discarded and slowly wound its long chain about his belt. He completed his route around the school, pausing only once to flick a dead leaf from where it had settled in the cultivated bed of a miniature ornamental garden. When he reached the side entrance of his dojo he stepped out of his shoes and picked them up. He slid the panelled door open and stepped onto the cool tatami mats within. The voice of one of his students echoed through the halls. The student was searching for him, asking where he was, calling that he could not find him. He had left the young man doing repetitions of half a kata that he had promised to show him the final moves of today. Hanzo glanced back once to look at the blood red of the sunset. Then he slowly slid the door shut on that sight. There would be other days for bloodshed.