The cave was a damp tomb. A dark fortress of irritable silence, yet still echoing within it's bowels; the screams of a thousand dead men, their souls taken by the Lin Kuei, their skulls littering the ground where men would walk - but only if they dared enter.

The sword swept through the air spilling blood across itself and the surrounding walls. It's wielder, Lin Kuei warrior, and killer, Ichiro, known to his clan as; Sub-Zero. He held the bloody sword out to the face of his victim. His brother Niro stood behind him, looking on in reserved amazement at the brutality of it all.

Hiroshi's blood melted through the rocks rising like a tide amongst the skulls, filling up between their teeth.

Sub-Zero's voice boomed through tunnel, it is authoritative and fierce "TRAITOR! You shame your ancestors!" Hiroshi raised his good arm in defense as Sub-Zero bore down on him with all his anger. "I wish you had never been honored with the entitlement bound to you by the Lin Kuei. You're father would have done to you what I am doing now!"

"Would he?" Said Hiroshi, "You do not see what you have become Ichiro, you are a killer... Even your brother sees this."

Ichiro looked to his brother whose eyes found him but did not react. "You dare tell me of my brother's sight. - From the mouth of a man who does not deserve his own tongue, let alone his eyes."

"I am not Shirai Ryu."

"SILENCE!"

"YOOOOUU SUB-ZERO are a MURDERER!" Hiroshi held onto his wound screaming much louder than anyone expected, with as much blood loss. "You have turned OUR clan into MURDERERS that is why I have betrayed you! My father would never have let the Lin Kuei become what it is today! Heed my words Ichi... I have seen your future, if you do not choose carefully the lives you take, then your heart will blacken, and so will your soul, and you will be left as NOTHING but a hatred filled WRAITH!"

"I have chosen!" he said calmly.

Ichi's sword clanged against the rock as it severed Hiroshi's head from his body. He sheathed his weapon and walked out of the cave into the cold winter. His brother followed him out. Grabbing him by the arm. Ichiro held his position, wondering about his brothers anxiousness.

"You are not going to say anything?" his brother asked him.

"What?" he could see his brother's eyes were filled with frustration, he was young, idealistic, weak, "I did not choose to end this - Hiroshi did."

"What did he do? I have known Hiroshi since I was seven, he looked after me. I don't even know why he is dead..."

"He gave the position of our training grounds to the Shirai Ryu."

"The Shirai Ryu have no reason -" Niro is caught off guard by Ichi's sudden anger, as he turns around, grabbing him, pushing him forward intimidatingly.

"They don't need a reason Niro - they are our sworn enemy. They exist to destroy us... as we them."

"You can't believe that." His brother said standing at the lake. "You can't make me believe that."

"You have to," Ichiro said marching on, "or all of us will die."

The lake had been frozen by winter. Niro stood in the center, looking down into the ice.

Inside the water was a blur, but he could see fish moving around below. He thought about his brother, and Hiroshi, and the Lin Kuei. What would become of the clan. He stood in silence, extending his left hand, as he did he could feel the cold moist air closing in around it, the sword that formed in his hand was the perfect weight for a Kendo stick, he held it in front of him. Letting out a roar as he swiped forward. Swinging it again and again until his arms burned. His practice lasted the entire night.

Hanzo Hasashi had been a farmer, but the land was scarce and the taxes were high. The only way to pay his debt was to join the Shirai Ryu. An idea his father disapproved of greatly, and let him know it, at every available opportunity.

"Did you know?" His father asked him cooking his food, "that a man informing the Shirai Ryu, a spy in the Lin Kuei, was murdered yesterday? Do you really think he got that way planting in the rice fields."

"I do not know how he got that way father, and neither do you."

"I think I do," the eighty-one year old said to him, "and so do you." He handed him his bowl of food.

"Come now. I will always be younger than you - I cannot help that, but I am certainly a grown man by now. And I'm told; a valuable warrior."

"All the more reason for me to worry. The best swimmer swims the farthest, and the farther you swim, the easier it is to let the wave take you, and with it; the sea."

Hasashi gripped his bowl tightly, "My daughter is starving, and my wife is desperate," his eyes glossed over, "we have no food, little water, and no means to pay our bills. I look into the eyes of my women and I see a hopelessness that they cannot hide from me. I have a responsibility to protect them at all costs. As I recall, you had no one when you joined their clan."

"And you wish to repeat my mistakes? I have been paying for that one decision my entire life. The nightmare you have, you will never get over them. And to bring a family into it, I can only imagine the suffering. I beg you to choose differently."

"I have chosen."

"What?"

"The choice was already made, I can't sit idly and watch my family die."

His father was aback with insignificance, he felt awkward weak, and powerless, none of which he had ever felt before. "You... you have no idea what you have... done." His voice trembled.

"F-father I..."

His father held up his hand, kneeling at the nearest table.

"You want me to leave..." Hasashi assumed.

His father looked up at him from his weakened state, "I do not know what I want from you right now... Does it even matter?"

"I suppose not." Feeling both betrayed, and guilty Hasashi left his father's home.