"I don't get it, Frost," Sub-Zero growled. "Your Otousan saved you, took you in, raised you. He seemed like a decent man. Meanwhile, Bi-han and I were subjected to years of An Zhi's abuse. So how is it you wound up becoming the serial killer?"
"I was wondering the same thing," Noob said flatly.
Frost bitterly chuckled through her tears. "It's called survival," she replied. "But I forgot. You two, at best, are functional morons."
Kuai Liang jerked her arms behind her tighter, jarring her shoulder sockets violently until she yelped in pain. "Do I look like I'm in the mood for your smart mouth?" he snapped.
And then time fast-forwarded several years before their eyes, but finally stopped when the beach near the Tatsuyoshi village was dark. Miyuki was much older now, a teenager, though her hair had yet to turn white. Chocolate brown and shiny, it hung down her back in a tight braid. She wore the black clothes of the ninja, obviously training to be a kunoichi. The Earthrealm warriors watched as she played with a glowing blue globe fueled by her Cryomancy, grinning as she used her fingers to pass it around the inside and outside of her hand.
"I'm getting better, Otousan," she said proudly.
"Yes, Miyuki. But now, make figure-eights with it." He paused. "Without dropping it this time, please." He said the last part like an afterthought.
She laughed. "You're just worried I'll accidentally freeze your boots again, aren't you?"
"The thought had crossed my mind." Now Shinji laughed and she joined him, once more filling Sub-Zero with bitter jealousy as he watched her practice controlling her hands with the figure-eight exercise. He had accidentally frozen An Zhi's boots when he was roughly sixteen, and the man had beat him with a cat o'nine tails to punish him for his lack of control.
The mysterious Kiyoto's voice now returned. Your Otousan was a wise man, Sarah, but he foolishly underestimated your real father. He should've listened to the Tatsuyoshi elders when they insisted An Zhi was planning something diabolical.
Kuai Liang now saw An Zhi in his blue tunic at the head of a large squad of nearly twenty Lin Kuei, all of them crouched by a tree on a hill that overlooked the Tatsuyoshi village. When Sub-Zero saw them, his heart sank. He recognized the evil expression in his father's face, that predatory stare. The Cryomancer was out for blood.
"Master, what are your orders?" one of the masked men whispered.
"We're going to raze the village to the ground," he replied matter-of-factly. "But first, we're going to Grandmaster Shinji's home to kill his family. Grandmaster Oniro has willed it so." Now An Zhi looked at them. "There is a teenage girl living in his house. She is not Japanese. Destroy her first. Burn her."
"But Master, wouldn't it be simpler to kill them in their sleep?" a younger assassin pointed out.
The Cryomancer narrowed his eyes, then promptly threw up his palm and sprayed a jet of ice at the man who'd dared to talk out of turn. As the other assassins watched in horror, and the Earthrealm warriors did too, the bewildered victim's mouth formed an o-shape as his body rapidly solidified into a frozen statue.
"Yes, it would," he answered the corpse. "But not nearly as gratifying."
What Shinji didn't understand was how profound your father's hatred for you was. He never guessed how much An Zhi wanted you dead. The only thing he wanted more was to see you suffer.
The beach scene returned again, and Miyuki had just dropped her ice ball, though this time she'd avoided freezing her father's shoes. Shinji sighed. "Perhaps it is time to stop for the night. I think you are getting tired, my little snowflake. Besides, I have a birthday gift for you."
She smiled. "But Otousan, I thought a trip to the beach to practice my powers was my birthday present."
He smiled back as she approached him, and then they both slowly strolled towards the village, her arm tucked beneath his shoulder and draped casually around his waist. "It was, Miyuki, but today is an important birthday. It is not every day that a father's daughter turns sixteen. You are practically a woman now, and a fine one. I am so proud of you."
She smiled and squeezed him tightly, kissing him on the cheek as they walked. "I love you, Otousan," she told him with a radiant smile. "So what is this present you're giving me?"
"You'll see soon enough, Musume." Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks and gazed into the distance.
Miyuki hadn't even noticed. "Oh, can't you give me a little hint-"
"Stop!" the man barked abruptly, making her jump. "There's a fire!" He pointed to the houses faintly concealed by the jungle trees, the rooftops crackling beneath towering pillars of flame.
For a second, Miyuki stood beside him, paralyzed. Then she screamed, "We have to help them!" and immediately bolted towards the village.
"No, Miyuki, wait for me!" Shinji cried as he chased after her, quickly falling behind his much younger and much faster daughter.
The scene returned to An Zhi, who stood in the midst of the chaos with his arms crossed. If he noticed his assassins engrossed in combat with the Tatsuyoshi ninjas, he didn't show it. His men had already set several houses on fire, including the Grandmaster's. The Earthrealm warriors saw his eyes twist and narrow; though his mouth was concealed by his mask, as he stared at his adversary's burning home his cruel sneer was painfully apparent. He'd blocked all the exits with thick sheets of ice, and by the time the angry flames licked them to nothingness, everyone inside would have choked to death on heat and smoke. At the moment, Shinji's wife and children still lived, and they knew they were alive because their frantic pleas for help drowned out all other sounds of the massacre. But An Zhi remained unmoved.
Still, even the cold-hearted Cryomancer couldn't contain his look of shock when a crazed shriek cut through the moonless night and he saw his teenage daughter charging up the hill to her house. He clearly had been under the impression she'd been trapped inside with her adoptive mother and siblings. When Miyuki caught sight of An Zhi, she stopped, hesitating. Their eyes met for the longest moment, but finally her expression changed from profound worry to profound anger. A dark shadow crossed her face, a glimpse of raging, psychotic evil. Kuai Liang shuddered as he studied her; that was the Frost he knew and hated.
"Get away from my house!" she screamed inhumanly at him in Cantonese, the language of the Lin Kuei, as she flung her arm around, spraying hundreds of ice daggers at the intruder.
If the situation hadn't been so grave, Sub-Zero might've laughed at his father then. Frost actually managed to catch the oldest Cryomancer off guard, barely giving him enough time to form an ice shield around his arm, but throwing her knives at him with such terrific velocity that the momentum knocked him down the hill in spite of it. The fighters heard the wicked man grunt as he rolled uncontrollably towards the bottom of the dirt road.
Sub-Zero never took his eyes off the younger version of his sister. Miyuki had already smashed her way through the first ice blockade, having delivered a powerfully and expertly executed front snap kick to it. The screams from her adopted family grew louder now, their voices no longer muffled by the barricade.
"Miyuki, stop!" Shinji's voice yelled at her as he scrambled towards her. "It's too dangerous! Don't go in there!"
"I won't leave them!" she stubbornly replied before he reached her. Her courageously stubborn jaw set, the female Cryomancer dashed over the threshold. Flames engulfed everything – the furniture, the paintings, the toys – but there was no sign of her mother, brother, or sister. Black smoke roiled towards her like a wall of thick fog, filling up her nostrils, choking out her air. She coughed and tried to cover her nose and mouth with her ninja garments.
"Okaasan!" Miyuki screamed in Japanese, her voice heavily shaded with panic. "Kimihiro! Ruriko! Where are you?" The smoke stung her eyes, and they watered now, cutting clean streaks through her otherwise filthy face.
"Musume!" a woman's voice shrieked.
"Miyuki!" a boy's voice called back at the same time, his voice drifting from above. She glanced up and saw them standing on a balcony overlooking the main room in the house. The little Japanese girl beside him stretched her arms towards her sister, whining for the Cryomancer teenager to grab her. Fire chewed through the walls around them, and from Kuai Liang's vantage point, they appeared to be trapped. Sure enough, the ten-year-old Japanese boy added, "We're stuck!"
"Jump down!" she called. "I'll catch you! Okaasan-"
Miyuki never got to finish her thought because at that moment, part of the roof collapsed onto her family's heads, the flaming rubble smashing the balcony to the ground as well. Tons of burning debris buried half the house and threatened to entomb her as well. She dove to the side to avoid a fiery beam falling onto her head, and when it harmlessly landed on the floor beside her, it exploded in a shower of red-orange embers that scorched her clothes and singed her now dirty and disheveled braid. Miyuki didn't even notice because she heard her seven-year-old sister wailing in agony from somewhere in the rubble. A moment later, her Okaasan moaned lowly, harmonizing with Ruriko's horror.
"Okaasan!" she now cried, tears streaming down her soot-stained cheeks. The female Cryomancer quickly stood and lunged for her family, but more of the roof rained onto the main room and stopped her in her tracks. She screamed in frustration. And then something strong grabbed her from behind; a bewildered look crossed her face until she realized it was Shinji dragging her back outside.
"No!" Miyuki yelled at him as she struggled to break free of his grip. "Let me go! I have to save them."
"No is right, my little snowflake," he replied, his voice cracking as he wrapped his arm around both of hers and held her even tighter. The Grandmaster's face was contorted in pain, his cheeks stained with fresh tears, as he sank his head onto her shoulder and dragged her to the dirt.
"Let me go! I can still help them!"
"No, Musume," he argued, "you can't. You'll only get yourself killed, and I can't bear to lose you too." With that, his voice crumbled entirely and he began to sob. "They're already gone. Their bodies just don't know it yet."
It finally dawned on her, and she began to bawl in her father's arms as they both listened to the inhuman shrieks of her mother and sister float through the air. In Sub-Zero's arms, Frost cried with the same anguish. He couldn't blame her. When he imagined watching Maggie burn to death, or Anya, Tomas, or Bi-han, he felt similar torment. He squeezed his eyes shut to stifle the pained tears creeping to his eyes for his sister. Finally, the last parts of the roof buckled and brought down the rest of Shinji's house, and as each story collapsed onto the one below it, a fiery orange cloud roiled into the air and then escaped into the night. Only then did Miyuki's mother and sister stop screaming.
The young Cryomancer let her Otousan hold her for several minutes as they cried in each other's arms. Quickly, on the other side of the dirt road, on the side away from the hill, the Earthrealm warriors saw several ghostly shadows rise. Miyuki and Shinji sensed them too. They strained their eyes and the shadows grew from the ground. Soon there was no doubt: three or four tall black and gray clad figures, their faces concealed by cowls and masks, were standing on the slope, looking down on them. So dark and stealthy were they that they seemed like black holes in the deep forest shade behind them, but their eyes were glittering pinpoints of light from the fire before them. They looked decidedly demonic and monstrous in that moment, even to Kuai Liang. Then the Lin Kuei assassins slowly advanced.
Both father and daughter scrambled to their feet. Miyuki shrank to Shinji's side. She was hardly less terrified than he was; she shook as if bitter cold, but her terror was swallowed up by a sudden fury, and that familiar evil blackness returned to her eyes. She wanted blood. The desire laid hold of her, and Kuai Liang was certain she could think of nothing else. Perhaps she did not forget her Otousan's teachings to use her powers wisely, but something compelled her to disregard her lessons, and she obviously longed to succumb. The struggle with it was written on her face. She could not speak. Shinji stared at her, but she would not look at him. Instead, Miyuki closed her eyes as the assassins crept ever closer.
And then they attacked. She opened her eyes once more. Cruelty overwhelmed their blueness, and so did bloodlust, a need for revenge so strong it could never be cured. Suddenly, Miyuki looked much older, and sinister. She looked just like An Zhi. She shrieked as the first man charged towards her and Shinji with a katana brandished high over his head, then aimed an ice ball at him. It slammed into his abdomen and froze him where he stood, his body permanently fixed into that attack posture.
A second assassin attacked her from behind, lassoing her with a thin rope, but now Shinji stepped in and yanked the man to him. He hit the Lin Kuei warrior in the chin with his open palm, forcing him to drop his end of the rope, and he had started to elbow him when Miyuki jammed a long kori knife into their enemy's gut and dragged it towards his neck with one, violent swipe. Blood from all the severed arteries sprayed onto both her and her father, but if she realized it, she didn't show it. She laughed in bitter, wicked satisfaction as he gurgled and choked on his last breath before he slumped to the ground, dead.
Now Miyuki faced the third assassin while Shinji fought the fourth. This one attacked her with a spear, but staff combat was one of her greatest martial strengths, and she stepped aside when he thrust the spearhead towards her. As the weapon glided by, she grabbed it, twisted it up with a hard jerk, then head-butted its owner to stun his grip loose. Her plan worked flawlessly, and she disarmed him. Quickly, she struck his face and then his throat with it before she twisted her body completely around and cracked the handle across the back of his neck, easily breaking the vertebrae hidden within. The assassin collapsed to the ground, paralyzed from the waist down.
Yet, this wasn't enough for Miyuki. She screamed inhumanly once again as the warrior struggled to army crawl away, and she stomped on his tailbone before she speared him on his own weapon. He howled, and then wailed when she yanked it out once more only to drive it through his anus. In revulsion, the Earthrealm warriors saw her slide it completely through his body until the spearhead broke through just beneath his ear. Of course, by then, he was dead.
"Miyuki, what have you done?" Shinji asked her, completely horrified.
"Not nearly enough, Otousan," she growled, her eyes as focused and intense as a tiger's on the hunt. With that, she bolted away from him, heading down the hill in spite of his commands to stop.
By then, An Zhi had sounded the call for retreat; the assassins' mission had failed and the chance of success at this point seemed unlikely. To kill Grandmaster Shinji, they'd needed the element of surprise on their side. So as the Lin Kuei squadron abandoned their individual battles, Miyuki killed every single assassin who crossed her path. Ruthlessly, manically, she froze them into ice statues or gutted them with kori knives, making a noise that sounded like the bastard child of a strangled cry and scream while the Tatsuyoshi ninjas watched in stunned silence. Either way, it made no difference to her. As far as she was concerned, she'd merely stepped on a couple of ants. Her real prey, she saw, was running towards the beach where the Lin Kuei had probably landed with silent boats.
The young Cryomancer ran faster than An Zhi, Sub-Zero noticed, probably because the man didn't realize he was being chased. Miyuki quickly caught up to him, her face a twisted conglomeration of fury and grief, but she said nothing as she threw a huge ice ball at him with all her strength. Her rage rendered her aim painfully inaccurate, and the glowing blue orb sailed harmlessly over his head, landing on the sand before him. A puddle of ice stretched across his path, its brilliant shine refracting the light from the fires onto the assassin's face.
"Stand and fight, coward!" she screamed in Cantonese, her fury now pouring from her eyes in uncontrollable tears. Kuai Liang cringed at her directive; she had no idea what she'd just done. However, he suspected that even if she did, she wouldn't have cared.
An Zhi, who'd already stopped running towards the Lin Kuei boats, gave her no warning before he whirled around and threw hundreds of razor sharp ice needles akin to a porcupine's quills at her. Miyuki hadn't expected this kind of retaliation, and many of them easily sliced open her ninja jacket's sleeves as well as her arms, if they didn't plunge into her chest and extremities altogether. She yelped in surprise and pain as the force knocked her to the ground. Her blood, black in the firelight, streamed down her body in thin rivulets.
An Zhi was immediately beside her. "You little bitch," he spat at her in English. "You think to use ice as a weapon against me?"
With that, he backhanded her, the force of the blow stealing her arms from beneath her. The moment her face landed in the sand, he kicked her beneath her armpit, knocking her onto her back as she cried out in pain. Kuai Liang tensed; he found he was rooting for the teenage girl, even though her chances of winning the fight were next to none. Miyuki had done what he and Bi-han never could: challenge An Zhi. But her courage did no good. The older Cryomancer continued to kick her in the ribs, refusing to stop even when she screamed and choked for air, crying hysterically. Finally, he stomped her in the belly and then spat on her.
"You're weak," he snarled. "You're just a pathetic little girl. Go back to your father and leave the fighting in the hands of the men where it belongs."
An Zhi started to walk away, but Miyuki, ever tenacious, refused to let him go. Though her face contorted in pain, she promptly swept his legs from beneath him and knocked him over. He toppled to the sand with a grunt, and then he growled deeply in his throat as he pushed himself to all fours and mule-kicked her in the face. Then, as the teenager spat out thick ropes of saliva and blood, he slowly got to his feet.
"I'm gonna kill you," she muttered, though her lips were so swollen that it muffled much of the venom in her words.
"How are gonna do that, little girl? The only thing you've succeeded in doing is bleed."
Now An Zhi thrust his hand into her hair, her tangled brown tresses long since unraveled. He paid no attention to her pained squeals as he yanked her head back and then punched her directly in the face. A sharp crack cut through the still night air as he broke her nose and blood gushed from it like a river. She whimpered as her eyes immediately turned black and swelled nearly shut, but he mercilessly hauled her to her feet by her hair, and then he punched her even more. Miyuki tried to block him, but she was too weakened from the fight to stop his assault.
Finally, though, she did deflect a blow. It wasn't much, but it caught him off guard just long enough for her to form a large kori knife and jam it through his forearm between the two bones. At last, An Zhi let go of her as he stared stupidly at the weapon jutting from his body, but if he felt any pain, he hid it well. The Cryomancer Master glared at Miyuki with cool rage. Then the man slowly slid the knife from the wound and studied it in the firelight before he wiped his blood across her jacket. Without warning, he tossed her weapon to the side and then delivered a roundhouse kick to her leg just above her knee.
A terrible crunch enveloped the chaotic noise from the Tatsuyoshi village. Miyuki's expression contorted in agony before she screamed and collapsed into the sand. On the ground, she curled into the fetal position, bawling as she pawed at her leg, which was now bent at an acute concave angle at the knee, the toes on her foot pointing directly at her other one, the whole thing slumped on its side in an unnatural way.
"Otousan," she cried through her tears. She covered her face with her hands. "Help me."
"You think your father can save you, you little whore?" An Zhi sneered. A large kori sword sprang from his palms. "You think you're even worth saving? You're not. You're nothing but a worthless abortion that never came to fruition. I should've killed you when I had the chance. But that's not a mistake I'll make again."
With that, An Zhi started to drive it through her middle, but before he made contact with her body, a blow dart fletched with a red feather soared into his throat. He stopped his motion immediately, and turned towards the shooter. The Earthrealm warriors, along with the Cryomancer Master and his battered daughter, saw Shinji standing at the tree line where the beach began. His face was calm, but his eyes glittered with fury. No words passed between the two warriors, only profound hatred, but quickly the Lin Kuei assassin staggered away.
Now the scene shifted, and it was daylight, though the sky was overcast and heavy with gray sorrow. Tendrils of smoke wafted to Heaven as the survivors of the attack worked to clear debris and corpses from the dirt roads. Miyuki, with the help of a tree branch hastily made into a crutch, stood before the ruins of her family's house, staring at the smoldering timbers. Several Tatsuyoshi ninjas kept glancing at her, their eyes full of trepidation and nervousness, probably wondering if she was going to butcher them as well. Many whispered majo in her direction, but she pretended not to hear. Instead, she looked up at the sky, her face twisted in anguish.
Suddenly she screamed from the bottom of her lungs as tears streaked down her dirty face.
The scene shifted again, and now it was later in the day. Miyuki sat beneath her favorite cherry tree on the hill overlooking the half-burned village. She hysterically sobbed into her hands, her stringy hair shrouding her face. At her scalp, the roots had become stark white like snow.
Kuai Liang's heart lurched for his sister as he now watched Shinji slowly climb the hill, his own face contorted by grief. "My little snowflake, how did you get up here with just a crutch to help you?" the Grandmaster asked gently.
"I don't know," she hiccuped between sobs. He sat beside her.
"We're taking the wounded to the city soon," he told her. "You should start heading down the hill-"
"Why did you let that man go?" she interrupted him. "Why, Otousan?"
Shinji frowned and said nothing for the longest moment. Finally, he said, "I didn't have to chase after him, Musume. My dart was dipped in poison. If it didn't kill him, it'd make him long for death anyway."
"You call that justice?" she snapped as she looked at her father with cold, blue eyes.
The Grandmaster sighed. "And what would you have had me do, Miyuki?"
"Rip him apart with your bare hands," she snarled. Her face was red with rage. "Or let me do it."
"Musume, hear me," Shinji began as he rested his hand on her good knee. "Someday, you will be a fine kunoichi warrior. But that man was one of the deadliest Lin Kuei assassins to ever have lived. You are no match for him, and I doubt you ever will be."
"Then you should have done it!" she snapped. When he didn't respond, she asked, "What makes him so deadly, Otousan? How can you be certain I'll never beat him?"
"I'm not certain, my little snowflake. But he lacks something that you have, and that makes him a ruthless, indiscriminate killer."
"What is it?"
"He lacks a soul." Shinji looked at her pointedly and then caressed her bruised, battered face. "But you do, Miyuki. You're full of love and compassion. And that makes me proud of you." He paused. "But you killed men last night. That has a way of destroying a person's goodness, of destroying them. I am reassured by the fact that you're crying and not keeping it in where I can't help you sort it out. But I-"
"I'm not crying because I killed those men," she interrupted him. She looked at him coldly. "I'm crying because I wish I had made them suffer more."
The Grandmaster's eyebrows furrowed in worry. "Musume-"
"An eye for an eye, Otousan," she hissed.
He sighed once more. "My sweet, little Miyuki, don't you know that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind?"
The Cryomancer scowled. "That man who murdered my mother and my brother and sister…He has power over ice like me."
"Yes, he does," Shinji agreed.
"A long time ago, you told me my real family was evil. Is he a part of my real family?"
The Grandmaster tensed, almost imperceptibly so. Kuai Liang barely caught it. Shinji looked her directly in the eyes. "No, Musume, he is not. It is just coincidence that he can control ice like you do."
"But, Shinji, his eyes…They were blue like mine, and I thought…" Miyuki trailed off, clearly afraid to say what was on her mind.
"What, my little snowflake? What did you think?" her adoptive father urged.
She swallowed hard and looked at his hand, which cupped hers on her lap. "I thought he looked like me. Well, what I could see of him that is."
Shinji inhaled deeply. "All the people who can do what you do have blue eyes, Musume. Again, any resemblance to him is purely a coincidence."
"It doesn't matter," she snarled. "I'm going to find a way to kill him. He took everything from me. So I'm going to take everything from him. I'm going to destroy his clan, and I'm going to kill his family. His friends. Everything."
"Miyuki!" Shinji snapped. "You dishonor our family and the Tatsuyoshi when you talk that way! You would make your Okaasan cry were she here right now."
"But she's not here," she bitterly argued. "And it's because that monster took her."
"Be quiet!" he barked. "Enough of this talk. Come. It is time to go to the hospital."
The scene shifted once more, returning the Earthrealm warriors back to the hill with Miyuki and Kiyoto. She sat beside him, her face a storm cloud of anger as he told his story. Hot tears streaked down her cheeks, and she trembled, trying to contain the rage threatening to explode inside her.
"Why are you telling me these things?" she demanded to know. She evidently didn't have the benefit of seeing the story come to life like the Earthrealm warriors did.
"Because, Miyuki, your Otousan lied to you," Kiyoto said. "That man who burned down your house and killed your family? That man was An Zhi. Your father."
Sub-Zero's younger sister looked like she'd been punched in the gut. "But he said it was a coincidence," she argued in blatant denial. "My…my father-"
"Was Lin Kuei," he finished for her. "Or did you already forget that little detail?"
"But…but…" she stammered, trying to find her words, the confusion conquering the anger. "But…why?" she managed to ask. "Why…"
"What do you mean, Sarah?"
Miyuki swallowed hard. "My father sold me because he didn't want me. I was no longer his problem. Why come back to kill my family after all that time?"
"He wasn't really there to kill your family," Kiyoto told her. "He was there to kill you. Everyone else was there to attack the Tatsuyoshi."
"But why?" she asked again, sounding like a broken record. More tears streamed down his face. "I was just a baby. Why did he want me dead?"
"To punish your real mother. He was a firm believer in women knowing their place, and your mother defied him on more than one occasion, but especially the night when he told her he was taking your older brothers to the Lin Kuei with him. She physically tried to stop him. Her! And without any combat training at all. Poor, pitiful woman."
Miyuki, stunned, looked to the sea. "I don't understand."
"He wanted to teach her a lesson for defying him," Kiyoto told her. "An Zhi knew the best way to hurt a woman with children is to kill those children. However, since he needed the boys alive, you got picked by default. And it didn't hurt that he didn't want a daughter anyway. He loathed you from the time you were born."
Miyuki clamped her eyes shut and cried while Kuai Liang, who watched the scene unfold, inwardly yelled at Kiyoto to stop torturing his sister. She'd already suffered enough, but he was making it worse. But the mysterious man continued.
"It was not Shinji's fault that your mother, brother, and sister died in that fire, Sarah. It was his. Had he left you to your fate with the vultures in that warehouse, your family would still be alive. He should've let you die. But instead, he brought you home. And in so doing, he put them in danger."
Finally, Miyuki stopped crying. She slowly opened her eyes and looked at the man. "You're right. It is his fault."
"So what are you going to do about it?" he asked, his eyes twinkling with cruel amusement.
"I'm going to have a talk with him," she growled. She got to her feet and slowly marched down the hill towards her village, her eyes black with darkness again. Behind her, unbeknownst to her retreating figure, Kiyoto stood as well, his body slowly morphing into another shape. In seconds, the Earthrealm warriors saw him become Quan Chi while Sareena stepped from behind the tree.
"She was much easier to convince than her brothers," the demoness remarked, her arms crossed, a vaguely unhappy expression on her face.
Quan Chi didn't seem to notice it. He chuckled. "Yes, my dear. Hell hath no fury like a girl with chronic daddy issues."
The scene shifted, and this time the Earthrealm warriors saw Miyuki, now dressed again in a ninja's black attire, rampaging through her village, killing everyone who crossed her path. Seemingly invincible with rage, completely unstoppable, she froze and butchered her own clan, the emotion in her eyes drifting further away with each kill until at last, they were cold and vacant. Only when Shinji shot her with a blow dart dipped in a sleeping draught did she stop her slaughter.
But she escaped and took her bewildered father prisoner, holding him in place against a wall with an arm across his throat. "Before I let you die," she sneered wickedly, "I want to have one last father-daughter chit-chat. You're going to tell me everything you know. I want you to-" she paused as she looked down at his stomach "-spill your guts."
"What do you want to know?" Shinji replied, slightly terrified.
"Tell me about my real family. Everything. Now."
The Grandmaster swallowed hard. "Why? What point is there? You obviously know who they are, though I don't know how you came by this information. I expressly forbade it."
"The villagers were right about me, weren't they?" she hissed. "I really am a witch. And my father's the Devil."
"No, Musume," he muttered sadly. "I am your father."
"Liar, liar, pants on fire," she sang before she formed a kori knife in her hand and thrust it through his abdomen. Slowly, Miyuki dragged it upwards, remorseless, ignoring his screams of pain as she killed him. "Oh wait," she said growled when his body slumped to the floor. "That was my Okaasan the night that you let her die." With that, she kicked his bloody corpse.
Now the Cryomancer dragged him outside, frightening the mob back as she showed them what she'd done. Then, after she killed her guard, she turned her focus on them, mowing them down, undefeated, as if she had help from a higher, albeit evil, power. Ice balls and kori daggers flew. Though he'd witnessed her bloodlust firsthand, somehow Sub-Zero couldn't believe that Frost had done such unspeakable things to her own people.
Finally, Miyuki's attention returned to Shinji's stiffening corpse. Now the Earthrealm warriors watched in disgust as she mutilated him, first splaying the skin on his chest open like she was dissecting a frog for science class, then making another deep cut on his throat. Afterwards, she reached through the incision, shoving her fist through his throat, and yanking his tongue backwards through the hole to give him what Sub-Zero knew was a Colombian necktie. Lastly, she glanced up at a hastily erected set of gallows probably meant for her.
She giggled wickedly. "Time to hang you out to dry, Old Man," she mumbled as she retrieved a rope and a pair of iron shackles. She cuffed his hands together then quickly threaded the rope through them before she climbed with it to the top of the gallows and dropped down skillfully. The force violently yanked Shinji up, his bones loudly popping as they dislocated or broke altogether. Finally, Miyuki tied the rope off and the scene vanished altogether, returning the Earthrealm warriors to Outworld.
Now Himavat stood before Frost and Sub-Zero as the Lin Kuei Grandmaster tried to wrap his head around his sister's wickedness. She looked at the Elder God in fear, undoubtedly expecting fire and brimstone for her deeds. But even still, she defiantly said, "So what, your idea of punishing me is making me relive my past?"
"Miyuki," Kuai Liang whispered sadly, resting his forehead tiredly on her shoulder as he loosened his grip on her. An Zhi and Quan Chi had gotten to her as well.
"You succeeded in killing your father like you wanted," Himavat replied pointedly.
"He wasn't my father!" she cried.
"You ungrateful brat," Noob hissed. "Yes, he was."
"However, you didn't succeed in beating him," the Elder God continued as if he hadn't even heard any of the other comments made. "Shinji let you kill him. He refused to harm you. To him, protecting you from harm was his most important duty."
Frost paused for a long moment. "And I…killed him." Her voice broke again. "I really killed him, didn't I?"
"You killed a member of your family in cold blood," Himavat told her. "Your punishment is…non-negotiable."
"Himavat, you can't let that happen," Sub-Zero argued. "Quan Chi played her, just like he played Bi-han and Scorpion."
"I told you there was nothing I could do," the Elder God responded.
The older Cryomancer winced as he clutched his sister tightly as her head sank down in defeat. "He loved you, Frost," Kuai Liang found himself saying. "He loved you. Why on Earth would you kill him like that?"
At the question, she dissolved into hysterical tears once more, and she sank against her brother's shoulder, clutching his arm like a life preserver. "I don't know," she whined. "It doesn't matter though," she sniffed. "I'm going to Hell."
Now he rocked her for a moment. "I'll figure something out," he half-heartedly promised her, not really certain he could.
"Do you think our father's in Hell?" she mumbled, but she didn't wait for her brother to answer before she said, "I think I'll find him and ask him why." Now Frost pulled away from Sub-Zero and looked him in the eyes. "Why, Kuai Liang? What did I do that was so wrong that he wanted me gone? Why didn't he love me?"
The Grandmaster frowned as he cupped her cheek. "You didn't do anything wrong, Miyuki," he answered. "Be grateful he didn't want you in his life. Be grateful you had Shinji instead. God, I would've given anything to have a father like yours." He wiped away her tears with his thumb.
"But I killed him," her voice broke and she covered her face with her hands.
Kuai Liang immediately grabbed them and pulled them away. "This is what's gonna happen, Miyuki," he began. "You're gonna help us stop Quan Chi. He's the reason you killed Shinji. And then we're gonna go home to Arctika and get you some help, okay? Let me help you. Let me take care of you, Sister," he finished as he tenderly held her cheek once more.
Frost sucked down an anguished gulp of air as fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. "Oh, Kuai Liang, that sounds so nice. I would love to live there in the Lin Kuei temple with you, and Anya, and Tomas, maybe even my real mother too, maybe feeling like I had a family again. The first time in a long time." She closed her eyes and leaned her head on his shoulder.
"Then come on-" he began as he hugged her to him, but her body tensed.
She hissed, "But life isn't a fairy tale, Brother, and there'll never be a happy ending for me. Our father saw to it personally." Before Sub-Zero could react, she had pushed him away and punched him in the jaw with a furious left hook that sent him sprawling to his knees and only semi-conscious. Then, before the others could stop her, she leapt onto him with the grace of a panther and ripped the Dragon Medallion from his tunic.
"Frost, no!" Himavat cried just as Noob sent Saibot to steal it from her once more. But just as the demonic shadow reached her, the Medallion began to glow angry blue, and it cast him aside like a rag doll.
Kuai Liang, who had recovered but was slow to get to his feet, saw its strange behavior and panicked. "Frost, drop it now!" he yelled at her, more worried than angry.
"I…I can't," she struggled to reply, her face astonished by the power probing her and measuring her worth. She strained to let go, but somehow, it possessed a magnetism that kept her hands firmly clamped around it. When her older brother saw her fight to drop it but fail, he raced towards her.
"Kuai Liang, stop!" he heard Anya screech. He glanced at her and saw her start to run towards him, but Tomas promptly grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back. "Let me go!" she yelled at him, but he refused so the Cryomancer nodded his thanks to his friend before he focused on his sister again and grabbed her arm. Immediately, a shock akin to a lightning bolt exploded from the Dragon Medallion in a blue arc that electrocuted him, sending him flying into his brother.
"What's it doing?" Noob yelled, barely moved by the force and already in a fighting stance, prepared to do battle.
Sub-Zero scarcely heard him as he rolled on the ground in pain, the lightning bugs scampering through his blood stream on tiny electrical currents, gnawing at his insides as his lungs gasped for air. "I don't know," he finally croaked. "I can't touch her. It obviously won't let anyone help her."
"Stupid girl," the other muttered.
Both brothers watched as Frost strained to scream in obvious pain – her face had twisted into knots – but couldn't. Meanwhile, the blue light from the Medallion became an aura that enveloped her, and somehow it seemed to constrict her rapidly crumpling body.
"Himavat, do something!" Kuai Liang yelled at the Elder God.
"I can't," he said calmly, profound sadness in his eyes.
Now an ethereal blue dragon with scales shaded purple burst from the jewel face and rose into the sky on its wings. It twisted around in the air above them, then roared, thrust its front claws forward, and raced towards a paralyzed Frost with its fangs bared. All she could do was watch in terror as it barreled straight at her. When it reached her, it snatched her into its vaporous jaws, threw her body high into the sky, and caught her once more before it swallowed her whole. The Earthrealm warriors saw the female Cryomancer slide into its narrow belly like a pig eaten by a python, and when she reached her final destination, the blue aura compressed her completely until she glowed blue as well. The light from the event rivaled that of the sun, forcing everyone to shield their eyes lest they go blind. Finally, the dragon trumpeted again, and that was followed by the sound of bones snapping loudly. At last, Frost screamed just as the light receded into her in an instant, yanking the ghostly beast with it in a furious blur, and she fell to the ground. Blood oozed from her mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. The Dragon Medallion rolled silently from her hand.