Up the lonely mountain, buckshot glitter snow cast ablaze across his face until his skin wouldn't be the same, Forrest raced from tree to tree, clearing to clearing with nigh a crunch of twig or snow cover to warn those around him.

Behind him, the dojo was active and the hive buzzed with the Thunder God's warning of a coming enemy. The blood witch, Forrest had declared, was that enemy, but without support of the master of the Shirai Ryu, he had no ground to stand on.

A voice in the night came to him, as all gathered. Hidden from the rest, the voice called from the forest to Fox. Like the voice of the dead that carried with the wind, it planted the grave warning into his ear and he chose to chase it.

Having crept from the eyes of the Shirai Ryu, he now chased the dead into the forest. An agent in exile, he'd find the answer.

The further his feet carried through the mountain, the louder the voice in his head and the hotter the ground became.

Days before he had trained Takeda on a frozen lake and once a clearing gave way to him, he realized the voice had taken him back there. The crunch in the snow that dragged lines out to the frozen tundra where they battled, and the forest line that circled the whole lake, all of it pristine and untouched.

No lines in the proverbial sand, no heat to melt the ice.

He stepped out onto the lake in the same steps Takeda had taken and turned back toward the tree line. There he found the specter, a fiery image that swung a spear at him.

The point pierced through his chest, but no blood spat, and no pain coursed through him. The chain rattled and travelled through him untouched until Forrest swung his katana in an arc to cut through it. No clink, no break. Just the nothingness of a mirage.

"Who are you?" He demanded of the specter that appeared closer to him. The flames at its heels licked at the cold air, but never once did the snow burn or melt.

"I am Scorpion, master of the Shirai Ryu."

His katana raised between Scorpion's eyes and Forrest maneuvered into a defensive right stance. There was only one master of the Shirai Ryu and that man had been left behind in the dojo to toil with his Thunder God.

"Lies."

Scorpion appeared behind the Shirai Ryu member and his katana was also raised to aim between its opponent's eyes.

Forrest made the first move, using a cover maneuver to spin and cut through the torso of Scorpion. His blade should have stopped right at the spinal cord, but instead he almost lost his footing as the momentum drove the katana into the snow at Scorpion's hip.

"What is this?"

Scorpion's eyes, whited out like the dead stared a hole through Forrest. He could see the flame beneath the flesh, the skin tucked tight against the skull beneath even that, and the specter sheathed his katana.

"I am vengeance."

"What do you want?" Forrest began to step slid back until the ice of the lake was ahead of him, but Scorpion only appeared behind him again. As the Shirai Ryu member whipped around to meet him, six inches of the blade buried into Scorpion's skull. He retracted it, no flesh to stop it, no blood to spill.

"Use that on Hanzo Hasashi and Raiden." Scorpion commanded, "restore the Shirai Ryu."

"I can't kill a God. Why don't you?"

Scorpion burned with fire and reached out to the blade still aimed between his eyes. His hand pierced through it with no resistance. The specter could not touch, could not affect the world around him. It took a moment for Forrest to realize this, but he still denied the request in his head. Why him? Why now?

"They will hand you a shovel and expect you to dig your own grave." Scorpion assured. "Hanzo will let you all die for Raiden and the blood witch. A true master of the Shirai Ryu chooses clan over enemies."

"He will. I know it."

The entity stared. The defiance in the man, he realized Hanzo had quite the thrall, but he would see.

"For the Shirai Ryu." Scorpion gestured.

Forrest returned it, uncertain, but when the entity dissipated in the roaring flame that encased it from the beneath him, that uncertainty was enflamed twofold.

"Solve et coagula." Scorpion's voice still echoed in the cavern of Fox's mind until only the wind screamed at him as it raced down the mountain.