Half-way and one step forward, that's the point of no return.
Soles drenched in red, Kitana turned back to scan the horizon as miles beyond stood the pillars of her palace. The walls of the city and the sun just above it. The smell of grass as it prickled along the wind stained the metal of blood as it dried across her face, she turned toward the bodies, now a feast for the Tarkatan horde that followed her beyond Outworld.
"Does this end?" She pondered to Liu Kang beside her.
"We have to hope." He touched her shoulder passed along with the crowd back to the city.
To every generation is born he, or she, the chosen warrior to compete in Mortal Kombat for their realm and the only one to emerge victorious. To every generation, a slayer is born, a killer, no matter if the lives they take are done for the first time under the watchful eye of their realm's protector, or done so because of some twisted act of humanity that made them this way. Every champion of Mortal Kombat is a serial killer born for the sake of their realms, and only one can succeed.
She never chose that path, and she never urged herself forward in the tournaments. The many lives she chose in the many times they reversed history, she never once thought to compete seriously, never once thought about the importance of the tournament, nor why they really fought beyond the point of Armageddon.
Can there be any redemption for the realms? Any solace in the hearts of these murderers whom kill so callously and pretend it's for the greater cause? Are the gods to blame as she wipes the blood from her fingers and scrapes them from under her nails into the silk and linen that covered her?
Maybe one more battle, maybe one more life. If she could slay Daegon and Blaze, it would all be over. No one would need to find the helm that Raiden hid that would give the wearer the power to toy with time, and with the powers of the Edenian gods, she could end the needs for the tournament forever.
What does redemption look like for Kitana in reality?
She bit her lip and spat the blood of others into the drenched soil and returned with the group.
Are we even redeemable?
Tucked away discreetly within the many rooms of the palace that overlooked the city her mother and father once stood over, Kitana sunk into the heat and comfort of the palace hammam.
Pale white walls cascaded to the steam veiled water with gentle tints of blue and purple as the light trickled from the night sky above and danced across frosted glass. Kitana gazed up, her back against the stone to the left end of what looked like a hallway that had flooded with hot water and three arches on each side that welcomed her with moonlight when the curtains would be pulled, but tonight, they were drawn and they were bathed, like her, in the sky light.
The steam clouded the surface of the water like her thoughts in that moment as her hair bunched like a pillow beneath her head when it rested along the stone outcrop of the middle arch in the hammam. Adorned only in her thoughts, she waited for the heat of her breath to meet the steam, and the hot spring like water her body indulged in to cleanse the blood, the dirt, and the afterthoughts away.
Beyond the water, which the floor tapered slowly to the surface so that any within could simply walk and emerge from the water, their body drip dry as they did so, there was a stone hexagon that waited for her with a female tarlatan that sat in silk robes with oils and patience. Should she choose, she could receive a massage, but tonight she lingered in the water and she relieved the Tarakatan of her duty.
This, only after a knock on the great stone portal that opened inward, adorned with marble and a great show of class erected thousands of years before even Sindel's birth, the Tarkatan was disturbed to hear the knock, and more-so at the one who'd dare inconvenience the queen.
"Let him in, it will be fine." She dismissed the Tarkatan and alone she rest in the hot water as Liu Kang entered and sat at the edge of the massage stone.
"I have received word from Lord Raiden, he has been forced to gather the Earthrealm's best and come here." Liu Kang reported.
He sat, hand knelt on knee and eyes up along the risen steam as it peaked to a cloudy veil beneath the moonlight the Queen's hammam.
"So, they haven't been as lucky as us?" She finally opened her eyes and looked over to the young man she once knew better.
"We fight men, the Shirai Ryu and Lin Kuei have been fighting cyborgs and shadows."
"I remember." Kitana never really dealt with Sektor and the Tekunin, never really pushed herself into the business of the Lin Kuei, especially Bi-Han and Kuai Liang, even as time reversed and played out again and again. "Do you think this is our fault?"
"No word," Liu Kang ignored her question, and continued, "from your sister Mileena and Kotal Kahn. I can only hope they've been successful against the Red Dragon as we were with the Kabal."
"Did we do this, Liu?" She raised up higher to catch his attention and her voice travelled further as her posture changed. "Was this really us, or Raiden?"
"What are you talking about? We haven't done anything."
"Kronika," she pondered loudly, "the keeper of time. For how long had she orchestrated everything and not once did we ever realize it? Everything seemed fine until–"
"No one is to blame." Liu cut her off.
"Then what do we do?"
"Have you talked to your sister?"
"What does she have to with it?"
"Part of my soul is still held by Shang Tsung, part of yours still torn in Outworld." He added, "what happens on that pyramid isn't on my mind right now."
"It should be. We'll be there soon, as will my sister, no doubt." She stood, covered herself with a folded towel of linen that rested along the first arch and sat along the outcrop of stone. "You're no great thinker, Liu."
"You're no philosopher."
"I'm queen, I have to think about my people."
"Maybe that's the problem?"
She couldn't grasp.
He explained, "we've never gone beyond Armageddon. Everyone there on that pyramid fought for themselves, for some goal in mind. Every one of us selfish." He added, his head shook in disappointment in himself, and the past that played before him in his head, "it's like if we just won that one fight everything would be over and we could do things our way."
"Same with Kronika's hourglass, it just doesn't work like that." Unaware of her words, she spoke, and she waited for his.
"This is more Raiden's area, not mine." He admitted and rubbed his head, unable to shake free the right thoughts, the right words, though he knew he had stumbled on the right path. "I don't know how we fix this."
"I don't know."
He pulled himself from the stone and avoided her gaze, unsure how to continue the conversation, if even it, like their predicament, had an ending he could easily reach.
"Maybe," He pondered aloud, as she had, but his words moved with his steps toward the door until he finally looked back when the stone portal cracked and the Tarkatan waited to return to Kitana, "maybe we should focus on what we need right now for ourselves rather than what we think the world needs in the future?"
"That's very Bo' Rai Cho of you, Liu." She wasn't sure how to remark as the words hadn't sunken to the surface like the steam of the hammam.
Still, though it hadn't struck her, her own words did. Perhaps she would seek out the drunken monk for an opinion.