The water formed in a puddle that reflects the distorted world I've created in my head. Each drop, a dagger that pierced through my flesh, and each ripple the cause and effect of my actions. My eyes glared through the silken screen of water that collected on the stone walk way of the meeting hall where I expected a man I had once revered as close to me as my own true father.
My fingers slipped across the hewn stone and broke the reflection I had created. Though we come from the past, from a whole different world than this, it is our actions in the present that determine who we are no matter where we are. No matter who looks back at you in the mirror.
Outside, I could hear the shamisen players through these stone walls. Dim, but beautiful. It was like the light and music awaited me to step back outside into that world, but instead hide in this dark, empty, and soaked hall of my own discontent.
The portal doors cracked opened and the light reached in with it's guiding hand. Its fingers stretched across the wooden floors of the long meeting hall and as hard as it tried, it could not reach under the great table to grasp at my feet, which stretched out to meet it. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness will never understand it.
A man stepped through the light, conical hat, old white robes with blue sash. Raiden had arrived for our meeting.
"Kitana Kahn." He greeted me, and I nodded, still with the reservation as though we were two enemies met under forced circumstances.
"Raiden, sit." Even though I was appropriate, it was still difficult not to call him 'Lord'. Liu Kang had changed since becoming the Fire God, but Raiden, the legend, the myth, the man behind those human eyes stayed ever the same. To only call him Raiden, seemed as bizarre as him calling me Kahn, as opposed to Princess, as he always had.
"We must settle our differences, Kitana." He spoke first in what could possibly be a long conversation. He was right though, this fire in me could not linger on and burn him from beneath my shadow. Our differences must be settled, or Outworld would fall to Kotal Kahn, or worse.
One last glimpse as the rain continued outside. The pockets of light that shined through the clouds as they slowly drifted apart was not the same on my side of the hall as it was facing inward from the entrance. It was on purpose I chose to sit with indirect sunlight, as it seemed appropriate considering the location, but in this little moment, I envied Raiden for having that brief moment in the sun before the portal doors closed.
"I would have given my power to you, Kitana, come the time." He admitted. It is a shock to hear, as it's hard to tell who I would have been had Liu Kang not defeated Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat.
"That's hard to believe, Raiden."
We didn't need to use our names. We were very familiar with one another as close friends and allies for millennia, but it felt wrong to address him as an ally at this point, as an equal. Perhaps that's my fault. Perhaps it's his. "You gave Liu Kang the power of time and simply let it flow. Now we are here, in this awkward timeline."
"It is not Liu Kang's fault we sit in these circumstances. Though I do wish he would rise to the occasion more."
"What do you mean, Raiden?"
"I had gifted Liu Kang my power as a way to defeat Kronika, but to show my deep trust in him as the new protector of Earth Realm. Who better to protect it?" He added, "but he does not take the same actions I would have had I kept it. There are circumstances not beyond our control that he lets flow."
"You know I told him once that we would let the realms decide their fate?" This moment was intimate between Liu Kang and I, at the edge of existence, where nothing and everything could happen. "We agreed not to interfere in the realms unless it was necessary, but most importantly, chose not to turn back time."
"You did it anyway."
"I did it, Raiden. I begged him, many times because I couldn't keep seeing my mother perish, or Edenia burn into Outworld. There were losses personal and across the realms that I kept trying to stop, but ultimately–" He interrupted me.
–"In the end, you cannot stop fate." He reserved himself a moment for apology, this intrusion was then accepted and he continued, "Time is a fickle thing. It doesn't exist, not really. We can go back, stay in the present, or even move forward, but no matter where the when, things will always happen as they do. It's just the natural order of things."
"What do you mean by that? Happen as they do?"
"You can save Edenia from Shao Kahn, but you could not save Zaterra. You could save Sindel today, but you cannot save her tomorrow. It doesn't matter when things happen, because no matter what, it will still happen."
This was a hard lesson to learn. Everything he said is something I knew, but didn't want to accept. We had turned back time many cycles and each time I got more and more frustrated as the world still crumbled around me. If I saved Hanzo Hasashi from the cruel fate of becoming Quan Chi's remnant, Bi Han would still be Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei and in time, Hanzo would be dead by natural causes and we would suffer the wrath of the Cybernetic Initiative without Scorpion's help.
These little thoughts began to pop into my had during the last few cycles. It was a continuous experiment to see how to tamper with fate enough that the right things happened, but the all the wrong things happened to my enemies.
Fate doesn't play that game.
"Are you planning on going back?" He broke my concentration, and this question almost caught me off guard. "With your mother dead, will you turn back the hourglass again?"
It took a moment to really let that sink in. The answer was already known somewhere in my mind, because Liu Kang and I had drifted apart long ago. He would never allow that, let alone allow me near Kronika's Hour Glass alone. However, it made me think of the current events and how things have played out
In short form, "no."
Raiden was pleased with this answer, a breath of relief escaped him and I could see him visibly relax, but still guarded as we still had so much more ground to cover and revelations to make.
Why go back?
Each time I had, we never really reached the point of Mortal Kombat as it was the first time around. Sindel always died at some point, except for the one time she hadn't, but Onaga had risen and destroyed three realms in the process. That was the worst timeline.
Now, however, I've been told the Kamidogu are all but destroyed and thus Onaga's plans to rise have been dashed, if not completely ruined. Shao Kahn is dead, and despite my current division with Ko'atal, things aren't bad in Outworld.
One of my truest friends is gone, but at least Goro remains. This, though bitter, is till a positive outcome with all things considered.
Is it better to have to have it bitter than to act out with the best of intentions and make it worse? That's what I've done, and that's what lead us here, but this single moment is the moment I've finally realized that bleak, but free is the best timeline to be in.
Our lives are meaningless save for the purpose we give it. Purpose it is time I begin to accept the purpose of others and give my own a greater meaning than I've allowed for a millennia.
With a breath in, and a glance over to Raiden, those eyes broke my heart to see. Raiden is not a mere mortal, not meant to be mundane. He is a God. He is my friend.
"Lord Raiden," the title, whether appropriate or not, was a symbol I had hoped he grasped, "will you forgive me?"
"Always, Princess Kitana." The light seemed brighter in here with the air now clear and the rain finally passed.