The wind brushed against his face and pricked sand into the arid landscape of his eyes. He marched forward as Jade moved further and further beyond his sight. His eyes squinted and closed, his fingers held a shield wall to the wind as it picked up from the dune beneath his feet and blasted a desert of sand at him. His boots locked in place, buried in the sand like it were mud and endured for what felt like ages until it passed and he could see clearly again.

Jade was gone.

The dunes had flattened and before him two massive sphinxes awaited him. Both female, adorned in highly polished white limestone. They were etched bare, save for helms reminiscent of the Scandinavian Viking raiders. The spangenhelms carved owl like faces along the women with eyes carved deep beneath the helm to stare at a single point, but where, Kotal Kahn could not discern from his vantage point far in the distance.

Each etched out from their shoulder blades wings that seemed to reach the heavens themselves and they knelt with their hands at their sides as though frozen in place while they waited for someone to pass through them.

"This is the second gate?" Kotal Kahn could see nothing but more plain desert beyond them.

The massive structures stared only upon one another in silence and the blackened heavens above gave him little comfort as rarely a star would bend or crinkle its light for him.

Do not fear us.

"They speak." A mile out, he could hear them with great ease within his blood and their voice coursed through him like the sun itself should he ever stand in its guiding light again.

You may pass through.

Merely meters before their large hands rested upon the earth of which they knelt, Kotal Kahn stopped and took a long pause to gaze at each. The eyes could barely be seen beneath the helms and their intentions hidden well behind them.

"I seek to restore the life of a loved one lost."

"No one is every truly gone." A voice came from behind and he turned, staggered as he did.

The thin sorcerer, white of skin and painted in the runes of his sorcery, Quan Chi stared back as Kotal Kahn reached for his throat and felt on his fingers clench. Ko'atal staggered back, uncertain of this black magic before him, but had no choice but to listen.

"Go no further, Ko'atal." The sorcerer warned, then pointed up at the eyes of the statues. "They can see everything, and know what's really in your heart."

He reached through Quan Chi a second time, and forced to accept his presence, Kotal Kahn returned the gesture of conversation.

"You were slain by the specter Scorpion."

"And you are in the depths of hell itself, who do you think belongs here most?"

Quan Chi moved through Kotal Kahn and reached for the empty stars, the blank stare between the gates.

"Do not pass through them. This is not going to go the way you think." He turned to Kotal Kahn, "it didn't for me."

"What did you desire?"

"Nothing." He admitted, "I wanted all of existence to end."

"How?"

"By finding the hourglass and the helm that wields it, I could shatter that power, and destroy time itself."

"That is foolish, and that is evil beyond even that of Shao Kahn."

"It's the worst form of nihilism." Quan Chi turned his back to the gates, kept himself between them and Kotal Kahn, though he could not physically stop the Osh-Tekk. "In my arrogance, sure, I wanted the power to be able to end it all, and to follow through with it, but I've learned there are worse fates than eternal nothing."

"I must pass." Kotal Kahn, unable to care of this old fool's weak visions, he pushed through the phantom, but stopped at the hands of the gates. He turned one last time, Quan Chi stared back into him as if he was now the one that could be passed through like a ghost. "Why come stop me?"

"What you seek cannot be done."

"You've done it, haven't you?"

"Scorpion and the revenants I've utilized were all undead, or otherwise manipulated souls. They were trapped between life and death. Same as Ermac, same as the souls within Shang Tsung."

"Jade is different."

"She is. She's dead."

Quan Chi let that hang. He watched Kotal Kahn desire to kill him, to act out in rage, but nothing could sate that hunger.

"Everything comes with a price, Ko'atal and what you ask for has one that cannot be paid by you."

"Then who?"

"Turn back and forget it. Accept that she died a warrior's death and with a weapon in hand. She does not suffer in the Netherrealm as I do."

"She died because of me. Because I let it happen." Kotal Kahn tried to reason, with who he couldn't tell, but he had to try.

"She died as many had in that fight. If anyone is to blame, blame me, or blame Shao Kahn, or Kitana Kahn, or Raiden, or Jade herself." He added, "we all know that when you engage in Mortal Kombat you are taking a chance at life and death. It is an equal chance, and it is one we must accept the consequences of. She did."

"I do not."

"Then the gates will not let you pass." Quan Chi assured and stepped forward again, this time at his side.

"They have assured me that I can."

"Have you looked into their eyes when they spoke? Did you see their intentions?"

"They are stone, Quan Chi! I can only see stone."

"Should you pass through this gate, Kotal Kahn, all will be lost to you."

"Did you try?"

"To pass through? Never. I was dead before I knew it existed."

"Are you not native born here?"

"Do you know every stone and every walk of life in Outworld or Osh-Tekk? Being native born does not give me the knowledge of all around me, merely what I've been allowed to know."

Kotal Kahn stepped forward. The sorcerer reached for his chest to hold him back, but could not. Unable to stop him, he watched as the Osh-Tekk continued one slow step at a time.

"Learn from my mistakes."

Nothing from Kotal Kahn. He was certain to pass through and edged forward step by step as the statues were silent beneath the blank black sky.

Quan Chi warned one final time before Kotal Kahn would be one step too late to listen.

"Do not listen to them. No matter what they say."

Kotal Kahn refused to look back and too stubborn to respond. He pushed forward, headstrong and each step getting quicker as he moved through the cold sand between the statues. Only at the center between them did a low hum rattle his bones from toes to skull and the heavens began to carve itself out light by light. He felt a dread overtake him and the need to look up into the eyes of the woman that stared back at him through those helms.

You may go peacefully, Kotal Kahn.

This is the way to what you truly seek in your heart.

The only way.

He refused them, to speak, to think, only movement was what his body could perform and as his bones rattled and his flesh pulsed each step became slower and harder and pain began to claw its way up like a million insects that drilled and coursed beneath his flesh.

She is waiting for you.

She is the one you seek, is she not?

Just beyond the center point where the eyes no longer met dead on, he saw what looked like a door that awaited him on the other side. It opened to a different world, green and bright, but distant.

Look at us, we wish to see your true intentions if you want to pass through.

We must see in your eyes what we've found in your heart.

He felt the hesitation marks slash at his flesh like a whip along his back that traveled down one smack at a time. His muscles spasmed, and his body begged him to turn and run. His eyes began to dance like they were adrift in an aimless see, unable to focus and hold steady in his sockets. All he could do to keep them from wandering was to close his eyes shut and move forward as fast as his broken body would allow.

You are not strong enough to succeed on your own.

Let us show you the way. Look into our eyes and the door will open wider.

What seemed like miles from the edge of the great structures, his body collapsed to his knees, but his hands carried forward. His stomach and face full of sand, he spat and gasped as he crawled and his flesh felt as though it would transform into liquid as painfully and slowly as the crawl he made toward the door.

You cannot pass without our gaze.

Without our help, you will not succeed.

We must destroy you if you defy us again.

"I must get to her!"

For who?

If you are doing it for yourself, then you will not succeed.

He stopped. Through cracked lids he could see his body was still intact. The pain and the liquidation of his very essence was all in his head. Still, the pain was too much and the crawl too great a struggle. He turned onto his back, but his eyes remained closed.

Look at us and show us who you really are.

His eyes cracked. The blackened sky was star lit and the hues of the heavens coursed like silk across it. He could only discern a dim glow from the eyes sockets beneath the owl eyed helms, but he dare not stare into them.

His elbows climbed backward and he dragged himself toward the door, and as best he could to his knees, then his feet.

We know the answer, but we want you to know the truth.

Look into our eyes.

"I am Kotal Kahn, Kahnum of Outworld and Demi-God to Earthrealm, I answer to no one!"

His heart raced before his feet and he lunged forward through the pain. In their great anger, the two statues stared down at him, their eyes laser focused and the heart that radiated from the point they met on the desert floor burned hotter than the sun itself. It followed Kotal almost faster than he could run and threatened to turn him to ash before even a hand could reach through the portal door.

You will fail yourself as you have failed her.

This is what is in your heart.

Half way and one step forward, he launched for the portal and balled himself until the heat licked at his heels and his flesh burned like it had never felt before. Once through, the eyes of the sphinxes ceased to reach him and the pain dissipated with a single breath.

At the point of no return, he found himself not in the green wilderness he saw through the portal, but a vast painting of white. Snow fell around him having already blanketed the earth many times over.

"You absolute fool." Quan Chi stared back him in great disappointment.

The sorcerer, frail in stature and wiry like the worm he was, hid beneath the same black linen robes he wore in life, with no protection from the blizzard that cast around him. He didn't need it.

"I am ever the fool you were, but I will never be the coward you became."

Kotal Kahn brushed off the snow and passed through Quan Chi. The third and final gate awaited him already just before them, not far in the distance, nor a painful trek through the eyes of judgement, but mere steps away.

Quan Chi turned to watch him unable to stop him, unable to do anything but stare.

"This is it?" Kotal Kahn pondered as the only means to show it was the way was that the snow landed on a space shaped like a doorway. No snow could go through, only dust the surface.

"This is the end." Quan Chi assured him.

"How do I get through?"

"You already know."

With nothing left to do or say, Kotal Kahn passed through the empty space.