Corridors were like black forests. Passages were oppressively narrow and intimidatingly tall. When Kuai Liang looked up he could not make out a roof. He quickly returned his attention forward when he felts the cold oily grip of the shade on his elbow steering him forward. Nothing moved, and yet everything moved. All was tall sheer stone, barren and still, yet it flickered with a green light the source of which always eluded them. Deeper corners echoed with the rumble of distant howling. Kuai's skin crawled. A foreboding dread was rising within him. He schooled it to remain calm, but even a lifetime of training had not prepared him for this. At intervals the screams from below rang out so vibrant that the walls resonated and distorted with them, and the green fire curled like live stoked flames and ran mad up into the deep shafts of nowhere above. As he tried to keep his pace even and cool amidst the bending reality about him, he found himself comforted by the firmness of the grip keeping him straight. Just give me some demons to fight. Fists, feet, the ground and an opponent. Those are odds I can deal with. And hurry it up before the last of my ice melts and I become one too many above zero.

Their corridor abruptly opened into a wide hall-way. After the confines of the passage, it looked naked and revealing. Kuai blinked several times, trying to readjust his eyes. When nothing changed, he realised that the floor here sloped at an almost imperceptible gradient, sending the lines of perspective off at curious angles. The darkness always followed them and curled and bent toward his brother. It kept out the leering twist of the disembodied green flames that moved as hosts upon the stonework. Kuai fought hard not to flow with his instincts into the obscurity that stealth would lend him. Straight and proud. Walk straight and proud. Like you're Sub-Zero and not Tundra. He always did kind of strut about the place. Kuai's eyes did a double take when he saw a woman enter the chamber. She had the same kind of misplaced beauty to her that the woman called Sareena did. As if they did not quite belong and their whole form had undergone a tilt-shift that sent the eye to a different place. Her eyes flicked briefly over them as they passed. Noob Saibot did not acknowledge her. Maybe Quan Chi is tired of flaming skulls and horned monsters. Maybe he turned all the demons into beautiful women. Maybe he'll turn Bi-Han into a beautiful woman. Maybe a sister would be easier to get along with. The heat was rising in his limbs. He shook his head faintly to clear his head. The shade's grip turned painful. Kuai grimaced under his mask. He knew this was getting risky, but it was Bi-Han that had taken the risk – if he had his way he would have stayed in that cave chewing human flesh or whatever that was. He tried not to think about it. He clenched his fists and let cool fractals collect under his gloves. He pushed the ice up to his chest and froze the thinning layer of ice wrapped around him. The wraith stopped walking. Kuai and the shade did likewise. Kuai finished re-enforcing the ice about him. As soon as he had done so, the wraith began walking again. He was striding purposefully toward a set of double doors at the far end of the hall. The angle of the floor meant that they walked ever so slightly up to approach it.

The doors were black stone with gold enamel that picked out silent faces rearing through the dark as if trying to escape a doom that forever held them imprisoned. The wraith placed his hand on the door. He turned his face silently, just enough for his eyes to meet Kuai's. They were the same, empty white irises. Kuai searched in them, earnestly seeking for something, anything else. When his brother broke the gaze, Kuai did not feel like that search had been in vain. Noob Saibot pushed the double doors open with forceful intent. He strode forth with a vanity Kuai knew neither of them felt. Kuai kept pace with him, step perfectly in time. Noob's true shadow had, for the present, vanished.

The walls in this room leaned slightly outward, Kuai surmised. Either that or he was suffering from sunstroke. The room was lined with pillars that supported a ribbed dome roof. A dais and a bone throne stood at the far end of the chamber. Two doors lead off to either side in perfect symmetry. To one side of the throne lounged the lithe woman they had met earlier on the road. She was wearing much more full attire now and somehow she suited this place. Kuai kept his face impassive. Standing behind the throne, with his back to them, Kuai could make out the ghostly pale skin of a man. He was muscled in a thin, hard, cruel way, and marked with red symbols that looked like half written incantations to old secrets. He turned abruptly and stepped forth from the gloom. Black tattoos rung his eyes and shot back across his bare scalp like the shadows of spears before war. This was Quan Chi, Kuai knew.

"Noob Saibot." The sorcerer's voice was amused, deep and melodious. It sounded like it was used to darker things, and was striving now to remember how to form words for conversation rather than raising unspeakable horrors.

"Master." He heard his brother say. Kuai realised in horror that the wraith beside him was kneeling, head bowed in deference. Quan Chi was watching them with interest. It's too late to kneel. Act cool. Think cool. He kept his features impassive and folded his arms, looking straight forward. Just what that proud bastard would do. Kneel with his body and shout defiance with his shadow. Quan Chi seemed to think so too. He merely raised and eyebrow and moved on.

"You are a little... later than I expected." The sorcerer came to a stand before his brother. The wraith did not look up.

"I was not expecting your summons so soon."

"And yet Sareena met you shortly after you re-entered Netherrealm, and informed you of my will. She offered to escort you home, perhaps if you had taken up the suggestion she might have shown you a quicker route?"

A shudder went down Kuai's spine despite Quan Chi's light tone. The sorcerer glanced at him. Kuai kept his attention straight forward. He felt the weight of those eyeballs boring into his skull. He stopped the air moving in his body and held an absolute, immobile silence. The moment held like water droplets on a taught thread. In his peripheral vision he saw the sorcerer slowly turn back to the wraith. Kuai did not dare let out the breath pent up in his chest.

"You would send that treacherous filth to deal with me?!" The wraith's head had snapped up. Kuai could hear genuine anger in his brother's voice.

"At least I know where I stand with Sareena." Quan Chi had turned around and was walking back towards the throne.

Noob stood,

"I have shown you nothing but loyalty, whilst she has betrayed you countless times."

"Once even for your sake, if I remember correctly."

"Enough!" The wraith snarled in a voice that almost made Kuai flinch with the memory of being on the receiving end of that temper. "Make her leave! She insults me with her very presence here!" The wraith stepped forward as he spoke, his fist gesticulating in anger.

Kuai was confused by the dynamic in the room. The woman, Sareena, had a curious expression on her face; it was something like hurt and grief and indignation. Quan Chi seated himself and regarded his spectre over steeped hands.

"As you wish." He said with that same slow melodious voice that sounded as if it was treating with children. He motioned with his eyes for Sareena to leave. She stormed out. "I think you hurt her feelings." The sorcerer drawled, "Perhaps she still has some for you."

Kuai could feel the anger radiating off his brother. The wraith controlled himself however and returned to stand next to Kuai.

"I still expect an explanation for your tardiness." The patience was replaced by a thin layer of anger Kuai was ready to bet could rival Bi-Han's if provoked.

"And I have one for you." The wraith said easily, "I have something to show you... or rather someone."

Kuai Liang felt all the colour drain from his face and his body go numb. He remained absolutely still. You wouldn't... surely you wouldn't... this is too contrived even for you... would he? He might... He felt his chest constrict as he thought of his naivety. He had walked into this. He had done this to himself. He had been the one fool enough to put trust into an undead creature enslaved to the underworld just because it bore residual ties to a brother he had once loved. And now you will die for it. Sektor was right. You should have purged your emotions from you.

"I am late because I was mastering a new skill that the powers you have given me," the wraith bowed slightly, "...Allowed me to create. I meant for such a thing to be more perfected before demonstrating its utility to you. No doubt you are also wondering why I entered an Earthrealm portal without your permission. I needed to test my new abilities on something mortal. Those I killed will not draw any notice, I assure you. I hope that with this new strength, Master, you will find more ways to put me to good use." As he said this, his shadow walked out of his body so that all three of them stood before the throne. Quan Chi tilted his head in interest. Noob continued, "I will soon be able to maintain my second clone with full combat prowess. Perhaps if you doubt my loyalty you will allow me to give you a demonstration. I could for instance, rip Sareena's spine out for you?"

Quan Chi gave a long low laugh.

Kuai felt strangely distant from them both, and for the first time realised truly what an imposter he was in this place.

"You never cease to amuse, Noob Saibot. What you lack in obedience you more than make up for in diligence. I have never regretted raising you to serve me. Granted, you've never been as easy to control as Scorpion, but when it comes down to it, you and I see eye to eye on a great number of things."

Kuai noticed the flicker of the wraith's hand gesture and this time was able to catch the meaning. The wraith, his shadow and his brother all bowed in perfect unison.

"You are dismissed. But no more travelling between realms without my permission. For the present you are confined to the fortress."

The wraith slowly looked up.

"Master?"

"The fortress. So that your seditious streak may stew away in a hole until you are keenly compliant and eager to follow all I say down to the letter."

"You cannot-"

"If you would prefer the ninth plane, please say so, I know there to be a lot more leg room there."

There was silence.

"I thought so." Quan Chi said coldly, "Now leave."

The three turned and left.

Kuai did not dare do anything save silence his footsteps and keep his brother within arms reach. The wraith was leading him deeper and deeper into the bowels of the fortress. Each turn of a corridor or crack of an open door shared secrets had had not wished to know. Space distorted here and great breadths fitted into places that should have been small as cupboards. Once they skirted the curve of a sturdy stone wall that he took to be the exterior of a staircase. He glimpsed what lay within as they passed an ajar doorway. An enormous dark space was filled with nothing at all, save the slow procession of gaunt, grey, ghastly figures spiralling eternally upward, gliding on a path that did not exist. He paused on seeing the spectacle but his brother's shadow steered him on with a firm hand. He saw in another instance more grim, clammy figures, with bodies that were somewhere between ethereal fleeting light and sporadic morbid puppets. They chased something only they could see about a bare and empty room. Their faces were fixated on their invisible quarry, hands outstretched ravenously, concentration ripe in their eyes. The pads of their feet made strangely dulled sounds as they ran their circles around and around. Again Kuai's eyes widened. The disturbing oddness and repetition of the picture locked his interest in repulsed fascination. The familiar pressure on his arm pulled him on, and this time his brother came close to his ear so that his mask almost touch him.

"Do not linger with those who are trapped, or you will join them." His whisper was soft.

Kuai shuddered and tore his eyes away. He kept his head down from then on, allowing himself to be lead on into a labyrinth that became darker, and the heat more intense. He could feel rolling swathes of faintness move over him as he breathed the dry, stifling air. At last, when Kuai could see almost nothing at all, his brother opened a cell door. It grated as it moved across stone. The wraith shut it behind them.

All was absolutely black. Kuai could feel the place alive around him. His heart beat loudly through his skull. The shadows pulled back suddenly, leaving a space around him that belong neither to light or dark. Kuai could faintly see the shape of his brother.

"The shadows, at least, belong to me." The wraith's voice was quiet, but not anxious. Kuai was unsure if this meant a break in their prior arrangement that he not speak at all within the fortress walls, "We have a little privacy here." His brother said, as though reading these thoughts. Kuai let out a long sigh. As he did so he realised how exhausted his limbs were. He ground his teeth in frustration. In Earthrealm he could force his body to go for days without essential needs. Here, it seemed, he was constantly being sapped of strength and power. He sat down heavily.

"I should not be here. I should not be in this fortress, in this realm..." His voice sounded strange, but that was perhaps because he hadn't used it in hours. The oddity of the things he had seen, the powerlessness he felt in this place... He steadied his breathing, "I am weakened very quickly here. I don't know what it is, I..." Bi-Han will not hear the excuses anyway. He looked away in frustration.

"I know." Kuai looked up. The wraith's eyes were dim white fires in the dark of the cell. "Netherrealm is not a place for the living. It drains much from mortals who enter it. It preys on them and seeks to right the anomaly of the living in the place of the dead."

"If you knew this, then why did you bring me here?"

"Because I expect you to overcome this difficulty and aid me regardless. And it was better to calculate the addition of a weakened Lin Kuei cryomancer than it was to enlist the aid of a Netherrealmer. We have an uncanny habit of turning on one another at opportune moments. This is a delicate operation. One that will see me imprisoned in a plane of torture for a very long time if it is not seen through correctly. I think you see my dilemma."

Kuai had found a wall and was leaning against it. It had a pleasant chill to it in contrast to the tight hot air of the room. He let his strained limbs go limp against its welcome relief.

"What made you think I would agree to aid you?"

The wraith tilted his head,

"Of course you would help me. That was always obvious to me."

Kuai stared at him, his sleepiness forgotten,

"It... it was?" It certainly had not been obvious to him. He had deliberated for days over whether to meet with the spectre.

"You have always been easy to manipulate. Though I admit I considered it a possibility you might be less enamoured with me now that I am dead. I thought perhaps your idolisation might have died with me."

"I did not idolise-"

"But then, fortunately, that mutated into something even more useful. A guilt complex and a saviour syndrome. You were always going to snap up the bait, Kuai Liang."

Kuai stared daggers at him for a long moment. Then he looked away. His insides felt like they had been severed into thin ribbons. He set his expression hard to hide the jolting pain those words cut inside him. Everything he endured in this place was that bit harder for hearing that. He knew when he agreed that it would be like this. He knew this was the deal all along and that using him for his own ends had always been Bi-Han's intention. He supposed it was the fractional moments when he was different that made it all the harder. Just for a few seconds before they had entered Quan Chi's throne room, he had been sure that a kindred desperate determination had united them once more. He rested his cheek against the black stone,

"What will you do now that you're forbidden from leaving the fortress?" His voice was monotone, he was under no illusions though, they both knew he was upset.

"Leave anyway. As quickly as... humanly possible." Kuai Liang did not even bother rising to that. "Sleep, now. I doubt you will be able to eat. But you can at least drink and sleep."

"I'm not sleeping in this place! Did you see what's out there? I have no intention of winding up in some undead rite for eternity because I was sleeping!"

"I will keep watch."

"Oh, well now I feel much safer." Sarcasm dripped off his words. The wraith looked at him. Kuai turned away, still raw from the put down earlier.

"Go to sleep, Kuai Liang." Bi-Han said.

Kuai Liang lay down and slept.

The candle was flaring and sputtering with the draft that sifted under the door. Shivers of winter mountain air toyed with its struggling flame. Kuai could feel his attention drooping, he blinked and narrowed his eyes to refocus them on the book he was reading. He stifled a yawn and drew his rug up to his chin. The bamboo mat beneath him kept him warm from the stone floor of his room. All here was minimalistic and stark; an aesthetic that sent one's focus internal and pushed the unnecessary to the periphery. The wooden door opened noiselessly and strong gust of wind blew white flakes into the room before it was quickly shut again.

"What are you doing up?" Bi-Han scowled down at him as he dumped a small bag and began unstrapping the gauntlets from his arms.

"Waiting for you." Kuai kept his attention on the book. "You always wake me up anyway when you let the cold in."

His brother grunted and sat himself down on his own mat on the other side of the room. He tossed the gauntlets to one side and began to take off his greaves.

"Actually I wanted to ask a question."

"Do you ever stop?" The greaves came off with a clatter on stone.

Kuai closed the book and set it to one side then rolled onto his stomach and propped his chin up with both hands.

"It's about assassinating people." Kuai watched his brother as he reverently unstrapped his sword and held it up for inspection. "Why do we kill people?"

His brother set him with an unimpressed stare.

"Put this away." Bi-Han held out the sword. Kuai jumped up and took the weapon carefully, eyeing it with the same adoration his brother had. He carefully laid it in a built-in stone shelf on the far wall. When he turned back, his brother was standing and tugging off his tunic.

"You know why." He pulled the blue cloth off and tossed it to one side, "Because the Grandmaster commands it."

"Yes, but why does the Grandmaster command it?"

His brother backhanded him suddenly across the face. Pain smarted through Kuai's head. He staggered and fell to the ground. His hand went to his cheek and he looked up. His brother was fuming.

"Never question the Grandmaster! Do you understand!?"

Kuai blinked several times at the stinging in his cheek and nodded miserably. He sat stunned for a moment where he had fallen. He slunk round the edge of the room and back to his bed where he pulled his rug over him and curled toward the wall. Something dangerously close to tears threatened to form in the corners of his eyes. It wasn't because he had been struck though. It was because of the anger and shock in his brother's face. He turned over where he lay and watched his brother take off the vented mask and set it to one side.

"I... I didn't mean to question the Grandmaster, Bi-Han. I didn't mean it like that. I only wanted to know why our only purpose is to kill. Not that I doubt the Grandmaster, I just don't understand why – surely the Lin Kuei must have killed all our enemies by now? Who else is left out there to oppose us? We're killing because its good for the clan, aren't we? We're just defending our honour and territory, right? Only I was thinking about it all today and the last three nights, and I was suddenly worried that we might not... be... good people. And that what we're doing might be... wrong... It's... it's not though, is it, Bi-Han?"

His brother set him again with dangerous eyes. Kuai shrunk into his blanket, but kept a stubborn, determined gaze fixed on Bi-Han. His brother levelled a finger at him,

"You need to make very sure you never talk this way in front of anyone. You would be severely punished if anyone heard you talking like this."

"I know that – that's that's why I waited up to ask you. Please explain it to me – it's confusing me so much and I nearly got distracted in a fight today because I was thinking about it too hard. We're not bad people are we? We don't do bad things... do we, Bi-Han?"

His brother sighed with tested patience,

"Give me that book."

Kuai looked down at the volume. He picked it up and handed it to his brother warily. Bi-Han drew it back as if to hit him with it and Kuai flinched away. His brother laughed and opened it instead.

"Jerk." Kuai muttered.

"Do you know what this is?"

"Just a history book. I have to read it for a class."

"A history book. History is written by people who are strong, Kuai Liang. It's written by people like the Lin Kuei. And we can write it down anyway we like, because there's no one else left alive to challenge us. We stay apart from the rest of the world so that their flaws do not taint the purity of our way of life. Out there people claim to think in terms of good and bad because they are embarrassed to remember that they still live and operate in a world where there is only power and those strong enough to wield it. Make sure you're on the side of the strong, Kuai Liang. The Lin Kuei will not tolerate you asking questions. They will mistake you for one of the weak people who stand in their way. They only recognise others with power like themselves."

Kuai Liang looked up at him with wide eyes,

"I'm not weak," He protested.

Bi-Han handed him back the book,

"Then prove it."

When he awoke he could see nothing. There was complete darkness. He raised his hand before his face but could not see it. All he could hear was his own breathing loud and fast.

"What do you dream of?"

Kuai 's eyes swung wildly in search of the speaker. Slowly, his deprived sense recalled where he was. The shadows retreated around him as a figure blacker than all of them gathered them to him.

"You mutter and turn over as you sleep. You did last night as well. What do you dream of?"

Kuai growled in frustration. He breathed in deep and slowed his beating heart. He took out his shallow bowl and filled it with ice. He drank from it when it melted. The cool water felt good. The hot stinging air had dried out his throat. He repeated and drank again and again. His brother sat patiently watching him, apparently still waiting to be answered.

"Unwanted memories." He said coldly and stowed the bowl.

The wraith tilted his head,

"Memories?" The wraith considered this. Kuai strapped on his greaves and did not look up. "I do not sleep any more. Neither to I dream. Or remember."

Kuai watched him guardedly. He picked up his gauntlets and tightened them onto his forearms.

"Tell me about your dreams."

Kuai stared at him,

"No!" He flexed his hand and balled it into a fist, testing the binding on his arms.

"Why?"

"Well for one, they mostly involve you being a total bastard. Like this place is trying to remind how much you never gave a damn about anything." He regretted saying that. It came out with much more emotion than he meant it to. He also felt a twinge of guilt. This was the most civil the wraith had been to him yet and he was being bitter about an event that had happened years ago. "Where's my mask. It's pitch black in here, I can't see anything."

His brother picked it up and held it out to him. Kuai snatched it and tied it on. When he was done he realised the wraith was still staring at him.

"What?!" He ground his teeth again. It was very rare that his temper got the better of him like this.

"You're being unfair. I make no excuses for my present motivations, but it was not the case in life that I cared for nothing."

"Is that so."

"It is."

"Well, you had a funny way of showing it."

The wraith looked at him blankly. He folded his arms. The gesture made Kuai feel small again and he hated that even now he felt belittled.

"I kept you alive, Kuai Liang."

"You did nothing but put me down."

"Now you sound like a spoilt child. I shielded you from an authority that would have cut your throat before you were ten if they heard half the dissidence that came out your mouth. So sometimes I used a firm hand, it was nothing to what the Grandmaster would have done to you."

"I don't mean that. I mean the way you always looked down on me, always told me I was weak."

"To make you work harder. To make you be better than you thought you could be."

"You told me there was no such thing as right and wrong. That there was only power and weakness."

"That's true."

"And now you're in hell!"

"But soon I'll be master of it."

Kuai Liang let out a roar of frustration and punched the floor. It turned to ice and stretched glittering and cold across the rock heated by the undying flames of the afterlife.

"Quiet. Someone will hear." The wraith stood, his posture was one that had already moved on.

"Why don't you ever understand!? Why do you always have to be like this!? It might just be that there's someone else other that yourself worth listening to every once in a while!"

"Someone like you?"

Kuai flushed red,

"Bi-Han-"

"Save it. I sense a salvation speech coming on. Excuse me if I sound bored, I am. And I have a revolution to plan."

"I hate seeing you in this place. I hate what it's done to you."

"It's done nothing to me, Kuai Liang. I choose to be what I am. A wiser man would know that."

"Then a wiser man still would know he could choose to be different."

"Are you going to come or do I have to leave you for the oni to find?"

"I'm coming."

They moved as shadows in the lower levels of the fortress. Kuai Liang was finally in territory he knew well and excelled at. Being unseen was in his arsenal. The air was hotter and dryer here, but the stone was cool and made moving bearable. In the almost permanent darkness there were no tricks of light and perspective to confuse him. They made fast progress through the network of tunnels Noob Saibot led them down.

Kuai felt the air begin to stir about him. He suspected there was a deep cave passage they were aiming to exit from. He heard a soft clipped whistle. He knew the sound intimately. It was one of a long series the Lin Kuei used when multiple assassins were co-ordinating in the dark. He obediently split off and kept close to the far wall, coming round to the other side of a tunnel mouth that crossed their path. He saw the shape of his brother lean slightly to glance down the passage. Another low whistle sent Kuai along to the next tunnel entrance. When he checked it, he saw a faint red glow lighting the raw rock walls. He whistled that all was clear. He received the go ahead to move down it. He sent out another message asking for his partner's position. He heard that he was in a parallel passage that would meet further along. Kuai suddenly felt his hair crawl. Something was not right. Signal it, he immediately thought. No. It's Bi-Han. I'm not signalling until I know there's a problem. The other voice in his head objected, You'd signal it to Smoke. He narrowed his eyes, Smoke never froze me into an iceberg when I made a bad call. He heard a footstep. Damn it. He whistled. There was silence. If Bi-Han had heard it he would be keeping his position quiet as he moved in to locate the threat.

She appeared before him with surprising stealth. Kuai stopped himself just in time to prevent his instinct summoning ice into long knives. Instead he stood still and folded his arms. Before him was Sareena. Up close he could see the crescent moon markings through her eyes. She held herself with self assurance but there was a tiredness to that stance, as if this had all happened before.

"Going somewhere?" She raised an eyebrow, "Quan Chi expected as much. He sent me to check that you were still suitably entertained."

Kuai narrowed his eyes. Speaking might give him away if she knew his brother as well as she appeared to, while provoking an attack in the fortress might bring about problems of its own.

He opted for the only other option he could think of. He walked calmly toward her.

"Don't make this more difficult for yourself, Bi-Han. You know what happens when we defy him." There was that tone of voice again, the one that kept catching Kuai off guard, the one that sounded so genuine, and like she really cared for him – for Bi-Han that was. He ignored her, the way Bi-Han would have done. She stretched out a hand to stop him. He grabbed it, twisted it and locked it up. She did a high fall over her arm and rolled out it.

"Dammit! What good can come of your perpetual defiance!?"

Perpetual? That perplexed Kuai. His brother had always been good at following orders. He had always had ambition too, but he was one of the conniving sorts who bided time and rose through ranks. Open defiance is only ever reprimanded. Those had been his very words to Kuai on more than one occasion. She drew back into a high guarded stance.

"Enough of this. I won't report this if you turn around now."

Where is Bi-Han? His brother should have intervened by now. He stalked slowly toward her. She kept a split guard, with one fist behind her head and the other pulled across toward her first elbow. This left her face temptingly exposed. He closed the distance and threw a jab straight for her head. The compressed guard pulled open with lightning speed, the front arm covering his punch and opening up her body for all the momentum to come straight through with her back hand. He leant out the way and dodged it just in time, throwing out a foot to sweep her front leg in the hope that the force of her punch might send her falling. To his surprise, she deliberately dropped both hands to the floor, swung her legs through and kicked him hard in the chin. He hissed and staggered backward. She was faster than he expected. He settled into a deeper stance. He drew one hand back and turned the other outward.

"What's this? A little different from normal?" She was light on her feet, quick and flexible. He braced when he saw her weight shift. He took another kick to the face and grunted as it jarred his jaw. As he guessed, she did not propel through the kick but kept her high stance and weight on her back foot in order to kick back a second time, this time with her front foot. As she did so, he seized her leg and dropped his body weight into the move, sending his elbow through her thigh. He heard her let out a cry and used the sound to pin point a target for a back fist. He caught her across the face with it. She rammed the heel of her boot into his spine. His back arched and he released her as he flexed in pain. She vaulted out of his reach and he span around to face her.

"Not at all your usual style." Her eyes narrowed.

She had switched up her stance. She was leaning onto her back leg, the one he hadn't nearly shattered a bone in. He came in cautiously testing for another jab like he had opened with. When he saw her eyes engage on the movement. He snapped out a high kick straight into the same point he had elbowed on her front leg. She lost her balance and staggered backwards. She would have regained her balance, but he was ready. He threw a heavy punch to her head. She half redirected it with the remnants of her broken guard. He sent in another from his other hand, then kept pushing forward landing punch after punch. In the exertion his breath came in cold wreaths of fine mist escaping from the closed up vents of his black mask. She seemed to keep taking his punches, managing to twist her body to keep herself upright even though she had not yet fended off his onslaught. Enraged, he strengthened his fist with a thick coat of ice beneath the glove. He sent an upper cut to her jaw that threw her into the air. He caught her and slammed her into the wall, pinning her with one arm, he drew back his fist.

"Who are you?" She whispered. He faltered. She grasped his hand where it held her. She pinned it to her chest and swivelled. He dropped to one knee as the lock went through his fingers and wrist, wrenching them hard. She isolated his little finger and closed a fist around it. He froze a layer of ice over it before he could think. She released it quickly in surprise, looking at his gloved hand in confusion.

"Cold..?" She said in dismay.

He struck out with his legs and swept her out of the height advantage she had over him and rolled out of the way.

"It's not possible." She said, "You lost that... you lost..." She got up slowly as he recovered. "You lost the ice the same day you lost your compassion."

His eyes flashed in anger and he snarled in frustration. He batted her guard out the way, punched her in the gut, then the face and kept going. He slowed when he realised the spirit had gone out of her fight. He slammed her against the wall again.

"You aren't him." She said bluntly, breathing hard and licking blood from a split lip. He growled and pushed his forearm against her neck. She tried to laugh around the choke, "I don't know... hah- who you are, but you should know... he's not worth it." Kuai bared his teeth behind his mask. She studied him, "He'll spit your help right back in your face." He fixed piercing eyes on hers and they locked in tight combat. He hunted in them, looking to read her. She relented and stopped struggling.

"If you love him as I do then you will not stand in my way." Kuai spoke for the first time. He held on a moment longer, then let go. She gasped and bent over, receiving air into her bruised throat.

She shook her hair as she looked up at him.

"He is gone. There is nothing left of Bi-Han in him. I tried. Believe me, I tried. But in the end I had to give up."

He stood back from her and pointed his finger in accusation.

"And that is why you failed!"

He stormed off down the passage way.

She caught her breath and straightened. She ran her hand over her throat and sighed. She turned and walked back toward the fortress.

Author Note: I find things creepier when they are odd and repetitive and distorted versions of human behaviour rather than straight up gore, so I went with a depiction in Quan Chi's fortress that picked out some of the more peculiar rather than gruesome elements of Dante's Inferno. I also recently watch Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell so wanted some of that old creepy fairy mind game feel to the place as well. There's one (of the few) moments I like in Inferno where Virgil says to Dante, go and talk with that guy, and then says, oh but not too long, or you'll get stuck here forever because you indulged in watching other people's suffering and this isn't a place for living people to linger in. Ace. I'm having that.