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“I cannot do this, Lord Raiden—there simply…. There is just no way…” The young fire god paces before Kronika’s hourglass, eyes shot through with sparks of anger, moisture shining on his cheeks. God he may be, but his heart is still that of a mortal and it bleeds for the pain he must cause. There are no words of comfort for him, nor of description to properly depict the true horror of that place into which he has just stepped. I do not envy him. I was born with this burden—not of time, of divinity—but that does not mean I cannot sympathize.
“What is it you cannot do?” There is time for reprimand of misused titles later, as he is the Lord now, and I am not. I regard him carefully and the hourglass even more so. What it has done to him, the lines upon his young-old face, the worries that I see prowling through every inch of his body; this, too, pains me. He settles upon a large stone, fists tight, eyes downcast.
“Over and over, no matter what I do to shift the sands,” he grunts, keeping his voice low, hating the tears of frustration which he has already shed and fighting those that have yet to fall, “I cannot save them all. Someone falls—someone always falls, sometimes many.”
“…the Shirai-Ryu massacre.” The guess is a simple one, but weighty. He looks up, surprised, for but a moment, that I have guessed the current source of his distress. “I know this because I know your heart, Lord Liu Kang, long have I known it… Furthermore, I have come to respect and appreciate its openness, warmth, and honesty—it is that heart which makes your fires burn so hot, but…”
“It… is a two-edged sword, isn’t it?” His shoulders sag and I am compelled to move closer, to stoop before and lay a hand upon him.
“Love is that way, yes—all emotions are, but love is the sharpest… not hate, or fear, or joy… Love. It is a root, remember that, and leads to all else.”
“I wish I didn’t—”
“No!” I snap vehemently, perhaps even more strongly than I’d anticipated doing. “No, do not speak those words aloud here, at the dawn of time… This void before all things is sacrosanct—our words affect it, even if we do not realize…” His eyes are wide, searching my face for exaggeration. He will find none. “More importantly, it affects us .”
“Forgive me, Teacher—I… it was the boy, Satoshi…” Liu Kang trails off. He need not finish his thought. I understand. As a deity, I have watched the lives of many mortals—they come and go, so fleeting in the grand scheme of things, but no less important for all that. I ache for the thought of those I have lost. He knows this pain as a mortal and perhaps is now beginning to understand that it is not unique to those with finite lives. Perhaps it is worse still for those who persist through the eons; we live with our grief, never quite mastering it, much as we make pretense.
“There are events which, in all of history, are pivotal to a certain outcome,” I explain gently, “as was our inevitable kombat to Kronika’s plans.”
“But we overcame it,” Liu Kang insists, his fists still clenched, hard, upon his lap. “You saved me—your decision to do that tipped the scales past where she could hope to control that outcome.”
“A one in a billion chance, nothing more,” I remind him, squeezing his shoulder and standing, hoping he will follow, hating to see him in this desperate position and myself, helpless to assist beyond my words.
“No!” This time, it is his turn to snap. “You can’t believe that—you can’t say that here, to me, like this… It isn’t…” He straightens and finally looks up at me. There are tears caught in his eyelashes, but resolution in the set of his jaw. Good. He will need that for what is to come. “Those are not the words of the Lord Raiden who chose me.”
“Even gods change.”
The look upon his face is one I remember well. It is frustration, stymied by words of someone he considers far wiser than he. If only he could know just how incorrect that supposition is. By virtue of my endless life, I should, by all rights, be wiser than the young Liu Kang, but I am not. I have been a fool, have known defeat and failure, and have carried grief and remorse as constant companions. That alone will change a person and now, I truly am a “person”.
“It is that changeability which granted us a chance to defeat her. Kronika underestimated a great many things, including mortals… and the depths of my ire for those who would harm them. I became a god of vengeance at the ends of her strings, but she did not anticipate the desperation that would arise from my grief-tainted rage.” I cannot meet his eyes, not now, remembering that, so many times, in so many other timelines, Liu Kang had met his end at my hands.
“But Shinnok’s amulet!” His voice rings out in the roaring darkness and he claps his mouth shut, realizing the curse upon that name in this blank canvas of a place and time—or a lack of place and time; such things are difficult, verbally, to describe. “And the tainted Jinsei…”
“It was the lure of my father’s trinket, not the trinket itself, Lord Liu Kang, which corrupted me, the power granted by that tainted stream of life force which called to me,” I confess, eyes upon the hourglass. “I may be a recursive being, defined by myself, but as such, my sins are my own and, in spite of that, my nature—which I have fought from my inception into this and every other timeline—is that of a god of destruction.”
The silence drifts between us. I consider him, Liu Kang, and what he has suffered. I wonder if perhaps I am not speaking to the lamb of his own slaughter, to which I have led him. Am I the author of some future madness? But it does not bear meditating upon—it cannot,for I will not be in attendance. It has been done and it was, I am certain now, the only way to overcome Kronika. All paths led to destruction except for this one and that, I think, was due in part to my nature, not his. I have removed myself from the equation and put him in my place. This, then, must be the true sacrifice.
“So Sh—so he was your father, and Lord Fujin’s.” He seems disappointed, somehow, that this whispered legend or rumor has proven to be the truth. “I guess I knew that—or I thought I did… I had heard it, but… Asking about family, among our friends?”
We both seem to recall, at once, the multitude of strange circumstances which had brought together the representatives of Earthrealm in the first place.
“Not a wise choice, were tact to be maintained,” I agree, “but the sire is no reflection upon the offspring—or it does not need to be. I knew that immediately when I looked upon my brother and saw someone I loved and someone I would always seek to protect.”
“You’re more human than you ever let on, Lord Raiden,” he observes. “Maybe we’ve softened you.”
“I have always been ‘soft’,” I assure him, “and it may have been my downfall, but for the memories of friends I keep stored up in the very core of my being. You strengthen me, even now… And so you must be, Keeper of Time, strengthened by love and compassion, tempered by reasonable logic and justice… and softened by empathy, but never destroyed by it.”
“So how, then, can I do this? How can I allow it?” He gestures to the glass, standing and straightening, wiping his cheeks and eyes with the other hand. The gesture is so reminiscent of his childhood, it brings a pang to my chest. He had not known me then, but I knew him, had been watching him all his life, following that sacred blood. In this moment, Liu Kang looks like that, more boy than man, and like no god at all, despite his divine attributes. The shining markings which once adorned my flesh now wrap about his, with his own additions, variations to suit him. Never, in all the eons of my existence, have I felt more certain that I had made the correct choice.
“You choose the shift of the sands which, to you, seems most just.”
“The death of an innocent boy is not just, Raiden! How can you demand this of me?”
I shake my head. “I cannot,” I admit quietly. “It is your choice to make. I am not the Keeper of Time. I conferred my divinity upon you for a reason, Lord Liu Kang. This, as it turns out, was your ultimate purpose… All the Shao Kahns of every timeline—all the Raidens… could not stop you. Your inevitability and unpredictability are, at least in part, why Kronika did not see us coming. This, in the end, is why I chose you and why you alone are the appropriate choice to be time’s keeper. Her numerous, repetitious attempts only served to build the foundation of her defeat. She had intended to use that unpredictability to reverberate through time, shattering our alliance and, thence, every timeline, using our konflict to reset existence. She made a mistake.”
“So I must choose the lesser of two—no,” he corrects, “the least of many evils. Raiden, in one shift, I see Bi-Han himself leading the charge—I see the Shirai-Ryu fighting to the last man, but each time, Harumi and Satoshi die at his hands. Quan-Chi is always behind it, no matter who strikes the final blow and always, Hanzo’s family suffers and he…”
“He becomes a wraith.” I nod quietly, gesturing back to the hourglass. “But then what happens?”
“He… fights his way through Netherrealm and confronts Quan-Chi, every time.”
“He is also inevitable.”
Liu Kang nods, “yes, but such suffering…”
“It builds him into the man we see today, fighting alongside Grandmaster Kuai Liang, for the protection of Earthrealm. Would the Shirai-Ryu and the Lin Kuei not still be at war, were it not for that avalanche of fate?” It is, admittedly, a question even I am not equipped to answer, but it stops him, makes him consider. He sighs and then shrugs.
“I… do not know.”
“So, rather than the least of many evils, Lord Liu Kang, you have been called upon to serve the purpose of balance—true balance—and justice… and to choose that which fulfills your duty.”
“You have always spoken of duty as if it is the only choice,” he observes, though the verbalization clearly pains him, “yet your duties, in service to the Elder Gods, have led you down many paths of destruction.”
I am silent a while, considering the truth of this. There is no simple answer, because he is correct. He has learned much over the years and now has the wisdom of many timelines from which to pull. Experience is the harshest teacher, but the best, by far—we do not soon forget those lessons taught us by pain and force.
“I served their purpose as a dutiful son and… I believe that purpose was, in many ways, to illustrate to me that fighting my nature could only lead to the inevitability of The Storm. I was wrong to follow and obey as I did. You will not be so unwise. You have many lifetimes to recall and to relive… infinite possibilities of wisdom and foolishness, infinite lives and deaths. You were… built to bear this burden.”
“Would you... take it from me?”
“Yes, Liu Kang, I would.” His countenance changes as I lay aside the deified title. It is as if I have regained my student, at least for a time. “My former divinity prevents me, in a way, from taking up the crown with the same efficacy as a mortal, however—as I said, you are perfectly suited to its weight.” The pain in his eyes lances deep into me, but I hold his glowing gaze, as he always held mine. “You haven’t the arrogance of a titan or a god; your humility is yet another great strength.”
Liu Kang observes his hands, then me, then the hourglass. He takes in a breath which fills his lungs and, closing his eyes, he releases it, slowly, through his nose. I watch his countenance shift once more, to something I have not yet seen. There is a certain serene nobility to it and not a note of resignation to be seen. He has begun to comprehend what his duty truly is, what a joy that burden will be to bear—and what a terrible tragedy.
“I understand,” he says finally, opening his eyes once more. Lifting off the foundational stones of all timelines, he moves to the hourglass and begins, once more, to manipulate the sands of time. There is security in his movements, a certain sureness that each decision is being made the right way—even if it is not the “right” decision. After all, at the beginning and the end of all things, one often finds one’s moral compass to be somewhat useless.
There is no grander scheme than the one which Liu Kang now manipulates with novice hands and an open, empathetic heart and I could not be more proud of him.