▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 || Hanzo’s chest rises and falls like the slow drum of a war long ended yet never forgiven. His gaze does not flinch from her, does not yield to the grace of her movements, the cruel elegance with which she cloaks death in delight. Rain has begun to whisper in the distance, delicate threads of moisture that will soon mingle with the iron taste in the air, and he inhales, drawing it into the cavern of his lungs as if it might steady the storm within him.
“The dead do not whisper of joy, Skarlet,” he murmurs, voice low, each syllable tempered by the memory of ashes, of Shirai Ryu torn from cradle to cinder. “They do not rise to applaud those who wield their lifeblood as a token of favor, nor do they grant smiles for the cunning in which it is spilled. You speak of triumph, yet you do not measure it in silence or sorrow, only in the warm pulse beneath your fingers and the dark laughter it brings you. I once did the same, under Quan Chi's wicked shadow, another promise of power stitched to my wrath. I have walked the same path you call delight, and it left me hollow, and in that hollow, I found fire not for vengeance alone - but for purpose.”
He lifts the bloodied steel again, letting it catch the waning light, ember flickers clinging to its edge like the memory of a soul that refuses to die. “Your nature is servitude, not choice. You bend and bow to the pulse of Shao Kahn’s blood and claim it as joy, yet know this: every enemy you cleave in the emperor’s name is an ally to mine. The world you serve is the world I protect. If joy is the splinter of crimson dancing in your veins, then I will not hesitate, and I will not falter. I will meet that joy with the edge of my vengeance, and I will spill it into the soil of Earthrealm until the roots of tyranny choke and rot. For I serve not desire, nor delight, nor wrath alone - I serve the living, the breathing, the realm itself. And if that requires me to strike you down, Skarlet, to unravel the tapestry of blood you weave in loyalty to a tyrant, then I will do so willingly, with the clarity of purpose you have never known.”
His hand trembles slightly, though the tremor is not weakness - it is the weight of knowing the cost of fire, of blood, of the choices that leave scars across worlds. The kunai dangles from his chain, ember still clinging, a reminder that destruction can warm as well as wound. “I have been a servant to wrath,” he continues, eyes narrowing, “and vengeance is a blade sharpened on grief. Yet I am no puppet, nor will I revel in the suffering I must unleash. I strike to end, to protect, to carve a path where hope may one day bloom amidst the ruins. And you - your joy, your triumph - they are fleeting, illusory, threads that I will sever if need be. For your master’s enemies are my allies, and Earthrealm’s survival is a debt I will pay with any measure of fire, any measure of blood, any measure of myself.”
The wind carries the first whispers of rain across his face, mingling with the copper tang that stains his breath. He steps forward, deliberate, inexorable, a shadow shaped by fire and vengeance. “So speak no more of triumph, Skarlet,” he says, voice soft but unyielding, “for the world does not bend to pleasure, nor does it bow to cruelty. It answers only to those who are willing to endure, to suffer, and - if necessary - to strike without hesitation at those who would see it drowned in blood for joy alone.”
His eyes, burning embers against the gray, fix upon her once more, unwavering. “If you call it joy, then I will become the instrument of its cessation. And I will do so without malice, only with the justice that your master’s hand will never know.” The air between them hums with the tension of unspoken wars, and Hanzo stands as a living testament to fire tempered by grief, to vengeance refined into purpose, ready to meet her crimson delight with the cold, unflinching steel of inevitability. ▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 ||
