Shadowed Souls

Scorpion: I ain’t the kinda guy you can trust.

(quiet storms, heavy hearts, and reaching out even when the hands shake)

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐒 𝐓𝐎𝐎 𝐌𝐔𝐂𝐇

“I didn’t want to be alone today… can I stay here awhile?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong, I just feel heavy.”

“Please don’t ask if I’m okay. I won’t be able to lie convincingly.”

“Everything feels too loud. Can we just sit in silence?”

“I’m trying, I really am… but today is hard.”

“Can you just hold me? I don’t need answers, just… quiet.”

𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐏 𝐌𝐄 𝐎𝐑 𝐋𝐄𝐓 𝐌𝐄 𝐁𝐄

“I don’t need fixing. Just don’t leave.”

“Tell me something good. Anything. Just distract me.”

“I don’t want advice… I just want you to listen.”

“Please don’t treat me like I’m fragile.”

“I know you’re worried. I just don’t know how to explain what’s happening.”

“Can you walk with me? I don’t trust myself to be alone right now.”

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐃𝐎𝐍’𝐓 𝐄𝐍𝐃

“I haven’t slept. Every time I close my eyes, it gets worse.”

“It’s 3AM and I’m still awake… talk to me?”

“I hate nights like this. Everything hurts more.”

“I didn’t mean to call this late, I just… needed a voice I trust.”

“Can we stay up together? Just until my mind settles.”

“I keep overthinking. Say something—anything—before I spiral.”

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍, 𝐏𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐂 & 𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐄

“I can’t breathe. Stay with me—please.”

“Don’t touch me yet. Just talk to me until it passes.”

“I didn’t know who else to call. I’m scared.”

“Sit with me on the floor… it helps.”

“Can you count with me? I just need to focus on something real.”

“Hold my hand. Tell me I’m still here.”

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐔𝐋𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

“I think something’s wrong with me.”

“I don’t want to burden you, but I can’t keep pretending.”

“I’ve been hiding this for a long time.”

“I’m not okay, but I want to be. I just don’t know how.”

“I need help… but I don’t know where to start.”

“You said you’d stay. Did you mean it?”

𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐄, 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 & 𝐇𝐔𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐘

“Today was better. Not perfect, just… better.”

“Thank you. For not giving up on me.”

“I’m trying new things. I just wanted you to know.”

“I think I laughed today. Really laughed.”

“You make it easier. I don’t understand how, but you do.”

“Stay close. I’m learning how to breathe again.”

(for muses who bleed, fight, and still find something worth saving)

Combat & Challenge

❛ Fight me, not because you hate me — because you respect me. ❜

❛ Don’t hold back. I want to see how strong you’ve become. ❜

❛ You call that a fatal blow? Pathetic. ❜

❛ Go on. Prove that you’re not afraid of me. ❜

❛ I don’t need mercy. I need a fair fight. ❜

❛ We end this here — one way or another. ❜

❛ If you’re going to strike me down, make it count. ❜

❛ You’ve grown reckless. That will get you killed. ❜

❛ You should’ve stayed down. ❜

❛ You bleed like the rest of us — god or not. ❜

Death, Resurrection, and Regret

❛ I died once. It didn’t take. ❜

❛ They brought me back — but they didn’t bring me peace. ❜

❛ I remember the fire. I remember you. ❜

❛ Tell me, do you even know what it’s like to crawl back from death? ❜

❛ Every time I close my eyes, I see the faces of the ones I failed. ❜

❛ I thought the Netherrealm would change me. I was wrong. ❜

❛ You can’t kill me — I’ve already done it myself. ❜

❛ You think I’m haunted by ghosts? I am the ghost. ❜

❛ I didn’t want to come back. They made me. ❜

❛ My soul isn’t clean enough for redemption. ❜

Allies, Rivals, and Betrayal

❛ You were my brother once. What happened to us? ❜

❛ Loyalty means nothing when your hands are soaked in blood. ❜

❛ I fought beside you, bled beside you — and you still betrayed me. ❜

❛ We could’ve ruled together. Instead, you chose the path of ruin. ❜

❛ Don’t talk to me about honor. You lost that the day you betrayed your clan. ❜

❛ You think I enjoy fighting you? This isn’t victory — it’s punishment. ❜

❛ I should kill you. But something in me still remembers who you were. ❜

❛ You’re still chasing redemption that will never be yours. ❜

❛ You saved me once. I never forgot. ❜

❛ I never wanted to fight you. But you gave me no choice. ❜

Power, Legacy, and Control

❛ I am not my father’s weapon. ❜

❛ Power doesn’t corrupt — people do. ❜

❛ The realms don’t need gods. They need balance. ❜

❛ I’ve seen what absolute power does to good people. ❜

❛ You think you control your fate? The gods are laughing at you. ❜

❛ This isn’t destiny. This is defiance. ❜

❛ Every time someone calls me a hero, another body burns. ❜

❛ I’ve worn the crown. I’ve carried the curse. ❜

❛ The timeline isn’t broken — it’s bleeding. ❜

❛ They called it a gift. I call it damnation. ❜

Mortal Bonds (Family, Love, Loss)

❛ I lost everything once. I won’t let it happen again. ❜

❛ You remind me of someone I couldn’t save. ❜

❛ My clan is my heart. Without it, I am nothing. ❜

❛ You still wear the face of the person I loved. ❜

❛ There are some wounds even victory can’t heal. ❜

❛ I wanted to protect you. Not destroy you. ❜

❛ You shouldn’t have followed me. This path only leads to pain. ❜

❛ I would burn the realms to bring you back. ❜

❛ All that’s left of us are ashes and memory. ❜

❛ The moment I looked away, I lost you. ❜

Earthrealm & Duty

❛ We don’t fight for glory. We fight for survival. ❜

❛ Earthrealm needs warriors, not heroes. ❜

❛ You can stand beside me, or in my way. Choose. ❜

❛ Raiden taught us to fight for peace. But peace doesn’t come easy. ❜

❛ We swore to protect the realm, not destroy it from within. ❜

❛ The cost of duty is higher than anyone admits. ❜

❛ I fight because I have to — not because I want to. ❜

❛ Sometimes saving the realm means losing yourself. ❜

❛ Do you ever wonder what happens after the war ends? ❜

❛ We were soldiers once. Now we’re survivors. ❜

Dark Temptations & Inner Conflict

❛ There’s a part of me that enjoys the killing. That terrifies me. ❜

❛ I tell myself it’s justice. But deep down, I know it’s revenge. ❜

❛ You call it darkness. I call it honesty. ❜

❛ I could stop. But I don’t want to. ❜

❛ I’ve been fighting my demons for so long… sometimes I forget which side I’m on. ❜

❛ Every scream I hear sounds a little like my own. ❜

❛ The fire inside me doesn’t burn for warmth. It burns to destroy. ❜

❛ Tell me — if I let the darkness win, would you still follow me? ❜

❛ I’m not afraid of losing control. I’m afraid of what I’ll do when I do. ❜

❛ You think I’m a monster? Maybe I finally am. ❜

MK11-Specific (Time, Fate & Rewrites)

❛ Kronika thought she could rewrite destiny. She forgot I’m part of it. ❜

❛ I’ve seen what the future becomes. It’s not kind. ❜

❛ Time isn’t a weapon. It’s a curse. ❜

❛ How many timelines do we destroy before we realize we’re the problem? ❜

❛ Every version of me makes the same mistake. ❜

❛ The past won’t stay buried, no matter how many times we restart. ❜

❛ You can’t rewrite love. Or grief. ❜

❛ I’d rather burn the timeline than repeat it again. ❜

❛ Maybe this time, we can end it differently. ❜

❛ The clock keeps turning, and still we fight. ❜

The line of his mouth settles into its customary severity, the ghost of amusement erased as though it had never been. When he speaks, his voice is tempered iron, stripped of indulgence, measured with the weight of one who has worn grief like armor too long.

“You are unchanged, then,” Hanzo intones, the syllables low and deliberate, carrying neither jest nor rebuke but the flat resonance of truth. “Ever vigilant. Ever unwilling to mistake shadow for flame.” His arms fold behind his back, a soldier’s stance rather than a friend’s, yet his eyes betray a glimmer of something gentler - respect, unspoken but undeniable. “I sought to test the string of your perception, and you did not falter. That is enough. Even the blind can see more clearly than those who have eyes but lack discipline.”

The faintest sigh threads through him, not of weariness but of recognition, of kinship forged in trials neither man would name aloud. “We are both sharpened by what we have endured, Kenshi. If my flame has shifted, it is only because fire must change or be consumed by its own hunger.”

❦ ╾╾╾╾╾ The silence lingers, a tempered pause that Kenshi does not rush to fill. His posture remains as it was—unmoved, unbending, a statue carved of discipline rather than stone. Yet beneath the stillness lies something deeper, the faint current of perception that threads through all things unseen, guiding him where eyes cannot.

❛ Change is inevitable, Hanzo, ❜ he answers at last, voice a calm blade unsheathed—never raised, only revealed. ❛ The fire that does not learn restraint consumes more than its enemies. The sword that resists the whetstone dulls until it breaks. ❜

For a breath, the faintest shift edges into his features, something caught between solemnity and a shadow of knowing. He does not smile—Kenshi rarely does—but his words carry the quiet gravity of one who understands too well the balance between endurance and ruin.

❛ You sought to test me. I sought only to endure you. Perhaps that is the difference between us, yet it binds us still. We are sharpened not by what we desire, but by what we survive. ❜

His head tilts slightly, a gesture that is neither submission nor defiance, but acknowledgment—warrior to warrior, scar to scar. ❛ Vigilance is not my nature, Hanzo. It is my necessity. And necessity… is never unchanged. ❜

The air settles around him like steel cooling in water—calm, unwavering, but with the promise that, when struck, it will ring true.

Kenshi: Even better!

Johnny: What the fuck did you-

Your 16th icon is how your muses reacts to someone random on the street giving them a bouquet of flowers

【   ✴.   ⸻   ⤖ .Kuai Liang. 】  

Kuai Liang’s steps were deliberate, though lighter than usual, a trace of caution threading through his measured approach. His gaze held Bi-Han’s, steady and unafraid, though beneath it lingered something older—concern, a quiet ache that had followed him since childhood.

“You always make it so difficult to know where you stand,” he murmured, voice low, carrying both calm authority and the faintest edge of reproach. “Curious? Perhaps. Foolish? I’ve learned it runs in the family.”

He stopped a short distance away, letting the shadows pool between them like a thin veil, yet he did not retreat. “I did not come to provoke,” Kuai Liang said carefully, his eyes tracing the darkness that clung to Bi-Han, “but to understand what has become of my brother. Discipline and shadow are not new to you… but this—this presence—is different. I would see it clearly, before it swallows you entirely.”

His hand flexed at his side, not in aggression but restrained readiness, a subtle warning hidden beneath his calm. “Speak plainly, Bi-Han… or remain silent. But know this,” he added, a shadow of the warmth that lingered beneath his measured tone, “I will not leave until I understand.”

❦ ╾╾╾╾╾ Bi-Han tilts his head slightly, the darkness that clings to him deepening, coiling like smoke around a cold, unfeeling core. His voice, when it comes, is a hollow rasp, void of warmth or recognition, carrying the chill of the shadow that has long since claimed him.

“Understand…?” he repeats, slow, deliberate, each syllable sharp as a blade slicing through still air. “You seek to pierce the veil, to find the brother who once existed… yet he is gone. What remains is nothing you can grasp.”

A faint hiss of shifting shadows curls at his feet, moving almost of their own accord, whispering with the same merciless tone he now wears. “Curiosity is a dangerous blade, Kuai Liang,” he murmurs, voice a dagger wrapped in ice, “and you have chosen to draw it against the darkness I have become.”

He lets the silence stretch, letting it seep into the spaces around them, cold and unyielding. His eyes, shadowed pits of void, narrow. “Do not mistake my stillness for uncertainty… or hope for mercy. I have no place for sentiment, and no patience for the ties you cling to. Speak, leave, or remain—and learn the weight of shadows you cannot tame.”

Even in the emptiness of his tone, there is a tether—fragile, fraying—but it is buried beneath the storm of shadow, leaving only the chill of Noob Saibot, unbroken, untouchable, and absolute.

He lets it stretch a heartbeat longer, savoring the silence like a blade freshly drawn, before his words rise - low, deliberate, threaded with the rasp of flame contained in iron.

“Have you lost your sharpness, old friend?” Hanzo’s tone does not scald but smolders, the kindling of a tease hidden in the gravitas of his voice. “I thought by now you would know me without question. The rhythm of my gait, the cadence of my steps, even the silence I leave behind when I move… it should be as familiar to you as the weight of your own sword.”

His eyes narrow faintly, a flicker of wry amusement hidden within the furnace of his gaze. “Once, you would have recognized me before I drew within a hundred paces. Now, I stand before you and you ask if I mean harm.”

There is no cruelty in the chiding - only the intimacy of warriors who have walked parallel paths through shadow and blood, the kind of jest sharpened not to wound but to remind. He tilts his head, letting the faintest curl of heat into the air, as though daring Kenshi to deny him.

❦ ╾╾╾╾╾ Kenshi’s stance remains fluid, a calm measuredness masking the storm beneath. His breathing is steady, even, though the heat of old rivalry and camaraderie hums through his veins like a river of molten steel. For a heartbeat, he lets Hanzo’s words wash over him, the teasing edge of familiarity tugging at memories of battles shared and silent understandings formed long before either of them had earned the weight they now carry.

A faint smile brushes Kenshi’s lips, subtle, almost imperceptible, yet it carries the gravity of a life spent balancing discipline and instinct. “Sharpness… has not left me,” he says, voice low, deliberate, each syllable rolling out like a practiced form honed over years of discipline and sacrifice. “Perhaps it is your approach that has changed.”

His hand shifts subtly to the hilt of his blade, not in threat, but in the ritual acknowledgment of readiness, a silent conversation only the two of them can understand. “I see you still move as I remember,” Kenshi continues, gaze steady and unwavering, “but even familiar rhythms require observation, lest one fall into certainty too easily.”

There is no mockery in his tone—only the tempered fire of mutual respect, a recognition of the history etched in muscle and mind. “Do not mistake caution for hesitation, Hanzo. I have walked among shadows longer than most, yet I remain unblinded by the light that guides your steps.”

The blind swordsman inclines his head slightly, a gesture of both challenge and recognition. “You seek to unsettle me with jest, as you always have. Know this, old friend… your flames may warm, but they will not scorch unless I allow them to.”