Kitana Vs Mileena

Chapter 21: Sisters.

A duffel bag rested against Mileena’s hip, heavy enough to pull at her shoulder but nowhere near heavy enough to contain an entire life.

A few changes of clothing had been folded inside with none of the care usually demanded by palace attendants. Her sais lay wrapped beneath them, joined by a handful of personal effects, some coin, and the scattered remnants of memories she had been unable to leave behind. A small ornament from the chamber she had shared with Kitana as a child. A worn strip of fabric taken from one of her first training garments and a gift Fenrir had given her, a pendant.

Everything else remained where it belonged; or where it had once belonged.

The palace slept around her, though its silence felt watchful rather than peaceful. Moonlight streamed through the high arched windows and stretched pale bars across the marble floor. The braziers had been lowered for the night, leaving the throne room draped in muted amber and blue. Shao Kahn’s old banners no longer hung from the walls, yet his presence seemed embedded in the stone itself. Too much blood had been spilt here. Too many lies had been spoken beneath that vaulted ceiling and accepted as law.

Tonight, Mileena intended to leave them all behind.

Her mind had been made up before she entered the throne room. At least, that was what she kept telling herself. This would be the last time she crossed these halls. The last time she stood before the throne she had helped seize, defend, and transform. The final time she allowed herself to believe that the place at Fenrir's side had ever truly belonged to her.

The truth she had uncovered had made staying here unbearable. Yet it was not the scroll alone that had driven her to pack her belongings in the dead of night. Knowledge could wound, certainly, but knowledge didn't look at her with suspicion across a breakfast table. It did not grow distant whenever she entered a room, nor did it choose every word with the careful restraint one used around an unstable animal.

Kitana had done that, or perhaps Mileena only needed to believe she had. It was easier to blame her sister’s coldness than to admit the deeper truth: she wanted to escape before anyone else could decide that she no longer belonged. To run away from the lies, away from the quiet scrutiny that followed her face whenever she dared lower her veil, from titles granted by people who might take them back the moment they learned what she truly was, from ties that had never been born from blood at all, and away from him.

That was the wound she could not touch without feeling herself come apart.

Fenrir would ask her to stay; she knew he would. He would look at her with those infuriatingly gentle eyes and tell her that nothing had changed. He would touch her face without flinching, draw her into his arms, and say that the manner of her birth did not determine the woman she had become.

He would mean every word; that was precisely why she could not face him.

He deserved better than a creature assembled in Shang Tsung’s pits. Better than a weapon fashioned from another woman’s flesh and forced into the shape of a daughter. Better than someone whose entire life had been built from stolen blood, manufactured memories, and a name chosen for her by a tyrant.

Better than Mileena...The thought disgusted her even as she accepted it.

She stood at the foot of the throne and stared up at the seat that had once belonged to Shao Kahn. Fenrir's throne now it was, though even that statement carried complications. The old throne represented an old and no longer accepted ideology. Discussions of its replacement had already begun. Jade had spoken of the Delian wood with an excitement she tried to temper behind regal composure; even he, light-heartedly, had complained that every throne seemed designed to punish the spine of whoever sat upon it.

Mileena had laughed then. The memory came unbidden, and with it the sound of Fenrir's voice, Kitana’s restrained amusement, and Jade’s warm laughter. For a fleeting instant, the throne room no longer felt empty.

She could almost see them gathered there, her family. The word formed so easily that it hurt.

Mileena tightened her grip on the duffel bag until the leather straps bit into her palm. She told herself again that leaving was the only choice left. There was nothing for her here now. No duty that could not be assumed by another, no decision requiring her counsel and no war effort that would collapse without her presence.

They had Kitana’s wisdom, Jade’s balance and serenity and Fenrir's strength and will. What purpose did that leave for her beyond being the dangerous sister they watched from the corner of their eyes?

Her mind commanded her to walk, her heart begged her to remain.

The conflict between them had become a blade lodged beneath her ribs, twisting whenever she imagined the doors closing behind her. Mileena did not know which possibility was crueller: abandoning him without farewell or discovering that he had not noticed her absence until morning. She swallowed against the tightening in her throat. Deep down, beneath fury and wounded pride, she believed she understood her place in their eyes.

She was the failed imitation, a replacement. The monster wearing Kitana's face. Mileena. The name itself had once sounded like her identity; now it felt like evidence.

Her decision hardened around the pain. She turned from the throne before memory could weaken her further and began walking toward the tall wooden doors at the opposite end of the chamber. Each footstep echoed through the vast room, louder than it had any right to be. The bag knocked softly against her leg as she moved.

She had almost reached the doors when a voice emerged from the shadows.

“You are leaving us, then?”

Mileena stopped. Her entire body went still, but her fingers tightened instinctively around the duffel’s straps. She knew that voice as intimately as her own. The cadence was similar, shaped by the same tutors in the same childhood halls, but Kitana’s carried a polish Mileena had never cared to imitate. Every syllable was measured, every emotion placed behind walls of courtly discipline.

Mileena turned slowly. Kitana stepped out from behind one of the throne room’s great columns, moonlight spilling over the blue fabric of her attire. She had not dressed for sleep. Her hair remained perfectly arranged, her posture straight, her expression composed. One might have thought she had merely happened upon Mileena during a midnight walk, had the rigid set of her shoulders not betrayed how long she had been waiting.

The sisters regarded each other across the marble. Kitana’s eyes moved briefly to the bag and then returned to Mileena’s face. Whatever she felt at the sight was hidden behind a coldness too precise to be natural. “I suppose I should be surprised,” Kitana continued. “Then again, I suspect we both recognise this as the wisest decision you have made in some time.”

The words were delivered calmly, which made them even more cruel.

Mileena stared at her for a moment, letting the insult settle. A humourless chuckle escaped her as she shifted the bag higher upon her shoulder. “You waited in the dark at this hour merely to berate me?” she asked. Her tone carried the familiar bite of mockery, but exhaustion dragged at its edges. “That is rather excessive, even for you. Could you not have allowed me to leave and congratulated yourself in the morning?”

A flicker passed through Kitana’s gaze. It vanished so quickly that someone who had not spent a lifetime studying her might have missed it; Mileena did not. “How could I?” Kitana replied. The title that followed seemed to catch behind her teeth before she forced it free. “You are my sister, Mileena. I could hardly ignore a decision of this consequence.”

Mileena’s jaw clenched. Her Tarkatan fangs pressed against the inside of her veil, and the familiar pressure brought with it the urge to tear the fabric away simply to see whether Kitana would recoil. “Stop with the bullshit, Kitana.”

The vulgarity cracked across the throne room and disturbed its cultivated silence. Mileena dropped the bag to the floor with a heavy thud. The sudden sound shifted Kitana’s posture by a fraction, one foot moving behind the other, her shoulders turning almost imperceptibly. Ready for the worst, she always was.

Mileena noticed it and felt something bitter rise inside her. “You have treated me like filth for months,” she continued, advancing one step. “You barely look at me unless we are in council, and when you do, it is as though you expect me to draw a sai across someone’s throat for breathing too loudly. Yet tonight you wish to pretend that what I do matters to you?”

She pointed at Kitana, the gesture sharp enough to resemble an accusation in a tribunal.

“No. You do not care whether I leave. You care where I go. You want me close enough to watch, just enough to contain me.” Her voice tightened around the next words. “You are frightened that I might crack.” Kitana’s expression hardened, but Mileena pressed on before she could answer.

“I am not a monster.”

The declaration emerged quieter than everything before it. That softness carried more pain than the shouting had. “You know that,” Mileena said, broken and softly. “Or at least, I believed you did. Lately, you seem determined to forget.”
Kitana’s eyes narrowed. The edenian queen compsure returned fully, standing where the sister was a few moments earlier. “How dare you.” Her voice fell low and glacial. “I have done no such thing.”

“Haven’t you?” Mileena took another step. They remained separated by a long stretch of polished stone, but the distance felt smaller now, compressed by years of intimacy and resentment. “I know your expressions, Kitana. I know the difference between concern and suspicion. I know how you hold your shoulders when you are uncomfortable, how your voice changes when you are concealing something, and how your hand drifts toward your fan whenever you believe a conversation might become dangerous.”

Kitana’s right hand, which had begun to lower almost unconsciously toward her waist, stopped.

Mileena grinned; her perception never failed her. “We were raised together,” she continued. “We trained together. We bled together. I know you better than any courtier, adviser, or self-important noble ever will. Whether you enjoy admitting it or not.”

Kitana lifted her chin. “You level accusations at me and call familiarity proof. I expected better from you than childish reasoning.”

The patronising edge in her voice achieved what open anger might not have. Mileena’s expression twisted into a smile that showed nothing of amusement. “Oh, now you expect better of me.” She swept one arm outward and bowed with exaggerated elegance, every movement a mocking imitation of the etiquette tutors who had once struggled to tame her.
“Forgive me, Your Grace. I shall endeavour myself to not disappoint you with greater refinement from this night onward.”

Kitana descended one step from the throne’s dais. Her heels struck the marble with a measured echo. The movement should have brought them closer as sisters; instead, it carried the authority of a queen approaching a troublesome subject. “I do not know what has taken hold of you,” Kitana said, “but I will not tolerate that tone when you address me.”

Mileena’s smile vanished. Kitana continued before compassion could compromise the armour she had chosen.

“If you intend to abandon your duties, then do so. I will not beg you to honour responsibilities you have already decided are beneath you.” Her gaze shifted to the bag and returned to Mileena. “Rest assured, Outworld’s affairs have been managed well enough despite your presence. They will continue to be managed in your absence.”

The chamber seemed to contract around Mileena; of all the cruelties she had prepared herself to hear, that one still found an unguarded place. For one terrible moment, her anger faltered. She studied Kitana’s face, searching for a sign that the words had been spoken impulsively. A tightening at the mouth, regret in the eyes, anything suggesting that her sister had not meant them.

Kitana gave her nothing.

Mileena felt the wound spread through her chest, slow and deep. She had imagined that leaving might hurt Kitana. A small, foolish part of her had hoped her sister would stop her. Not as queen, as her sister. Instead, she had been told she was useless. A word that always found its way back to her life.

The pain settled into something colder. Mileena straightened and mirrored Kitana’s posture, wearing her composure in the more dangerous fashion of a predator choosing not to strike. With conviction, she crouched beside the duffel bag and opened its outer compartment. Her fingers closed around the metal cylinder, ancient and worn, its seal already deciphered and opened wide. She withdrew it slowly and rose.

The sight of it caught Kitana's attention. But again, Mileena knew her too well. The queen’s breath stopped for half a heartbeat. Her gaze fixed on the cylinder before discipline forced it back toward Mileena. That single reaction was enough to make dread gather in Mileena’s stomach.

She had spent days hoping she was wrong; now she understood she had not been. “I believe you know why,” Mileena said.
She released the cylinder. It struck the marble with a metallic clatter and rolled across the throne room, turning again and again beneath the moonlight until it reached the first step of the dais and tapped against Kitana’s shoe.

Neither woman moved; the cylinder lay between them like a severed chain. Kitana looked down at it, then at Mileena, and finally back at the object at her feet. Her expression remained poised, but the colour had begun to leave her face.

Slowly, she bent and picked it up. The scroll inside slid into her hand with a whisper of old parchment. Kitana unrolled it, though Mileena sensed almost immediately that she did not need to read the words. There was no surprise in her posture, no confusion. Only the careful dread of someone reopening a wound she already knew by shape.

At the head of the document stood a single name as a title; Mileena.

Below it, Shang Tsung’s imprint could be instantly recognised by the Edenian queen, obsessive and sadistic strokes full of venom in their content. Shao Kahn’s imperial sigil had been pressed into the lower corner, its presence lending official certainty to every horror written above it.

Kitana’s eyes moved across the opening lines.

She had read them before, in the pits where she learned the truth that faithful day. Every word had already been engraved into her memory, yet she read them again as though repetition might alter their meaning.

My Lord Shao Kahn,
The work has required far greater refinement than anticipated, but at last I believe I have achieved the result you demanded. Within the Flesh Pits, I have successfully combined preserved Edenian material taken from Queen Sindel with selected Tarkatan stock native to Outworld. The resulting vessel possesses the strength, longevity, and appearance required to serve as your daughter and, should Princess Kitana continue to disappoint you, as her superior replacement.

Kitana’s fingers tightened around the parchment; the scroll trembled underneath it. Then her training stilled it, allowing her to continue.

In accordance with your instruction, I have given the creation a name suitable for the role she will inherit.

Mileena.

The letters seemed to darken beneath Kitana’s gaze.

For months, she had tried to convince herself that the document did not change what they had shared. Then she would look at Mileena and see the flesh of her mother, her sister. Not the design of Shang Tsung, and the intention of Shao Kahn stitched together into a sister who had never been told that she was created to replace her.

The guilt had become unbearable.

So she had turned it outward. It was easier to scrutinise Mileena than to admit she had failed her. Easier to fear what the truth might awaken than to confess that Kitana herself no longer knew how to separate her sister from the purpose for which she had been made.

She closed her eyes; The action lasted only a moment, but it told Mileena everything. There was no shock, no outrage or denial. Only recognition.

Mileena watched the woman she had called sister hold the truth in silence, and the last fragile possibility she had carried into the room collapsed. She had hoped Kitana’s distance came from some passing resentment. A disagreement that had festered too long. Jealousy surrounding Fenrir, perhaps, or frustration born from the pressures of sharing a crown.
Anything ordinary. Anything that sisters might survive.

But Kitana had known; she knew and had chosen silence.

Mileena’s gaze hardened, though a tremor threatened the breath behind her veil. “Judging by your reaction,” she said, each word deliberate, “you have seen that scroll before.”

Kitana opened her eyes. The sisters stared at one another across the throne room. Kitana’s first instinct was still to retreat behind composure, but the defence no longer held as perfectly as before. Sorrow haunted the edges of her expression. Shame lowered her voice before she had even spoken.

For months, Kitana had imagined this moment. In some versions she confessed willingly. In others, she destroyed any proof and carried the truth alone. More than once, she pictured Mileena learning from another source and confronting her exactly as she did now.

None of those imagined conversations had prepared her for the look in her sister’s eyes.

Kitana folded the parchment carefully, buying herself a few useless seconds. When at last she answered, she did so without evasion. “I have.” The admission was quiet, certain, but diminished by the weight of everything it betrayed.
Mileena did not move; Kitana forced herself to meet her gaze fully.

“And it never once crossed your mind to tell me?!” Mileena’s voice struck the throne room with enough force to make the silence recoil.

She stepped forward and drove one heel against the marble. The impact echoed beneath the vaulted ceiling, rattling through the columns and returning from the distant walls like the beginning of an approaching storm. For the first time in months, she did not temper her anger around Kitana. She did not disguise it behind humour, flirtation, or the sharp-edged mockery she so often used as armour. The rage came freely now, born from something far more painful than hatred.

Kitana startled. It was scarcely more than a tightening of her shoulders, but Mileena saw it. She saw everything. More importantly, she saw Kitana’s hand descend instinctively toward her waist once again, fingers curling around the closed steel fan resting there. This time certain, frightened.

The gesture lasted less than a heartbeat; it was still long enough.

Mileena’s stare dropped to Kitana’s hand. The anger in her expression hollowed into something quieter and infinitely more wounded. There it was, proof more painful than anything Shang Tsung had written.

Kitana was afraid of her.

Mileena had not raised a weapon. She had not attacked, bared her teeth, or taken so much as another threatening step. Yet her sister’s first instinct had been to prepare for violence, as though the truth had transformed Mileena into a creature that might lunge at the slightest provocation.

Kitana followed her gaze and released the fan at once, but the damage had already been done. Her brow furrowed.
“Mileena—”

“Do not.” Mileena raised one hand, stopping whatever explanation might have followed. Her voice had dropped, but the trembling beneath it made every word feel sharpened. “Do not insult me by pretending I imagined that.”

“You are furious.”

“I am heartbroken!” The confession tore itself from her before pride could contain it.

Kitana’s face shifted. The queenly composure remained, but something beneath it flinched.

Mileena stepped closer, no longer caring how Kitana interpreted the movement. “I came here hoping you would tell me I was wrong. Do you understand that? I wanted you to laugh at that scroll. I wanted you to call it another one of Shang Tsung’s lies and tell me I was a fool for believing him.” Her breath faltered against the veil. “Instead, you reached for your weapon.”

Kitana looked away for the first time that night.

Mileena’s fury returned at once, fed by the evasion. “You are afraid I will become what they intended. That I will turn on you, take your place, and finally prove that Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung were right to make me.”

“That is not what I said.”

“You did not have to say it.”

Kitana’s fingers tightened around the folded scroll. “Do not presume to know everything I have thought merely because we shared a childhood.”

“Then tell me.” Mileena spread her arms, exposing herself to whatever truth Kitana still refused to give. “For once in your life, stop speaking like a queen and speak to me as my sister.” The plea hung between them.

Kitana heard it, and Mileena knew that she heard it. Yet the years of discipline surrounding Kitana were not so easily dismantled. The courtly mask held, though fractures had begun to spread through it. “It crossed my mind,” Kitana admitted at last. Her voice lacked its earlier chill. “More times than I can count.”

Mileena remained still.

Kitana lowered the scroll, but she could not bring herself to release it. “I thought of telling you moments after I left the flesh pits, the moment I found the records. Every morning thereafter, I convinced myself that the day had come.”

“Yet every day, you chose silence,” Mileena replied, solemnly.

“Yes.” The answer came painfully, but without excuse. Kitana closed the distance once again. She stopped before reaching Mileena, leaving several paces between them, close enough that the distance was felt. “I told myself I was protecting you in doing so,” she continued. “Shao Kahn built your entire life upon that lie. Shang Tsung shaped your body, your memories, even the manner in which you were taught to see yourself. I did not know what the truth would do to you.”

Mileena’s gaze hardened. “So, you decided what I was strong enough to endure.”

“I was afraid it would destroy you.”

“No.” Mileena shook her head. “You were afraid of what you would do if I knew.”

Kitana flinched more visibly that time.

Mileena pointed toward the scroll. “You read what I was created for, and afterwards you could no longer look at me without seeing it. Every morning, every meal, every council meeting, you saw a weapon designed to steal your place.”

“That is not all I saw.” The words came too quickly, too defensively.

Mileena stared at her. “Not all?”

Kitana’s mouth parted, but no immediate answer followed; the hesitation condemned her.

Kitana looked down at the scroll, as if Shang Tsung’s writing might offer language for a truth she had never learned to express. “I would look at you,” she said slowly, “and see our mother’s face. I would remember every moment we shared, every wound we tended for one another, every secret we kept from Father.” Her expression tightened at the title. “Then I would remember what he intended you to become.”

Mileena swallowed; her eyes glistened. “How generous of you.”

“Listen to me.”

“I have listened to you all night.”

“Then hear what I am saying.” Kitana’s composure finally cracked enough for desperation to enter her voice. “You are my sister. Whatever Shang Tsung did, whatever purpose Shao Kahn imagined for you, it does not erase the life we shared.”

“Yet it changed the way you looked at me,” Mileena replied, cold and certain. Kitana had no answer to it; Once again, that silence became the cruellest answer she could have offered.

A single tear escaped Mileena’s left eye and traced the line of her cheek beneath the edge of her veil. She wiped it away almost angrily, as though ashamed that Kitana had been permitted to see it. Her chest rose with a slow, uneven breath. When she spoke again, her voice held none of its former rage.

Only exhaustion remained. “Goodbye, Kitana.” The finality of it struck harder than any accusation.

Mileena turned away. She bent, retrieved the duffel bag, and walked toward the doors without waiting for permission or forgiveness. Each step carried her further from the throne, the scroll, and the woman she had once trusted above everyone else.

Kitana watched her go; every instinct demanded that she call Mileena back, but remorse alone could not silence the other thought taking shape in her mind. The cylinder had come from Shang Tsung’s chambers. Mileena had not been ordered to go to the meeting on his island; none of this would have happened.

The sorcerer had wanted her to find it, and if he had wanted Mileena to know the truth, it was not out of kindness. Kitana’s hand found her fan again.

Mileena reached for the door; steel whispered through the air. The fan struck the wood beside Mileena’s head and buried itself deep enough to shudder in place. Its bladed edge rested less than an inch from her temple.

Mileena stopped, the bag slipped from her hand and struck the floor. For several seconds, she stared at the fan embedded in the door. Then she lowered her hand from the latch and turned slowly.

Kitana stood behind her with her remaining fan spread before her. The light that entered through the windows ran along its sharpened ribs. With a flicker of her magic, the weapon in the door dissolved into light and reformed in Kitana’s empty hand.

Her stance was flawless. Yet, regret and determination warred openly within it. “I wish I could allow you to leave,” Kitana said.

Mileena exhaled through her nose, a sound caught somewhere between disbelief and grief. “Then do it. No one will care where I might go.”

“I cannot,” Kitana smirked snobbishly and answered with conviction.

Mileena glanced at the scroll still lying near the throne. “Because I know what I am?”

“Because Shang Tsung wanted you to know.” Kitana held her fans ready, though the points remained angled away from Mileena’s heart. “You did not discover that scroll by chance. Someone directed you toward it.”

Despite everything, the accuracy of the deduction drew the faintest smirk from Mileena. Kitana had always been infuriatingly perceptive once she stopped letting emotion cloud her judgment.

“It was never my idea to search for it,” Mileena admitted. “You know how Shang Tsung speaks. One suggestion hidden inside another.”

“Precisely.” Kitana advanced one measured step. “He knew what the scroll would do. And if you leave the palace alone, he will come for you.”

Mileena’s expression hardened. “You have already done more damage tonight than he could have hoped for.”

The accusation landed, but Kitana did not retreat from it. “Perhaps,” she said. “But I will not deliver you into his hands.”
“You do not get to decide where I go anymore.”

“As your sister, I cannot watch you walk knowingly into his trap.”

“As my sister?” Mileena barked a bitter laugh. “You surrendered the right to use that excuse when you chose to fear me.”
Kitana’s jaw tightened. “You are not thinking clearly.”

Mileena’s hands descended to her thighs and closed around the hilts of her sais. She drew them slowly, the twin blades catching the pale light as they emerged. “There she is,” Mileena murmured, with a mocking grin. “The Kitana I recognise. Whenever someone refuses to obey, you decide they have lost the ability to think for themselves.”

Kitana opened both fans fully. The weapons framed her face like silver wings. “Put them down, I won’t say it again.”

Mileena lowered into a crouched stance, one blade held forward, and the other turned defensively along her forearm. Her posture was nothing like Kitana’s upright elegance. It was low, predatory, constantly shifting, a promise of violence that could come from any direction.

Opposites in form, equals in skill.

“What will you do if I refuse, sis?” The title no longer held affection. It was a challenge sharpened by everything they had lost.

Kitana met her gaze with one of steel. “I will do what I must.”

Her fans left her hands. They crossed the throne room in opposite arcs, blue energy curling behind them like tails.
Mileena moved before either could reach her. She twisted between the blades, one passing before her throat and the other behind her back. The wind generated by their flight tore loose strands of hair from her face.

Kitana was already upon her.

She used the returning momentum of the fans to conceal her advance, closing the distance with two swift steps. Her first struck Mileena beneath the ribs before she could fully recover. The second blow caught the side of her face, and Kitana pivoted into a high kick that sent Mileena skidding across the marble.

Mileena caught herself on one hand. Her sais scraped against the floor, throwing sparks through the moonlit darkness.

Kitana recalled both fans without looking. They returned to her hands as she settled into a composed stance, one foot slightly forward and her breathing controlled.

The exchange had lasted only seconds; it had already answered the final question between them.

This was no spar.

Mileena touched two fingers beneath her nose. When she drew them away, blood gleamed upon them. A single droplet fell to the marble between her feet. She stared at it. When Mileena raised her eyes again, something had changed behind them.

“Very well, let’s dance, sis,” she whispered. She vanished in a flash of violet.

Kitana turned just as Mileena emerged from a portal above her. The tele-kick struck Kitana’s crossed fans with enough force to drive her backwards. Metal rang across the throne room. Mileena landed low and swept one leg toward Kitana’s ankles, but Kitana vaulted over the attack, using a burst of wind from her fans to carry herself beyond the reach of the waiting sais.

Mileena pursued immediately.

Where Kitana fought like a practised ceremony, every movement composed and exact, Mileena attacked like hunger finally freed from restraint. Her strikes came in feverish combinations; high, low, then suddenly from behind after a violet portal swallowed her at the waist and released her from another angle.

Kitana knew those patterns; she had helped shape some of them.

The sisters had trained together for centuries. Each knew how the other shifted their weight before an attack, which shoulder moved before a feint, and what fraction of hesitation separated strategy from instinct. Their familiarity made the battle faster and more dangerous than any contest between strangers.

Mileena thrust one sai toward Kitana’s chest. Kitana turned sideways, trapped the weapon between the ribs of her fan, and twisted. Mileena released it before her wrist could break, drove her elbow toward Kitana’s jaw, and caught the returning sai with her opposite hand after it spun through the air.

Kitana ducked beneath the elbow and struck Mileena’s abdomen with the closed spine of her fan.

Mileena grunted but did not yield. She trapped Kitana’s arm beneath her own, brought their faces within inches of each other, and stared directly into her sister’s eyes.

For a moment, neither moved. They were children again, wrestling across a training mat while palace tutors shouted for discipline.

Then Mileena drove her forehead into Kitana's face; Mileena recoiled with a snarl. Kitana tore herself free and opened her fan across Mileena’s shoulder. The bladed edge sliced fabric and skin, leaving a narrow crimson line. It could have cut deeper.

Mileena knew Kitana had pulled the strike; the mercy enraged her. “Do not patronise me!” She hurled one sai.

Kitana turned aside, but the weapon vanished through a portal before passing her. Another gateway opened behind her shoulder. The sai emerged and carved a shallow cut along Kitana’s upper arm.

Kitana inhaled sharply. Mileena caught the weapon as it returned and rushed her again. Words became impossible after that; they spoke through steel. With the thrill of combat.

Kitana’s fans demanded distance, commanding the air around her with disciplined currents. Each sweep redirected Mileena’s momentum. From every attack Mileena performed, she returned into an elegant counterattack. She moved with the precision of an Edenian princess trained to make violence appear effortless in a graceful dance.

Mileena refused to grant her the space she required.

She stayed close, forcing Kitana into brutal exchanges where grace became difficult to maintain. Her sais stabbed, hooked, and trapped the fans whenever possible. She rolled beneath sweeping blades, launched herself from columns, and disappeared through telekinetic attacks only to return where Kitana’s guard had thinned.

Their weapons struck hard enough to send sparks cascading over the marble. Kitana’s knee struck her chest and drove her backwards.

Mileena recovered with a ball roll, her body becoming a violent blur that slammed into Kitana’s legs and launched her upward. Before Kitana could land, Mileena emerged from a portal above her and kicked her across the chamber.

Kitana struck one of the throne steps shoulder-first. Pain flashed through her arm. She rolled away as a sai buried itself where her throat had been. The weapon sank into the marble and trembled.

Kitana looked toward Mileena. Her sister stood across the room, chest heaving, tears cutting paths down her cheeks behind the veil. Whether Mileena knew she was crying was impossible to tell. She attacked again before Kitana could speak.

Kitana raised her fans as the duel continued.

By then, the duel became a storm. Blue wind and violet coloured magic tore through the throne room. Curtains snapped from their fixtures. Braziers guttered beneath the pressure of Kitana’s gusts, scattering embers across the floor. Portals opened and collapsed in rapid succession, each one briefly illuminating Mileena’s silhouette before releasing another attack.

Neither sister aimed for death, yet neither could afford to appear weak enough to admit it.

Kitana struck Mileena because fear had convinced her that force was the only language remaining. For Mileena, every blow demanded an answer her sister had refused to give.

Kitana swept both fans outward, generating a crescent of wind that hurled Mileena toward the throne. Mileena disappeared into a portal before impact and emerged at Kitana’s flank.

She anticipated the move, turning with one fan raised. Yet Mileena anticipated that as well.

The first appearance had been a feint. A second portal opened behind Kitana, and Mileena’s true attack came through it.
The hilt of her sai struck Kitana between the shoulders, staggering her. Mileena hooked one ankle behind Kitana’s and tore her footing away. She fell hard against the marble floor. One fan slipped from her grasp and skidded to darkness. The other remained in her hand until Mileena stamped on her wrist.

Kitana gasped and released it. Her sister didn’t waste a step, kicking the weapon across the floor. She stared up at her. Mileena stood over her sister, victorious, trembling from exhaustion and grief. Blood marked her nose and shoulder. Her hair had come loose around her face, and tears still shone in her eyes.

Yet she did not raise the sais; she didn’t land the final blow.

Even now, with Kitana helpless beneath her, Mileena chose not to become what the scroll had described.

“It is over,” she said between ragged breaths. “I am leaving.”

Kitana’s hand curled into a fist against the marble. She could continue. There were hidden blades within reach, magic still available, guards only a shout away. But none of those choices would bring her sister back. Slowly, Kitana allowed her hand to relax.

Her silence gave Mileena the only surrender she was likely to receive.

Mileena stepped away from her. For a moment, she looked toward the doors. Then she stopped and reached behind her head. Kitana watched as Mileena loosened the veil; the fabric slipped free. She held it for several seconds before letting it fall to the floor between them.

The moonlight touched her uncovered face. Her Tarkatan edges, the pronounced lines along her cheeks, stood exposed, no longer softened by silk or concealed for the comfort of anyone who found them difficult to behold.

Mileena turned fully toward Kitana; there was no shame in her posture. Only grief. “I am not ashamed of what I am,” she said. “I never was.” Mileena’s voice weakened despite her effort to keep it steady. “I wore that veil because Father demanded it. Because the court preferred the illusion of an Edenian princess to the sight of the woman standing before them. But I never believed this face made me lesser.”

Another tear slipped down her cheek, disappearing beside the serrated edge of her mouth.

“I am not a monster, Kitana.”

The declaration no longer carried anger; It was a farewell to the last person whose belief had mattered to her. “I always thought you knew that.” Mileena looked down at the veil between them. “I suppose I was foolish to believe you could see me when all this time you were staring at the thing meant to replace you.”

Something inside Kitana broke. For a moment, just a moment, she no longer saw Shang Tsung’s creation. She saw the little girl who had crawled into her bed after nightmares. The adolescent who had bloodied three instructors for insulting Kitana’s honour. The warrior who had stood beside her through centuries of cruelty and believed, without evidence or condition, that they were sisters.

She saw what her fear had done. Kitana reached toward her. “Mileena, I—”

Suddenly, the blood upon the marble moved. The droplet that had fallen from Mileena’s nose trembled first. Then the thin trails left by their wounds began to crawl across the floor, drawn together by an unseen current. Crimson threads joined into a widening pool between Mileena and Kitana.

Mileena looked down too late; the blood rose. It gathered into the shape of a woman with the speed of a blade leaving its sheath—red-clothed armour formed around pale skin. Crimson hair spilt over one shoulder. A kodachi appeared in Skarlet’s grasp as the last of the liquid hardened into steel.

She emerged facing Mileena. For one fraction of a second, Skarlet hesitated. She saw Mileena unveiled: the pain in her eyes, the discarded veil, and the grief that carried it. The truth of what had happened was not difficult to understand. Few in Outworld knew what it meant to discover that one’s life had been designed by another; Skarlet was one of them.

She had been shaped by blood and ambition, lifted from nothing and moulded into a weapon by a ruler who valued usefulness above humanity. She understood the horror of wondering whether affection had ever been real or merely another method of control.

In Mileena, she saw a reflection. Then she saw the sais in hand and Kitana on the ground. Duty moved before compassion could stop it. Her kodachi flashed; the blade opened Mileena across the abdomen.

Mileena cried out as the cut tore through her flesh. Skarlet twisted away before either sai could answer and drove one heel into Mileena’s chest, sending her staggering toward the doors.

Mileena struck the wood hard enough to shake it; the wound burned unnaturally. Skarlet had not simply cut her. Blood magic clung to the edge of the injury, preventing the flesh from closing and urging each heartbeat to empty more of her onto the floor.

Skarlet positioned herself before Kitana, her blade raised and free hand extended. Her stance was disciplined and utterly without ornament. “Stand behind me, Empress.”

Kitana stared at the blood spilling between Mileena’s fingers. She scrambled to her feet as a terrified sister. “What have you done?”

Skarlet did not turn; her decision was absolute.

Mileena pressed one hand to the wound. Blood flooded between her fingers despite the pressure. She tried to straighten, but pain folded her inward. A curse escaped her as she spat a thin line of crimson onto the floor.

Skarlet’s expression tightened at the sound; she had angled the strike away from the centreline, avoiding the organs most likely to kill immediately. It had been restraint by her own standards. Had she not doubted for that micro-second, then perhaps Mileena wouldn’t still be breathing.

Kitana tried to move past her. But Skarlet caught her with one arm and held her back. “Release me!” Kitana demanded, struggling against the hold with none of her former dignity. “Mileena!”

Her sister looked toward her. For the first time that night, Kitana’s fear was no longer hidden or misdirected. It was naked upon her face. “Let me help you,” Kitana pleaded.

Mileena’s breath came shallow and uneven. The edges of her vision had already begun to darken. She looked from Kitana to Skarlet and then down at the blood coating her hand.

She understood the wound; Skarlet had control over her blood. Remaining near her meant allowing the assassin to manipulate every drop Mileena lost. The palace healers might save her if she surrendered, but surrender would place her back beneath Kitana’s authority, watched and confined until they determined what should be done with her.

There was only one other place she knew where a wound created by sorcery could be treated. Mileena lifted one blood-slick hand and traced a trembling circle through the air. Pink-coloured energy sparked around her fingers but failed to hold. She clenched her teeth and tried again. Finally, the portal began to open.

Skarlet’s grip loosened, but she did not release Kitana entirely. Her eyes remained on Mileena; conflict visible beneath the severity of her stare. “You cannot stop her now,” Skarlet said quietly. “She has made her decision.”

Kitana turned on her. “You wounded her!”

“And if I had not intervened, I believed you would die,” Skarlet said with certainty.

The portal widened. Mileena stood before it, one arm wrapped around her abdomen. Blood ran down her side and dripped from her fingertips, each drop striking the marble with unnerving clarity.

Kitana finally tore herself free of Skarlet’s hold, but it was too late. A silent farewell passed between them. It held love, accusation and every apology Kitana had not found the courage to speak and every forgiveness Mileena was not yet ready to give.

A final tear slid down Mileena’s face, then she stepped backwards through the portal.

“Mileena!” Kitana lunged. Her fingers brushed nothing but fading energy.

Silence crashed into the throne room.

Skarlet lowered her kodachi. The weapon dissolved into blood and returned to the veins along her arm, but she found no comfort in sheathing it. Her eyes lingered on the stain left behind by Mileena. “Empress…”

Kitana crouched slowly and picked up Mileena’s veil. Then, she closed her fist around it. “Do not call me that.” The words emerged hollow.

For once, Skarlet obeyed without reply.
____
The portal opened elsewhere with none of the controlled chaos Mileena usually brought to her magic. Violet energy tore through the darkness of a forgotten corridor, illuminating walls slick with moisture and age. The gateway spat Mileena onto the stone before collapsing behind her with a violent crack, landing on one knee.

Pain surged through her abdomen, hot enough to turn the world white. One hand struck the floor to keep her upright while the other remained clamped over the wound. Blood spread beneath her palm and ran through the channels carved into the stone.

Mileena forced herself to breathe. The air tasted of blood, rot, and sorcery. She knew where she was.

Shang Tsung’s island.

She attempted to stand, but her legs failed her. Skarlet’s strike had been precise. Another few minutes without treatment and breath would no longer matter. Her vision began to blur. Mileena could hear her own breathing, wet and uneven beneath the silence.

Another sound joined it, footsteps. Slow and precise.

A figure emerged from the darkness at the far end. His hands were folded behind his back. His posture carried the patient confidence of a host arriving to greet an expected guest.

The fire that lit the courtyard reached him gradually. First the embroidered hem of his robes, then the rings upon his fingers. And finally, a face she had learned to distrust.

Shang Tsung approached with a mild smile.

Mileena tried to summon a sai, but her fingers no longer obeyed. The weapon slipped from her hand and struck the stone with a distant metallic sound. The sorcerer’s gaze travelled from the blade to the wound in her abdomen and finally to her uncovered face. His smile deepened with the appreciation of an artist finding his creation returned to the workshop.

Shang Tsung stopped a few paces away. He tilted his head, allowing the moment to ripen before his voice finally broke the silence. “Well, well…” Mileena’s remaining strength deserted her. He stepped closer, his shadow falling over her as he completed the greeting with soft, theatrical delight. “What do we have here?”

Mileena looked up at him once. Then the flames vanished, the island dissolved, and she fell unconscious into the waiting dark.