The Sixty-Fifth Successor

A Mortal Kombat/Hokuto no Ken One-shot

By Snafu the Great

Disclaimer: Hokuto no Ken/Fist of the North Star belongs to Buronson. Mortal Kombat belongs to Netherrealm Studios and Ed Boon. This was a one-shot that crept into my mind while I was working on Naruto: Wrath of the Emperor. I was looking at some old Hokuto no Ken clips online while my buddy was playing through Mortal Kombat 9's story mode, in which Sindel murders most of the good guys. But what if one of the kombatants just so happened to be the successor of Hokuto Shinken? How would that come into play when Sindel makes her deadly house-call to the Forces of Light? Also, the new guy does not have the Bruce-Lee style yells like Kenshiro, but he does have his own kiai yells to go with the attacks. The person who is No.65 will surprise you.

One year before the Mortal Kombat tournament...

It had been twelve years since the old man had found him. Twelve years since he had taken him under his wing, taught him out to fight. Now, his sensei was dying. He had the money, more than enough money to get him treated, to get him well. But his sensei refused.

"No. I had lived long enough," the old man had rasped on his death bed. "There is not much you could do for me, anyway."

"Sensei," his student replied. "There is so much that you can teach me."

The old man cracked a smile. "Sochi..." he began, using his nickname for his student. "It has been twelve years since I had been brought here. Since then, I had taken you under my wing, and taught you my style. In those twelve years, you had exceeded my expectations."

The apprentice had thought that his sensei was a bit of an enigma, something of a storyteller. His sensei claimed that he had came from an alternative Earth ravaged by nuclear fire, and that the strong preyed upon the weak. How he had found an ancient temple, and had stepped through a portal which led him to this time. He had settled in a lodge on the outskirts of Los Angeles, where he trained his student without interference.

"I have nothing left to teach you, Sochi," the old man continued, pride in his voice. "Your growth in the art has far exceeded my expectations. Our school's traditions are clear, as there can only be one master of the style, and it has to be passed down from master to student. You have...been like a son to me, hence the nickname."

"Sensei..."

His sensei raised one hand, silencing him. "Sochi...as master of our school, I bestow the honor of recognizing you as the sixty-fifth successor of Hokuto Shinken."

The student bowed his head. "Sensei...I will not let you down."

The old man died later that night.

His student had found his will, and followed its instructions. His sensei did not wanted to be buried. He chose cremation instead. Being the loyal student, he honored his sensei's final wishes. The student had dressed him in his old outfit, which to him, reminded him of Mad Max's leather suit with a flame design and impressive shoulder plates. In his sensei's hands, he placed three photos: the first being that of himself and his sensei, the second being that of his sensei in his younger years flanked by his brothers and their sensei – Ryuken. The last was that of a photo of a lovely young lady in a summer dress.

The apprentice, now the successor had created a funeral pyre and had placed his sensei on top of it. Then he tossed a torch onto the wood. The scrolls pertaining to the art were safely stashed away inside a small chest. He would take that with him. The successor watched with tears streaming down his face as he bowed to his former sensei, now engulfed in the flames.

"May the stars of Hokuto grant you peace...Master Kenshiro," the successor whispered.

Present Day.

He watched as Sindel entered the chamber, wincing, but not cupping his ears in order to silence out her banshee screams. Eyes narrowing, he sensed her aura, and immediately knew that something was wrong. Her aura was a sickly green, radiating raw power. He had seen it surrounding Shang Tsung, back during the tournament when Liu had beaten him, and during the Outworld tournament.

It had been a year since Kenshiro's death. A year since he was designated the sixty-fifth successor of the Ansatsuken style known as Hokuto Shinken. He did not like to kill, but over the year, he had notched up an impressive kill sheet. Given his public appearance, these were done while he was in disguise.

'This is bad,' he thought.

He was at a dilemma. He was a martial artist, but had not used Hokuto Shinken openly, as it would draw unwanted attention. Several members of the Lin Kuei, the Black Dragon and the Red Dragon who were out for his head had found out the hard way. But if he did not do the right thing, then the people who stood alongside him will die. He had hesitated when Shao Kahn had snapped Kung Lao's neck. Never again.

His father once told him, "Son if you can't do something smart, then you damn well better do something right."

Now, it was the moment of truth.

The powered-up queen taunted the Forces of Light. From the look of things, she was death incarnate. "Come forward, if you dare! I will finish what the Lin Kuei could not!"

The shaman, Nightwolf, led the charge...and was knocked back. The successor charged in next, only to have the insane Queen lock up his arm in a arm-bar, and punched in the face repeatedly before being knocked back.

He recovered, just in time to see Sindel preparing to slam her heel into a downed Kabal's respiratory system, which would most likely kill him.

'Okay, playtime is officially over,' he thought.

With a burst of speed, he was at Kabal's side, blocking the heel with his forearm. Enjoying the look of disbelief on Sindel's face, he chambered his other fist back and...

"AH-CHA!"

POW.

Fist met skull and Sindel was knocked back. He could feel the eyes of Nightwolf and the others looking at him. Eyes still on Sindel, he cracked his knuckles, before switching hands and repeating the motion, a tic he had picked up from his deceased sensei. But it was Sonya who had spoken his name, disbelief evident in her tone.

"Johnny?"

Johnny Cage turned his head back and looked at Sonya and the others. "You guys stay back. I got this."

Nightwolf studied the movie star closely. "Your power..."

Johnny turned back to the insane Edenian Queen, who was shaking the cobwebs out of her head while addressing the Lakota shahman. "Long story short, I can sense Sindel's fighting aura. It's the same as Shang Tsung's own. Someone must have powered her up something serious. More than enough to take us all down."

Princess Kitana immediately came to the right conclusion. "Shao Kahn must have revived my mother...and sacrificed the sorcerer in order to give her the power needed to kill us all." Her tone then changed into a somber one. "She is not my mother anymore. Her mind has been warped beyond redemption by Kahn's sorcery. Do what you must."

Jax and Stryker moved in and dragged Kabal out of harms' way. Sindel, now recovered, glared at the movie star who had gotten a cheap shot off of her. "Foolish little man! You dare challenge me?"

Johnny stared Sindel down. The cockiness was gone. He was not Johnny Cage, martial arts superstar. He was Johnny Cage, the sixty-fifth successor of Hokuto Shinken.

"I do," Johnny replied in a cold voice that made even Stryker flinch. "I would give you the option to leave, but I would be wasting my breath." He shifted into his stance (think Kenshiro's stance from Ken's Rage). "You want a fight, you got one. But it will be your last."

As the fight began, Cyber Subzero watched in fascination as Johnny calmly parried and dodged Sindel's attacks and the occasional hair whip. "The rumors were true..."

Smoke nodded dumbly. "It seems so. Johnny is full of surprises. Never expected him to know an assassin's style. No wonder Sektor lost to him."

Jax and Sonya turned to the two rogue Lin Kuei. "What?" the former said.

"There is a style said to have been developed by the gods," the cyberninja explained. "A style known as Hokuto Shinken,"

"Hokuto Shinken?" Sonya parroted.

Smoke nodded. "Translated, it means 'Divine Fist of the North Star.' The Lin Kuei grandmaster was obsessed with finding the style, given its deadly abilities. A normal fighter uses only up to thirty percent of his natural abilities. A practitioner of the style can tap into the remaining seventy percent. The style can be used to heal, but it is primarily an assassin's style, designed to attack the pressure points. The results are...messy."

"How do you know all of this?" Jade asked.

"The Lin Kuei has been around for many generations," Cyber Subzero explained. "In the years before the Second World War, there was a man who used the style, but had disappeared. He was known as Yan Wang, 'The King of Hell.' But he was a Japanese national by the name of Kenshiro Kasumi."

"What we learned about the style came from his contacts with various Triad groups," Smoke continued. "We thought that the style was extinct. Then we heard rumors about a new successor to the style. We thought it was either Liu Kang or Kung Lao."

CRACK.

Everyone turned their attention back to the match. Sindel had nailed Johnny with a powered-up right cross that would have taken his head off. Johnny had rolled with the punch, before slowly turning his head back to Sindel, looking amused that she was wringing her now-sore hand.

"Nice punch, lady," Johnny said, mildly impressed. "Had it been someone else, you would have caved in their skull. Sucks to be you, given that my style allows me to harden my body to the point that it's like steel."

'No wonder my fists were hurting when I punched him,' Sonya thought, with Jax thinking along the same lines.

PUNCH. PUNCH. POW.

A left cross of his own, followed by a punch to the gut, and finished with a kick to the head knocked Sindel to the floor. She felt the blood pool in her mouth and spat out a wad of the red stuff as she got back to her feet. "Finally. You can fight back."

"Of course I can," Johnny replied calmly. "I was just toying around. Now...it's over for you."

"Come, little man...so I can end you," Sindel beckoned.

Johnny advanced, still in his stance. Sindel tried her hair whip again...

...and Johnny vanished.

"Too predictable," Johnny dryly noted, appearing behind Sindel.

"By the Ancestors..." Nightwolf whispered. "He's so fast."

Sindel spun around, and tried to ensnare Johnny in her hair again, and missed. But Johnny didn't.

"AH-CHA!"

POW.

Sindel's eyes nearly bulged out of her skull as the hard punch to the breastplate sent her sliding back into a wall. Growling at the mortal who had dared to stand his ground against her, she hovered into the air, and not wanting to waste any time, dove at him like a hawk.

'Time to finish this,' Johnny thought as he brought forth his fighting abilities. Knocking Sindel out of the air with a somersault kick, he followed with a Shadow Uppercut, the green after-images fading after several seconds.

Sindel landed on a heap. But she was back on her feet. But before she could do anything, Johnny was upon her. What he did next would be forever seared into the memories of Nightwolf and the others watching this battle.

"AH-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA..."

WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM

To anyone watching, it was as if as if Johnny's fists had multiplied to the point that there were hundreds of them, striking Sindel at inhuman speeds, Sindel's head jerking in any and every direction of Johnny's monstrous impacts from his fists. Even more amazing was the fact that the blows were literally lifting Sindel into the air.

"...AH-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA..."

WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM

"This is insane," Sonya said, flabbergasted.

"AH-CHA!"

The final blow sent Sindel flipping ass over head, until she smashed into the wall a second time, sliding down to the floor, head slumped. Johnny exhaled as he stood straight back up. "Hokuto: Hyakuretsu Ken," he breathed as he turned on his heels and walked away from Sindel.

"You..."

Johnny stopped in mid-step. Nightwolf and the others looked horrified, seeing as how Sindel had taken Johnny's strongest attack and had shrugged it off without any ill effects.

"You little worm!" Sindel screeched. "You dare think you are superior to me?! The Queen of the Konqueror?! Turn around and face me!"

"I think my late sensei said it best," Johnny replied, without turning around. "You are already dead."

Sindel charged...then stumbled to a stop, grasping her head in her hands, her screams echoing through out the chamber. Nightwolf and the others watched as Sindel's skull, followed by her body began to distort and expand in a grotesque fashion, her screams raising in volume as Johnny counted down from his fingers.

Three. Two. One.

Sindel exploded in a shower of blood, bone and guts. Only her legs and a part of a bloodied spine remained, the legs taking a couple of steps forward before falling over.

"Whoa," Kabal whispered.

"So that's Hokuto Shinken in action," Smoke said. "Scary."

Cyber Subzero nodded.

Jax nudged Nightwolf. "You sure that this guy is not the Chosen One?"

Nightwolf dumbly nodded. "Haokah has made it clear that Liu Kang is the Chosen One."

Jax made a face at the remains of Sindel. "Either way, I'm glad that he's on our side."

"This one agrees," the shahman seconded.

Johnny walked back to the others. There was no cockiness, no swagger in his movements. There was nothing but purpose. Lightning and thunder then heralded the arrival of Raiden and Liu Kang, having returned from their meeting with the Elder Gods.

What greeted them was numerous cyberninjas sprawled along the the ground and the remains of Sindel.

"By the Elder Gods..." Liu whispered.

"What happened here?" Raiden demanded, before pointing to Sindel's remains. "Who is...or was that?"

Everyone turned to Johnny, still in shock over what he had done minutes earlier. But it was Kitana who had explained everything to the monk and the thunder god.

"Although it grieves me so, to see Sindel corrupted..." Raiden turned to Johnny and bowed. "You have my thanks, Johnny Cage. Your actions have saved the lives of everyone here this day."

Johnny bowed back. "It was the right thing to do."

"Although...I would like an explanation as to how this came about," Raiden added.

"Tell you what. If we survive this, I will explain everything. Deal?"

Raiden nodded. The meeting with the Elder Gods had left him downtrodden, but things were looking up for Earth with the revelation that such a powerful force was on their side.

End.

Snafu's Notes: This was typed up in under two hours. I had to make Kenshiro's successor the one person no one would see coming. Who else other than Johnny Cage? Thanks for reading.