Notes: I was writing my Mulan/LOK crossover and I stopped to read a new chapter of an Equalist!Mako fic, then somehow this happened.

Flames soar from the palms of her hands and she tries not to cry out at the pain she's causing him. She sees how they barely just graze the pale skin of his abdomen as he flips back to avoid her attack. Then she remembers the agony, the heartache, the dull throbbing of her heart that beats so erratically she feels strangled inside. Her throat is closed up so tight, she doesn't know how she's still standing, let alone fighting.

He flies into the air, aiming a kick at her head, but she's quick to dodge and when her foot swerves out to trip him, it's like he read her mind because he easily jumps over it. She wonders if he's in as much pain as her. It doesn't seem like it from the hard stance and fierce fighting he maintains against her. The thought makes her heart shrivel up more inside and she tries not to let the salty liquid burn her eyes. Because then she can't fight him. Because she already can't see clearly.

She can't see past the anger.

She can't see past the grief.

She can't see past her love for him.

Her fingers glow with the power of a thousand suns at their tips as she lashes out at him. The embers reflect their maker as they burn a fearsome blue (the color of her eyes, he knows) and she holds back a sob as they strike his back, melting part of the uniform.

She is cutting as they swing back and forth, exchanging blows and strikes and she wonders when did everything change. How did they get to this point? She rises high as the moon reaches the slants of the skyscrapers that surround them and the sun has long sunken into the blackened depths of night. The cool air hisses and crackles with fire and lightning, the pungent smell skims her senses.

She hates him. The hate is so strong, so overwhelming, she hates how it makes her feel because it feels wrong. So very wrong. The resentment is there because he doesn't even react. She wants to laugh because she knows that is so like him. Cool under fire and she wishes that she were like that.

Because she wants to be unaffected too. Because she doesn't want to feel like she's drowning in her own anguish, like every fiber in her body is telling her to stop. To stop fighting him. To stop hurting him. She doesn't want to feel this intensity anymore. She doesn't want to feel her heart and head clashing so violently in her.

All she wants is for it to end because this isn't how it was supposed to be. She wishes that he couldn't see everything as plain as day on her face because all her life, her heart has always been on her sleeve.

But in this moment, it lies abandoned and shattered at the bottom of his foot.

He's an Equalist.

He's a traitor.

He's a liar.

He's the enemy.

All these thoughts are running through her mind, pushing her on, egging her to finish the job. To do what she has to beat him. He's with them. He's on the wrong side. He's against her.

And yet as his fist comes barreling into her shoulder and her piercing scream echoes into the darkness, all she can see is, and I love him.

The sound embeds into his very soul and she knows it because his face morphs into that of torment. A bitter smile crawls onto her face. This is what it's come to.

And as she spins in the air, a song of storm and fire blazing from her being, the earth raising at her feet, and the spirits of all her predecessors calling for blood, her heart and soul still sing for him.